$200k would be a good start, IMHO. I have developed simpler apps that have cost far more than that. I am guessing this is probably going to be at least 2 years of effort if its just one man, and if a bigger team then he will definitely need the funds, especially to hire quality devs.
There's no real answer to this question without detailed specs. Even then you would only get a rough estimate.
But Let's say you got a very inexpensive developer say $50/hr for 3 months at 40 hours/week that's 480 hr so it's $24,000 for the 3 months. 3 months would get you a very simple app which would serve as an MVP. At best you can use it to get investors to continue with the development.
Putting together an app is expensive and setting up the business to go with it is even more expensive. Good luck!
What I find funny is that with that kind of money you could staff 10 app teams, develop the app 10 times in different ways and just pick the best one in the end.
My entrepreneur friends and I have many apps like this that were learning experiences or that never materialized into anything. I was having a conversation with someone just yesterday brainstorming with them how to wind up a project like this and helping them to get past emotional attachments, sunk costs, etc.
The thing is that when someone buys an app you've finished, but that isn't generating revenue, they're buying both an opportunity and a problem.
The opportunity is obvious - maybe you can turn it into a money printing machine.
The problem is the developer cost to maintain and improve the app. Unless it's a complete business that's generating cash already (in which case it would be worth more than $10K), it's going to cost significant $$ for another dev to maintain and build on it.
Most dev salaries are around $50k to $150 per year. But lets assume you offshore it, find some killer talent and pay them $20k per year. If it needs 2 years of work and growth to be successful, that's 400% more than the $10K it costs to buy it in the first place. [Ignoring time value of money]
The point I'm making is that the $10K price tag is arbitrary to a buyer because what they're really getting into is a much larger commitment and quite a bit of risk.
So what to do?
I don't have the answers but I'll throw out 2 ideas:
1. Open source the project and recruit your friends to keep building it. Use the publicity and interest surrounding it to drum up consulting gigs worth more than $10K and funding and credibility for future projects and businesses.
2. It might not be a home run because Facebook has done it, but spend an additional 20% of the time you've spent so far to put in place a payment processing system and charge for the service. You may make more than $10K per year in recurring revenue. Just because Facebook did it doesn't mean you can't too.
I made plenty of money in mobile app development before. My secret? Work for a large company that does business to business apps that do large 4000-10000 device deployments that are willing to pay 6-7 figures on an implementation.
Chasing after $0.99 purchases is a fool’s errand and winning at that game is no more assured than winning the lottery.
That's a good question. I guess the answer depends on if you can find enough underserved niche markets that you know enough about to create something unique and special.
And remember, that $10k was in 6 months. So potentially, we're talking about $20k/yr for this app. 10 apps would be a potential $200k a year.
Right now, I'm content with this being supplementary income, but I never imagined that when I paid that $99 developer fee that I'd do so well.
Realistically, if you spent 20 hours developing the app, you're already $3000 invested on this project. Another $100-$500 isn't THAT big of a deal when you look at it in those terms
If the app was built and has had minimal work to improve it, $80,000 annually would be awesome. If one dev is working full time to improve it, then it's not amazing. If you have a team of 10 devs building this app, you're doing something wrong.
Most people have an idea for a great app that they keep playing in their head. But these ideas never come live because either they don't have the expertise to build it themselves or they don't want to drop $12K just to see if users want it. How much will you be willing to pay for the MVP of you idea? (I have lined up a reliable team who can deliver most MVP app in 6 weeks at around $3800. Need validation for the price point).
You seem to know a lot about the economics of being an indie app developer and consulting firm. You should share more about how much cash they must be rolling in.
Exactly! My total monthly expenses are less than $250 (rent, food, internet etc.) and it should not be a problem to devote 7-8 months for building promised apps.
It depends on the app. If it's something like Flappy Bird, you won't have much in the way of expenses. If it's something more substantial, you might need to hire designers and developers to build the app and make it usable. You may need ops people to keep it running. If it's not inherently viral, you may need marketers and a budget for ads and PR. If you're doing something novel you might need to file patents and hire lawyers. You might need to pay for servers, storage, and bandwidth.
All that costs money. It might be more than you have in your checking account. That's where investors come in handy.
Especially as the app is failry simple looking. Probably buildable in React Native in a month. Pay a good developer and you can probably get a prototype out for $10-$20k?
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