This was a fun one as it’s first battle of productions we’ve had so far.  David sent me his track, Mon Bala, which I loved and we decided to have some fun and make it a Taho VS Cerebro E.P.  I came back with Mon Duul and the epic space music battle to the death took effect.

To prove the level of mega nerds that we are, the names were picked from rare creatures and planets in the Star Wars universe.  Here’s to hoping we don’t receive a cease and desist from Disney.  After they killed Lucas Arts yesterday, who knows what lengths they’ll goto to ruin a good time.  This one’s for you, Battlefront.

Trey

P.S. – By the way, here’s some test artwork for the release we didn’t go with.  The artist is  Sitchko Igor from the Ukraine and does some amazing work:

- Trey

There are reports of supercell making $700k per day with their 2 free apps and we have seen the Fall of Angry birds.  Also there are numerous hints in the industry suggesting us to go all freemium. All of these points are valid and there’s a lot of money to be made in good freemium apps, but I am here to talk about how small teams of developers are making a decent and consistent income from paid apps. If we focus on big brands, picture would look totally different, but for indies, couple grands per day from a single paid app could make a difference.

Now take a look at the above chart from Distimo. It shows how many downloads it takes to reach a 25^th rank in a particular category. Say for example the photo category, it requires about 2700 downloads to reach to hit top 25. Conversely it also tells that, the top 25 publishers in photo category are making more than $2700 (minus apple’s cut of course) per day! The data in reports is a bit older and in my testing, I have found out that the no.s are even bigger and that the top 50 or so apps in the paid charts in category drive good amounts of downloads.

If you have a solid app which is paid or are planning to release such a paid app in future, here I present to you few ideas to get more out of it.

What should you price it at?

There was a time when 99c used to bring in the most revenue. When the users look in the store to purchase apps, they look for brand, credibility, reviews, price, screenshots. The higher than 99c price makes the app look more premium and users who think that your app might be the solution to their problem or is useful and entertaining, would be willing to shell out more, if you price it more! I have noticed that, increasing the price has not reduced the no. Of users, meaning simply higher revenue. Play with the price range of $1.99-4.99, anything higher wouldn’t work well in the app store. If you have a decent app then you will notice an additional benefit of this, reviews would be very thoughtful and generally full 5 stars. Think about it, the user has paid for your app and therefore will definitely spend more time with it trying to derive value from it and if the app satisfies him/her and is not buggy, you shall get 5 stars my friend!

IAP strategy

Just because you have a paid app, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have more IAP items. If you don’t have IAP items in the app, it means your lifetime value (LTV) of customer is just the price of app (-30% Apple’s share). Here’s the user who just shelled out money for your app, if he likes your app, he’s more likely to spend it on additional features.

Here’s an interesting fact that I have noticed. I monitored the photo category paid charts for couple months. I used to list down the data from iTunes on various days to understand IAP better. I would write, grossing rank, no of IAP items, total IAP value, total potential (total IAP value+ app price), position in free/paid chart. The facts that emerged from it are fascinating. Many apps that have high “total potential” were higher in grossing rank, though they were far below in the corresponding free/paid chart. Makes sense, right?

If your app has options and permits the users to give you more money, chances are that they will, and they do so!  Another notable thing I have seen was with high IAP item value. Some of the apps had only 1 or 2 IAP items, and they were labelled with the higher price (higher than 99c) and only on account of that, those apps were making more money by being way above in the grossing chart.

Take this. Increase price of your app to $1.99-4.99. If you can, do add many IAP items. And price them higher than 99c too. Give users a chance to give you more money. Try this experiment and you shall be seeing a bigger check from Apple.

Getting more users for your paid app

Price drops to get more users.

You could use this only with paid apps and there are few things that needs to be kept in mind so that your revenue after the promotion increases. This technique used to work like a charm every single time in the past. But now, it’s tough. It’s tough to get noticed as so many apps drop the price every single day. But this tactic still does get you more users. If you wish to go by this route, to increase the effectiveness you need to get the word out before you start the promo. Send emails to related topic site owners, influential people, related forums and groups.

I have seen couple paid apps that have gone to top in paid chart just on account of them being active on instagram before they went live. There’s a lot of power in tapping into the app related groups. This should help you get the word out. If you are getting a good traction while going free, then many of these sites you contacted and others would list you somewhere or start to talk about you. This rapidly grows and downloads increase like a snowball effect.

Keep your app free for at least 72 hours. See the user flow, if you are getting good amounts of downloads then keeping it free for 72 hours minimum would translate into the better rank in paid charts. There’s  this “some extent” of free ranking that translates into the paid rankings once the switch is made. I have experimented with my app by keeping it free for about 48 hours only and the ranking did not translate as well into the paid chart as it was in free chart. I think it has something to do with Apple’s mysterious formula for ranking which takes into account 3-4 days of download data.

