Monday, February 2, 2015

How I Went From $1,000 to $200,000 With Apps


"Speed provides the one geniunely modern pleasure." – Aldous Huxley

Consider this a victory post and how I would advise my family if they wanted to get into apps.  I can't promise you'll be able to replicate what I've done, but I wanted to share my story in case you're able to figure out a way to apply it to your business.  Abundance is better than scarcity, so here goes…

Apptopia sale

In case you didn't hear, I sold my app portfolio. Woo!

Now that the champagne hangover has passed, I wanted to address a question a lot of people asked me.

"Carter, if you started over, what would you do RIGHT NOW? How would you approach the app market?"

I think this is a really good question to ask because it forces me to address the age old "if I knew then what I know now" type of thinking. Even more than that, the market is so different now than it was in October 2011 that there is a lot that I would do now that is completely different. What's hard at this point is that there is a sense of urgency mixed with a million different options about how to move forward with apps. It's overwhelming. I totally feel you on all counts.

In a lot of ways, I am starting over myself. I'm launching new apps with new models. But it's different – I have money to play with now, I'm not beholden to a job or other responsibilities. I'm 29 and don't have to think about a lot that many of you do, which allows me to roll the dice a bit more. So this post is for everyone out there trying to make the TRANSITION that the internet and internet marketing have promised for years. That life of passive income and excitement that grows to a point that can be your full time gig.

Let's be honest, this post is about how to make money as fast as possible using apps.

Here's what I would do.

Step 1: Buy Low, Re-Skin, Repeat. Only Make Games.

reskinning
image-2573

Call it app flipping, re-skinning, or just good business, the best way to enter the market is to hit the ground running.

In other words, leverage the work that someone else has done by licensing or purchasing source code. My drug of choice is Apptopia because you can get an app in the store immediately before having to re-skin. If you go to another source code marketplace, you have to re-skin the game before you can launch. It just adds time to your bottom line, although sometimes you can get powerful engines for cheap. Also, if you can get a universal (iPhone & iPad in one) you'll have a big boost in revenue.

Typically you want to get a code engine that is "endless" or has an enormous number of levels. There are a few reasons for this:

  • More opportunities to advertise
  • More opportunities to advertise
  • More opportunities to advertise
  • Sell some In app purchases
  • Make the user happy-ish
  • Re-skin multiple versions a LOT more easily
  • More opportunities to advertise

I'll get to this in a minute, but the golden rule is that you want to be re-skinning GRAPHICS and not re-skinning CONTENT. That's a huge difference.

Once you have this re-skinnable engine in your hands, move to Step 2.

NOTE: DO NOT try to build something from scratch. I say again – this is not about pride or being a revolutionary. This is not about your idea being great. This is about making money. 

Step 2: Monetizing in 33 Days

So you have an endless runner engine ready to send to your designer and/or developer. Awesome.

Now you need to strategically place advertisements to maximize your game's value. This is not pretty, but it makes money.

Without fail, the best place to place advertisements is at the beginning of the game. Use full screens and don't be afraid to layer them. I use RevMob and Chartboost for iOS and launch them at the same time. It's very aggressive, but it makes money.

userexperience

The next is to place both these fullscreens on the Game Over action. The user jumps off a cliff and dies…BOOM you serve up both Revmob and CB. Same with when they hit the pause screen and exit back to the main menu. If they're trying to leave the game, try to get them to leave in a way that makes you money.  These ad networks hinge on selling installations of other games so you need to get users to click on the ads, go to the app store, then install the displayed game.

Within this framework, you should also be using banner ads. The revenue won't be nearly as good, but it's something. I use iAds and MoPub. I hear OpenX is pretty good too. The trick is display as many ads as possible. Banner ads typically refresh on a 40-60 second interval, so you need to keep a user playing for about that long OR find ways to increase the number of times banners are served up.

Example would be: User opens game, sees RM/CB ads, picks level, starts playing, banner is displayed while they are playing. Play for 30-40 seconds, then end level or die which leads to Game Over screen. RM/CB fire off and while the the user closing those ads, you're serving a NEW banner impression behind it all. That creates a secondary impression for the core user flow. This doesn't work quite as well for CPC (cost per click) campaigns, but helps a lot of CPM (cost per impression) campaigns.

