Recently on Habré there were articles about earnings in the Apple App Store.
I can not understand the reasoning of some people: “I gave $ 100 for registration to an appstore, at the moment I returned my money”. Those. Do these people not consider the time spent on product development as money? IMHO so you can argue only if there is any income - work (or, at worst, well :)). I consider programming and selling programmed - as the main income.

So, meet: “business from scratch” or “the history of the development of the EasyWakeup project - a smart alarm clock”.

A project that I have been busy for a long time.

I'll tell you about the problems of sales and dispel some myths, in particular:

Myth # 1: “Having a Good Product is a Guarantee of Success”

Small introduction

I thought for a long time that an idea cost a lot. And then, one day, I matured to realization ... The idea was as follows: I read this article and became very interested in the device. The price was high, but technically the essence of the device was reduced to tracking movements in a dream.
Since I am one of the first iPhone users in Russia, a bright thought came: Why not use the motion sensor built into the iPhone for this?
')
At that moment I didn’t know Obj-C, I didn’t know the iPhone SDK, and my assessment of the complexity of the software was in person-week (i.e., in a week I could figure out the SDK and get a working prototype), oh, how wrong I was ... If I knew how long it would take me to develop, we probably wouldn't even be doing this, however, now I am glad that I was wrong.

Although after a while, the attachment of the iPhone was no longer required, but the idea began precisely with the thought of attaching the device. The first thing you pay attention to is the size comparison - the iPhone has more of a watch from that article, so the first thing we did was checking for attachability. The night test was 100% complete - i.e. At night, the iPhone did not interfere with the sleep of any member of the team. Hooray!
Further, a pleasant surprise was the absence of alarms in the app store (at that time).

So "Let's go" !!!

Due to the lack of a Mac and developer certificate, it took 10 days of proceedings (with unofficial development methods) and finally
10/02/2008 - The first commit in svn (the code is already doing something, although not yet what I want)
10/24/2008 - version 0.1 is suitable only for internal use. You check out how long it took to develop a prototype?
We were very pleased that it became really easier to wake up, which means you have to go on sales of your product (there are also dreams about millions and burning eyes). By the way, already at this stage we found out what is written in the article about Sleeptracker in general is wrong, but this is beyond the scope of this article.
11/28/2008 - Version 1.0! Laying out our product, and the beginning of its promotion. Since by this time we still have not had the opportunity to work in the iPhone officially, we have published our product in Cydia (only for hacked phones).

Myth number 2: "I would have something that no one else has - oh, I would get rich!"

As the reader understood, what we decided to sell is an innovative product.
Here probably should touch on the myth number two: "I would have something that no one else has - oh, I would have grown rich!" . Those. a person who thinks so exaggerates the role of innovation in selling a product. Only now I can respond to such a statement with what will be faced.

1. You will need to convince people that what you did is worth their money, i.e. man will need to delve into the essence of innovation.
2. If you did something new, then you worked not only with a plane, according to a ready-made plan. In our case, we also studied the theory of sleep. This means that the cost price of your products will be higher (well, the fact that “the higher the price, the less sales”, I think, there is no point in proving?).
3. According to Nokia's research, only 2% of people are interested in new products (is this really a market ?!). True, it is these 2% that determine what the remaining 98% will receive in the future.

Promotion of goods

It means so. We are so obezbashennye that we have little release of an innovative product, we also decided to use innovative approaches to product promotion :)

Buy for the price you wish

At the time of the release of the first version, the price of the activation key to our program was from 4 to 64 American presidents (and from the Russian page it was possible to buy for two) the keys are exactly the same.
those. this label:

for our super sponsors	$ 63.99
for our sponsors	$ 31.99
recommended price	$ 15.99
minimum recommended price	$ 7.99
for people with limited finances	$ 3.99
for those who find it difficult to buy even for the previous amount (only in Russia)	$ 1.99

Pros?

• Here are the data for a certain period of time: 65 sales for $ 4, 8 for $ 8, 5 for $ 16
  those. every 6th bought for a price higher than the lowest possible. And it is worth noting that there is still a minimum seller’s commission ($ 1) - i.e. everyone buying for a price higher than the minimum received our blessing :). Although then we expected a more favorable distribution, but now I consider the resulting distribution to be quite satisfactory.

Minuses:

• There were a couple of comments on the topic “some kind of incomprehensible price - cho for a glitch” (and I’d like to note this first impression - which is easier to create than to fix)
• I have not seen a single comment with the meaning of "what a cool method of sales."
• Those who buy stolen cards will buy for the recommended price, and their transactions are known to be paid for by the developer from their own pocket.

