msencenb

The UDID is used as a verification process in order to get credit for downloading apps. It's just a slightly different validation system than apperang.com and tapzilla.com

Upvoted. Mike (one of the founders) is a great guy and very helpful. I currently run ninjapost at my startup (details in profile if you want to check ninjapost out).

I wouldn't give up on your current strategy it will probably just take a little time.

Another alternative would be to try some ads on google, facebook, stumbleUpon, etc. If you do this it is probably worth it to keep your budget really low ($5 a day) until you get a feel for the keywords that get you real users for the least amount of money. I believe IMVU did a great job of this in their early days.

Also you probably already know this but be sure to e-mail your existing users. I got an e-mail from a Cloudkick co-founder about 2 days after signing up for the service that added a personal touch and showed that they actually cared about my feedback.

Noticed that this got down voted... do people have good/bad experiences with this?

As mentioned by charliepark I think a reminder e-mail and a very forgiving refund policy seems to be the best way to do things from a customer relations standpoint.

On a business side of things do you have data on what the average retention rate of a customer is? If your average retention rate for monthly customers is >1 year maybe it's not worth it to even have the yearly subscription from a revenue standpoint. That being said if the yearly subscription retention rate is higher you should definitely keep that option available.

Sounds good I'll start digging through these tonight

Would love that opportunity! Would you like just the relevant URLs from your blog or some extra goodies from SEOMoz/beginner's seo links as well?

I think it is fairly true... the world seems to (generally) be resistant to change even if an idea is fantastic/revolutionary.

Full disclosure: I'm the owner of AdsReloaded.com but thought the article was A) Funny and B) provided some insight.

For iPhone developers out there... what have been your most successful/worst marketing campaigns? Would love to hear stories about cpc campaigns, blog posts, social media, or other unique strategies (both for other developers looking for advice and out of curiosity)

A few reasons I think Apple has been on HN more:

-Apple is a very successful company. As this is a board related to startups/business it seems like we can all take a few lessons from them. (I know they are a large corporation... but they also champion a few things that many startups on HN do such as minimalism)

-Apple is starting to increase it's market share. Personally I didn't own a Mac until 2 years ago but in all honesty I enjoy it so I am more prone to read articles about Apple. (Also... is it a sin to be a fanboy of a company? I've always been confused by this mindset EDIT: I don't mean that I am blinded by some "Apple is God" mindset, but I don't see anything wrong with liking a certain companies products whether that's Google, Microsoft, Apple, or something else)

On a side note I think your view of "engineering" is a little narrow. An entire computer system inside a device 9 inches high, 8 inches wide, and half an inch deep seems like a pretty significant engineering feat to me. Why should design and ui be excluded from the category of engineering? Currently I'm a CS major at Stanford with a focus on Human-Computer Interaction which means I work a lot on user interfaces, and I would still consider myself an engineer.

First Question: Initially it would decrease my efforts on the iPhone. But once it's in place, and my summer job is over, I think I will have time to support 2 platforms.

Second question: Yes and No. In particular for Android I don't think the growth path would be different. If I were to expand I would probably expand into facebook right now. The reason being that an umbrella category like facebook will also include a subset of iPhone users. Supporting a big category like facebook apps will indirectly help the other channel as well.

Those are the answers to your questions... and I generally agree with your core answer. I guess my only issue is that one of my biggest advantages as a small company is my ability to be nimble and it seems like I am throwing this advantage away. That being said I'm not sure how much that argument stands up to the argument of "get significant traction in one area before expanding".

Agreed Twilio is probably the place to start/ the most established. I guess my question pertains more to rolling my own sms server/gateway.

Or is that just not worth the hassle at this point?

Pen and Paper

Thanks for this link as well

Thanks... I can't believe I hadn't stumbled across venturehacks yet. What an awesome website!

I agree that app store marketing is very tough, and even with a great marketing strategy it can fall flat on its face.

Generally the strategy is send out promo codes to blogs which can provide an uptick for a few days.

Besides that you should probably try and introduce social features to the app such as facebook/twitter.

Another option is the rising number of pay per install services. My own startup adsreloaded.com (/end shameless plug) is involved in this area, as well as other companies such as apperang, or Flurry's appCircle.

After looking at the docs it doesn't appear to be incredibly hard.

I think the most non-trivial thing would be integrating with the current site sign-on. Issues such as an existing users that decide to sign on with facebook (which is linked to a different e-mail address) could become a problem on the backend.

Here's my advice: Go build something!

It doesn't particularly matter as long as its appropriate for your skill level (but still challenging)

Example: After taking my second ever programming course I decided I wanted to make an iPhone app. So I picked up two books, made a storyboard, a paper prototype, and then went for it. It was a cookie cutter "inspirational quotes" app but I learned a lot and I was proud of it!

