I think you are making the correct choice. What you built is an app. And it seems that it is a good one. But building the business behind this app is a challenge that you do not want to pursue. So don't do it. Don't listen to those who say "get a co-founder". That wont fix anything. Your focus is not it. Sell it, move on.
I'm not even sure it is a viable business itself. Aside from advertising, it has very few options as it stands. You would need to modify the platform in order to introduce other profit channels. But you already said you don't want any more of it.
So it was deemed too expensive or risky to just turn it into an app? Sounds like you had your business model already figured out, building the app sounds like the easy part.
If it's about making money or making a living, your best alternative is probably to make an app exclusively for the platform where most of your profitable customers are. You can expand to other platforms later if you get the scale.
Dude, you'll come up with a better idea tomorrow anyhow. Selling a percentage of your app's revenues in order to gain access to enough capital to survive is a smart move. You've already got a record of sales, so it should be easy to attach a valuation to your apps as a multiple of revenues/earnings. This is the smartest move.
Also, it might not be a bad idea to raise enough money to both feed yourself and another person or two, and go from being just another small-time hobbyist (who will eventually get run over at some point or another - app developer lifecycles are shorter than ever) to running a business that can scale.
You've got the attention of many people, including those with capital -- use it. There's always a silver lining...
Fair point. But I bet you have earned quite a good experience from building that app. And it was an idea that could be profitable. It's never 100% guaranty.
Have to agree with general sentiment here... this seems too much like a product and not something that can turn into a business solving a need.
What's the market size? Compatibility? Pricing? What apps have been built? How advanced? How long to learn a new language? What about the surrounding ecosystem (storage, analytics, notifications, etc)? Do you offer support? Training? What if you disappear in a year, what then?
There are already plenty of tools (as mentioned by the interviewers) for making mobile app development easier but there's a limit to how far you can go with non-developers. I think you're building into a niche of people who might be interested enough to dabble and but not enough to become serious, and that just doesn't sound like something you can build a company on.
Btw, maybe I'm alone in this but being someone in their 20s, it felt strange to read "3 young boys in their early twenties" as if they couldn't handle an interview. I strongly suggest reviewing everything you've done so far and asking more fundamental questions about the viability of the business, because at the end of the day, that's what matters.
Maybe you're overthinking this. If your motivation in building this app is to have something to show off a little and earning income is only a secondary concern then the things you mentioned in your original post don't matter. The choice is simple - keep going, finish your app and launch. It's a win-win. If it does well, great. If it doesn't do well it still serves its purpose.
I think you need to seriously reconsider your business model. If you're trying to earn revenue thru 1-time app sales, then I'm afraid you're in a losing game if you're content with building just 1 app. When it comes to to-do lists, no matter how great it is, the market is flooded with those, and a lot of them are cheap.
"Google is the guy driving this bus" <-- yes, it is, it's sorta like owning a website who's only source of visitors is SEO. It's just waiting and hoping Google doesn't mess up in anyway. When you're so reliant on 1 company for your revenue, something's wrong. You shouldn't put all your eggs in 1 basket.
Maybe it's time to branch out. Explore other money making opportunities.. Maybe, just maybe building a very very good app isn't enough to build a sustainable business. Yes, it makes you proud as a developer to build an app. But we're talking about building a business.
There won't be a lack of developers developing for Android, trust me... when the audience is so huge, it doesn't matter how much friction there is. Huge companies will pay ppl tons of money to deal with the BS. They're 10+ abstraction levels away from the bullshit. They'll just tell the developer team: DEAL with it, develop this in 1 month or you're all FIRED.
Hey, great job!
A real test of an idea could often be it's potential to generate revenue.
I understand that it is a side-project and you may have different motivations.
But I guess it is even more reasonable for you to try implementing a business model.
There is not much to lose (given you don't end up putting desperate adverts all over the app... Duh!)
As an example, the 'karma-as-commodity' model might just work.
Point here being that I don't see something as valuable to a potential employer as a person who can write amazing apps and make some solid money out of it.
It seems the sensible way for the moment: if you make money beyond the initial app sale, don't trust a gatekeeper like Apple or Google or whoever to leave you free to run and structure and change your business, and to remain consistent into the relevant future.
If your app makes money simply by selling the app, go ahead (although that's not without risk either).
First, what is that pilot gym paying you, and what does the competition charge? If this is a freemium play, research the percentage of apps that make money. It's currently basically none.
In the heyday, a lot of people made money in apps, but that's just a rumour echoing through time now, and is no longer reality in the present day.
Second, your mistake was not conducting market and competitor research first. You wanted to jump in and start coding. Business doesn't work like that. Construction is the very last step, not the first step.
Third, yes it's unlikely to be worth continuing, due to the winner take all nature of networks (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, vs who?). The only antidote is to pivot to a space that that big (and therefore well funded) competitor isn't targeting.
Just to clarify, I wasn't trying to stop you from doing your app or starting your own business or what is your trying to achieve. I respect and admire that.
I think that this is not the right strategy to apply.
You're certainly offering a good value but you don't have a good business. I guess you can jump around from app to app but you'll just get outcompeted by people who have better revs and more resources to plow into r&d or distribution.
I think the larger point of the post above is that building an app for an in-vogue platform should be seen as a business opportunity. It is important to know it won't last forever, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't build apps for one of the most lucrative marketplaces of the moment.
You do need to realize that this can change fairly quickly, so you should either use this as a springboard to something else, or just accept that it's a temporary business and not something that will stick around.
The concept still applies even if the problem isn't about being kicked out (which a contract could maybe solve), but simply about the market fading for one reason or another. One common thing that can happen is that the platform provider may decide to compete with you, which is often very hard to come back from - they usually have access to the platform in ways you can't replicate.
My two cents: go ahead, do it anyway and use the competition as inspiration on which features to add, which to leave away and which to improve.
I was in a similar situation some time ago. I started working on an app with the main reason to teach myself Android programming. After a while I was quite content with the app and contemplated releasing it on the app store. I then started to become aware that this was a space were over a dozen other apps existed. I decided to go ahead anyway. Now it has grown to become a source of a bit of additional income and I dare to say meanwhile it's the most useful one of its kind on the app store (but still not the most popular one).
I upvoted, and you're not the first to suggest this either. But I must argue that to have 3 or 4 well-ranked apps with a solid income is easier said than done, especially for a single developer.
I wish I had the insight to know exactly what 3 or 4 other apps to write so I can have a steady income. But chances are by the time I finish writing 3 good apps a year from now, I'll be lucky if one of them has as much traction as this one.
The other choice would be to take this app that already has traction (from only my part time work) and pour more time an energy into it to see how big it could really get.
If your app is making money you can hire a developer, who you can supervise and invest time in another venture/app? Or sell the app and work on something more challenging.
Thing is you don't want to sell to a nontechnical owner. I've sold apps in the past where it all just died, because the purchaser did not put in any effort.
You want to sell to a party who will run it as if it was their own product (or who will hire a capable team to expand it further). That is possible for a $400k ARR product, but much harder for a website doing say $50k through one-off sales.
I'm not even sure it is a viable business itself. Aside from advertising, it has very few options as it stands. You would need to modify the platform in order to introduce other profit channels. But you already said you don't want any more of it.
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