From Miserable Launch to Decent Success in 3 Months, Thanks to Hacker News

http://www.stangeek.com/from-miserable-launch-to-decent-success-in-3

by stangeek • 14 years ago

120 40 14 years ago

revorad2• 14 years ago

Congrats! Is there a premium version you can charge for?

stangeek14• 14 years ago

Thanks! No premium version is planned. We have another little idea to monetize, but need a bit more traction first... ;)

davidw2• 14 years ago

If I may be a bit provocative: why spend all that energy and time if you're not sure you can make money with it?

revorad2• 14 years ago

"Draw Something" is one of the highest grossing apps on the UK appstore right now. They have a free and paid version. You could take some clues from them.

The great thing about getting money is that you can buy traction with it.

tbassetto• 14 years ago

Congrats! Some feedback concerning the UI: * The speech bubble contrast should be higher. * The "tick" and "close" rounded buttons are aliased?! The icons are too sharp. * The button to start a chat and the title "illico" do not seem to be aligned. * Somehow, the title "illico" alone is not strictly centered :/

PS: how to write a decent-looking list on Hacker News comments? :/

stangeek14• 14 years ago

Thank you, this will go into our next iteration :)

mseebach• 14 years ago

You reference good feedback from HN last time around, but there's no link to the discussion.

zyfo• 14 years ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3517863 probably.

redguava• 14 years ago

This is what your website looks like to me http://cl.ly/3B0V2u0x3g3M3d0l242N

(It's down)

Might need to get that fixed to take advantage of current Hacker News traffic.

o1iver• 14 years ago

`iPhone only?': `No'

What else is there? You only have an App Store link on the site.

stangeek14• 14 years ago

What we mean by this is that recipients do not need to have an iPhone (or even the app) to be able to participate.

guptaneil• 14 years ago

How is that different than iMessage, which also seamlessly falls back to SMS for anybody that doesn't have iMessage support?

kranner2• 14 years ago

Congratulations!

You only seem to have 9 ratings in the App Store globally (7 in the French Store, 2 in US) so far for 57523 downloads as you say. I used the iTunes Search API to obtain this info for your app id (I'm contemplating a move from iOS programmer-for-hire to full-time indie and this Python script is part of my market research).

That suggests only about 1 in 6391 users bother to give you a rating on the App Store, which is very low from what I hear: the usual figure quoted is 1 in 100 to 1 in 1500 for free apps. If this is right, it might be worthwhile to ask users in-app to give you a rating on the App Store if they like the app.

stangeek14• 14 years ago

Yes, on the next update we will add a rating widget to encourage feedback. What is the usual approach to this? Shall we wait for the user to have used our app 5 times, 10 times, 20 times...? Any ideas are welcome.

kranner2• 14 years ago

About 3 times seems reasonable to me. All the best!

DanHulton• 14 years ago

Make sure to time your widget popup carefully. You don't want it to trigger after - say, a failed connection. Instead, perhaps try to figure out when the "end" of a conversation is maybe, and trigger it after 3-5 of those? You're far more likely to get better votes if you don't ask people immediately after they experience internet latency or the like.

robryan• 14 years ago

Just a nitpick on you comparison table, iMessage can do group chat and shows when someone is typing.

stangeek14• 14 years ago

With iMessage, you can't do group chat with non-iPhone users, can you?

tg3• 14 years ago

You can, but you lose the ability to see when the other person is typing when they don't have an iPhone.

mootothemax• 14 years ago

Awesome, very well done! I'd consider reworking a couple of your comparison table headings, maybe something like this:

"iPhone only" -> "Supports all smartphones"

"Participants need the app?" -> "Participate without [installing / the app]"

"Max participants" -> "Unlimited Participants"

This purely subjective on my part, simple because I think it's easier to read a list of "YES" answers, and compare against the competitors's "NO" answers :-)

stangeek14• 14 years ago

Many thanks. You are the second commenter to provide this feedback, I'm going to change the table right now :)

AndrewHampton• 14 years ago

Looks like you forgot the t in without for "Participate withou the app?"

csomar• 14 years ago

I might be the only one, but design quality is a signal of development quality for me (even though, as a developer I know well that it's not). But when I see badly designed software or application, I say "If the developer didn't care, why should I?".

Another thing, these are things that I won't die without. I enjoy well crafted products (and will pay few $$ instead of using an ugly product that does the same thing).

Mobile Applications is not my expertise, so I'll give you a few suggestions on the landing page

- A contrast. For the moment, the logo is lost in the white. The iPhone video (and the iPhone device itself) is filled with white.

- A better font. You already know about font-face. Now try to pick a nicer one. TypeKit is free to start.

- A logo. Costs $25 to buy from Graphic River. Stock Templates/Scripts are a good quality/cost solution when you are bootstrapping with empty pockets.

- The social icons are buried. Also why is the Facebook button in French?

In your source code

- Don't put your scripts tag at the header, make it loads fast. Also don't use in-line JavaScript. Your CSS and JS condensed in one file

- It seems like non HTML5 users will not watch your video.

In your video, instead of the mouse cursor, use a 0.7 opacity rounded circle. It looks nicer and feel like your fingertip is moving there.

Nice work.

stangeek14• 14 years ago

Thank you very much, we still have a lot to learn on web design. We'll rework the website based on your very constructive feedback.

From Miserable Launch to Decent Success in 3 Months, Thanks to Hacker News

Related Stories