Digital Dave

Early in 2009 I decided to jump into a new realm of possibilities that evolved from the iPhone/Touch being released.  I loved this device from a user standpoint and it was an outstanding way to get products out to users from a developer perspective.

Talk to any indie and you’ll find, more often than not, that they just want to get their creation out in the hands of you, the user.  Of course money needs to come in to play to at the very least support the foundation that built the product.  Nothing comes free even from an independent standpoint.

Spin & Shoot was an idea born from the primary need to learn OSX, Objective-C, and Cocoa.  I released the project to the iPhone application store June 28th.

A few notes looking back on this that stand out:

• It look about 2 months of development spread over 6 months
• Objective-C’s memory management takes a while to get used to
• Interface Builder is tedious and can be very time consuming (just write the code)
• I didn’t spend enough time thinking about how to get the word out about it

What was the cost of development?

• $100 for the developer program
• $50 for target marketing on Facebook

What was the return on investment?

• To date we have 68 sales with $47 of revenue
• The marketing had no effect
  • It would have been better if it was planned around an event (spring break, new years)
  • I didn’t do any ‘grass roots’ marketing on forums or twitter

Spin & Shoot is a very, very niche application that I didn’t expect to change the world or hit the top 100 app store list.  This application will likely continue to hit sales spikes during certain points of the year, and random buys when people are looking for drinking apps.

I’m pretty happy. Close to 68 people, and counting, has played with my creation.