Show HN: 18 months ago I quit my job and made a meme maker

by par • 6 years ago

24 12 6 years ago

par5• 6 years ago

Programmer here, i built this app in my spare time, then went full time on it in Sept 2018 after quitting my full time job. Been doing a little contracting on the side but this app has grown quite nicely and now has more than a thousand subscribers. Doing mid 4 figure monthly revenue, which is more than I ever expected from an app of mine.

dougbarrett• 6 years ago

Very cool! How did you find your initial user base? Was it through attribution on the images being shared, or did you do any advertising?

par5• 6 years ago

In the beginning, and still to this day, I do a good amount of paid advertising. I did a lot of facebook and instagram ads, but over time learned they don't convert that well. Now I mostly focus on app store ads. Google ads performed the worst. I also try to do SEO, blog posts, etc. On a good day, about 20% of my inbound will be from web.

dkarras• 6 years ago

Thanks for sharing your figures. What is your most lucrative revenue source for you? Subscriptions or one offs?

And Google store just shows 5000+ installs, I thought you'd have a lot more. Is the Android version new perhaps?

par5• 6 years ago

The Android version is developed by a friend of mine who has a full time job, and is really lacking all the features, marketing, etc of the iPhone version. Quite unfortunate.

Most lucrative revenue is subscriptions by far. I ran one time purchases for a long time. First it was a single one time fee to unlock each feature (there were three.) Then a single one time fee to unlock all features. Then subscriptions. I hate to say but I wish I went to subs a lot sooner.

jitendrac• 6 years ago

Thanks for sharing, Subscription based app is good for long run revenue. can you share the percentages of user and revenue in each platform android and ios?

marianicolae• 6 years ago

Haha, nice one! BTW, nice blog too. Loved this post: https://metameme.app/15-funny-gym-memes/

nukst• 6 years ago

Out of curiosity, at the risk of sounding off-topic and irrelevant... but are you an Emacs user?

par5• 6 years ago

No, i mostly use VS Code, or Xcode.

davidajackson2• 6 years ago

How are the unit economics of using Apple Search ads for you? I've run some paid ads with projects but am wondering how you're approaching it in terms of ROI. I also have found that Apple Search Ads are better for apps because they also boost search rank in the App Store.

par5• 6 years ago

While some people might scoff at this, I'll be honest and say I don't know the exact unit economics off the top of my head, but my cost per install hovers around 30-50 cents. The way I do it is whatever money I made the previous month, I set my ad budget to a little more than half of that amount. I always tell myself I'm going to boost it more, but I don't login to the ads manager too frequently to be honest.

davidajackson2• 6 years ago

That CPI seems low for the App Store, which is awesome for you. Did you do any Apple Search optimization or just took the suggested keywords in Basic Search Ads? I ask because I'm running some basic Search Ads with my own voice app right now.

Show HN: 18 months ago I quit my job and made a meme maker

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