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Eric: I wanted to talk a little bit. You actually just, there's a perfect lead-in there. You
hear this a lot, and I want you to finish this sentence for me, if you build it, they
will… or just if you build it.
Austin: Come. That's the old field of dreams fallacy. At least, that's what I call it.
Eric: And so, you don't agree with that statement?
Austin: Absolutely not, no. There are tons of really high quality, good looking apps
in the App Store that don't sell. We live in a technological age where that is very
different than the ones that my parents, and especially my grandparents, grew up in where
you didn't worry so much about the packaging of a product like it either worked or it didn't.
And the quality of a product or service was its own marketing. So if you have a butcher
in a town, if the butcher is not a good butcher, that's going to become apparent fairly quickly
and the butcher goes out of business.
Well, it's a good and bad thing now that the App Store's not a meritocracy. It is not the
best apps that necessarily rise to the top, it's the best marketed apps. It's not necessarily
the apps that has the most money for their marketing. It can also be some of the indie
guys, too, but that's the sad thing. I have even seen this happen to a few friends, like,
they build great apps, they make a few mistakes with marketing. I mean, shoot, I made mistakes
with marketing, who am I kidding. I was not perfect out of the gate, there were even a
few quirks in Apple's system that hurt me like, for example, my app. I started my app
out as paid, and then the first time I made it free it got picked up by, I don't know,
two or three dozen sites, blogs that track price drops. And so I got, maybe, like 36,000
downloads in a matter of hours one Sunday. So I dropped the price on Saturday around
lunch time and then it took a while for the sites maybe, about 24 hours for some of the
sites to start picking up on those price drops. I had set in my iTunes connect dashboard,
I set it so the app was going to go back to paid that following Monday.
Well, at about 10:00 p.m. Eastern time so which would have been about 7:00 p.m. Pacific
time which is what Apple works off of, as my app is climbing the free charts and it
is poised to break top 100 over all in the U. S. iTunes store which is super exciting
for an indie developer for his very first app ever and right as it's getting closer,
it just disappears. It's not in the free charts anymore, its not in the pay charts, it is
nowhere to be found. Well, when I log into iTunes Connect I discovered that Apple's system
has grabbed the price change five hours too early, so that means that they were about
five…
By the time I figured out what was happening and went back in and changed everything back
to free, I'd lost probably two hours not to mention the time it takes the system to re-
propagate the price change. So if I was doing, I don't know, anywhere between 2 and 3000
downloads an hour, you can do the math and like, for a first timer and an Indie developer,
an extra 6- 10,000 downloads its huge, especially with
the difference between breaking the top 100 or not. I did end up breaking it later so
it wasn't as big of a loss pride-wise as it could have been, that's the sort of thing
that they're just easy to make those marketing blunders, and sometimes it's hard to bounce
back from them.
It's hard to figure out, and when I actually called Apple and said, what was the deal,
the guy said yeah, our system is imprecise. I finally talked and talked and talked and
backed him into a corner and he finally said, it's not perfect. I'm like, so wait, you're
telling me you can't guarantee me that my price changes are going to take effect when
I set them. He was like, no. It's nothing against Apple. No platform is perfect, but
it was just like, how do you plan for that, you can't. The whole point is you still better
have a really robust marketing plan, and that's not necessarily like a big budget to spin
with that CapJoy or a big budget to spin with some other ad network. It might be blog posts,
it might be networking so that you better start networking three or four months in advance
because it takes a while to build relationships. So the field of dreams fallacy is what causes
a lot of otherwise smart developers to fail.
Eric: And I think it probably had a lot to do with the Gold Rush in previous years where
that may have seemed a little bit more true in those early days where people were just
rushing into the App Store. It was a lot easier to get in those top lists on both Google Play
and the App Store. Now with more and more close to a million apps having been developed,
it just makes it a lot more difficult to get to reach that critical mass to gain inertia.
So you spoke a little bit about some pitfalls. What are some marketing tactics that you've
really benefited from even right down to certain outcome or certain marketing companies that
you've seen some good results from?
Austin: Well, one of the things that still can't be under estimated as far as what it
can do for your app is people writing about it. It's like, obviously, the more traffic
and page views a particular online outlet has, the more visibility you'll get. As I
mentioned, don't be that guy who only writes when he's asking for something, so reach out
to people, sure connect over common interest that is apps sure. But if you really want
to take advantage of getting some free media coverage, then put your time in and be respectful
to people. That's a huge one, I mean, if people will write about your app and review your
app, that can cause a flood of downloads. Some other stuff like, I'm in Eastern standard
time so that means, when Apple roles out all of the new apps for a particular day, it's
at around 3:00 a.m. my time. Well, if you think that, Russia is what is it, either 12
or 14 hours ahead.
