I thought you might be interested in hearing about how I developed Tasting Notes including how much it cost and how much revenue the app generates. So, what do you think? Want to get into the numbers and code and see how the apps are made?
What Was the Point?
First off, when I set out to do apps in 2008 it was first and foremost an experiment in entrepreneurship. I just wanted to see if a very simple app that one person could conceive of and code could make any money. In my wildest dreams I hoped to make back the $99 it cost me to join the Apple developer program.
Basically, what I was looking for was a kind of passive income. That means I wanted to create something fast that would generate money with no additional input from me. This purpose would inform (some might say limit) the evolution of Tasting Notes over the next four years.
The Idea Behind Tasting Notes
Generating ideas can be tricky – most people have tons of ideas, but the art in ideas is not getting ideas in the first place. It’s getting rid of all the ideas, except the idea that could win.
Basically, in 2008 I knew about two things: wine (or least drinking wine) and databases. In my job, I was known as something of an SQL guru and at home, as my wife will tell you, I drank wine all the time. I even started to learn about the various types of wine, how to select wine and essentially how to tease out the aromas and flavors that wine is so famous for.
So – out of all the ideas I had creating a user generated database of wines seemed like the one I would most likely be able to pull off (considering that at the time I still had to learn how to use Mac and program for iOS SDK). Even better, templates in the real world already existed for my idea – oenophiles could buy tasting journals in books stores for up to $20 that provided them with a structured way to record their thoughts on wine. Basically, paper based wine databases.
I figured that people would want a tasting journal that I could sell for much less that $20 that would be more convenient because it would be right on their iPhone. And that’s what I did.
WinePad (or Tasting Notes version 1.0)
Once the App Store was announced, I joined the mad rush to get an app published by July 2008. WinePad was that app for me. These days, WinePad was so simple that it wouldn’t even be allowed on the store.
WinePad was essentially a UITableView that listed each of your “tasting notes”. You could touch a tasting note to go into a detail screen and edit the data which was categorized in a structured way. The entire app was powered by a C based SQLite3 database that I created for the app. These were pre-Core Data days.
WinePad was so simple that I cover the UIKit components that you need to make WinePad work in the second day of the training programs I facilitate.
How Much Revenue Did WinePad Generate?
Remember that I was hoping to recoup my initial $99 investment. I remember working out how many copies of WinePad I’d have to sell to break even given that I was selling WinePad for $4.99. Honestly, I thought I would just make it back considering how the mobile app marketplaces of the day were doing. In my wildest dreams, I was hoping to re-coup the $600 investment that I put into the new Mac I had to purchase to make WinePad.
How much money do you think WinePad made that first month?
At the time, this seemed life-changing to me. That first financial report from Apple showed me over $12,000 in profit for WinePad! Of course, I was shocked. That was 17 times what I expected to earn.
WinePad covered my Apple Developer program fees, my Mac, my $4,000 trip to the west coast to attend WWDC (to get help from Apple engineers directly) and WinePad would even cover the $4000 I would have to pay my company back for quitting too early after obtaining my master’s degree.
Tasting Notes (or WinePad version 2)
WinePad would soon be joined by BeerPad, WhiskeyPad, CigarPad and more. None of these matched WinePad’s success (which was admittedly partially due to timing). These derivative apps took very little time to produce and the icons were purchased for very cheap (around $5). So, WinePad continued to be successful but I wanted something a little bit more involved and so Tasting Notes was born.
Tasting Notes is still based on SQLite3 and gives users a completely customizable notebook. Users can create their own notebooks, own datatypes and put them in any order or organization that they want.
Tasting Notes represented more a technical accomplishment than WinePad but it’s release 6 months after the app store gold rush put its revenue into more reasonable terms. Here is how much Tasting Notes cost to develop:
Tasting Notes Development Costs
| Design | $600 |
| Marketing | $100 |
| My Time | 3 Months |
Basically, again this app cost me next to nothing but that was only because I didn’t have to hire myself out as a developer.
Here is how much Tasting Notes made in 2010:
Tasting Notes Revenue (2008-2010)
| 12/1/2008 – 3/1/2009 | $4,565 |
| 3/2/2009 – 12/31/2009 | $4,813 |
| First Year Total | $9,378 |
| 2010 | $3,747 |
| Overall Total | $13,125 |
These days Tasting Notes generates about $350 per month ($4,200 per year) in profit.
So I see Tasting Notes as a success, and it’s still generating income today with only small updates every few months (sometimes I wait a year to update). While the app isn’t completely a passive income product, its very close to a passive income stream (more so than anything else I’ve done in my business, including book publishing).
Lessons Learned
While Tasting Notes is a clear success to me, I do feel that I should the success should be qualified a bit.. The investment paid off, even when I count my own developer hours into the equation. Creating a niche app like Tasting Notes will not, by itself, replace the income that you expect as an iOS developer (which can be as high as $200/hour or $150,000 per year).
My advice to new iOS developers is to pick a strategy that you want to pursue. Here are what I think the best bets are in terms of succeeding with mobile. This advice is based on my own experiences with Tasting Notes (and my other niche apps) as well as interviews with other mobile developers.
Great Indy App The idea here is to focus on making the best possible *whatever* app. Start with mobile, but move on to Mac and beyond to “own” the space you are trying to work on. Provide the best customer service and plan on slowing developing an app that will kill it for a long time. Precedents for this exist in indy Mac developer shops like Red Sweater software and apps like Instagram and Instapaper. These types of apps will be priced higher than most iOS apps ($4.99 +) and will include Mac apps where you have more pricing options.
Niche/Ringtone Apps The idea is to make very simple to moderately complex apps that target very niche markets and sell them at discount rates between $1 and $3. You can turn these types of apps around quickly – one person can get apps like these out at a rate of one month at a time. Teams and outsourcing can increase this more. The idea is that you will have some total failures, some moderate successes (like Tasting Notes) and one or two hits. This is a low risk strategy, but you can’t get too attached to a particular app.
App Factory Basically, create a full service (marketing, design and development) app development company. These types of companies are booming right now because everyone is clamoring to get into mobile and people are charging up to $200 per hour for developer time.
Mercenary/Consultant
This is similar to the app factory above, but you rather be a lone wolf. Basically, you market yourself and your skills directly to app factories or to clients directly. Having an app yourself, a blog or a history of successful projects (that you can talk about) will help get you quality work. Consultants keep the entire hourly fee (up to $200 per hour), but you have to be willing to negotiate and settle on contracts.
Bottom Line There is a ton that you can do in mobile right now. Consulting gives you great ways to bootstrap your business if having that great Indy App is what you think you want long term. Or you can just do a little bit of mobile app development on the side to put more money into your house or 401K investments. It’s wide open, what do you think of the opportunities that are out there?