If you and a friend could stitch together an iPhone application, one that brings in thousands of dollars of revenue per month, would you quit your job? (/me Raises hand, and I’d leave the country—hello, endless summer!) That exact scenario occasionally happens, truth be told, as the Times points out today. Spend s few months coding an App, then you’re on Easy Street thereafter.
Consider the examples. A 30-year-old Sun employee falls on hard times, then creates iShoot [iTunes link], an iPhone game that eventually brings in so much money—first day sales: $1,000—that he can comfortably leave Sun. Or the 25-year-old who, together with some friends, created iSteam [iTunes link], an application that simulates the effect of a foggy mirror. In video game terms, your bank account has grown by $100,000—do you want to upgrade your car?
The point is, there are people out there who are making a very comfortable living by coding iPhone Apps. Of course, for every iSteam there’s going to be innumerable knock-offs, Apps that languish in the App Store obscurity. But don’t let that get you down!
Which brings us to our first question—if you created a gnarly iPhone App, would you quit your job? Would you try to turn your luck into a business by founding Really Cool Apps, Inc.? Not me—I’d cash out with my first successful App then peace out to Brazil, where I’d live a comfortable life. Not even a life of excess—just a normal life somewhere where the sun is always shining. Dare to dream, friends.
If only…
If I made one that became popular I would probably work for myself. I would move to Florida and hang out in the sun for a long while and then when I saw sales slumping I would go back to the drawing board and make something new. I doubt I would start a company based around making multiple apps. If one became popular I would hire a small team to maintain it maybe, but that is it.
no I would’nt leave my job but my family would be taken care of better
From a guy who is one of these success stories, I have not made any career or lifestyle changes. I got in early with my iPhone app, pulled in close to $500k in less than 6 months doing this on the side by myself as a hobby. However, since then I have not made much if any money on any of my follow up apps, proving that it’s a lot harder now to make any money at all than it was at the start. The whole thing is a lottery, except that in the start you were in the running with a few hundred other developers, where as now you are up against 10’s of thousands of developers. I continue to maintain my app, but wont be making any new ones. If your app doesn’t hit big then you will make peanuts, so it’s not worth my time anymore. Rather I see my first app as a blessing and am trying to leverage the success and exposure I got from it in order to build my business and possibly expand it to other platforms. I would say that any aspiring iPhone developer should have an amazing idea and marketing plan before even getting started, or you’re going to be wasting your time. My hope is that the developer bubble will eventually burst and all the newbie developers who just got in to make a quick buck will realize they can’t make any money and just drop out, leaving just the serious developers and companies left competing for the top spots.
What did you develop?
Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.
But one thing is that just because they are serious developers and companies does not mean they have the next bright idea to storm the app store. I think the app store is a place where real talented people could really out done those big companies.
At first thought, heck yes!
On second thought, I like having employer provided insurance (health, dental, life, etc).
And as Ray pointed out a few posts up, one app may make it big and another may not.
500k is 5 years that I don’t have to work, lol.
How hard is it to learn how to programme an app if you have no coding/programming experience at all?
It’s extremely difficult to learn if you don’t have any programming experience. Apple’s tools and docs are excellent, there are lots of books now, and the language is 20+ years old and you can drop in existing C code easily. But the basic concepts of object-oriented environments can be a real brain-twister and you must learn to work with the existing system frameworks which are sophisticated and brought over from MacOS X. You must learn concepts, programming, debugging, human interaction, many many frameworks, sales, marketing, support and more. But it can be done. :-)
I would first have to learn a little bit of programming but I would definitely attempt to turn it into a business by releasing a whole bunch of apps that compliment each other. I would probably also branch out into making Mac versions of all (or at least most) of my iPhone apps.
I wouldn’t quit my job immediately, I would try to find a little bit more success before I felt comfortable enough to quit my job.
I wonder what software knowledge you need in order to make itouch/iphone apps ?
For every iShoot and iSteam there are hundreds of apps that took more time and money to develop than they are bringing in.
However, if I did make an app that sold well for the iPhone I would probably quit my job and find a job that I really like doing.
interesting…thanks for the feedback.
There is always room for a good product that will outlast the buzz
For what it is worth and as a person with 4-5 apps on the app store I would say it is extremely challenging to get noticed in the noise. While I do sell about 10 apps a day with good feedback but it won’t even cover my basic living costs after so much of effort.
Lately there is too much junk being released daily so you hardly get even a day on the front page of a category. It has become like releasing a book or a movies, you are too much dependent upon good press.
You might be luck and have good press contacts but I am looking forward to getting back to a regular job.
Hey,
I’ve already quit my job, and still trying to make 3 apps ready for App Store, but final destination is Costa Rica!(Tamarindo or Jaco beach)