AppFund

http://appfund.com/

by mikek • 16 years ago

42 24 16 years ago

appfund.com

tjoozeylabs• 16 years ago

Looking for developer? Visit my portfolio @ tjoozey.com

jasonlbaptiste2• 16 years ago

everyone goes apeshit crazy for iphone devs and one guy offers up his portfolio and we downvote it?

csomar• 16 years ago

okay I think it's not the right place and the right moment. Why not create a new thread for iphone developers seeking for work and iphone apps managers seeking for developers?

maxklein3• 16 years ago

That's pretty cool. There are some good ideas that can be implemented for the iPad, and if several iPhone devs could get together and apply together, I think this would be quite an opportunity.

z80002• 16 years ago

I am skeptical because none of the areas that they are concerned with seem like they will lead to innovation. Do we need another Yelp app? It seems like that's the type of thing they would (of course) love to fund (and make money off of).

maxklein3• 16 years ago

If you take an old idea an adapt it to a new device with new possibilities (GPS, compass), then it's possible to innovate.

howcool• 16 years ago

make an app that runs Windows 7

dylanz• 16 years ago

Someone needs to start an Education suite of tools for the IPad. I would love to pass my kids an IPad and let them go at it.

jasonlbaptiste2• 16 years ago

can you give me an idea of some tools? im pretty passionate about this space.

csmeder• 16 years ago

online tutoring

- talk to a math tutor as they draw the answer on your tablet

- its like etherpad but with drawing

patio11• 16 years ago

I think selling to parents for use in educating children is not the best idea in the world. They're generally looking for edutainment, which means you can #import all the reasons why game development sucks for a small developer (huge asset budget, quick content rot, lack of a good search marketing hook) and then add "And by the way, they will not under any circumstances pay more than $20 for this."

However, there is a lot of opportunity in selling "boring" applications directly to teachers. In particular, I'd suggest addressing pain points like "Prep takes too much time." One idea I keep coming back to is "Keeping parents in the loop takes too much time" but I don't know if I'm in a good position to execute on that. I think it could potentially be a hit if done well, though.

Also, homeschool folks need a whole range of curricular/admin support services and the portion of them which actually spend money have a much, much better sales cycle than school districts would want for equivalent services.

dkasper• 16 years ago

I guess I can understand why they don't want to fund games, but, correct me if I'm wrong, aren't they the largest grossing category in the app store?

maxklein3• 16 years ago

Games are very competitive, appeal to only a a specific demographic, and most of the time do not have in-built virality. I don't think games are a good money maker if you're not already established there.

kevingadd• 16 years ago

have you ever heard of FarmVille or the Nintendo Wii? They're obvious counter-examples (among many others).

phil• 16 years ago

I would guess that while games are very high grossing, gaming is pretty well understood and is unlikely to be a breakout new category of application on the iPad. For games, it's just going to be another handheld platform, maybe incrementally better than the iPhone or Nintendo DS or PSP, but not fundamentally different.

On the other hand, other types of software are almost completely unexplored on the iPad, and might open up new markets. If I were investing, that's what I would be interested in.

matthewer2• 16 years ago

Does this feel sketchy to anyone else? This is supposed to be a multi-million dollar fund, but their website looks like that? It feels pretty unprofessional.

aaronblohowiak• 16 years ago

Not if you check out who is involved: http://appfund.com/who.html

Financial sites aren't consumer sites. You wouldn't call berkshire-hathaway sketchy, would you?

matthewer2• 16 years ago

Berkshire-hathaway's core competency is not digital or web-based. This is not a financial site. It is a site designed to entice entrepreneurs (its version of consumers.) Berkshire-hathaway is 44 years old and a fortune 500 company. Appfund is brand new and needs to build its brand/trust.

CytokineStorm• 16 years ago

I agree. You would think that they would realize how important a well-designed and attractive website would be to their target audience.

gyardley• 16 years ago

I would be rather upset if I built a successful application, it started bringing in substantial cash, and I couldn't put that in my pocket because I'd taken some money from outside investors, who now expected me to use that cash to scale up the application to something 'venture-capital-sized'.

Applicants to this sort of thing (assuming it works like a normal investment) should be fully aware of what they're getting themselves into - this sounds great for those you want to go big or go home, not so great for everybody else.

prbuckley• 16 years ago

I would love to know what the terms on this look like. There is no mention of how much equity they want for their investment.

AppFund

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