A Candid Look at Unread’s First Year(blog.jaredsinclair.com)
blog.jaredsinclair.com
A Candid Look at Unread’s First Year
http://blog.jaredsinclair.com/post/93118460565/a-candid-look-at-unreads-first-year
7 comments
I think the author's point is that it doesn't matter if he convinced you that the app itself was worthwhile; paid app development is not a tenable model for a solo developer. App prices are too low, competition is too high, and getting the word out to customers is difficult and expensive.
Let's say he was simply much better at convincing people and had twice as many people purchase the app as he did. He still would only have made $50,000 from a year of working 60 hour days; and the majority of that revenue came in the days after release while it was still "new" and receiving lots of free press attention (and is not likely to repeat itself in the absence of a marketing campaign).
Keep in mind he now has to support the people who purchased his app while delivering improvements to a new version. Since you likely converted a large chunk of the people who would be interested in your app during your launch free publicity phase, there's a smaller pool of potential customers out there. You can either spend money on building features for users who will never pay you again, or you can spend money on marketing.
Moral of the story here is that the success of a product usually has very little to do with the merits of the product itself and much more to do with marketing. Marketing isn't something you can DIY; it costs money and if you're selling a niche $5 app, you're probably not going to see much return from a marketing campaign either. Without significant marketing or winning the viral popularity lottery, you're probably not even going to make minimum wage off the time you put into your app. The author is just opening his books so other people know what they're getting into.
Let's say he was simply much better at convincing people and had twice as many people purchase the app as he did. He still would only have made $50,000 from a year of working 60 hour days; and the majority of that revenue came in the days after release while it was still "new" and receiving lots of free press attention (and is not likely to repeat itself in the absence of a marketing campaign).
Keep in mind he now has to support the people who purchased his app while delivering improvements to a new version. Since you likely converted a large chunk of the people who would be interested in your app during your launch free publicity phase, there's a smaller pool of potential customers out there. You can either spend money on building features for users who will never pay you again, or you can spend money on marketing.
Moral of the story here is that the success of a product usually has very little to do with the merits of the product itself and much more to do with marketing. Marketing isn't something you can DIY; it costs money and if you're selling a niche $5 app, you're probably not going to see much return from a marketing campaign either. Without significant marketing or winning the viral popularity lottery, you're probably not even going to make minimum wage off the time you put into your app. The author is just opening his books so other people know what they're getting into.
I agree with you 100% about the screenshots. Two weeks ago I was actively looking for a new RSS reader on iOS - I did look at Unread, but the screenshots totally turned me off - they just didn't show what the app experience would be like and I wasn't sure what to expect. I ended up buying Reeder 2.
I think if Jared updated the screenshots to be full view, real screenshots, showcasing a flow of functionality, he'd significantly increase his conversion rate. Same with the website - more / better screenshots and he probably would have had my business.
I think if Jared updated the screenshots to be full view, real screenshots, showcasing a flow of functionality, he'd significantly increase his conversion rate. Same with the website - more / better screenshots and he probably would have had my business.
First, let me say that, in just a bit, I am going to criticize. I hope it's constructive. I also hope it's helpful, because I am in the same boat with my own screenshots. And I didn't realize it until WWDC this year.
In the iTC lab, the woman helping me said that every screenshot needs to stand alone in telling the story of the app. Every screenshot has to sell. And the app icon. And the title. And the description. She wanted me to pick one or two (no more) of the best, most compelling things about my app and change everything to highlight or focus on those two things.
She told me that potential customers have to "get it" in seconds. I was to make it as easy as possible for them to understand my app as fast as possible. She even told me what she thought the two things were for my app, which I agreed with, but she only got it after talking to me for 10 minutes.
While I agree the Unread screenshots are bad, I'm pretty sure that neither the gradient nor floating text is the problem. It's that the screenshots themselves are not focused on the one or two things that make this RSS reader worth buying.
There are actually 7 points made, in addition to the testimonial. But no one buys an RSS reader because of fonts, comfort, gestures, themes, sharing, OvershareKit, a testimonial, or even full-screen reading. They buy because they can read articles from their favorite websites. Why should I buy Unread? Not a single screenshot answers that question.
Again, I know I'm tearing into someone else's hard work here. But my own app's screenshots deserve the same criticism. Now that I know better, I hope others can learn from my mistakes.
Marketing an app well is just as hard as building one. I know how to do one and am still learning how to do the other.
In the iTC lab, the woman helping me said that every screenshot needs to stand alone in telling the story of the app. Every screenshot has to sell. And the app icon. And the title. And the description. She wanted me to pick one or two (no more) of the best, most compelling things about my app and change everything to highlight or focus on those two things.
She told me that potential customers have to "get it" in seconds. I was to make it as easy as possible for them to understand my app as fast as possible. She even told me what she thought the two things were for my app, which I agreed with, but she only got it after talking to me for 10 minutes.