Innovative promotion through reviews

the method is: "You undertake to write a review and get a key for testing." In the review, we immediately asked to mention both the moments we liked and those that needed improvement. Read more here: attention! The promotion is no longer available - link, only for the conditions .
Pros:

• Some reviews were nevertheless written (which gave us any information about us on the Internet outside of our site immediately)

Minuses:

• Do you really think there was at least half ??? There was not even a single letter on the topic “I will not write a review,” but I wanted to, even if I received feedback about my product ... (after all, I received the key and received it ...) Information from those who just didn’t like the product could be especially valuable . Unfortunately, this method also did not provide this information.
• Again, there were comments in the discussions - "damn, how to trust the reviews, if the writers receive their bonus from the developers?". Those. people don't dig deep. It seems that the author of the review has already received this bonus (the key to the program), and if he writes a “good” or “bad” review, nothing will change for him. And what is this bonus? If you don't like the prog, who will cling to this bonus?

Here are some tips to prevent stuffing up the cones:

1. Believe in yourself and in your business .
   You need to be a little crazy to go through it all. We had to sell the car to cover the current payments (and this despite the fact that we do not have any loans!). The first money that we received, which allowed us to cover payments and stay in positive territory, we received 02.07.2009. more than six months of net loss (although of course not yet returned the car). Probably it would not be superfluous to mention that the EasyWakeup team consists of three people, two of whom (myself and the venture ) with permanent employment over the project.
2. Focus initially on the market where there is money.
   According to information from a major international software vendor, I found out that Russia gives 2% of revenue in sales. The main income is America. This was confirmed for the apstor. Even being an outsider in America, you can earn more than in the top in Russia (sad but true).
3. Attractive pictures.
   Whatever the super idea of ​​the application, and the graphics should be beautiful! Animation is also welcome (for an upstor to a lesser extent, since the animation screenshot does little). You can make at least three times a useful product, but if it is unattractive, then it simply will not be sold. Verified
4. Do not reinvent the wheel.
   Fewer innovations, more proven and workable solutions (just push away the consumer, don't get it, mess up something without providing it, and a lot of failure options). Copy successful decisions of competitors. BUT! not a zero amount of innovation;) In general, one innovation, but well thought out, is better than ten fresh ideas that came to mind.
5. It is important, not what you know about your product, but what the user thinks when he sees it for the first time.
   Here's an example - for almost half a year we were selling a product with the idea “We know that you can conveniently attach the iPhone (we use it ourselves)”. Yes, most potential customers simply won't even try this !!! They just think it's uncomfortable and everything! Moreover, some users also deride users, including potential ones. Do you understand? I think yes. Much later, we added to the program a "less reliable method that does not require attachment." The sensitivity of the accelerometer in the iPhone can quite cope with this task leaving it on the same surface with a sleeping person. However, this decision came from us thanks to the following point.
   
6. Get feedback from users. The easier it is for you to say something, the better.
   One head it's good, but two better. - everyone knows that. But the "heads" of users is much more! :) Our product is mainly used by advanced people (i.e. their heads are more valuable), so for us this item was really important.
   In the previous paragraph, I described that we got rid of the need to attach. So this thought was suggested by the user (!). He pointed us to the free iSeismometer program. The description in the store which begins with the words “You will realize how sensitive the iPhone is!” (You realize how sensitive the iPhone is!). The implementation of this idea took about three weeks and on 9.05.2009 the implementation became available to users.
   Users love to give out their ideas. And especially love when you implement them. :) And grateful users give high marks and lead new users.
   
7. And the last tip: Do not start a business with a minimum price.
   For the AppStore, releasing a program with a $ 0.99 price is a bad idea. If you yourself do not appreciate your product, then who will appreciate it? After all, no one bothers to arrange discounts and sales of their product? Although there is a case when it makes sense to do and $ 0.99 immediately on the publication of the application ... This is when you plan to make the price zero later;)

Afterword

To not be done, you can always make it better / more beautiful / more interesting.
There will always be users who will not be satisfied with something in your product.
And our case is no exception. At such moments, it was thought: “now we will introduce this feature (the most important / necessary) and then everything will go like clockwork.”
And no matter how much we improve our product, this thought still occasionally appeared.
I see this process as endless. At the moment we have plans to improve our product for 2 years ahead.
Therefore, do not dwell on it!
Work on product promotion: experiment with the icon / screenshots / description (3 whales of the appliance), agree with the sites, write on the forums. - This topic also deserves a separate article.

There were also users who admired our product (even version 1.0) and said thank you, told how their lives radically changed after using our alarm clock. It was damn nice and motivated for further action, because at such moments you realize that people appreciate your work.

PS There was a lot of text, but far from all that was expressed what I wanted to share. Expect the third part of this “story” (the use of piracy for your own purposes), only when - I do not know, it takes a lot of time to write articles. Those.
to be continued ...