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Comment by jdwhit2 | Hacker News Reader

..I came up with a farm that has certain animals on it. Tapping an amimal would make it wiggle its head and make a noise. [..] All my apps are available for free on the android market featuring ads

Is it strange to have ad supported games for toddlers? What possible benefit could a company get on a click-though from a toddler?

I really enjoyed reading through your reflections, it is always fascinating to see how success comes from the most unlikely angles :)

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Benifit from clicks on a game like this? My guess is none. They don't know it happens because the ads are not being targeted, or if they are, they're targeted at the parents who own the device and browse the web using it etc.

The kids will give a very high accidental click rate, but need to call mommy to hit the back button/close safari, which is enough time for the click to register as legitimate and not accidental.

So yeah, pretty spammy, but money is money.

I already tried to place the ads in a way that minimized accidental clicks. But you can never prevent it. People even email me if I can refund an iOS purchase because their kid "accidently unlocked" the full version via in-app purchase (even though I warned about that circumstance in the app description AND iDevices have a feature to disable in-app-purchases for exactly that reason).

I designed the apps with the idea in mind that kids should never play those games completely alone. But that leads to a discussion about education in general which is much to big to start here.

The main reason for my apps is not that the parents get some peace during the day (even though a lot of people use it exactly for that) but that kids learn together with their parents, like they always should do. An iDevice / Smartphone is not a toy for toddlers with which you can leave them alone. But this stuff is way beyond my control.

Question: What if you had not stumbled upon the idea to build the toddler games? Would you have soldiered on on a low income or packed up and returned to corporate life? and after how long?

Due to the fact that my first son was born in december 2011 (and that I knew that this would happen:)) I would have tried to prototype and release stuff to "stumble upon anything succesfull" until the money from my grant was used up (march 2012). Then I would have tried to survive as long as possible with my savings, and then, when I would not see any light at the end of the tunnel, would have returned to a day job in order to support my family.

If I would have to take care only of myself, I would have tried to continue even with a minimum income.

Can I ask how much the grant was? (Didn't see the amount mentioned in the article) and did the grant come with specific terms or was it just "here's some free cash, go have some fun :)"?

I always wondered why Angry Birds puts ads in the top-right of the screen instead of the unused space at the bottom. Then I realised that they make money when I accidentally click the ad when I actually mean to explode the bomb bird...

I wonder what conversion rates are on mobile ads, seems it's so much easier to "accidentally" click on them.

My takeaway from this is that finding untapped niches is the key :) (also, you are not your customers - if you enjoy 8-bit blocky games, you'll only sell them to other people like you).

I suspect there are vast, nice niches being underserved.

I am reminded of Patio's advice and this:

http://www.kaisdavis.com/blog/you-are-in-the-emotion-busines...

"I think the underserved market is pretty much non-geeks."

My kid has a number of free ad supported apps on my iPad and they drive him mad because if he ever accidentally clicks them, they fire him out of the app.

He has no interest in the stupid adult things they promote and always just goes back to the app to keep playing. I wish they would either limit the apps or make them paid for - kids apps are not a suitable place for ads.

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