Developer Income Report #5 (Gave up a day job)

http://www.kreci.net/reports/developer-income-report-5/

by kreci • 16 years ago

149 33 16 years ago

kreci.net

kreci4• 16 years ago

As usual comments are welcome and very desired!

T-zex2• 16 years ago

Why can't you have payed apps?

kreci4• 16 years ago

Google policy do not accept developers from Poland (and some other countries) to post paid applications on Android Market. I am allowed to post only free apps...

todosputos• 16 years ago

coz i actually have a life

mgkimsal• 16 years ago

Congrats. Glad this is working out for you and that the income is better than previous pay. I first saw $2k and was a bit disappointed, but didn't realize you were in Poland, and that this was double your earlier money.

Keep up the good work!

Plug: This is the sort of thing we'd like to see more of at the next indieconf! :)

bemmu• 16 years ago

Thanks Kreci, I've been refreshing your site in anticipation of this post =)

ohashi• 16 years ago

Nice to see you doing well. I am curious about the Freelancer income, does that mean you referred yourself and are taking commissions on your own stuff?

kreci4• 16 years ago

Nope. I can commission when someone I have refereed pay commissions to freelancer portal.

axod2• 16 years ago

Nice to see some success with advertising revenue.

It always seems like HN and several other places are heavily skewed towards charging end users directly. But that's only one option open (And IMHO, it's not quite as scalable and fun as advertising income). If you look at what business models 'power' the web, it's still majority earning their revenue through advertising.

Well done :)

nhangen• 16 years ago

Not quite as scalable as premium? I'd argue that premium is far more scalable than free. Open? Maybe not, but scalable for sure.

As for fun, money is money. I'll take it in any form.

axod2• 16 years ago

The number of people who want to pay directly for something is far smaller than the number of people willing to view an advert. With advertising, you get more visitors, you get more revenue. And the number of visitors available is billions.

So with advertising, you can get 10x the traffic, and not need any more resources. It's truly scalable. With a 'paid for' offering, you're more likely to need to scale up customer support, handling charge backs payment issues refunds etc etc.

My comment about 'fun' was more about the overhead and pain required in managing premium payments. Cancelations, mess ups, people wanting refunds, credit card issues, etc. That's not fun (IMHO).

I've always found making money from advertising ridiculously easy compared to trying to charge people.

krakensden• 16 years ago

It's probably worth noting that because he's in Poland, he doesn't have a choice.

alnayyir3• 16 years ago

Thanks for sharing this, it's extremely rare you see people willing to share the nitty-gritty of their efforts in going independent as a programmer.

Cheers and good fortune!

trotsky• 16 years ago

Thanks for a new update kreci - I love your attitude and always look forward to your blog.

One question I have I haven't seen answered. Most would agree that some apps are more ad friendly mediums than others. Since you're targeting ad income and making a variety of applications, are you picking application types or making design choices based on their ad potential? Any thoughts to share along those lines about designing for ad revenue?

iepaul• 16 years ago

Great to see some one successfully generating income from advertising.

ruslan• 16 years ago

Did you pay your taxes already ? I wonder what would be your after-tax income ? Again, $2.5k is still very low even for Eastern Europe.

From my own experience, I strongly recommend NOT to quit your day job. Try to run it at least for a year, then you will make a way better decision.

ido• 16 years ago

    Did you pay your taxes already ? I wonder what 
    would be your after-tax income ? Again, $2.5k 
    is still very low even for Eastern Europe.

I don't know which Eastern Europe you live in - but $2,500 per month (even if he ends up paying 50% taxes on it) is considerably higher than average income in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia or Hungary.

And if we are talking about non-EU member like Ukraine, Russia, Belarus or Moldova $2,500/month puts you firmly into the ranks of the higher class (except maybe in Moscow).

prs• 16 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_per_capita... speaks a different language even if you factor in taxes.

I am always a fan of a safety net but in the case of kreci the upside of continuing his path surely beats dedicating his resources to a full-time day job.

aquarin• 16 years ago

It is not low. My salary as expert in financial institution is waaay below this.

kreci4• 16 years ago

It is my total income. I need to pay taxes from it. But when I get full time job I need to pay similar taxes so it is still over 2x more that I would make on day job.

jasiek• 16 years ago

After-tax would be around $2k (the effective tax rate for the self employed is 19%). You can live very comfortably on this in Poland.

petercooper• 16 years ago

Or even in western Europe. My regular household expenses, mortgage, etc, are around $2k and I live in the UK, have a kid, a mortgage, a gas-guzzling car, give my wife housekeeping each week (she doesn't work), and we are more than comfortable. I could even make some big cuts into that.

tocomment• 16 years ago

What are his android apps? (I didn't notice them listed on his blog but I'm operating from a first generation iPhone so I do miss a lot. )

chc• 16 years ago

He mentioned them in his last income report: http://www.kreci.net/reports/android-developer-income-report...

Developer Income Report #5 (Gave up a day job)

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