How to sell an application that does not make a profit? And how much does it cost?
Let's face it - making money on an indie app is becoming increasingly difficult. Under the cut, I'll tell you how you can sell your application, if it has ceased to make a profit, and how much you can get. In dollars :)
We all saw this chart:
')
Most independent developers have already felt it for themselves. Without large marketing budgets, your application will slowly but surely go down and at some point will stop making significant money. This is provided that after the launch you managed to earn something and discourage the investments.
With my application the same thing happened. And although in the first 4-5 months I managed to return the money invested in the development, the moment came when the schedule of downloads and income from the application began its inexorable descent.
You can, of course, invest in promotion. But buying users is cheaper than they will pay you is very, very difficult. Sorry for pessimism. Successful companies invest tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars in traffic, hire individuals to optimize campaigns, and that does not always bring their unit-economy into a plus. Do not believe? Well then - try it yourself. And then go back and still read this article.
You can still collect the will into a fist, delve into analytics, chat with users and ... redo everything. Who knows, suddenly it will turn out to grope the very feature for which users will pay and for which they will bring friends? But after a while, everything can return closer to the X axis.
And here we come to another, the most effective in my opinion, option. An application is primarily a business, which means it can be sold. Oddly enough, I could not find at least some materials on this topic on Habré. And the theme, in my opinion, is quite relevant.
So, first you need to objectively assess whether someone agrees to pay money for your application. Now that you have already realized the true state of affairs, it’s time to get rid of the main misconceptions.
“ My app is worth a million .” Not worth it. Forget about investments and the big company that will buy you. The application costs exactly as much as it earns. Namely - the cost of the application (as in other, and many other businesses) is equal to the sum of income for 10-12 months . Everything. Any of your other achievements (5-star rating, publications in the press, features from Apple, hundreds of thousands of users) are subjective factors - they can increase the final cost of the application, but they can not affect it in any way. This will be decided by the buyer. The only thing you can be 100% sure of is the income your product has brought.
Suppose you have a good indie application and it brings some money. Its cost is likely to be several thousand dollars. Not much of course, but look again at how much you earn per month, consider the falling trend and estimate how much you have to wait to collect this amount from Apstor or from advertising. If your situation is similar to mine, then the next step will become obvious. We sell.
Selling / buying applications has become a separate segment of onlain business with several key players. Recently, the enthusiasm of indie developers has been a little diminished, but still good applications enjoy stable demand. The most popular sites for such trade are 2 sites - flippa.com and chupamobile.com .
I will tell you about my experience on Flippa .
To begin, you will need to register for the service and put your “lot” (application) for sale. By specifying the identification number of your application in the App Store, the system will pull up the basic data itself. Your main task for a successful sale will be the correct preparation of the “wrapper” - i.e. accompanying materials.
The application profile on the site consists of several parts:
1. Icon \ title and short description of the application.
2. Additional information :
3. Finance :
4. Seller's note . Here you can give all the accompanying information - tell about achievements, specify the full composition of the lot (source code, exclusive rights, additional art, your consultation), tell what the cost of support consists of, suggest how best to develop the application, specify the reason for the sale. This section is quite important, I advise you to find a few examples on the site and prepare a quality text.
5. Attachments . Here you upload screenshots of the application and video about it. It is also very important to attach screenshots from iTunes Connect and other analytics systems with confirmation of your downloads and earnings.
Flippa works like an auction - i.e. buyers put their bids on the price and on the expiration of the period you specified wins the maximum bid. At the same time to participate, the buyer must beat the rate of predecessors.
When a new bidder enters the auction, the system asks you to “allow” him into the auction, because, according to the rules of the service, if his bid wins, you will have to sell the application to this person. Most likely this is done to prevent bidders from participating in the auction who have been found to be fraudulent.
Separately, you need to stop at the “ Reserved price " function. When placing a lot for sale, you specify a minimum amount, less than which you are not willing to sell the application. That is, if the rates do not reach the minimum price you specified, you can not sell the application. And vice versa - if the bets reach or exceed this amount, you will be obliged to sell the application. If you refuse, your account will most likely be blocked.
