Think through all the well known people in your industry. The people who’s blogs you follow, who are invited to speak at conferences. These are the people who you consider popular in your field. How did they get there? Sharing.

Jason Fried of 37signals refers to this as “emulating chefs.” In most industries code and blueprints are kept secret. Not so with chefs. They thrive on teaching anyone who will listen the recipes they’ve created. A chef doesn’t worry that you knowing his recipe will cause you to stay home from his restaurant. Instead it builds credibility for the chef. By sharing everything he knows the chef builds an audience who will visit his restaurants every chance they get.

What if you aren’t a master chef? Share anyway.  Talk about the journey. Share what you are learning in a way that is useful to others.

Chris Coyier started CSS-Tricks.com in mid-2007. Now Chris is widely regarded as a CSS expert. He has written a popular book on WordPress and has been interviewed many times. When Chris started CSS-Tricks he wasn’t considered an expert. He built that status by sharing what he knew. As he learned more, he shared more.

I’ve heard that the best way to learn a topic is to teach it to someone else. You will quickly learn what you don’t know. Use your website, guest posts, and speaking opportunities to start sharing. Soon people will start to see you as an expert in your field.

Just follow this simple process:

Learn. Create. Share.

(Repeat)

It’s a simple question. Who can’t spare a minute, right? Well, I wanted to respond by asking what made them so certain their need was more important than what I was working on. I was fixing bugs for tomorrow’s software release, they had a question about a project we planned to start in another week. It was a fair question and I was happy to help, but it made me think:

By interrupting someone you are saying that what you have or need is definitely more important than whatever they are working on at that time. So why do we encourage this kind of interruption?

With open office plans companies strive to break down walls and put employees closer together (i.e. save money). The proposed reason is more collaboration. Instead of more collaboration let’s strive for better collaboration.

So far all this collaboration (it is starting to sound like a buzz-word now…) has been active. Meetings, phone conversations, hallway chats, and desk drive-bys. Personally, in almost all cases, I prefer passive collaboration.

Passive collaboration says “I value your time, help me when it is convenient for you.”

Send an email, post to Basecamp, use a chat tool like Skype, or something custom like P2. All of these don’t require an immediate response. Rather than a co-worker demanding your attention right that moment, they can ask a question and you can respond when you are ready. That’s passive collaboration. Slower and more deliberate.

When it comes time to respond to that co-worker you may have a message from them already saying, “Nevermind, I figured it out.” If you take away someone’s instant help they instantly become smarter and more capable of solving problems on their own. If it truly is important or that difficult they will wait for your response, but in many cases the slight delay caused them to turn to Google and solve the issue on their own.

Meetings and phone calls have their place and are quite useful, but it is time you started using other means of collaboration. Think twice before you pick up the phone or walk over to a co-workers desk. Remember to value their time.

So what is Commit?

Commit is a simple application to help you change your behavior. Whether it is learning a new skill or forming a positive habit Commit uses Jerry Seinfield’s Don’t Break the Chain philosophy to keep you motivated and make consistent progress each day. Sold for $0.99 it is an inexpensive way to improve your life.

I use it to maintain consistent exercise habits. Just reaching 10 days in a row of exercise, which is a first for me!

Download Commit from the App Store

Alright, let’s get into the numbers.

The Numbers

Commit was released on December 22nd, to mediocre sales numbers. I didn’t expect it to get approved before iTunes Connect closed (on the same day), so I didn’t even have the marketing page up yet. So the first day was spent scrambling to write a design a page that throughly explained Commit.

After a couple days I started submitting Commit to the main iOS App Review Sites. The first site to include it was MacLife. They mentioned Commit in an article on the 27th of December.

The same day a popular social media author, Mari Smith, mentioned it on her Facebook page (she discovered it through Dennis Smith, a local friend) and I posted a link to Hacker News (didn’t go anywhere). Because all three happened on the same day I can’t tell exactly where the sales came from. But the three combined only resulted in 74 sales for that day and 130 the next day. Not quite as much as I hoped for.

A couple days later I posted to a couple Subreddits with good results. It was well received with a few up-votes and plenty of positive comments.

The big change happened when App Advice posted a review on the 29th. They really liked Commit and it was well timed for New Years resolutions. The review went live about 9:00 PM mountain time, so the main sales happened the next day. Reaching 598 sales in one day. This also pushed it to #18 in the top paid productivity apps. Unfortunately I can’t tell how many sales came from being in that list versus the App Advice review. But since the sales fell in the next couple days I think the App Advice link was worth far more.

For the next few days sales were up and down, but slowly declining. Then when I released a new version Apple featured Commit in the New and Noteworthy section in the App Store. Awesome, right?