You will get many free users during this time. You haven’t had a chance to monetize them yet, you could do that with IAP items and in addition you can show them ads. If you wish to show ads, make sure to update your app prior to the promotion so that it will only show ads to the free users acquired during the process and not to your paid users. Showing ads to paid users wouldn’t reflect good in reviews, and if they have access to your email id that you listed as Support, would receive some nasty emails. So monetize free users in a smart way!

Reviews

There seems to be no dearth of review sites and many of them ask for money. Don’t pay money to review sites, mostly they do not get you traction that you are looking for. If you wish to pursue, try Appadvice, 148apps, toucharcade (if your app is a game). These are some of the review sites that will give you big push (and they are free). These sites get crazy amounts of emails requesting review every single day, so make sure to bring their attention to the select great features of your app. Send good screenshots showing these features too. This has a better chance of them noticing it and getting you featured!

Paid installs

You could buy paid installs to your app. You must go by this route only if you have seen that your app is monetizing well. Once you see what’s the LTV for your users, you could make a better decision about whether you should buy paid installs. Know that, aim of this exercise should be to be placed in the paid charts and not to get ROI on this investment immediately. Because that’s what will make you more money in the long run.

Make sure if you are running such a campaign, don’t go for only 1 day of promotion, instead go for 3 or 4 days depending upon your budget. This will make you stick in that particular position longer. Around 60-70% of the apps stick in the top 50 rankings for more than couple months once it reaches there. So you got a good game there if you reach the charts and stick in.

There’s a good money in pursuing non game categories with paid apps. Some of the developers there are killing with it each day. Review your monetization and promotion tactics and refine them and I shall see you in the charts!

Shockingly, someone requested that I post some of these here, so I’ve put together a set on soundcloud of some good non-distracting mixes I’ve done without much in the vocal area.  It clocks in at over 12 hours, so if you don’t like this kind of music, be prepared to blow your brains out:

Talk soon,

Trey

The Successes and Horrors of Android

The fact that the mobile apps business has become one of the top achieving businesses worldwide, surpassing 800k apps for Apple’s iTunes App Store with 40 billion downloads as of  january 2013, and their counterpart Google Play skyrocketing at 800k apps available in their catalog with over 25 billion downloads as of february 2013, has gotten many people rapidly jumping in and changing their lives for good, including myself.

Taking in consideration that every business has its pros and cons, a business that can be run almost entirely from a mobile device is most certainly appealing for many. But, even when everything might seem perfect once you get your awesome apps in the stores, you might want to give some extra thought to what you put up in the market before anything else, so your hard work won’t backfire on you.

Background

Now, to let you know a bit about myself and put things together. I am from Mexico City and I’m 30 years old, completely in love with my wife and my two uncanny kids. My professional background is in multimedia production and been pulling off some cool knacks in the entertainment industry since 2003 with over a thousand music placements in film, TV, radio, and play, alongside other credits for sound design, video editing, visual effects, web design, graphic design, and also ventured into the editorial and publishing world of printed and digital books. My skill set has obviously led me to digital marketing, since most of my work is made with a computer, and have turned myself into a digital architect, creating and implementing digital strategies in order to boost exposure and, of course, sales. I have always loved technology and when i got my first iPhone 3G, I knew I had to get into that picture as well.

My App Journey

So, I started searching online for answers on how to make it in the app world, coming across incredible options like Appcelerator, where you can learn how to code for different platforms and even manage your app repertoire within their software. But, by looking at the stats and analytics and knowing the fact that this business moves so fast, I figured that if I didn’t speed up, I would be left out of the big game, just like in the Internet Marketing boom. So, I made up my mind to find more options to speed up my efforts, coming across lots of software for app creation and tweaking. Although I was not surprised to see many things that were just not right for my strategy, I did find some interesting options that were definitely worth the investment (of course, these were not cheap).

I began my journey in the app world in July 2012, creating my iOS and Android accounts and uploading some apps to see what happened. In the first half of the month I came across the fact that Apple was much more strict in accepting apps than Google Play. I had over 20 apps rejected by Apple but got all of them on Google Play, slowly but constantly getting more downloads every day. So I focused on Google Play at that time and created many reference apps in many different subjects I loved including my favorite writers, like Edgar Allan Poe. It all started coming together and rapidly achieving many of downloads per month which led me to create other apps that I knew could do better from my previous experience and began creating other accounts for my companies. Of course, all my apps were published for free, so that everyone could try them out, no strings attached. So, my monetization strategy was focused entirely on advertising, joining forces with Admob, Airpush, and also smaller companies like Everbadge and Tapgage.

