Getting a taste for making

Few years back, my brother and I decided to work on an iPhone app together. It was a little note taking app that I dreamt up to help me record lectures while taking notes. We gave it a terrible name… “notes + u”. App didn’t make it. It wasn’t a million dollar idea. We didn’t know much about making something great just yet.

But we had a lot of fun working on this app.

Every day was a new challenge. Everything had to be learned on the “job”. It was like being in The Matrix and learning kung fu. We learned about tooling, programming languages, design, marketing, copywriting… you name it. Everything was new. We read about the things we didn’t understand and tried it out.

I distinctly remember… I would spend hours on making some screen mocks. My brother would say he didn’t like it. I’d be pissed. Then I’ll try again, after maybe spending hours looking for inspiration on Dribble. It always got better with feedback. Likewise, I’d complain about how hard it was to manage CoreData threads… next day, there would be a better solution from him.

There was no mention of agile or process. We had day jobs so we didn’t waste time either. We just kept building something till we got there.

After the flop of the first app. We made many more apps. Each one better than the last. We made a little bit of money, which led to latest gadgets. But that didn’t matter as much as watching a live dashboard of people using our stuff. It was so exciting to see 50-60 people using the app at 8pm PST.

This feeling, it got really addictive. I don’t think it ever left me. To this day, I love making things. And I love to see people use the things I make.

I often wondered, can this not be “work”? Can’t I just make things that are useful to others in my day job and feel great? Work never felt that good though. Something about being in a corporate setting washed away the good vibes. Why was that? Can we not just focus on making?

My journey to this date has been to figure this out. Can I bring back that feeling of making to where I work? I think I can do it.

Our first app, notes + u

2 things your app can focus on to be successful

Apps that do really well on the App Store focus on PASSIONS & PRODUCTIVITY. The higher you rank in the scale on these two categories, the better chances you have of making a kick-arse app concept that resonate with its users.

People are passionate about all kinds of crazy things. What's important is that passions makes us very emotional. And everybody knows emotional hooks are the best way to sell something to a consumer. Your job becomes exponentially easier if you don't have to convince them why something will be of value.

The effectiveness of the 'passion-hook' increases as the reach and the prestige of the passion gets higher. For example, fitness is a great category to be in. Everyone's emotionally invested in it, so your market size is large. More importantly, people are willing to pay to get fit.

Productivity is why IT exist in the world. Instead of figuring out what 28912 x 92891 is in your head or on paper, you have a calculator. If you can save time, make life easier, and return the human back its lazy couch potato stage as quickly as possible from real work, you are doing a great service. This service can worth a lot of money.

People pay to make things go away all the time. So if you are designing an app to help people be more productive, you have a great chance to make it. The bigger the problem you are solving, the higher you can charge for it. If it targets companies instead of individuals, then there is even bigger bucks to be made.

Then there are really good apps that combine the two. Food apps like Posse or Urban Spoon are great examples. People are very passionate about what they eat, and what says about them to the people around them. They take pride in finding little gems around the city and recommending to friends. At the same time, they are extremely productive. It saves me from having to Google for places to get lunch from when I'm hungry and irrational.

Of course there are other angles to succeed by making an app. You can look at improving communications and social interaction. But these are markets that may not follow the general pay for a download model that well. They are also very hard to succeed in.

If you want to keep it simple, make something that target passions and productivity. Analyse where you stand in the two scales when you are at the concept stage. Bring features in to add value in both categories as you go on. Find your own little edge in these scales that make your idea better.

As long as you are helping lazy humans be extra lazy, and help enjoying what they rather be doing, there's a chance of success.

Why make an iOS app first?

This is a regular discussion that happens under every article on The Verge about some new iOS app. So far they are all flames thrown at each camp. This poster had a really good answer with good supporting facts. I thought it was worth sharing:

mfocazio

It’s not “gibberish” – it’s fact:

1. Android users spend less time with apps. http://www.businessinsider.com/android-users-use-apps-less-2013-6
2. Android users are less likely to pay for apps: http://phandroid.com/2013/07/19/free-apps-android-users/
3. Android users don’t buy stuff with their mobile devices as much: http://bgr.com/2013/12/02/ios-android-black-friday-online-shopping/

There is a meaningful difference, and if you’re trying to make money in the mobile world, you start with iOS.

Taken from the http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/5/5178432/best-new-apps-level

The only thing I'll add to this is the ease of building and maintaining apps due to a more consistent group of devices with users who upgrade to new versions of the OS regularly.

Don't mistake this for developers not succeeding on Android. That is not true -- plenty of developers make a good living out of Android.

Apps that grow with you

It's difficult to make a good app. But it's even more difficult to make an app that grows and matures with the user: something that starts off basic and overtime, as more knowledge is shared between you and the app, more in-depth features are revealed to appeal to a more mature, advanced version of you.

Thought I had while discovering something completely new after a week of using the Jawbone UP fitness band.

Important Considerations Before Naming Your App

If you’re a small time developer, you generally tend to skip steps when it comes to following a proper process on naming your apps / products. Here’s a list of things you shouldn’t be skipping...

Say you decide to make an app to educate people about how bad donuts are. Let’s call this app “Evil Donuts”. Excellent name!

Step 1: Google it.

This is so easy to forget sometimes. Always Google and see what comes up. Then switch over to the “Image” search tab and see what comes up there. If you only manage to get one to three bikini women, it is a good sign! These are the things that would compete for SEO and the things people associate your name with.