There is also “ Buy it now price ” (“Buy now”) - the price for which you are ready to sell the application right now without an auction. Be careful with this figure, when bargaining for your application will gain momentum, it will be a shame to sell for less than you can as a result of the auction. You can leave this field blank if in doubt.
After filling out the application information, you will not be able to change the main fields, so be careful. In extreme cases, contact the support - they will quickly try to help.
The term of the auction. I recommend a period of 15-20 days. This will allow potential participants to analyze the application, and thoughts about the purchase mature in their heads. It is important to understand that the main auction starts on the last day of the auction. If during this period the amount is small, it’s too early to be sad - in the last hours the cost of the application can double or even triple.
After publication, be ready to respond to comments and questions on the page of the lot and in PM. People will begin to ask you for a minimum price in order to understand whether to bid. To reveal it or not is your business.
Also note that the average cost of an application on a service, according to my estimate, is less than $ 1,000. If your lot is very expensive, it may be difficult to sell. Although a few tens of thousands of dollars for a cool application is not such a rarity. The main thing is to adequately assess your potential and not to wait for bags of gold.
Everything is done quite comfortable and understandable. The site administration acts as a guarantor of a fair transaction, so there should be no problems. Just in case, take screenshots when transferring the application, so that there is something to support the controversial situation. But if your buyer has a good track record on the site, then everything should go smoothly.
My application sold for the amount of 2 times greater than the investment. I can call my experience quite successful. What you want :)
If someone needs help in making a sale - write in a personal.
We all saw this chart:
')
Most independent developers have already felt it for themselves. Without large marketing budgets, your application will slowly but surely go down and at some point will stop making significant money. This is provided that after the launch you managed to earn something and discourage the investments.
With my application the same thing happened. And although in the first 4-5 months I managed to return the money invested in the development, the moment came when the schedule of downloads and income from the application began its inexorable descent.
What can be done at this moment?
You can, of course, invest in promotion. But buying users is cheaper than they will pay you is very, very difficult. Sorry for pessimism. Successful companies invest tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars in traffic, hire individuals to optimize campaigns, and that does not always bring their unit-economy into a plus. Do not believe? Well then - try it yourself. And then go back and still read this article.
You can still collect the will into a fist, delve into analytics, chat with users and ... redo everything. Who knows, suddenly it will turn out to grope the very feature for which users will pay and for which they will bring friends? But after a while, everything can return closer to the X axis.
And here we come to another, the most effective in my opinion, option. An application is primarily a business, which means it can be sold. Oddly enough, I could not find at least some materials on this topic on Habré. And the theme, in my opinion, is quite relevant.
Evaluation.
So, first you need to objectively assess whether someone agrees to pay money for your application. Now that you have already realized the true state of affairs, it’s time to get rid of the main misconceptions.
“ My app is worth a million .” Not worth it. Forget about investments and the big company that will buy you. The application costs exactly as much as it earns. Namely - the cost of the application (as in other, and many other businesses) is equal to the sum of income for 10-12 months . Everything. Any of your other achievements (5-star rating, publications in the press, features from Apple, hundreds of thousands of users) are subjective factors - they can increase the final cost of the application, but they can not affect it in any way. This will be decided by the buyer. The only thing you can be 100% sure of is the income your product has brought.
Suppose you have a good indie application and it brings some money. Its cost is likely to be several thousand dollars. Not much of course, but look again at how much you earn per month, consider the falling trend and estimate how much you have to wait to collect this amount from Apstor or from advertising. If your situation is similar to mine, then the next step will become obvious. We sell.
Where to sell the application?
Selling / buying applications has become a separate segment of onlain business with several key players. Recently, the enthusiasm of indie developers has been a little diminished, but still good applications enjoy stable demand. The most popular sites for such trade are 2 sites - flippa.com and chupamobile.com .
I will tell you about my experience on Flippa .
Preparing for sale.