While I agree the Unread screenshots are bad, I'm pretty sure that neither the gradient nor floating text is the problem. It's that the screenshots themselves are not focused on the one or two things that make this RSS reader worth buying.
There are actually 7 points made, in addition to the testimonial. But no one buys an RSS reader because of fonts, comfort, gestures, themes, sharing, OvershareKit, a testimonial, or even full-screen reading. They buy because they can read articles from their favorite websites. Why should I buy Unread? Not a single screenshot answers that question.
Again, I know I'm tearing into someone else's hard work here. But my own app's screenshots deserve the same criticism. Now that I know better, I hope others can learn from my mistakes.
Marketing an app well is just as hard as building one. I know how to do one and am still learning how to do the other.
This first and foremost problem with these screenshots is they just don't look good, and this is primarily due to the use of a tacky dark-to-light gradient for the background.
First impression lasts. Steep grayscale gradient is firmly associated with an amateurish Gimp job and it's an exact opposite of polish. It's something that a noob designer would throw into an image to spruce things up.
I read his post, I went to the project page on his site and the app there indeed looks really good. It is polished, a total beaut. Then I followed a link to the AppStore and what do I see? A set of typical programmer-made screenshots. All that "polished" impression goes quickly down the drain and I leave the app's page in 2 seconds. Because the screenshots I see don't look good. Because of the cheesy background gradient :-\
First impression lasts. Steep grayscale gradient is firmly associated with an amateurish Gimp job and it's an exact opposite of polish. It's something that a noob designer would throw into an image to spruce things up.
I read his post, I went to the project page on his site and the app there indeed looks really good. It is polished, a total beaut. Then I followed a link to the AppStore and what do I see? A set of typical programmer-made screenshots. All that "polished" impression goes quickly down the drain and I leave the app's page in 2 seconds. Because the screenshots I see don't look good. Because of the cheesy background gradient :-\
I find this comment fascinating.
Unread's greatness isn't like that of Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word has a thousand features, and they're all there to see on a screenshot. Tab dialogs with thirty tabs, windows with dozens of buttons, and so on and so forth.
Which may or may not be good, but it definitely is neither small nor modest. Microsoft Word is great, like Ghengis Khan's army was great, and affords impressive, even overwhelming photos.
Not so Unread. Its qualities not not easy to photograph.
Perhaps minimalistic UIs that emphasize DWIM and comfort are unsaleable in an App Store that gives prominence to screenshots.
Unread's greatness isn't like that of Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word has a thousand features, and they're all there to see on a screenshot. Tab dialogs with thirty tabs, windows with dozens of buttons, and so on and so forth.
Which may or may not be good, but it definitely is neither small nor modest. Microsoft Word is great, like Ghengis Khan's army was great, and affords impressive, even overwhelming photos.
Not so Unread. Its qualities not not easy to photograph.
Perhaps minimalistic UIs that emphasize DWIM and comfort are unsaleable in an App Store that gives prominence to screenshots.
Regardless of the screenshots, when I search for "RSS reader," it first shows 8 free apps with many (mostly) excellent ratings.
It's not at all obvious why I should pay $4.99 for an RSS reader when popular free alternatives exist.
It's not at all obvious why I should pay $4.99 for an RSS reader when popular free alternatives exist.
I really like this post, but I think the success (or lack thereof) is really more about the competition than the product or the app market in general. There are tons of RSS apps that are good, with great ratings, and are free.
Surely the fact that he's competing against a ton of excellent free apps is an observation about the app market? (That is, how do you compete against free apps that have different financial motivations)
Disclaimer: I also sell paid up-front apps in a crowded market with a bunch of free alternatives, so I feel his pain.
Disclaimer: I also sell paid up-front apps in a crowded market with a bunch of free alternatives, so I feel his pain.
Really interesting read. Reminds me of also daytrading performance where the allure of profits draw people in until they realize that even on the small chance they make money, short term capital gains tax, brokerage commission and slippage kills you on the order of 35-40%.
But I still think it's worth for the guy to have pursued his dream. Not everyone makes it to major leagues, but it means a lot to the guys themselves who made it to AA. You are a lot better than the working stiffs who are.just sitting in the stands sir.
But I still think it's worth for the guy to have pursued his dream. Not everyone makes it to major leagues, but it means a lot to the guys themselves who made it to AA. You are a lot better than the working stiffs who are.just sitting in the stands sir.
One thing I wasn't completely sure about reading this was whether there was a service behind the app as well (other than the RSS feeds provided by multiple sites not by the author). I'll just note that anything he says here is undoubtedly even worse for apps that are buy-once but which have servers behind the scenes.
I'm sure that's another reason for the recent uptick in in-app purchases (beyond the profitability of in-game swag). I suspect that serving that market is also what's going to really drive (eventual) uptake of the Dropbox Datastore API assuming that data stored there is charged against the user's account(s) instead of that of the developer. Anything that may let you offload the costs of running a backend server - particularly onto a service that the end-user already uses and perhaps already pays for - is going to have a huge impact on your bottom line long-term.
