There’s a lot of buzz about Lean Startups in the software community in general and amongst mobile developers in particular. How lean a startup can be is strongly influenced by the tools and processes available on their chosen platform. Which platforms enable the leanest product development processes? How and why does lean framework matter?
It goes without saying that people like to try things before buying them. Take magazines for example. No-one expects you to buy a year subscription to The Economist just so you can read it. You can check out a couple of their articles for free on their website, you might even buy an issue from your local newsstand. Then, once you’ve decided that their content is valuable, you buy a subscription.With apps and user trial subscriptions it’s a little bit tricker
SwiftKey, makers of a third party keyboard for Android, joined up with two technology publications to survey over 17,000 smartphones users about the number of paid applications they have on their devices. Back in 2011, 12% of Android owners said they had zero paid apps on their phone. Only 10% had 20 or more paid apps. This year, those figures are now 7% and 19% respectively. Translation: Android users are slowly becoming more willing to pay for apps, but if any serious money is to be made here then you’re going to have to make free apps that are ad supported.
The bar for successful apps is high: if you want your app to stick out among a million others, it needs to be well designed, user friendly and working flawlessly, all of this comes with significant development costs. In this article, we give an indication of the types of costs you need to take into account when planning your app.
Costs can differ wildly depending on your platform and type of app. A mobile game with 3D graphics will have a radically different cost structure than a weather app. The range goes from $5,000 for very simple apps to hundreds of thousands for extensive apps. Often cited, Twitterific estimated their development costs as high as $250,000 back in 2010. Use common sense when thinking about your costs, be realistic and plan for cost overruns.
Here are some costs you need to take into account.
Developers have a range of options to choose from when it comes to generating revenue. This choice is, to some extent, dependent on business model, scale and target market. Which revenue models are most popular, and which are most profitable?
Key insights and recommendations:
Related tools: In-app purchasing and virtual goods | Ad networks and mediation engines
Most app makers are not primarily in the game to make money. The primary reason for developer platform selection is not app monetisation, but reach; irrespective of platform, 54% of developers adopt a platform because of reach, while 43% cite low cost and 30% cite revenue potential. Moreover, out of the eight types of app developers we identified, only three segments (Explorers, Hunters and Guns for Hire) are directly motivated by money when committing resources to a new platform.
Among those of you that are in it for the bling, developer profitability is a hotly debated topic. Apple’s iOS is generally thought to support greater revenues per application, compared to Android, but the evidence is mostly anecdotal. Many stories of overnight successes circulate the internet, but it’s not clear if they are replicable.
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To stay above the app poverty line you need to make a sensible budget plan for your app. This requires that you have realistic expectations about the costs and revenues that you can expect. Based on VisionMobile’s Developer Economics 2012 survey, we can now offer you an informed opinion.