HOT GANGSTER TIP: On the game over screen, make the level score tick up from zero to whatever score they achieved. That way the user has to wait for 4-5 seconds while the scoreboard gets to their score…while they stare at the banner ad. Not only does this give the servers enough time to download the ad and increase your fill rate, it will increase your click rates A LOT. I did this on some of my runner games and it crushed it.

When it comes to IAP (in app purchase), you're not going to make nearly as much money on these type of games. Even if you put tons of cool stuff in your store, the IAP will be a joke compared to what you make on advertising.

The best thing to do is offer some ridiculously high, very clever options for the few people that are die hard lovers of your game (maybe 1% of users). Adding things like "Unstoppable Kid Mode!" where it's impossible to die for $29.99 type of stuff. Remove ads for $0.99 is not going to help you retire. Sorry.

The reason for this is economics – the top 1% should pay for everyone else's marginal cheapness. People who love the game should pay for everyone else who doesn't have the money or find the value to spend the money. NOTE: that is not a political reference so please don't go there. 

What's the 33 day reference?

30days

33 days is my window for making a 100% return. If I spend $600 on a re-skin, I give it 33 days to make $1,200. I'll watch it and update it and do whatever, but after 33 days, I forget about it. Everyone's got their own number, but after the first month, these low quality games really aren't worth your time relative to the value you get from focusing on the next game.

That bring us to….

Step 3: Choosing Your Theme

This is something I talked about in my App Empire talk. The one difference that I had early on was that I chose themes that weren't "hot" themes – I chose themes that would provide qualified traffic for advertisers. Revmob's top advertisers last summer werePocket Gems and TinyCo, so I made animal style games that crushed eCPM.

When you choose your theme now, you have a few options:

  • Find the top advertisers on the networks you're using and cater to them (casino, mafia, fantasy, young women, etc)
  • Capitalize on popular trends (I've seen plenty of examples of this being an AWESOME strategy for fast ROI)
  • Capitalize on hot apps (If Temple Run 2 is coming out, might want to make a game similar….)
  • Capitalize on flashy design (No matter how crowded, if you have a sick racing icon and screen shots, it will crush it for a week or two)

Bottom line is that you should choose your theme based on where the money is and where the volume is. When you can match those two together, it's party time.

Step 4: Publishing

publishing

The #1 thing I tell people to do when they ask where to start is to get awesome at publishing. Publishing is the process of going from having an Xcode project sent to you and then having a live app in the store. What it includes:

  • Title
  • Screenshots
  • Description
  • Keywords
  • Provisioning Profiles and Archive uploading
  • In-app purchase setup
  • Game Center setup
  • All ad network setup

You'll find that with the re-skinning model that this is almost always the bottleneck. The better you get at doing this, the more money you'll make. Developers and designers, especially when they are using the same code over and over, can pump out projects for you. Then you have to move them to the store. Over and over. And over. Ugh.

Step 5: Repeat

Do this again. Do it often. Start slow and do it right, then ramp up once you can publish apps like it's a part of your body. Everyone I know who's making $50-100K a month has gone through this exercise so many times it makes their head hurt. They are total masters at this 5 step process. They have a lot of it outsourced, but only after understanding the mechanics first hand dozens and dozens of times.

Step 6: Go Get Started!

The obvious next question is that you have to get the source code to start with! Duh. If you've been watching the charts lately, you see that there's a very clear starting point. Some of these people build their own apps, but most are buying source code somewhere.

There are a lot of marketplaces out there but I think they can be overwhelming and also FULL of garbage. It's hard to know what's good and what's not. That's why I am selling codes on my own site. I'm just getting started but also only put up stuff that's top quality and easily ROI positive.

Check out the source code area here. 

Kick Some Ass

And that's it. These efforts will start compounding and you'll find yourself making more and more money. It's SUPER intense for a while and really doesn't get less intense, but it's how you make money with apps when you start with a few thousand dollars (not even!).

Hope that helps you guys. Everyone I know who's done this makes more money every month than they did the month prior. That's all that matters. Every month has to be more than the last. Do that and you will make a lot of money :)

Good luck! Keep rocking! Get the champagne ready!

