I’ve officially been indie since the end of April and have had varying degrees of success. Out of the gate,
Today 1.0 was a smash hit. The application was picked up by all the major news sites, reviewed on countless blogs and even achieved the holy grail of the Mac community: a Macworld review.
I recently added a field to the Second Gear store asking how people heard about Today and the overwhelming majority are coming over after reading the Macworld review. I never made it into the magazine (or any dead tree monthly for that matter) unfortunately, but there’s always 1.5 or 2.0 for that.
While I’m not an expert on this whole Indie game, I can certainly offer my thoughts and perspective after seeing through a 1.0 launch and trying to nurture a product through its infancy.
Sales numbers are like that first line of cocaine. My first months sales were through the roof and far exceeded what I had in mind. While I’m now seeing on average about 35% of what I was seeing those first few weeks, I can’t help but shake the desire to boost my sales back to those 1.0 launch numbers. It’s an addiction to try and find ways increase sales each month. Which leads me to…
Release early and release often. My goal with Today was to get out a point release each month that added new features. The main reason for this was because I shipped a foundation 1.0 that I wanted to expand on. The secondary reason is that I wanted to have the opportunity to have several opportunities to get the application promoted on the news and download sites. Needless to say, a 1.0 is much sexier than a 1.3, but there is always a tiny bump in the numbers.
You have enough problems without rolling everything on your own. If I could change one thing about my venture into the Mac software business, I would have not invested the time and effort into building the Second Gear store from scratch. I knew I didn’t want to use a service like eSellerate or Kagi since I had an established merchant account, but the Potion Store would have been a better fit out of the gate. I have a laundry list of features I need to add to my custom store to be feature-complete and up-to-par with Potion, and I don’t think I’ll ever actually get to them. I’m instead hoping to invest a weekend into converting my store’s database to Potion Store and adding support for ActiveMerchant to the codebase so other developers can use something besides Paypal or Google for payment processing.
Advertising is hard and an expensive lesson. I’m a mediocre software developer, but I’m an even worse businessman and marketer. Trying to promote my product is the one area that I’m looking to improve on going forward. There are millions of people out there that have never heard of Today and trying to find methods to reach them that don’t break the bank is difficult. Running ads in the magazines is certainly out of my budget at this time and the few ads I’ve run banner ads on have brought in a few sales to justify their expense.
With my advertising I tried to think outside the box a bit and decided to run a few spots on a popular Mac podcast. Bad idea. While the podcast certainly has a large listenership, it’s not the type that is going to have access to their computer and actually go to your site and purchase your product. Podcasts are also hard to track conversions and referrals on. Bad idea. No cookie for me.
Localization sucks. If you can’t localize properly, don’t do it. When I launched Today 1.0, I wanted to quickly get it localized into a few extra languages to hopefully spread its appeal internationally. The ever-helpful Daniel Jalkut shot me an IM suggested I hold back on that because localization sucks. I’m glad I heeded that advice. I am presently localizing Today in German and French thanks to two excellent users of Today, but I don’t think it’s the right way to do it.
While the application is localized, the Web site and support is still English. If I could do it over (and afford it), I’d gladly outsource my localization and international sales to a third-party who specializes in selling native software in their country.
Think of what you can sell your app for, and add $5. Prior to the release of Today, I was incredibly concerned with finding the sweet spot for pricing the application. I settled on $15 because I was just imagining the horror of the TUAW and Diggtards bitching about a $20 price tag. I haven’t had but a few freetards bitch about the price in my four months, so I can’t help but shake the feeling that I’ve left money on the table.
If you think your application is worth $25, charge $30. My 1.0 was a $15 application, but my 1.3 is definitely worth the $20. I’m considering raising the price of Today to $20 with the 1.5 release. I’m going to be seeking out advice on this one prior to launch.
Learn to say no to your customers. The customer is not always right when it comes to your software. You are going to get a ton of excellent feedback and ideas from passionate users, but you are also going to get some ideas that just don’t mesh with what you’re trying to create. I have had numerous requests to make Today show more than a single day in advance, which would completely defeat the purpose of the application and leave me searching for a new application name.
Rather than leading on a customer by saying you’ll consider a feature in the future, say no if you know you’ll never do it. If you are honest and give a valid argument against it, they’ll most likely respect your decision and appreciate the honesty.
Now that we’re nearing the end of the summer, I’ve put Today on the backburner a bit to focus on a second application for a few weeks. It’s hard to live off $15 licenses, so always have that next great idea in the back of your mind. Once you’ve got the idea, don’t forget to make time to actually build it. 1.0 is a bitch.