Making money making apps
About this video
Calvin Carter explains different ways app developers earn money, such as paid downloads, in-app currency and subscriptions, and that Bottle Rocket mostly earns from professional services building apps for big brands. He warns entrepreneurs not to try to do everything and to learn to say no so they can focus.
You'll be able to
- describe several ways app developers make money.
- explain how Bottle Rocket mainly earns its revenue.
- explain why entrepreneurs need to learn to say no.
Key words
- Revenue
- The money a business earns from selling its products or services.
- Subscription model
- Customers pay regularly, like monthly, to keep using a product.
- Micro currency model
- A free app that earns money by selling small in-app purchases.
- Professional services
- Expert work a company does for clients in return for payment.
- Lifestyle business
- A small business run to support the owner's way of life rather than to grow big.
Transcript
- I'm Calvin Carter. The name of my company is Bottle Rocket Apps. There's several different ways that app developers make a living. A lot of them are selling their wares on the App Store. They either do that through charging for the download or it's a free download with a micro currency model or subscription model.
Companies like Bottle Rocket have a variety of ways that we make money. The majority of Bottle Rocket is professional services type revenue, where we work with some of the largest and most discriminating brands in the world to bring their brand to mobile. Mobile apps are, essentially, today, in my opinion, one of the most relevant and meaningful brand experiences a customer, or we call a user, can have.
We have lots of sessions with the brand managers and creative directors and we go through brand design guidelines. We go through deep strategy session where we get very heady, frankly, about the brand and what it means and what it is and what it's not. We have a business aspiration called taking risks centered on our strengths.
A lot of entrepreneurs I speak with, younger ones that kinda bounce around the lifestyle business from three to 10 employees and they go up and down throughout this and they do this for eight or 10 years, so this is not a any day now, I'm just waiting for my ship to come in.
No, your ship has come in, daily, at this point. You're just letting them go by or you're not fully capitalizing on them. And I feel a lot of it has to do with the thrash an entrepreneur can create in their organization, as well as their own heads, by wanting to do everything.
As an entrepreneur, you have to learn to say no to at least just a few things or say yes to what you're willing to do. Yes, it's a paycheck today, but it's a pink slip tomorrow, so to speak. You have to focus on what you can take on and what you can't take on.
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