It was amazing for 5 months, my downloads were skyrocketing as well as my income, pushing over 500k downloads and still climbing! I was shocked to see the results coming through everyday with people from all over the world contacting me and asking for features to be added to my apps. I was very happy to provide with the apps that people liked but wanted to get more revenue. That is when I lost my ground and started creating more apps that  crashed my business almost for good.

Going Downhill

One thing you have to be clear about is the content guidelines for any store you submit your app to. I thought I was doing great stuff but needed more income and knew that if I made apps for subjects that already had a big name, I could triple my income. So I started making more apps, just like many other developers that do apps for currently famous artists and other public figures, and I was contacted by different attorneys asking to take the apps down, all of which I did, but by the time I figured out that I could get shut down for DMCA, I went down hard and got suspended, losing most of my income and the ability to publish apps in those accounts for good. So, I desperately started searching online to see if I could appeal to Google and get my accounts reinstated but learned that they have the last word when it comes to DMCA shutdowns, and also that I was lucky enough that I did not get sued for publishing apps with trademark or copyright I did not have the permission to use.

Back on Track

So my advice to you is this, check content guidelines thoroughly before publishing a good idea, use content you have the rights to only, never use trademarks or copyrighted material without permission because even if it is giving you the right traffic, you will get shut down. You can get more information about DMCA, it’s process for noticing and takedown here.

Today I had my head up and looking at my future take another path in the app world, and the good thing thing now is that I’m in Trey’s team as a student or “padawan” to learn the ways of the “force” and get back on my feet and this time make it happen like it should. I’ve learned so much with Trey (whom I thank very much for his patience and guidance) and now have awesome apps on both Apple and Google doing great and looking forward to achieve more in my business!

You can check out my apps  and see where I come from and where I’m going to here.  I’m starting over and would love to hear your thoughts and share experiences to crush it together!

]]> http://www.treysmithblog.com/the-successes-and-horrors-of-android/feed/ 15 http://www.treysmithblog.com/new-stuff-coming-up-and-managing-multiple-projects/ http://www.treysmithblog.com/new-stuff-coming-up-and-managing-multiple-projects/#comments Sat, 16 Mar 2013 21:32:15 +0000 treysmith http://www.treysmithblog.com/?p=1082 Was talking to a friend yesterday about projects I’m currently working on.  If you’ve followed me a while, you know I’m a bit psycho when it comes to starting new stuff.  I absolutely love brainstorming up new ideas, and while not all of them pan out, it’s a blast getting it going.

So my buddy asked what all I was doing and I really didn’t know, I had to write it out:

It’s really obvious, but 99% of new business owners don’t do it.  Also, the people who do it usually scale their business to be really big. You could take two business owners with the same skill set and the one could totally bomb after 2 years, the second one could have a $3,000,000 a year business and it could be ZERO difference besides this one secret.

I’ll tell you what it is in a second, but first let me build it up some more

I’ve founded over 10 companies in the last 6 years and used this secret to generate massive income in everything from apps and video games to teaching and consulting.  Many of these businesses have generated 7 figures and the truth is, it works in anything.  It doesn’t matter WHAT you are doing right now, if you do this you will scale your business quicker and make more money.  Period.

Ok, now we’ve built it up enough, let’s get to the good stuff.

Ready?

Here it is:

ONLY DO WHAT YOU LOVE.  SCREW EVERYTHING ELSE.

Now, this is a hard one to grasp.  At first it seems IMPOSSIBLE, and honestly, it would have been impossible 10 years ago.  If not impossible it would have been extremely expensive, but thanks to our good friends Odesk, Elance, Guru and Freelancer, it’s now super cheap to UNLOAD weight from your shoulders.

Here’s the thing that’s kinda crazy.  Most likely what you hate doing does NOT make you money.

For example, here are things I can’t stand doing in order:

- Paying bills

- Answering emails

- Handling finances and taxes

- Putting things in my iphone calendar (ashamed to admit this one)

- Phone appointments

Here’s what I now do instead:

- Paying bills (Have a PO box setup and also a voice mailbox.  My assistant handles it all, no bills come to me and they call her when have an issue.)

- Answering emails (Killed my email as you can see here.  Best decision ever.)

- Handling finances and taxes (Have a bookkeeper now, you can hire someone on odesk for SUPER CHEAP and give them limited access to bank account to start doing quickbooks.  Secure and simple.)

