mastoto
Sindre SorhusMy App Store numbers for the past year.
Total: $18548
The year before: $15210
Some short commentary:
I mainly made the apps for fun & to solve my own problems. The fact that some earn some money is just a bonus. I also now realize that I'm very bad at predicting popularity. Some of the most popular apps are just tiny weekends projects I made thinking they would not go anywhere while some apps I put a lot of effort into failed (Today, Favorites Widget, and Recordia), and I have no idea why. My goal this year is...
...to become better at marketing. I have not marketed the apps at all other than launching them on Twitter and Reddit.
I'm happy to answer any questions.
milkyway 🌌@sindresorhus I use some of these apps daily, especially the ones living in the menu bar. Thanks a lot for building them!
Stuart Langridge@sindresorhus I do have a question. I admire what you’ve done a lot, and good work for doing it! You’ve said you build things mainly because you need them and think they’d be interesting. But how much of your desire to keep building comes from how people are using and liking the apps? Would you still do it (and want to learn more about marketing) if you’d had little or no interest? It’s not about the money, but is it (a little) about the acclaim and feedback?
@sil Building the apps initially comes from my own needs, but having happy users definitely helps motivate me to continue maintaing and improving the apps. My apps would be less polished and have less features if no one other than me used them.
Guillermo Ferrero@sindresorhus Recordia failed?! I use it every week for my podcast recording and I love it!!!!
@gadgetero It failed in that it was a large amount of work and it only gets a few downloads. It was one of my few apps that I made not to solve my own problem. I had thought there was a much bigger market for it. I think it would have been more successful as an iPhone app. Glad to hear you find it useful though 👍
Markus 🤓✨@sindresorhus I'm more and more convinced that to make it as an indie solo developer, the develop-small-apps-and-see-what-sticks approach to product development is far better than building something big and trying to get it to market. I spent a year (on/off while consulting) building an online course, and the web app I built for automated transcriptions in a week is arguably more popular already. :D
seiyria@sindresorhus Do you use all the apps you make? Or how do you identify such "simple", glaring holes and execute on them? One problem I have is that I want to create, but I never know what to make. I have a lot of trouble identifying problems that can be filled with "simple" software.
@seiyria I use most of them, yes. The other ones were born from situations were I saw an opportunity.
I used to have the same problem with coming up with ideas too. It takes a lot of bad ideas to start generating the good ones. In my notes, I have 778 ideas, most of them boring or bad. Just start writing down everything. For example, when you notice people having a pain-point or if you use an app that you feel could have been done much better.
@sindresorhus I see! Thank you. To be honest I only really catalog game ideas but I really should start writing down everything!
Daron@sindresorhus what would you say the best way to get started learning how to write macOS apps today? I have a web background in regards to programming (10yrs)
@daron Start with https://www.hackingwithswift.com/100 and then https://www.hackingwithswift.com/100/swiftui
erica 🐦@sindresorhus something tells me ⌘X is gonna be pretty huge considering how many people are new to macOS due to the Apple Silicon transition, I know when I first moved over I looked for a lot of apps like AltTab that allowed me to retain Windows muscle memory until I retrained that
LitoMoreDON'T let Sindre Sorhus know how to make WEAPONS.
@sindresorhus this is really useful info; thank you a lot for making it public.
amd@sindresorhus At that rate you’ll be making GAFAM money in just a few short, nevermind. Hey Siri delete post
@sindresorhus But seriously, Love your work, and that you’re sharing this.
@sindresorhus Thanks for the transparency. I thought you would be making more from your great apps like Dato
meduz'@gadgetero @sindresorhus Same. Dato and Lungo are super useful on a daily basis.
Michael Christofides@sindresorhus seriously impressive, thank you for making so many great apps
tea 🌺@sindresorhus wow 🔥🔥🔥
Andreas Ganske@sindresorhus Impressive! What’s your tooling around publishing a new app? Are you using fastlane? What about all the metadata, screenshots, etc.? I guess you automated a lot of it or are you actually handcrafting everything?
@ag All handcrafted. I do have an internal framework that simplies the process of making new apps.
Zac@sindresorhus When do you sleep?
Martin Du4@sindresorhus Wow. That’s a lot of impressions. How many of those are paid / in-app purchase apps?
@martind The apps that have proceeds in the screenshot are paid. I don't have in-app purchase on any app.
@sindresorhus 👍And all the other ones are free? What’s the ratio?
@martind Yes. Most are free.
@sindresorhus Wow incredible job. Why are all the other ones free? As vectors to the paid ones?
@martind I'm not doing it for the money. I just enjoy making apps.
@sindresorhus OK last question 😉. How come for your most prolific app: Dato, you generated $10.4K of proceeds for *only* 8 sessions. Does not seem right. Or people are buying and simply not using?
@martind Apple does not count sessions for menu bar apps. I have no idea where the 8 comes from. Must be a bug.
Ethan Huang@sindresorhus impressive! Thanks for making great Mac apps.