Click here if you want more information on how to do this yourself »

Carter

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Thursday, January 29, 2015

Expert Academy - Brendan Burchard













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Wednesday, January 28, 2015

THE MAN IN THE ARENA

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. 
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Abundance 360 2015 in Images
























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What are the best online resources (blogs, podcasts, articles, etc.) on startups and entrepreneurship?

4 Best Blogs: [up to date, as of April 2014]

[Update wWarning: Everything below is unfortunately very out of date, like 2012]
Articles: 

Quora posts:

Lists:
These contain some overlap with this list, but a lot of great additional stuff.

And Finally...

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From the perspective of a CEO, what are the most underrated skills most employees lack?

Two skills are incredibly rare: (1) Doing what you say you will do (be reliable); (2) Keeping track of yourself

Doing what you tell people you will do
If you can teach your kids a useful skill that will always help them with their career: teach them to be reliable -- to do what they say they will do.  (It is harder than it sounds.)

If you consistently do what you say you will do, you will almost certainly be someone people desire to have on their teams.  It is so rare that when you work with someone who is reliable, you never ever want to work with anyone else.  You will do anything to keep that person on your team.

Doing what you say you are going to do starts with setting the right expectations.  If you tell someone you will get them the deliverable by Tuesday, you need to understand that it can actually be delivered by Tuesday.  If you are good, you are probably factoring in slack in case someone in corporate slows you down or your child gets sick.  

And so if your boss wants something done Monday and you think it cannot be done until Wednesday, you need to be up-front.  Because once a date is agreed to, you're on the hook for accomplishing it.

On the less-skilled end of the job spectrum, many people cannot commit to showing up to work consistently and on time.  There are many external factors in their life that make even these commitments hard to achieve.  

So do everything you can to be reliable -- because there are very few people that one can rely on.

Keep track of yourself
The corollary to being reliable is to make sure you manage yourself.   

If you can manage all your tasks and deliverables without reminders, you will be treated like the golden child.  

If your boss or colleagues never need to remind you about a project, deliverable, an answer to an email, etc., they will be able to take a load off their mind and be allowed to focus on other areas.  And they will appreciate not having to have the uncomfortable conversation with you ("where is that item that was due yesterday?").

This takes a lot of hard work and organization, but most people can do it.   You don't need a PhD (or even a college degree) to be on top of everything.  You just need to be organized and prioritize its importance.  Of course, while most people CAN do this, most people DON'T do this -- so doing it will be a huge differentiator for you.

The underrated skills
If all you do is be reliable and keep track of yourself, you will be indispensable to any company.

From a start-up CEO perspective, the #1 skill you should develop is ownership.

Most employees just can't be owners.  This may not matter at Adobe, or Google, or wherever.

But up until you have 500 employees or so, the CEO is looking for owners.  People that don't just play a role, but truly own something, that make 100% sure it comes in ahead of time and ahead of expectations -- with as little drama as possible.

Ship your feature ahead of time, and make it delightfully better than expected.  Better yet, ship a feature everyone else said was too hard to build, that couldn't be done.  Hit your sales plan well ahead of time, while still making time to help others and show them how to do it as well.  Hit your lead commit ahead of time.  Don't just balance the books, but exceed the collections goal, every month.  Whatever it is.

This isn't the same as "taking the initiative", it's a superset of that.  It's delivering.  And it's very, very easy to do in a start-up actually.  Vs. almost impossible in a BigCo.  Just overdeliver on everything you're given to do.  And not just your part -- the whole project you are working on.  See where others are falling behind, and help them.  Folks around you will naturally gravitate toward that.  You'll become a natural leader, over time.

That is the greatest gift to a start-up CEO any employee, at any level, can provide.

And one way or another, over time, your career will skyrocket.
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What methods can I use to avoid getting so tired when I do the same amount of a work as my peers who do not get so tired?

I used to be chronically tired. I am not anymore. This was a result of 3-4 years of effort. Here is what worked:

Experiment with your diet: I would try some forms of diet for a month and then make a conclusion. Also observe how you react to certain foods - I found out that simple and refined carbs (bread, pasta, sugars etc.) make me more tired while eating protein and fat rich foods doesn't. A diet that works for me the best is paleo, I don't believe in the reasoning behind it, I just find it a good fit (we all have different metabolism, there is no one diet for all)

It turns out that quality fat is the best source of energy for me. It's steadier and long term (and much healthier - fatty acids, minerals, vitamins), unlike some empty carb meals.