Eric: Sounds about right.
Austin: I can't remember. What that means is that if you release your app in the U.
S. on one particular day, unless it's before about 8:00 a.m. Pacific time, you will not
be featured as a new app in the iTunes stores in countries that are more than, however many
hours ahead of you.
Eric: Yeah. Yeah.
Austin: So if a big part of your initial burst of downloads comes from being a new app, then
you want to time the release strategically so that you'll be featured as a new app in
as many iTunes stores as you can.
Eric: Yeah. That's a good tip.
Austin: So that one's pretty important. Obviously, as I mentioned earlier, the price drop was
huge for me. There are still circumstances where it makes sense to release an app as
free and then keep it free, but if you think about it, releasing an app as paid increases
the perceived value of the app, so obviously if you then reduce the price, it seems more
enticing, Which would seem more valuable to you an app that started out at $2.99 and is
free for a limited time or an app that has always been free?
Eric: The price drop obviously, yeah.
Austin: Right. So if you think about like the buyer psychology there, it makes sense
why you would consider starting an app that's paid and then after a period of about 7-10
days making it free. Now you have to be really careful about alienating the people who did
pay for your app. You don't obviously want to if the whole point is having faithful users
and if the money that you make is directly tied to how much people like your apps and
how often they use them then you don't want to be the jerk who's just playing the monetization
game and while alienating everybody who's paid for your app. So you got to be real careful
with that, but like I've tried it several times and I think I've probably gotten, because
of price drops, 100,000 downloads.
Eric: And you mentioned also, too, there's all those blogs out there that will specifically
feature apps that have had their price dropped so it just a way again of garnering more and
more attention.
Austin: So if you start out your app as free, you missed the opportunity to be picked up.
Eric: Yeah. There's probably not many websites dedicated to when people jack up prices on
apps, so.
Austin: I would think not, but again like I said that strategy does not make sense for
some developers they need to release a free version especially if in tandem you're releasing
a paid version of the same app, you know what I mean? So like, it's not a catch all strategy,
it's a strategy you have to be really careful with because at the end of the day I'd say
treat your users with respect, don't think of them as the sort of people who are just
clamoring to hand you money. How would you want to be treated?
Eric: Exactly.
Austin: You know what I mean?
Eric: It sounds like one of the questions that I've been asking some app developers
is the percentage of time that they put actually into promoting their app, and I guess with
someone like you who actually didn't develop the app himself had it developed, I'm sure
a large percentage of your time is devoted to testing marketing strategies and making
sure that the ads are working, adding new things to the purchase ability and stuff like
that? So if you had to put a percent on it, is it a large percent of what you put into
your app right now is the marketing aspect?
Austin: Definitely. I would recommend that even people who know how to write code and
design user interface, create the art work for the app, if you're wanting to build a
business, then you've got to think about business development and marketing period. You may
be one of the best developers in the world, but if the growth of your business is directly
tied to the number of finite hours that you can code each day, then you're going to limit
the growth of the business. And so, I'm trying to remember where I read this, but like profitability
of any company is tied to your ability to relinquish control. So the more control you
give up, the more potential your business has to make money. Of course, everyone holds
up Steve Jobs as this sort of megalomaniac, micro manager. He's actually not like most
successful business owners are not like that. You know, hire people who are better than
you, hire people who are smarter than you, and that frees you up to focus on growing
the business.
My background is in marketing, and I still do all the writing, all the marketing. Obviously,
if I get big enough, I'll probably hire somebody to do that for me, too. Anyhow, it's funny
looking back how much blind faith there was that the people I hired were doing their job,
but I think that's why you hire slowly. Most of my time is spent on marketing and promotion
and the overall strategy, definitely.
Eric: So you got in app purchase going on, first of all what's the most expensive mustache
on Mustache Bash?
Austin: Oh, it's called the solid gold pack, it's $9.99 which seems absurdly high, but
its solid gold. And so, there is one that is utterly absurd. It's the most outlandish
mustache I could find. I just sent a picture to one of my designers and said, make a solid
gold mustache like this, and in the update back in May I actually added another mustache
to the solid gold pack, so there are only two in the solid gold pack. All the other
packs, you get nine more, but I added Mark Twain's mustache.
Eric: Ooh, that's a good mustache.
Austin: Thank you. That's sweet.
