Just release first app to market! + tips

kanaida

Active Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
I just wanted to give you guys a little heads up as to what exactly to consider and is required to get going on the market.

Here is the app I built with B4A and published a few weeks ago (It's doing excellent by the way :) already around 150th place in top paid apps)

LG Esteem Optimizer

To join the market you need:
a) $25 one time fee to join the market
b) You don't need to register a business, just declare the extra income tax
c) Taxes aren't handled by google, and laws vary from state to state. Here in florida I don't have to charge tax for example (from what i've read)
d) You will most likely need a web site if you want to use google checkout ( I had to create one in like 15 mins as I was filling out the forms lol)
e) Stats on the developer console don't really update frequently. Everything is in PST Timezone so it's hard to figure stuff out sometimes as far as when things were purchased.

Tips on getting off to a good start:
a) Debug your app to the point where you can't find any bugs before release to avoid bad ratings because of crashes
b) Update frequently if you can, people get a little warm fuzzy feeling inside when you update stuff.
c) Ads piss people off and don't make you real money. I've seen people posting their experiences and say something like 30,000 ad impressions got them like 5 cents. In one day I made more than they made in a month, and I didn't get anyone annoyed with ads.
e) If you want to give something away, make it free without ads. Let's get rid of this bad trend.
f) Start a forum thread somewhere where you can answer customer's questions. That way if they email you, you can point them in that direction and all answers are shared. This means less work.
g) Try to respond to people as soon as you can, sometimes to ask you unrelated questions but try to help them anyways. they find this to show quality and a respect for someone who just gave you money. Many developers neglect this, and sometimes even if your app is not perfect they still appreciate that you answered them quickly and will give you good ratings.

In my first 2 weeks i've made close to $500 thanks to b4a, and replying to customers almost instantly, and adding a few updates. :sign0060: I only targeted a single model of a phone. I can only imagine how well it will do when I target every phone. I'd like to thank the B4A Team for the great IDE, honestly I thought I would sell 5 in like a month lol.
 

vb1992

Well-Known Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
How did you promote the APP?
Or did you just upload it to the MARKET and people found it in search?

I have a feeling you did some promotion on facebook/twitter/craigslist
to announce it?

thanks
 
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kanaida

Active Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
I mostly answered people's problems on different forums pointing to one thread where I answered questions. It spread more thru word of mouth because I helped people out one on one. If you look in my comments people actually mention me by name instead of "dev"

I'm up to about 350ish installs now. average is between 7-22 purchases per day. Since google takes 30% + 30 cents per transaction, charging 2.99 leaves me with about $2 profit per sale. I'm guessing not many people take that part into account when setting a sale price because a few cents really goes a long way.
 
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