Can You Make Money With Apps?

hey guys  today I'm

going to give you my opinion on the

question can you make money with apps

and I stress the word opinion because

that's exactly what it is everyone's

going to have a different perspective on

this based on their own experiences so

this is my take on the question so now

can you make money with apps?

 and my answer is yes Apple

said earlier this year that developers

made twenty billion dollars in 2016 in

absolu that's twenty billion dollars so

why aren't we all rich well if you

scroll through the top grossing apps on

the App Store you'll notice that all the

apps are produced by companies or game

studios or at least most of them are so

if you're asking this question from the

perspective of a company or games video

I would say yes but unfortunately most

of the time I'm being asked this

question by a beginner who has no

programming experience and they're

trying to see if they should invest the

effort to learn how to build apps in

order to turn a profit on the App Store

and unfortunately many of these people

let's just say that they're not in the

best financial situation and they're

looking at this as an opportunity to

maybe turn their fortunes around now

unfortunately I have to be realistic

with them and a lot of the time it comes

as disappointing news or kind of the

cold hard truth if you know what I'm

saying

if you're asking from that perspective

where you're a beginner and you're

trying to build apps to make money on

the App Store I would still say yes but

you know there there are certain hurdles

you're going to have to pass and it's

going to take a lot of time so there are

independent developers who do very well

on the App Store also known as indie

devs but that's definitely the exception

and not the norm these indie developers

have the programming part down pat

they're not worried about whether or not

they can build this app what they're

worried about and what they're trying to

figure out is how to get exposure on the

App Store maybe get featured on the

front page by Apple or maybe rank highly

for certain keywords in the App Store or

maybe get impressed

their app or getting their app for game

reviewed by review sites and review

favorably and coming up with a business

or a marketing plan for their app you'll

notice that all of these things have

nothing to do with programming right

just because the App Store is so

saturated with apps the idea is that if

you can do some good marketing for your

app and if your app is decent and it's

got the right cooks to keep people

coming back that your app will build up

momentum like a snowball and your app

will continue getting downloads through

word-of-mouth or being viral so you can

see as a beginner who has no programming

experience you know what they must

overcome me first of all you have to

learn to code and then you have to keep

building apps until you get good at it

right because your first few apps or

maybe your first 1020 apps aren't going

to be very good and you're going to have

to keep at it and you're going to have

to have that persistence because you're

going to fail and you're going to build

apps that you know you know what a

decent polish looks like in your head

but you're not going to be able to get

there initially so you can have to get

there first and then next you're going

to have to figure out the app store and

how to get exposure and learn marketing

of things and all of that stuff so when

a beginner asks me can they make money

with apps I say yes but I tell them all

of these things and you know I I don't

want to sugarcoat things I don't want

people signing up for my courses or

learning with me thinking that you know

there going to be the next app

millionaire you know that's definitely

not the treat that's going to take a lot

of work in a lot of effort to maybe

potentially get there if you have the

persistence and you put in the work so

I've actually tried to make money on the

App Store with a friend

I took a stream and it took us three

months to build this app called magic

hat is it was a children's app and at

the time we basically modeled it after a

successful children's app that was

already ranking high on the App Store

and we thought you know the graphics for

this app isn't very good we could do

something better and what we created in

three months was I felt was better and

look better

more polished but it didn't do very well

and that's because we weren't familiar

with the marketing and business side of

things and part of us knew that this was

just part of the learning curve part of

the learning process that we'd have to

build more apps and then if we built up

a portfolio we could cross link and

cross promote the apps and stuff like

that but you know pouring three months

of effort into an app only to see it not

do so well it was genuinely

disappointing and it's tough to recover

from that

so I actually I needed to take a break

from doing it because to me it was just

it felt like a lot of effort and I had

such high hopes for it it didn't meet

the expectations I needed to take a

break from it and we kind of just never

got back into building that second app

so that was kind of my experience with

trying to make money on the app store

and later on I found out that app that

we modeled with after it had other

channels of marketing it was actually

being featured on the back of children's

books in the bookstore so that might

have been driving its downloads as well

so that's what I'm saying right you have

to have a decent app but at the same

time you have to have some sort of

business or marketing plan for it to get

exposure and to get you know reach that

critical tipping point where it either

travels through word of mouth you know

all your friends are using it they're

telling you about it it kind of goes

viral right so maybe I'll tell you guys

the lessons learned and kind of like how

we went from idea you know through all

that process to launching the app maybe

I'll tell you guys that story in another

video the story of magic hat so anyways

that's my opinion on the question can

you make money with apps I want to hear

from you have you made money with apps

if you have or if you haven't let me

know your experience in the comments

section below and if you haven't

published an app yet let me know what

your motivation is for learning how to

build apps is it to make money or is it