Eric: That's awesome, so I got derailed there. I wanted to know how you tied together all
your different revenue streams. Do you have a program that tracks all that, or are you
doing it on a custom made thing with spreadsheets?
Austin: I just have a spreadsheet, and I think they're a lot of people who… Well, I bet
with Mustache Bash I probably, because I didn't know any better, left anywhere from 10-12
grand on the table. Considering that figure right there would have paid for the apps several
times over, it was just like ouch, but it's still a relatively cheap education. The reason
I say that I left money on the table is I thought there were really only two or three
ways that you make money and I was wrong. Obviously, you have paid installs that's one
way. Then you have ad clicks, but there are more than one type of ad. There are banner
ads and then there are interstitial ads, and then there are also ads on a more apps screen,
those screens go by different names and different apps. Those are like the three main types
of ads even though it's kind of like a more screens kind of like just lining up banner
ads. So that's two, you have paid installs, you have ads well you also have affiliate
commissions. So iTunes is contracted in the U. S., Canada and Mexico with a company called
LinkShare.
For every dollar that somebody spins through one of your links after clicking on one of
your links, you make 5%. A nickel and a dollar doesn't seem like much money, but you got
to keep in mind that you don't just make money off of your own app, it's whatever they buy
in the Apps Store for 72 hours. This isn't like top secret stuff, LinkShare would tell
you this, but I wasn't using LinkShare links in my app. And then so that's three. Four
is other affiliate programs. Some of them will accept links served through mobile browsers,
others will not, so like Amazon affiliates, for example, you cannot earn commissions off
of links coming from mobile devices.
Eric: Because they can't track it probably with their cookie system or whatever.
Austin: Either they can't or they won't. And I've read the clause in there. It's pretty
vague and I imagine that will change sometime soon, but there are so many affiliate programs
out there. I've got to believe that some of them actually do give you commissions based
on clicks through mobile browsers. Then there are in app purchases, that's another big one.
Then one for me has been – and as funny as it sounds, it has nothing to do with my
apps but consulting. Once you have an app in the Apps Store, it's such a trial by fire
that it makes you an expert in a way. So I'm currently working on two more of my own apps,
and I'm serving as a project manager for a client to help build an app. And then there
are a variety of other ways that you can take that knowledge and sell that to other people.
I'm trying to think if I've forgotten anything.
Eric: I think that's probably it.
Austin: That might sum it up.
Eric: I think that sums it up pretty well. So in terms of interstitials and banners,
what do you find more success with? I've heard some really good things about interstitials,
so I'm just curious from your perspective.
Austin: I don't have banners yet. The version of Mustache Bash, Mustache Bash 2.1 was just
submitted for review this morning so I put banners in. I was reluctant at first, but
I did re-work the UI and the app. And so, I just don't like invasive ads, but at the
same time I think people are acclimated enough now to banner ads that they take it. They
understand, hey, if I'm getting an app for free, then developers need to make money,
too.
Eric: Exactly.
Austin: So long as the ads don't make it really difficult to use the app, then I think people
try to be understanding. So honestly, I can't answer that question intelligently yet, but
it'll just depend. We'll talk about that later.
Eric: OK. We'll do that in the follow up. Can you tell us anything about the apps that
you have in the pipeline. Are they hush-hush right now?
Austin: No, they're not. They're both about 1% away from being finished so they're very,
very close. We've got what I hope is the final build of the one that's called Whamsie [SP]
right now, and that's the irony about "if you build it, they will come" mentality is
that even if there's already a ton of apps of one sort out there, most of them are so
poorly marketed that you shouldn't hesitate to build yet another app like that because
you'll only really need to be 1% better. And so, Whamsie is a sound board app, and first
of all I think the design is super cool. I found an illustrator who is way over qualified
who had zero experience in UI design for iPhone apps, and I said I don't care you clearly
have the talent. Here are the links about what you need to know for Apple's guidelines
on design. So, it's simple, you tap the icons and certain sounds come out, and it's got
one little twist which is the alarm feature so that you can turn your phone way up or
plug it into your sound system and then set the alarm so that if a teacher or a roommate
or a significant other or an enemy or an obese cat or some creature is trying to take a nap
or study or is otherwise preoccupied, you can scare the crap out of them.
Eric: How did you record the sounds? Were they just publicly available or did you record
the music yourself?
Austin: Yeah. Creative Commons 3.0 which is just like an attribution license where you
make sure you give people credit, so I've got the credit section on the info screen
and then a lot of public domain sounds. There's a lot of great stuff out there. I did have
to really search, as you can imagine. There are however many rooster sounds, but you'd
be surprised at how hard it is to find the sound out there that is like the one you imagined
in your head, you know what I mean?