On Point 2 (I think this killed it):

I literally stopped by three brick and mortar T-Mobile stores back in May (my family's contract with Sprint was ending) to simply try a Nexus One out and not a single store had one anywhere in site. There were no promotional banners, there were no phones on display, and even when I asked the employees I got one response of "We don't have any in stock" and one response of "We don't show that phone".

All in all a terrible experience, and when confronted with 3 other family members who aren't very tech savvy, a phone they couldn't hold in their hand turned out to be an impossible sell.

Really? Was it your only login option or in addition to your usual? Also how much traffic were you seeing (aka was it statistically sound?)?

Palo Alto, CA

AdsReloaded.com LLC

Looking for a non-technical employee (possibly co-founder) with experience in sales, marketing, social media, and promotions.

I posted a thread called "How to get the first 10 users" a while back that might provide some help.

http://www.feedmyapp.com provided me with a solid number of signups and would definitely recommend it if you want users rather than a blog post

I believe there is an app called "Candy Wars" that is essentially a remake of dope wars... but without all the drug references so it would actually pass the approval process.

I can't speak for everyone but the reasoning behind my choice of php is 3 fold 1) Ease of set-up 2) I'm simply more comfortable with php 3) Better online resources / documentation

In the end it came down to picking a language I was comfortable in and could start moving forward the fastest with.

I'll throw in my own startup here as well:

www.adsreloaded.com - It's an alternative iPhone advertising platform.

I'm a 21 year old student founder, and am always open to answering any questions you might have, just let me know.

Wave your magic wand and get featured by apple ;)

For "free" marketing techniques : -Add your app to your forum signatures wherever you post most often -Twitter giveaways -Tell your friends and family -Submit to review sites/ blogs (In my experience you might try small blogs first unless you have connections at a major blog or think your app is mind blowing)

For paid techniques: -iAds (I haven't seen conversion numbers yet) -Admob/Adwords/etc (No one that I know has had success with this) -Pay per install

Disclaimer: I own and am just launching a pay per install company called adsreloaded.com (there was another thread about this launch in which people seemed skeptical on the idea, but I also received interested from a few developers). If you are interested I have a special offer in which the 25% cut I usually take is added to your campaign instead. If you aren't interested I hope some suggestions of mine do help :)

Thanks everyone for all of the pushback on my idea so far it has been a very constructive day for me as I continue to iterate on my product. (Thanks HN :) )

I am a little confused on one point though and am hoping that some iPhone developers can give first hand accounts. What kind of returns are you guys receiving on adMob/Quattro/whatever ads? The iPhone developers I have spoken too have had dismal returns (<10 downloads for a 50 dollar campaign) and this was one of the problems I was hoping to help solve with adsReloaded.

Do any of you mind sharing your campaign numbers?

It might be true that any app worth its salt simply doesn't need this service and if that's the case then the service won't succeed its as simple as that.

I think one of my underlying assumptions is that people are willing to pay to get out of the deluge of apps that are currently in the store. As an indie developer without a big company behind you its often very easy to get lost in everything. If the problem truly is that the app "got lost" then a service such as this could put it in the hands of people who will recommend it etc. That being said this is a fairly weak argument since an app that is good probably wouldn't have gotten lost in the first place.

Only time will tell I suppose

I didn't say that... I did relatively well (8k total for a small quotes app) I merely stated that I always had trouble getting blog writeups.

I understand that this doesn't seem like a great deal, my question to you is how much money are people using a service such as admob losing in order to acquire users (Are you able to acquire 20 new users for 11.75 for an app priced at 0.99?)? I have seem some pretty terrible conversion rates (although feel free to point me in another direction if you feel this assumption is misguided).

Yes there is a certain level of trust as well.. but hopefully the site will grow and this trust will be established. I'm not out here to make a quick buck by swindling developers.

Excellent explanation and I see the logic behind your decision; however, I don't think its all-encompassing for every iPhone developer:

1) I personally never had any success reaching out to bloggers. Maybe it was because my apps weren't innovative enough or I didn't have the right connections but I always felt that the time I wasted reaching out to bloggers could have been better spent elsewhere. If you are successful reaching out to bloggers then more power to you!

2) While I agree that this gives you more control and in fact might be very good for user testing... some people simply don't enjoy this type of tactic or have the time. Some people would rather spend time answering support e-mails and developing new apps and products, its just kind of their style. This is where my product comes in.

Also the testimonial idea I think is worth pursuing and I will be looking for a perfect subject tonight. :)