Yes, but not as good as I first thought. There is a different app store for each supported country and Commit was featured in 82 countries. But unfortunately none were major English speaking markets. The U.S., Canada, and the UK were missing from the list. I hope everyone in Uzbekistan enjoys Commit, but so far the feature hasn’t resulted in that many sales. The feature in Russia has resulted in about 8 sales per day.

I (naively) thought that being featured would make a huge difference. As it turns out the app needs to be featured in a major market to see a large increase in sales.

Unfortunately Commit has received a handful of 1 star reviews related to notification times. Being a beginner objective-c developer I must have made a mistake in that code (I am still trying to figure it out). Though I do have many people who love the app and have written rave reviews.

Now commit gets around 30-40 sales per day. As of today it has sold $1,673. Not a huge number, but it is a lot more than I expected. I’m pursuing other options to increase that number. Here is the graph with event marked on it.

So, what did I learn?

Many App Stores
Before I hadn’t paid much attention to the App Stores for each country. Now I know to pay more attention to localization and other issues. Also being featured in smaller markets doesn’t make that much of a difference.

Review Sites are Very Important
Getting positive reviews on major app review sites made a huge difference. I am sure it accounted for at least half of the copies sold. App Advice was by far the biggest driver of sales. Far more than I expected. What they have done with that site is impressive. Though I wish I had more review sites to compare to traffic numbers with.

A Huge Social Following May Not Convert at Expected Levels
Mari Smith posted a very positive review to her Facebook page (with 70,000+ subscribers), but it yielded less than 100 sales. That surprised me. I knew a social following wouldn’t convert very well, but I expected better than that. Either way I really appreciate the link from Mari.

App Annie is Awesome.
Without the iTunes analytics site App Annie I would have never known about the features in all those countries. In addition to providing a better sales interface it has detailed rankings and review information from all across the App Store. Plus it is free.

####

That’s it. Make sure to download Commit from the App Store. Also if you would like to write a review or do an interview just let me know.

Update: Commit was just featured on TUAW, so tomorrow should reveal some great new sales numbers.

HN is my favorite website and I visit it at least once a day. The quality of the community on HN is so high that often the comments are just as valuable as the article being linked. While I have had an article I wrote make it on the front page, I’ve never before reached #1. So what does the #1 spot get you? Here are some stats for those interested:

• 487 Votes
• 200+ Comments
• 3 job offers / requests to interview for a position.
• 25 emails
• 51,052 unique visitors
• 300+ retweets and mentions on Twitter

You can read the post here: How I Made $19,000 on the App Store While Learning to Code and the HN Comment Thread.

It was expected.

I wrote that post specifically to do well on HN. After being around the community for a year I learned that stories revealing financial data behind startups are well received and often reach the home page. But to reach #1 it would need a little bit of a twist.

The first titles I wrote for the post were:

• “Revealing OneVoice Sales Data”
• “Pulling back the curtain: A detailed look at my App Store sales”
• “OneVoice Numbers”

Boring. None of those would have had the desired results. If you aren’t already familiar with OneVoice why would you click the link? So I decided to add the sales numbers to the title:

• “How I Made $19,000 on the App Store”

That’s pretty good. I would click that link. But $19,000 isn’t that much. There are plenty of stories of developers making $200k+ on the App Store. So the title needed a twist at the end. “… While Learning to Code” is the final touch needed to make it a really catchy title.

• “How I Made $19,000 on the App Store While Learning to Code”

It would be interesting to test the difference the engaging title made.

Any Downsides?

When revealing detailed financials there could always be some downsides. The main one being that I may have generated some more competition in an already crowded field. For anyone looking to make some quick money, this isn’t the way to do it. To me this is success, but I could have made considerably more by doing contract work.

The independent bookstore, the small coffeeshop, the elegant restaurant, and the used clothing store. Each one has a person behind it. They thought and dreamed about their idea for years before taking the leap and starting. Many still don’t know if they will succeed or fail. But at least they tried. The only way to guarantee failure is to never start.

Now look to the larger businesses. A fast food restaurant like Wendy’s. Now you are looking at the dreams of several people. First the founder in some far away city. Proud that his little creation turned into something that people all around the country frequent. But it is also the dream of someone local. The person who started the local franchise is still fulfilling a dream of their own, just with a different logo on the storefront.

Now look to the floors above these storefronts. Office windows sometimes lit late into the night. Ideas and products are being created. Dreams are being realized.

It’s more than just a business you sometimes visit. It’s someone’s dream.

So what do to do when inspiration strikes?

Confront it head on. Stop what you are doing (if possible) and spend 15-20 minutes writing down and planning out the idea. For me this usually means getting a sketchpad and drawing out the different screens of the interface, writing down feature lists and planning a name. Everything that comes to mind I put on paper.

You know when you are trying hard not to forget something it becomes the only thing you think about? That’s why it is so important to put this idea on paper. You no longer have to concentrate on not forgetting.

