Like 276,000 pregnant women went to a man. Something like Success Story

“You will always regret that you started this too late, even if you start doing it on time” - (author)

An intriguing headline, isn't it? Read the article to the end and you will understand that I am not joking.
I, like many others, constantly ask myself this question: on what does success depend? And what is all about - success? Is there a universal formula by which success can be achieved? How did my project “Happy pregnancy” manage to get into the TOP – 30 paid applications in Russia and keep more than two years in the lead in the Russian section Medicine in the AppStore?

Chances around us
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In our rapidly changing century, the stop is death! Movement and search, search and movement. And the fight. The fight against failures, competitors, their own laziness and apathy.
Conclusions that I made for myself once and for all:

• Never let lazy thoughts. A “thinking” person has a chance to become successful, “not thinking” - never.

• Life provides a person with a lot of chances to realize. Being attentive, not to miss your chance - this is one of the most important and difficult tasks to start moving towards the goal.

The idea of ​​creating the application Happy pregnancy .



If you are still with me and have not closed the page, I assume that you are interested in what I am talking about. I suggest to get acquainted closer.

My name is Dmitry. I am 30 years old. Two years ago, I decided to create an application for pregnant women . Now this is the most popular Russian-language application for pregnant women.

Nothing happens just like that. I think, Newton, an apple fell on his head for a reason too. Surely, many apples and pears fell on their heads, but the idea of ​​the existence of the law of the earthly force came to him. Yes, because Newton was in search of this discovery. If it were not for the apple, perhaps it would have fallen into some kind of pit, but this law would have been born anyway.

It is not modest to compare myself with a great scientist, but before being born of this idea in my head, she also went a certain way.

Before creating a popular application for pregnant women, I worked for quite a long time and successfully as a photographer. Weddings, family and individual photo shoots. Having shot more than 400 weddings, more than one thousand photo shoots, has developed a decent base and rating. But I was always worried about the problem of one “basket with eggs”. I was well aware that, sooner or later, everything comes to an end and we need to look for parallel sources of income and self-realization.
And it was all so. Quite often I had to take pictures of pregnant women and, of course, communicate with them. From these conversations, I learned a lot about the problems of pregnant women, about the difficulties faced by future mothers.

The initial idea was to create a convenient organizer or diary for pregnant women. Having rummaged on the Internet, understood - the market is oversaturated with the similar. And then, like Newton, an apple - on the head! Mobile technology! This is where you need to turn around and where the future is! This is what is always at hand. This is what people use daily.

What comes after the idea?

And here begins the most difficult. If you are not ready to stumble and fall, drop this idea - to achieve success and realize your ideas. How was it in my case? The idea was kept in the head for a long time. I shared an idea with a client. At this point, I photographed his wife "in position." He became interested in this topic and said that he could participate financially in the process, and we agreed to meet and discuss the details.

The meeting was successful, but we also made up a lot. Classic: cafe, napkins, first calculations. It’s ridiculous to remember now, since we imagined the minimum numbers, but those turned out to be significantly overstated.

The conditions were mutually beneficial and I received money for the application. I started developing the project. Easy to say - started? For a person who was never connected with mobile applications and programming, everything was new and difficult. Habra had to read a lot and start looking for developers and writing the first TZ.

Among programmers there were different options: freelancers, small and large companies. One of the conditions was the presence of a developer or company in our city so that you could come and explain incomprehensible moments on your fingers. As a result, we stopped at one young company for the reason that they provided turnkey development. But I didn’t want to look for different people: a programmer, a designer, a tester, and even to manage the project myself.

Cost expensive, but quality. Now, against the background of already existing experience, naturally I would try to gather different people and save money. But then it was the best option to release the finished product.

Immersion and development

Submits, releases, updates, mockups and other scary, frightening words began to surround me. I had to spend some time to learn the lexicon.

I like to show this screenshot to my friends - it shocks them a little.



It took a lot of time to read books, articles about pregnancy and fetal development at all stages, and then filling the application with tips and other information. I had to study the experience of sales on the AppStore, methods of promotion, advertising and monetization of various applications of other people and companies.

First of all, I started analyzing mobile applications in this area. The competition was minimal. It is rather weak in the Russian-speaking segment, but very significant in the English-speaking one. It was decided to make the application in two languages ​​at once: Russian and English.



The first sketches. I admit, it was fascinating and interesting. In general, creating a new one is interesting.



I personally drew the mockups, made virtual versions of the mockaps on the iPad, thought through the structure and logic of the application. I wrote TK for developers, about 80 pages, which in the end turned out to be still not enough.

The initial structure of the application:



And the structure put in order:



The name appeared rather quickly - “Happy pregnancy” and was instantly approved among all my friends and acquaintances. Simple, pleasant, concise and with a keyword inside. Yes, it is longer than advised for the AppStore, but at this point I decided to close my eyes.

What can an application?



The application contains all the most necessary functions for future mothers. I will not talk about everyone, you can check and feel them yourself by downloading the application "Happy pregnancy" . I will voice the most important and useful:

• Character "Baby", who happily winks at you and reports daily tips and recommendations for pregnant women, as well as the condition of the fetus and the pace of its development.

• On the “Child” tab you can see the schedule of development of your future baby, its weight and height, as well as the stages of development of individual organs.

• In the diary, you can add records about your current state, thoughts about the future baby, useful information, photos of the abdomen and ultrasound.