Damn it, Facebook Group is taken. Might have to name it “Evil Donuts App”.

Step 2: Domain Search

Domains are important. We need to look for www.evildonuts.com and www.evildonutsapp.com. These are good domains for our app, unless your aim is to introduce a submain on your own site like: www.m2d2apps.com/evildonuts.

Bummer, someone parked it.

I recommend you use https://iwantmyname.com/ to look for names. It checks pretty much every domain possible.

Step 3: iTunes / Play Store

Ok let’s say this is going to be an iPhone app. We have to fire up iTunes and see if an app with that name exist. If it doesn’t great. If it does, you have to decide whether to stick with it. If you do, you can simply extend your name to: “Evil Donuts - Junk Food Eating Tips”. When the user installs the app, you can still name it “Evil Donuts” without Apple freaking out.

Score! No Apps! Just like our 60Hz App!

Step 4: Easy to type?

We never thought about this when we launched “Notes + U”. Terrible name. Worst of all, it was hard to type on the iPhone. iOS keyboard hides the “+” button under 2 levels in the keyboard -- BAD idea. Make sure it is hard to misspell and easy to type out.

Step 5: Trademarks

Disclaimer: This is not in any way legal advice. Get a real lawyer for that. I am not qualified. This is merely personal experience.

CHECK TRADEMARKS! If your app only ever sells 10 copies this is less of an issue. However, if it makes its way up the ranks and you start gaining some love from Google, then you are in for it! “Evil Donuts Inc” is not going to be nice and empathise with your situation. Trademark law, I believe, specifies that once you have a trademark, you have to actively defend it or risk losing it altogether. So chances of you getting a Cease & Desist letter is quite high. Unless you have a strong legal team you will be forced to pull your app from the store when this happens.

Generally you will be forced to take down everything you have related to your beautiful app once you get a letter. Game over.

Interesting things I found out:

• If you made friends with a law grad, good for you. Love them, buy them dinner, and keep in contact.
• There's less likelihood on infringing trademarks if the name is descriptive. For instance, if we had named our app “Donut Nutrition Tutorials”, it is quite hard to get a C&D due to its descriptive tone. However, if we called it “DonutNutritionTutes”, then it is still under threat!
• Generally trademark disputes resolve in the favor of the trademark owner. So you are very likely to lose even if you contest it.

Check the following countries at least:

• US: http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/
• EU: http://oami.europa.eu/ows/rw/pages/QPLUS/databases/searchCTM.en.do
• Australia: http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/atmoss/falcon.application_start
• UK: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/tm/t-os/t-find.htm
• <Insert your own country>

Cool! Abandoned in 2005!!

Once you are happy, go ahead and create an app in iTunes to stop anyone from taking that name.

Happy building apps. Evil Donuts app never did get made.

We changed looks. Now we change names. Your favourite TV tracker is now running at 60Hz.

tvQ is 60Hz.

We had a great launch for our latest TV tracking app about a week ago. It's a new app rewritten with all your feedback from 1.0, with a fresh take on TV and movie tracking and of course, a fresh new icon with a sleek new user interface. Now it's time for a new name too!

What are we in essence?

We are all about your TV experience. At the end of a hard day's work (or play...) you sit down in front of your TV for a pause, to escape to another world. Our app is your assistant and your guide on this journey to other wonderful worlds of imagination. The television is the center of this experience and believe it or not, it flips the frames 60 times every second to immerse you deep in this experience. Our app, helps you stay in sync with your TV experiences at all times, which means we're running at 60 frames a second too. So we called the app, simply, 60Hz.

60Hz

We, here at M2D2, want to keep pushing 60Hz in this direction of helping you to get the most out of your television time. We'll be adding new features to make your TV experience more entertaining.

When 2.1 launches, we'll officially change names. When it does, tell your friends. Your recommendation is important to us. We depend on it heavily to keep the app moving forward. We've been prompt to answer all your feedback. We've gotten over 30 emails on the first few days alone! We have a good idea of where we can improve and what we can do in future releases. So keep the feedback flowing...

And spread the word about 60Hz!

Wisdom on Pricing Software

Recently ​I came across this excellent blog post, "Million Dollar Art", by Nate Otto on the Signal vs Noise blog. I started thinking, how relevant is it for software? Can you simply put a million, or even 30 grand price tag on software?

​We first discussed it at work and there was the rational opinion that IT products help save time and effort. If a single person's job can entirely by done by a piece of software, then it should worth that person's salary. This makes valuing software quite easy!

Why think when you can Google. I came across this wonderful article at Smashing Magazine: You're pricing it wrong: software pricing demystified. It talks about the rational price vs. the perceived value of a product. Seems like branding, good marketing, superior design, support, average price for competing products and a number of other factors can increase or decrease the perceived value of a software. Read the whole article and some of the related links to get a better idea. Highly recommended!

​When it comes to apps, the perceived value always seems to be much smaller than the app is really worth. 99 cents is very popular on the App Store. However, I think it will be wise not to go with the flow and really think about your audience and what they'll be willing to pay. Better yet, try to bend your ideas to fit to an audience which has more money to spend (Business Store for example...). Most importantly, be flexible. Start with a slightly higher price and be wiling to experiment with the price. You can never know for sure. Don't give away anything for free.

​There's one caveat: iTunes rankings! Giving an app away for free might mean that you get more downloads on launch day, provided you run a great marketing campaign. Then, things become real tricky moving forward.

We're about to do some testing with pricing with the launch of tvQ 2.0. Will write my findings post launch.