- Putting things in my iphone calendar (I know, this is crazy, but I email any appointments I have to my assistant, Natalie, who then logs into icloud and puts it on my phone with a 15 minute and 1 hour reminder.  I send one email and it just happens, amazing!)

- Phone appointments (I thought this would be a hard one to get out of, but I figured out a super easy way to handle it.  Now Natalie also does all my phone appointments for me.  If there is something she can’t answer, then she gets all the info and gets with me to learn that part of the business.  Now she rarely has to ask me anything.)

If you hate making websites, then you will never build a good website business if that is your job.  If you hate programming, then you’ll never build a successful game when your job is being the coder.  My job is now to come up with ideas and think about where to grow the business.  Both of those things happen to dramatically add to the bottom line and you’ll find typically the stuff you WANT to do will make you the most money.

YOUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Think about this… What if instead of thinking about how to grow my businesses every day I was paying bills, entering finances into quickbooks, doing phone calls, answering emails and answering emails.  Would my business grow effectively?  Would I make as more or less money?  Definitely less.  Absolutely no question.

Not only would it eat up my time, it would eat up my SOUL too.  Here’s what I mean.  To make a business successful, you have to do something different than the competition.  You must have a competitive advantage.  If you do exactly what everyone else is doing then your business will be average.  Your average business will have average results.  This might be good enough for some, but if you want an above average business with above average income, you have to start thinking and building your company in above average ways.

Typically this means you are willing to either out work or out think the competition.  The only way this can happen is if you are truly addicted to your business and free to think.  If you are counting the hours until you can leave your business, then you are a slave to it and it is eating your soul.  To reverse said soul eating process you don’t need to read some black magic spells from a book, you just need quit doing things that suck.  If you’ve successfully outsourced everything that you hate, then your job is not a job anymore, now it’s a pleasurable experience 24 hours a day that you can focus on building and making more money with.

HOW IT CAN RUIN YOU

Let’s take it up a notch… if you DON’T outsource the things you can’t stand, it can ruin your business.

Case in point:

I always had a good credit score, but hated paying bills.  When I made the move from Georgia to California I really screwed up big time.  Not because of money issues, but because of slackness issues.  I forgot to pay a few things and my 750 beacon shot down to 580.  Bad timing as I was investing in a new startup and was supposed to secure the American Express card we would use and got turned down.  You can imagine how that looked!  After paying a ton of money to get my credit fixed and outsourcing bill paying, I was back on track in 8 months, but it was a VERY close call and an embarrassment for me in the start-up.

If you force yourself to do things you don’t like, you will not only stunt the growth of your business, you will slowly kill it.  To build something amazing, you have to have undying passion and love for what you are doing.

GETTING STARTED

First off remember, you are outsourcing what holds you back in your life, NOT just what you don’t like about work.  For example, me outsourcing bills was not just work related.

With any task you think about outsourcing there are two parts.  Level of dislike and time it takes.  You might have something that is a 5/10 on the dislike scale but it takes 20 hours a week.  This would be something that is definitely worth outsourcing if possible, because it takes up such a vast amount of time.  If something is a 10/10 on the dislike scale then it needs to be outsourced immediately as these are the “business killers”.

Here’s a quick exercise to help you decide which items to outsource first:

1. Make a list of the top 5 things you can’t stand doing in your business.
2. Rate them on a scale of 1-10 on how much you can’t stand it. 10 being the highest.
3. If any are a “10″, then figure out how to outsource those immediately.  They are business killers (like bills with me!)
4. Next to the rating, write down how many hours per week you spend on this task.
5. Now add up the ratings and the hours for each task.
6. Focus on figuring out the biggest numbers first.

If you find yourself getting overwelmed or stressed out, then typically it’s because you are wearing too many hats.  You’re doing too much and not focusing on the things that REALLY matter.

Remember, the most important thing in any business is traffic and conversions.  That is what makes the most money regardless if you own a hardware store or an app company.  Focus on your marketing and build out a plan that will help you grow over the next two years and think about how to hire people (on a budget) to help you do remedial tasks that drive you nuts!

Talk soon,

Trey

Recently I did a new seminar presentation at Chad Mureta’s App Empire event.  It was a great crowd and I had a blast.

I did a new presentation on “How to make video games that don’t suck”.  Typically I focus on cheaper games or talk about the high end stuff, but this presentation is totally different.  I talk about “medium games” that cost from $2,000 to $5,000 to make and I share exact data on my hard cost, how much I made and how I monetized the games.

You’ll also see exactly where I come up with game ideas as I show you how I spy on apps, choose gameplay, create monetization paths, choose the right theme and more.

Check it out, and always love to hear from you guys in comments!

- Trey