A Million-Downloads of Your iphone App – Is it possible?

In a previous post I talk about how my friend asked me if I would promote their suite of iphone apps. His main goal was, how to get a million downloads. This prompted a mini research project and post; one that I hope is useful information for developers.

One Million Downloads

The 10 billionth download from the Apple App Store took place on Saturday, January 22, 2011. Of the approximately 400,000 plus iphone apps available, how many individual iphone apps were downloaded at least a million times?

In the last ten months (April 2010 – January 2011), the top-five iphone app stories that sold / downloaded at least a million times were: Cut the Rope, Dominos, Motion Portrait, PayPal and Bubble Ball. To reach one million downloads; these successes took between 3 weeks and 3 months for two reasons:

The first and most obvious reason, these apps were launched by companies that are globally recognized, have a large budget, or have an established stake in the game industry — like Electronic Arts’ Chillingo, “an international marketer, publisher and distributor of video games.”

The second and most inspirational reason— the human-interest story about a 14-year boy and his mom from Spanish Fork, Utah. The boy went to the public library and found a SDK (Software Developer’s Kit) and spent a little over a month coding Bubble Ball while his mom helped in the design stages; his app surpassed Cut the Rope on January 24, 2011.

500,000 Downloads

In the last seven months (June 2010 – January 18, 2011), the top-five iphone app stories that were sold / downloaded at least 500,000 were: Argos, Pocket Frogs, Thumbplay Rocks, Bento and GoDaddy.

The time span for reaching 500,000 downloads is longer; between 5 days and 17 months, where the app that sold in 5 days was for the update release for the already popular game, Pocket Frogs. Again, established companies with big budgets launched these apps.

The Average Downloads

One article in particular that shared the actual sale numbers provided real insights on the realities of developing and marketing mobile apps.

Iphone App Sales Exposed (May 2010)
“… 96 developers who provided in-depth sales data and pricing metrics. The average total number of units sold was 101,024 copies within an average period of 261 days.”

My Two Cents

I come away from this research with three strategies:

One, create a bunch of apps you think will be purchased at least 100,000 times. Making sure that your ROI (return on investment… time and money… developing and marketing the app) is worth the effort.

Two, get a suite of apps developed and find an established distributor that will market your product (so that you get to do what you love… develop).

Or three, check out this guy that knows the business of mobile apps (or someone like him). If anything, educate yourself about the general landscape for business development and marketing – it’ll help refine and further your vision, while also prepares you when you’re looking for the right partner to execute marketing strategies.

Nicholas Lovell
http://www.gamesbrief.com/about/

What price an iPhone app? 19% less than last year (January 10, 2011)
http://www.gamesbrief.com/2011/01/what-price-an-iphone-app-19-less-than-last-year/

A lecture he gave at Edinburgh Interactive 2010: Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8BejCxzuc4

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Entrepreneurs Wear Many Hats… But They Don’t Have To

Recently, a friend asked me if I wanted to help promote their suite of iphone apps. At first I didn’t think it was a project I should take on since I’m not an iphone marketing expert, and too, I’m juggling redesigning my analysis software for mobile devises while doing graphic and information design gigs.

Before making a commitment to my friend’s project, I decided to research the iphone app market by focusing on one of his goals – how to get a million downloads.  Although it’ll be good information for me to learn for my own project, should I take the time to research this now – before I’m done developing my own app? Yes, and here’s why:

As an entrepreneur that is both artistic and geeky, I’m experienced in the entire gamut of the product development cycle: from defining the technical specs, devising collaborative business partner plans, organizing production schedules and budgets, creating a look and feel, building out interfaces, to launch and testing.

However, in the past, when it came to transitioning my own projects from production to implementing marketing and business strategies, I was challenged with two main issues: switching gears and changing perspectives.

It’s challenging to switch gears from the quietude of creativity and production to the hustle and bustle of networking and promotions — especially for those that have been working in solitude. Marketing and business development requires another knowledge set and people skills that are either rusty or none existent for artistic/creative and programming/engineering types. You have to be ready to step out of the stillness and into a flurry of meetings that takes you away from refining your product. It’s tough working both modes at the same time.

Changing perspectives from developing a vision to selling the vision, it’s yet another reality check. If prior or during the development of your product, you haven’t done some business or marketing analysis (identifying market sales and competitor’s promotional strategies), you’ll either discover your product has great sales and marketing potential or not. Innovation will get you half way there; pragmatism will push you to the finish line.

Based on my past lessons and my present story, my two cents:

If you’re developing the product yourself, find a marketing / business development partner that you like and trust; you need a fresh perspective that can handle the details and extra work. Just as my friend did, he asked me to promote their suite of iphone apps.

Or, educate yourself about the general landscape for business development and marketing – it’ll help refine and further your vision, while also prepares you when you’re looking for the right partner to execute marketing strategies.

Researching for a couple of weeks on the iphone market has provided me with some new founded ideas on how to design and market my mobile application, and too, I’ve got a few insights that might be helpful to my friend (and other mobile app developers). Click here to read “A Million Downloads of Your iphone App – Is it Possible?”

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