I'm sure that's another reason for the recent uptick in in-app purchases (beyond the profitability of in-game swag). I suspect that serving that market is also what's going to really drive (eventual) uptake of the Dropbox Datastore API assuming that data stored there is charged against the user's account(s) instead of that of the developer. Anything that may let you offload the costs of running a backend server - particularly onto a service that the end-user already uses and perhaps already pays for - is going to have a huge impact on your bottom line long-term.
I think that's also the thinking behind Apple having CloudKit in iOS 8: as I understand, it's a set amount of space/processing per user.
Although I agree with some things highlighted in this article, there's one that I strongly disagree with: the niche you choose has everything to do with success, however polished your app is.
If you want to be a profitable indie shop, don't make yet another todo-list, note-taking or rss-reader app. These are "student" projects or hobbyists side-projects. However polished your app is, you are not bringing any significant value to your potential customers. There are tons of alternatives and many free ones. Basically, you can code and manage a project, that's one side of the coin but you are also showing that you are not really creative in terms of building something new, that solves an existing issue and that people want to pay for.
Also, I agree with people mentionning the bad screenshots. If I'm going to pay $4.99 for an app, I want to feel it is a polished app and not a quick chinese knock-off of a popular one (which the current screenshots heavily convey).
When a niche market is already full, more thinking could have gone into the name. By not incorporating the word "RSS" in it, it is quite hard to do a search or even get at first sight what the app is. "Unread RSS" would have worked just fine.
If you want to be a profitable indie shop, don't make yet another todo-list, note-taking or rss-reader app. These are "student" projects or hobbyists side-projects. However polished your app is, you are not bringing any significant value to your potential customers. There are tons of alternatives and many free ones. Basically, you can code and manage a project, that's one side of the coin but you are also showing that you are not really creative in terms of building something new, that solves an existing issue and that people want to pay for.
Also, I agree with people mentionning the bad screenshots. If I'm going to pay $4.99 for an app, I want to feel it is a polished app and not a quick chinese knock-off of a popular one (which the current screenshots heavily convey).
When a niche market is already full, more thinking could have gone into the name. By not incorporating the word "RSS" in it, it is quite hard to do a search or even get at first sight what the app is. "Unread RSS" would have worked just fine.
How big is the RSS reader market? If you could sell your app to every single person who subscribes to RSS feeds that also uses an iPhone, how many sales is that?
My hunch is it's not a huge market, comparatively speaking. I sell public transit apps, which although has many more competitors, has, I'm guessing, way more potential customers. I've had a healthy full-time income from these apps for a few years now.
One thing that's in my favour though is you're unlikely to use multiple feed readers, but many people have multiple public transit apps.
My hunch is it's not a huge market, comparatively speaking. I sell public transit apps, which although has many more competitors, has, I'm guessing, way more potential customers. I've had a healthy full-time income from these apps for a few years now.
One thing that's in my favour though is you're unlikely to use multiple feed readers, but many people have multiple public transit apps.
>... developer[s] should seriously consider only building apps based on sustainable revenue models.
You don't need an MBA to know this. His app is competing with some pretty good free apps like Feedly. His screenshots don't sell the app. It's not really a big market. In-app purchase allows a "try before you buy" model. Was there any sustained marketing? Did he appeal to a niche? Maybe he would sell RSS subscription packs for specific areas: lawyers, programmers, biotech, investors, etc.
You don't need an MBA to know this. His app is competing with some pretty good free apps like Feedly. His screenshots don't sell the app. It's not really a big market. In-app purchase allows a "try before you buy" model. Was there any sustained marketing? Did he appeal to a niche? Maybe he would sell RSS subscription packs for specific areas: lawyers, programmers, biotech, investors, etc.
I just went to the App Store and looked at the screenshots for the app. There's a surprising lack of functionality depicted in the screenshots. There's nothing about how feeds are presented, or how individual items in a feed are presented. Instead we get "full screen reading", "swipe anywhere to go back", "multiple themes", "rich sharing via OvershareKit" (whatever that is), and a testimonial from someone I've never heard of, who turns out to be the author himself. Oh, and the screenshots themselves are shrunk down to make room for the text annotation at the top. Nothing here makes me feel like I know what I'll be getting for my $4.99:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/unread-an-rss-reader/id75414...
In contrast, my iPhone RSS reader of choice, Reeder 2, has screenshots that show exactly what you'll see on various screens in the app. It's much less of a risk to buy upfront when you know what you'll be getting:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reeder-2/id697846300?mt=8
Of course, it's easy to armchair criticize, but as someone who is in the target market for an app like this (I've bought and use several well-designed iPhone RSS apps), I thought I'd explain why Unread never managed to convince me it was worth buying.