• "Fight Timer" - will be incredibly useful during the fights and will tell you when to go to the hospital.

• Questions to the doctor? Now you will not forget them, if you write in the "Notebook of questions to the doctor." Your device is always at hand and questions too.

• Charts of weight gain and an increase in the volume of the abdomen will help a pregnant woman to follow an increase or decrease in weight, control her diet and compare with standard norms.

The list is far from complete and, in almost every update, new features are added.

Deep dive

From codes and pictures, a dream began to appear - a prototype of the future application. All sorts of logical bugs related to timing calculations and displaying different dates began to appear, but they were quickly and successfully resolved. The monetization model was pondering for a long time, but in the end the optimal decision was made: to make a free, trimmed version with advertising banners and a paid, but inexpensive version, without restrictions. Several price experiments have shown that the best application cost is $ 2.99. The decrease in value had no effect on profitability, while the increase reduced sales.



Free version - it was successful, as time has shown and a preliminary assessment, a tactical move. And it's not at all in the small money that was earned through advertising. With this technique a significant number of users were attracted. And along with them, a decent rating, which could now be successfully used to expand and deepen means and functions.

Icon. I knew its importance in advance. After the tedious ordeal, three different pictures appeared, which I submitted to the court of 4,000 people in social networks. They helped to determine the final result. In the end, I have no right not to listen to the opinions of those for whom, and all efforts are directed.



After a couple of years and a half, the icon was redrawn, but this did not affect the application.

Beautiful start and first results.

For the first 4 days there were about 70 sales of the application. And this is despite the fact that advertising has not started anywhere.

In the process of development, another category of customers that has not been taken into account has emerged - men who are distraught with happiness. Having learned about the pregnancy of their loved ones, these romantics are capable of much. In ancient times, for the news of conception, pregnant women were given palaces and castles. Naturally, $ 2.99 is a trifle in order to facilitate the pregnancy of her woman.

I admit, I was disappointed with the results within six months. Although the dynamics were very positive and incomes grew. The whole problem was that we initially greatly overestimated the power of statistics that we invented ourselves.

Mobile app marketing

I thought about advertising from the very beginning. But the budget did not have much left, so I was looking for any possible free or low-cost methods.

I will say right away - in general, all advertising moves and stunts were unsuccessful and unprofitable. Mailings of more than 50 press releases to the editors have come to nothing. No one has published free publications either. On iPhones.ru it turned out to be a rare hamlo, about which I do not even want to say anything. The prices of all editors were obviously too high, and judging by the opinions of other people who paid for posts on popular resources, the effect was not very high.

The promo video was also shot, but not for advertising purposes, but more so that it is clear and easy to tell the users about the application to the site:



My application is 99.9% organic traffic. From time to time there are small bursts of downloads, when on some forum grateful pregnant girls talk about their experience of using the application.

Tips for those who want to do something

Of the main tips for someone who wants to make an application for the first time - get ready thoroughly! The more and more detailed you think of everything yourself, the easier and faster developers will be to implement your idea.

• Start now! "You will always regret that you started too late, even if you start doing it on time."

• High-quality technical project preparation. There will be a good TK - it will be cheaper development and less problems for programmers. The more detailed and detailed, the better for everyone.

• Marketing plan ahead. Budget for advertising too. My case is more the exception than the rule.

• Feedback is an important and indispensable factor. Answer all letters. I regularly write users with requests, wishes, advice and complaints. Not a single letter, not a single comment in social networks remains unanswered.

• You start not when you create an application, but when it enters the Appstore. Here I will not surprise anyone, you yourself know it.

• Make the application and run it in the basic version as soon as possible. Perfectionists in such a dynamic business will be the hardest. Updates you can then add the desired functionality.

• Think of the benefits for people that the application will perform. Think about the money later.

Problems and difficulties

Yes, they are too. Not everything is as smooth as we would like. The release of new iPhones forces to make permanent adaptations. Despite such a large number of application installations, the income level is very floating, and the current problems with the dollar exchange rate significantly influenced the purchase of the paid version.

Programmers are a separate conversation. Relations with the company had to be stopped due to the high cost of their work, all subsequent freelance developers couldn’t give a good result and even the resulting bugs reduced the overall user experience of the application. Therefore, I am still looking for an adequate developer (and designer) who has not disappeared for weeks, is on time and adequately evaluates the value of his work and, most importantly, wants to help others with his work, and not just make money.

But let me remind you - I am not a programmer and I cannot quickly solve problems with an application. I am not a designer and I can not change in a quick design. I am a person who is full of ideas and wants to help pregnant women and I try to do everything in my power.

I am ready to consider all sorts of proposals for mutually beneficial cooperation. Who cares - write, answer all the letters.

Plans and prospects

Today my application is installed over 276,000 times. The daily audience is over 31,000 people and the audience is constantly growing.

Plans, as always - in abundance. Ahead - the expansion of functions and amenities, the creation of versions for tablets and Android. Creating other applications for which TK has already been written.

If you liked the article and found my thoughts on the development of a personal mobile application interesting, leave your question in the comments and, in the next article, I will tell you more about numbers, graphs, statistics, money, expenses and incomes, as well as answer all questions.

This is my first article, so throw small tomatoes. The amount of information and experience is decent, but you cannot tell everything in one article. We will consider this as an introductory part and in the following articles I will write out each point in more detail.

Upon request, a link to the free version of the application "Happy pregnancy" in the AppStore.