Quote:
Originally Posted by raymng
Hi, I saw in another thread that you invested 3,000 to your app, according to the sales number, you should start to make profit in the 2nd month, doesn't it?
Thanks.
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Now while that would be nice, it's unfortunately not quite right and it is straightforward math to explain why.
The 3k investment went towards the designs only. You have to add programming and project management plus the typical overhead costs.
What makes the break-even calculation harder are the Updates. So far we have released one update and plan to release more. Each Update runs between 2 - 4 Manweeks investment (development, design, project management) at this point in time.
As you can see in the other threads, sales are slower at this point in time, might be the season, might be the end of the 1billion race.
So while this is highly flexible, for the sake of the exercise I think you can currently assume something like 5 sales per day for anything not Top 100, 40 sales for a rank 50, 80 sales for a rank 15 and 180 for a rank #5.
Or for a 99c app:
3,50$ per day, 28,-$ per day, 56,-$ per day or 126,-$ per day depending on rank.
So I am unfortunately not the lucky originator of the post who went up all the way to rank 5. Holding that position would indeed bring you 30x126=3780 USD/month. As "Bug Squash", the game this thread is really about, as far as I am concerned was more complex to program than "Baby's Animal Show", it would have to hold that position for quite a while to achieve quick profitability.
Again, Updates making the whole calculation more complex.
Long story short:
- it seems with a high-ranked position and a good cost management you can break even within a few months
- if you are not achieving a rank position, how reliable is the small daily business you still do?
- or: the interesting and still unanswered part is what the tails end looks like
- its HARD to climb up those ranks, so can you count on that?
- business today is harder than a few months ago, so what does that say for the upcoming months
- the methodology for calculating ROI does not really change, classic dry math
The completely unanswered question is if iphone development is a viable business model
hth,
Markus