Eliminate coffee: I got some withdrawal effect for first 5 days (headache, energy decrease) and then I started to feel the same but my sleep improved.

Start napping: Instead of coffee I take 15 min nap when I'm tired. It feels like a serious reboot - and it is.

Sleep: Try this app: Sleep Cycle alarm clock period. 

Exercise: This is nothing new, but you may want to implement this method: 3 Steps to New Habits to start regular exercise. Basically I was capable of doing 150 pushups but I started to do 10 every morning to make it a routine, rather than force a massive workout right when you wake up. Today I lift, run, box. Workout is as normal as brushing my teeth.

Your natural biorhythm: I tracked my energy, focus and mood on the scale of 1-3 every hour for almost a month. EDIT: I have graded my level of energy, focus and mood by a grade on a scale of 1-3, 1 being the lowest and 3 the highest. E.g when I found it easy to focus or high energy I would grade it 3:



I was surprised to see the numbers added up pretty well:

Thats what I got when I put the numbers in chart. EDIT: I don't eat regularly as my schedule is not fixed so the drops are likely unaffected by lunch/dinner etc.


Things I believe helped:

Meditation: I have meditated for quite a while, I felt I burned a lot of energy on fantasising or being angry or simply thinking too much about irrelevant stuff (after all your brain uses 30% of your energy). Once I learned to observe what's going on in my head I gained ability to stop it.

Cold showers: Better than coffee. I have been doing this for 6 years now, daily. I have not been sick (not even cold) for the entire time. I felt I might be getting cold or flu couple times after running in cold weather/rain but each time it took 1 hour sleep and paracetamol - might be a co-incidence or combination of more things (exercise, diet etc.). Cold showers are very energising, plus if you don't get sick you save a lot of energy.

Zinc: I felt that when I am supplementing Zinc I sleep less and get more out of it. I have no data, just personal feeling but there are some studies that estimate over 70% of men in western world are deficient in zinc (signs include lethargy and tiredness). A study form 2011* also found athletes supplementing zinc had higher testosterone levels than placebo (= more strength, energy, better sleep). Too much zinc can be toxic. EDIT: Also watch your copper when supplementing zinc to avoid deficiency.

Minimize alcohol, porn, masturbation: Let's not beat around the bush, internet statistics show that well over 70% of men watch porn on regular basis - our brains react to it in some serious way as we're designed to react to sex. If you're a normal guy the chances are you jerk-off and watch porn. I believe overindulgence in any of the above results in low energy. 
I find real sex energising so I don't do the other stuff and get more of it, or if I get none at all I go to gym instead. There is an ongoing 30 day challenge started by Tim Ferris The 30-Day Challenge: No Booze, No Masturbating (NOBNOM) try it and experience for yourself.

Eliminate mindless browsing: I cut down on using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Feedly and Quora. I now get focused information and don't mindlessly browse questions or newsfeed I don't really care about. Instead I listen to tech/business podcasts while running. My theory is that the way these sites are designed is to lure you into compulsive habit of endless trigger-reward loop that's difficult to stop (infinite scroll, notifications etc.) and it screws with your brain chemistry. There are apps like K9, openDNS, self-control etc. to help you set restrictions.

Like I said this was a result of 3-4 years, I have built these habits slowly one step at a time. I tried much more than the above but most experiments failed. Above is what gave me some measurable or tangible results.

All of this may appear a bit overwhelming to some people but as a result of extra time and energy I managed to increase my productivity, income, learned new things (programming, Spanish), started side projects e.g. Botto Shoes - Coming Soon!, traveled and got in a great shape - so there is some serious ROI. 

There are still challenges. One last thing to add, that helped a lot was seeing this as a long-term, never ending effort rather than a one-off hack. It improved my focus and helped to eliminate a feeling of failure that you get with one-off efforts.

Hope that helps.


*Chang, C., Choi, J., Kim, H., Park, S. Correlation Between Serum Testosterone Level and Concentrations of Copper and Zinc in Hair Tissue. Biological Trace Element Research. 14 June 2011.
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