Eric: Absolutely.
Austin: And who's to say how we form an idea about how a rooster should sound, but yet
I'd listen to these noises, and I'm like, I can tell that's a rooster but it's not the
kind of rooster I want.
Eric: It's not the archetypal rooster.
Austin: Yes, it's not the archetypal type of rooster, and you multiply that times 63
which is the number of sounds I've got in there, but it was a ton of fun, too. I drove
my wife crazy because some of the sounds are really obnoxious. There's one called mosquito
which is just this really, really high piercing shrill frequency, that I'd hear from the other
room. She'd be like, turn that off, so I used her as a Beta tester, and I am confident that
this app can be used to annoy people.
Eric: Fantastic. Does it have a Wilhelm scream on it? Do you know the Wilhelm scream?
Austin: Yeah. Well, its funny, I saw that one. Maybe, that will be in an update because
there are a number of war, gun, bomb, grenade sounds going on. but yes, I found the Wilhelm
scream and it's a good one.
Eric: I watched a YouTube video on the Wilhelm scream, and now any time I watch a movie as
soon as I hear it, it sort of just takes me right out of the movie. It was in "The Avengers.
It was in some more recent one where they just used that Wilhelm scream and it's always
funny. They must just throw it in there as a joke even in some cases, the sound engineers.
Austin: Right. It's like an inside joke from one sound engineer to another, and I know
what you mean, too. When you hear these sounds you're like, wait a second, all these people
are just using the same sounds. You feel like you've seen the man behind the curtain in
a way.
Eric: That's pretty interesting, the idea of using Creative Commons or even just for
inspiration for apps just going to the public domain and seeing what is recently come up
on the public domain and see what you could turn it into. I bet there's a lot of inspiration
there.
Austin: Like when people are always asking where do you get app ideas, I mean, most everybody
has one or two already, but one thing you can do is go to Google trends and just check
out and see what people are talking about what's popular. Now, don't get me wrong, it's
not like everybody is crazy about roosters these days, but you know that's the thing…
Eric: Speak for yourself. I've got them all over my house.
Austin: That's the thing about mustaches, for whatever reason they're all over the place
right now.
Eric: They are and have been for a few years. They've been kind of a permanent place in
the zight guys for a while now
Austin: Well, I emailed one of the higher ups at Movember today. I would love to use
Mustache Bash to support better cause, however I can, but the other app is called Cheap Shot.
It just uses the accelerometer on the app, let's see, to randomly pick a line from a
list. So in this case, I kind of went for that steampunk aesthetic, and so you can either
press this button right here. Oh, that didn't work. You can press this button right here,
and it randomly populates a new insole.
Eric: What is the one they're saying and deliver it as if you mean it?
Austin: Believe in yourself, because the rest of us think you're an idiot
Eric: Oh, stings.
Austin: That's the thing, all these are so dumb, but they're really, really funny. Oh,
I forgot to mention that you can also shake it to come up with a new one. You're so fat
when you go to theme parks, you get a group discount.
Eric: Cuts to the core, I was just in a weight loss competition I'll have you know.
Austin: But those are the two that are coming out. I mean, they're just fun like that's
the thing is I love, I have a sense of humor, I hope, and I love to entertain people. I
think if you're going to create anything, create something you'd want to use and so
that's been my guiding aesthetic when I think about apps because I don't want to create
crap I want to create stuff that looks good and that works well. Then if people choose
to make an in app purchase, then it was worth it. They're not going to be like, that sucks
so I'm really excited. They both might be submitted before the weekend's over, so.
Eric: Cool. Well, I'll be on the look out for them. I think you represent a good category
of app developer who's producing simple but useful and fun things that are designed really
well and work well and look great. I think there's a lot of success to be had with that
approach.
Austin: Well, that certainly makes your mistakes a little bit cheaper.
Eric: Yeah. And also having the experience that you have in marketing, I think that's
something. We've talked about this, but I think a lot of app developers underestimate
the need and you're putting a large amount of time into testing, and to getting your
apps reviewed. I think that's all essential especially when you've got a good product.
Now, you've got to get the word out there, and I think you're doing a great job of that.
I would urge other independent app developers to follow your model.
Austin: Well, thank you, I appreciate that.
Eric: Well, it's been great talking with you today, Austin, and I wish you all the best
and I'm sure we'll talk again soon.
Austin: Well, thanks for having me on, Eric. Of course, I want the very best for Tap for
Tap, so thank you very much for having me.
Eric: Ok talk to you later. Bye.
Austin: Bye.