Once the allotted brainstorming time is up I close my notebook, stick it back in my desk, and forget about it. I still have the idea available if I want to revisit it, but it is no longer clouding my thoughts and focus. From there I can resume my previous task with a renewed focus.

This blog post is actually a perfect example. I was distracted from the design at hand by the ideas above (ironic, I know), so I took a short break, wrote the post, and now I can move on. So, now it is time to go back to Photoshop.

Also I should mention the people who helped who aren’t in the article.

• Hannah Herrick – Hannah provided the initial inspiration and idea for OneVoice as well as feedback throughout the development.
• Robert Carrico – Robert is the co-worker mentioned in the article who helped develop the prototype over the weekend at iOSDevCamp.
• Chris Brandsma – Chris has helped me with too many code problems to count. Anything especially complicated in OneVoice he either wrote himself or helped me write it.

Enjoy the article!

“You can remove OneVoice from the App Store or set the rating at 17+”

That’s what an Apple representative told me near the end of a 25 minute phone conversation. I just didn’t see a way to do it without grossly misrepresenting my app. It seems we’d reached an impasse.

I’ve had OneVoice in the App Store since January, always priced at $199 (it replaces a $7k+ medical device). Every couple months I put out a new update  with bug fixes and new features. Each one has been easily and quickly approved. So what happened this time?
The latest update with a few small new features had been rejected. Here’s the reason Apple gave in an email:

“Apps with prices greater than $99 are more appropriately targeted to audiences with sufficient responsibility to make a higher-priced purchases. Therefore, it would be appropriate to adjust the rating of your app to 17+ to reflect a more suitable audience for this type of purchase.”

Interesting. I understand where they are coming from and while it is a little frustrating, it is probably best for the App Store as a whole. So I went to make the change. It turns out nothing is so simple. Instead of simply choosing a rating you have to select from a series of options which go from bad to worse. Take a look for yourself.

There isn’t an option for “Priced over $99.” So instead I have to choose between “Profanity or Crude Humor” and “Simulated Gambling.” Or there are some much worse options! Whatever I select will appear on the App Store listing for OneVoice (on the left side under the app icon), with the reason specified. So it would look like this:

OneVoice
Rated 17+
- For Horror/Fear Themes

Here’s the worst part: the vast majority of OneVoice users are kids under 12 years old with disabilities. Their speech language pathologists recommend OneVoice, then the parents buy it, and it is used by the kids. It gives them a way to communicate with friends and family. I don’t have a way to meet Apple’s demands without misrepresenting my app to users. So I sent a lengthy reply back to Apple stating my case.

The next day I got a call from an Apple Developer Relations representative. We’ll call him Bob. First I should say that Bob was very nice and tried to be as helpful as possible. He listened carefully, completely agreed that I was in the right, had legitimate  concerns, and that it was a shortcoming of the iTunes Connect software that I didn’t have an accurate way to rate OneVoice as 17+. He also added a little background. Basically because of fraud on the App Store and some lawsuits related to accidental purchases they made this new policy. Since it was related to legal he refused to say anymore.

But ultimately it came down to removing OneVoice from the store (something I really don’t want to do) or selecting the least offensive of the options. I decided to go with Mature Themes and be done with the whole thing. Hopefully it won’t confuse parents too much.

Bob apologized for the having to enforce the policy without having a real solution in place. He ended by giving me his direct phone number and email address, saying that if I ever needed a policy explained, a favor, or some help on something related to iOS and the App Store to contact him directly.

Bob was very nice, sympathetic, and helpful. He also promised to make sure the option for price is added to the iTunes Connect product roadmap, but said they only release 3-4 times per year, so not to expect it too soon. Apple, please add this option. I don’t like misleading my customers.

That’s the story. Now it’s time to move on to something productive.

If you’re interested in iPhone App Design, signup for my mailing list iOS Design Weekly.

“I’ve got a great business idea! Let’s get coffee to talk about it.”

Or

“I have a brilliant idea for a new iPhone app. Want to help me build it?”

No. I don’t want to help you build it, nor am I impressed with your new company, that you will never start. Why? It’s simple: ideas are everywhere. I have dozens of of ideas that I’ll never use, just because I don’t have the time. Many other ideas I have started on, but haven’t ever finished. That’s great that you have an idea; write it down, spend a few minutes researching it (to find out that someone else has already done it), then move on with your life.

Because your idea is worthless…

…Without follow through.

Alright. So ideas do have value. They are the spark that can start great things, but nothing more. Don’t put too much stock in just an idea, because it’s the follow through that matters. Anyone can think of an idea. What sets you apart is that you are going to take your great idea and turn it into something real. Something tangible. Something that matters.

If it is really such a great idea, then stop talking about it and build it!

Photo Credit.