To begin, you will need to register for the service and put your “lot” (application) for sale. By specifying the identification number of your application in the App Store, the system will pull up the basic data itself. Your main task for a successful sale will be the correct preparation of the “wrapper” - i.e. accompanying materials.
The application profile on the site consists of several parts:
1. Icon \ title and short description of the application.
2. Additional information :
- Average monthly income
- Application Age
- Rating from Apstor (system pulls up automatically)
- The price of the application in the store (pulls up automatically)
- Financial information (income for the last month, profit for the same period and schedule of income for the last 6 months).
3. Finance :
- Graph of the distribution of income and profits in the last 12 months
- Table income \ cost \ profit
4. Seller's note . Here you can give all the accompanying information - tell about achievements, specify the full composition of the lot (source code, exclusive rights, additional art, your consultation), tell what the cost of support consists of, suggest how best to develop the application, specify the reason for the sale. This section is quite important, I advise you to find a few examples on the site and prepare a quality text.
5. Attachments . Here you upload screenshots of the application and video about it. It is also very important to attach screenshots from iTunes Connect and other analytics systems with confirmation of your downloads and earnings.
Auction.
Flippa works like an auction - i.e. buyers put their bids on the price and on the expiration of the period you specified wins the maximum bid. At the same time to participate, the buyer must beat the rate of predecessors.
When a new bidder enters the auction, the system asks you to “allow” him into the auction, because, according to the rules of the service, if his bid wins, you will have to sell the application to this person. Most likely this is done to prevent bidders from participating in the auction who have been found to be fraudulent.
Separately, you need to stop at the “ Reserved price " function. When placing a lot for sale, you specify a minimum amount, less than which you are not willing to sell the application. That is, if the rates do not reach the minimum price you specified, you can not sell the application. And vice versa - if the bets reach or exceed this amount, you will be obliged to sell the application. If you refuse, your account will most likely be blocked.
There is also “ Buy it now price ” (“Buy now”) - the price for which you are ready to sell the application right now without an auction. Be careful with this figure, when bargaining for your application will gain momentum, it will be a shame to sell for less than you can as a result of the auction. You can leave this field blank if in doubt.
After filling out the application information, you will not be able to change the main fields, so be careful. In extreme cases, contact the support - they will quickly try to help.
Features
The term of the auction. I recommend a period of 15-20 days. This will allow potential participants to analyze the application, and thoughts about the purchase mature in their heads. It is important to understand that the main auction starts on the last day of the auction. If during this period the amount is small, it’s too early to be sad - in the last hours the cost of the application can double or even triple.
After publication, be ready to respond to comments and questions on the page of the lot and in PM. People will begin to ask you for a minimum price in order to understand whether to bid. To reveal it or not is your business.
Also note that the average cost of an application on a service, according to my estimate, is less than $ 1,000. If your lot is very expensive, it may be difficult to sell. Although a few tens of thousands of dollars for a cool application is not such a rarity. The main thing is to adequately assess your potential and not to wait for bags of gold.
Transfer application.
- After the auction is completed, the application transfer process is as follows:
- You contact the buyer or he is with you (there is an internal chat for this on the site), confirm the transaction and receive the necessary information to transfer the application (Developer ID of the buyer, etc.).
- The buyer transfers the money to the system.
- The system notifies you that the money received and reserved.
- You pass the application through the built-in functionality of iTunes Connect, using the data of the seller. Together with the application, you transfer all other files, accesses, etc.
- After receiving the application, the seller allows the system to transfer you money.
- Money can be received on PayPal account or by simple bank transfer.
Everything is done quite comfortable and understandable. The site administration acts as a guarantor of a fair transaction, so there should be no problems. Just in case, take screenshots when transferring the application, so that there is something to support the controversial situation. But if your buyer has a good track record on the site, then everything should go smoothly.
Result.
My application sold for the amount of 2 times greater than the investment. I can call my experience quite successful. What you want :)
If someone needs help in making a sale - write in a personal.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/276363/
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