Opportunities are indeed out of your control, but preparation isn't. And keeping an eye open for opportunities is also within your control. Everyone who got "lucky" worked their ass off. Bill Gates, Notch, ...
Wow, that's actually really good. I recently released an app in a related category (personal/family budget and spending tracker), and I am struggling to get to my first thousand downloads. My friends and people who have seen the app or the landing page are enthusiastic, and about half of the users become very active, but even with ads I am having a hard time spreading the word. Either my social circle is too small, or the app has more niche appeal than I initially anticipated.
Off topic edit: for those interested, unlike other budget apps/spending trackers my app actually is meant to be used by a family that shares expenses. You log your purchases as you go (this was optimized to be super quick), and your family can see how much money is left until the next refill period automatically. This was also out of necessity. I read on HN that the easiest way to get extra cash every month is to make a budget. Turns out, that's correct, and this is the easiest way to do it for me.
It's probably not eating into your user-base too much, but there is at least one somewhat well known competitor in that space that my wife and I use called You Need a Budget. I say it's probably not eating into your user-base too much because while it's somewhat popular in personal finance circles, I've never met a person on the street that's known about it. I definitely feel like there's room to grow in that area. Anything that helps people meet their financial goals is great so good luck!
Someone actually pointed me to You Need a Budget as I was nearly ready to launch. Their product is very similar, and I actually really like it. I was very excited to learn about it for several reasons: it proves that there is a market (their product was highly reviewed), and they are much more expensive than Family Fortune: $60 up front. One of my plans of attack is to actually email the blogs and sites that reviewed YNAB and ask them to take a look at my app. Hopefully that'll result in maybe even dozens of users!
As a follow up: This was absurdly difficult to get on my phone after I found the app on my computer.
Searching for "Exchange" in the AppStore on my phone led to a zillion results, none of which were this app. I tried searching by words in the description. I tried the name of the app and the developer's name together. Nothing.
In the end, I searched the AppStore for the developer's name and found it.
Does anyone else find iOS app discovery, even when you know the app that you want, to be horrendous?
It seems the natural in-app purchase would be for some kind of package that would add more data sources. Maybe you get the daily bank rate for free, but if you want some other data sources then that would be extra.
Good read man! I made me consider to start an app with an idea I had for a while. Can you go a bit more technical and talk about the technologies you used? (besides git of course xD)
People will be willing to look past a weak design in order to get their questions answered.
The OP didn't set out to start a business, but this definitely is a good example of rather than looking for the next billion dollar startup idea just focus on building cool stuff to solve problems. Who knows, maybe this could turn into some kind of exchange rate information company.
So, if I understand correctly you've the top biz category app and it's just generating ~100$ daily in ads? Seems a bit low actually :(
ps: would love some support for multiple data-sources per currency: for instance in Argentina we've official dollars but since they're impossible to get we also have sidemarket "blue" dollars...
I think its low by comparison to other apps that generate significantly more and/or if your expectations are relatively high. But his expectations were to get ~$100/month so I'm sure he is ecstatic. And besides, an extra $36,000 a year in relatively passive income isn't too shabby.
Agreed. But I still tought the top category app should drive so many installs that even users launching the app just once should generate more than that. Looks like the the business category is driving less installs than other more popular ones, like games or photo apps...
