It’s tough to make money in a crowded app store, but that doesn’t mean app developers should give up hope. Today we’re going to address the problem by building apps into brands. Moms With Apps is going to do more than “advocate” for family-friendly apps, we’re going to help fund them.
BabyFirst Games, a developer in Moms With Apps, just launched a campaign to finance their next app in a wholesale marketplace called Appbackr. We’ve spoken about Appbackr on this blog before, but now I’d like to apply the tool across the network.
The Problem
Apps that can financially sustain themselves are usually listed at the top of the App Store charts. But with over 200,000 apps in the educational category on iTunes, it’s tough to battle for those top slots. To make progress, I want to encourage developers to release more titles to establish their brand. A high quality series of apps serving a niche will have more surface area and visibility on the App Store.
Building the developer’s brand
If a consumer finds something they like, chances are, they’ll return to make another purchase. If you find an app that does a great job at reinforcing sight words, you might return to that brand when searching for more content in language arts. App developers should have a vision of the brand they want to build.
- What is the area of specialization: math, language arts, creativity, history, geography, science?
- How does the app present a concept uniquely?
- Can consumers find it easily? Does the app title relate to the content?
- Is the look and feel of the brand recognizable?
It’s tough to compete in a crowded marketplace with just one app
If a developer launches their first app, and finds app development enjoyable, then let’s not give up just because the sales are measly. Think about the overarching brand by answering the questions above, and keep working at it with a few more titles.
Raising the money for your next title
One tool for funding app development is to set up a campaign in Appbackr’s wholesale marketplace. Costs can be financed by giving up some future retail sales once the app goes live. Conceptually, “backrs” buy the app at a wholesale price, and make their money back once the app sells at retail on the App Store. It can be a win-win: a win for the developer who receives assistance while building out their brand, and a win for the backr who makes a profit on their initial outlay.
Moms With Apps would like to help
Developers in the Moms With Apps network who are interested in trying Appbackr need to 1) let me know, 2) strive to meet the Moms With Apps criteria [as mentioned on the Banner Program page], and 3) work with Appbackr to set up a campaign. Once complete, send me your campaign link so I can spotlight it on this blog and throughout the Moms With Apps social media channels.
BabyFirst Games, our first campaign
Svetlana of BabyFirst Games is the first to try a Moms With Apps supported Appbackr campaign. Her first app is a free visual encyclopedia for babies, toddlers, or anyone who seeks topical conversation starters. Categories in the app include the zoo, vehicles, farm, sea, harvest and art. Each category has images that represent words and concepts. When you tap on the image, a word is generated with text and audio. Svetlana would like to produce a paid version of this app that includes iPad support, interactive quizzes, more sound effects, and fun facts. The financial goal is $1000.00, and the month-long campaign just went live on Monday, January 30th.
My role will be to make an initial contribution to the campaign to get the ball rolling, let others know about the campaign through the Moms With Apps network, and to work with Svetlana on ideas for building future titles in one overarching brand for BabyFirst Games. I’ll keep you posted on our progress.
Support for the Backrs
If you decide to start backing apps, don’t be shy. We want to build momentum, excitement, and possibilities in this marketplace. If I see you I’ll retweet you, and will do my best to spotlight the backrs involved with MWA campaigns. But beware, there may be a #momshark in those tweets.
Lorraine Akemann | Editor | Moms With Apps
I’m glad to share the experince with MWA community, hope this will be interesting and useful expirence. Feel free to contact me.
I would love to get involved in reviewing apps which have been developed in this way – intiatives which profile apps and help consumers decide on purchases is a positive step in a crowded and often confusing market.
Speaking from the first-hand experience crowd funding is at the same time fun and tough experience 🙂
Suggestion to anyone opting in – google around for smart tips on running crowd funding campaigns, there is some good info about it.
Good luck!
I love the idea of appbkr and I already invested couple of apps that I think have potential to help kids (with emphasis on special needs).
If this helps improve quality of the apps in education, I am all up for it and back them up in anyway I can.
Hi! I’m Ty!
Great post! It gets my wheels a-crankin’! Mom & I have a few stupendous ideas for some apps & this may be a way to get them out there helping kids like me with special needs or without!
Thanks!
Hi Lorraine!
When I saw you jumping in on app funding I took the leap too! I’m particulary keen on working with developers I already know and focus mainly on educationa apps because that is what I know :).
Thanks for the interest everyone. I’m dedicating sidebar space on the blog to this effort. So when I see backrs I know from the MWA network, I’m popping them up in a new link category “MWA Appbackrs”.
I have a fun, educational language game I have developed. I am currently developing the online version but would like to make an iphone and ipad app. I would be most interested in having it backed by Moms with apps and perhaps get it developed through the appbacker´s community. I am new to this whole development market but I founded and published a magazine about family friendly initiatives for parents and educators here in Barcelona, Spain. Any suggestions on where to go from here would be most appreciated. Theresa
Hi Tharesa, I suggest starting by registering on the mwa forum to collaborate with our community: http://forum.momswithapps.com. I can’t back apps until I get to know the developer in more depth. –Lorraine
This post in very inspiring! I have just listed Sticker Factory on AppBackr. Love the support it has gotten thus far.
About appbackr.com, please guys correct me if I am wrong: we want to start uploading our apps on this website in searching for real outside investors, that have much less to do with apps and much more to do with investing their money, such as buying shares from the market. We hope that this is the target, more then developers investing in other developers apps. This can lead easy to a close circle, while the actual difference could be made only when developers will be supported with ‘outside’ capital. thanks!
Vlad,
I’ll clarify. We are a platform for app developers to raise money. They post their app on our site, either already in retail or still in development, and raise money for it by promoting the page. Buyers (“backrs”) back the app, the developer receives the money now, and the backr receives a portion of the app’s retail sales profit. Once the backr has made his money back plus a fixed profit, the next backr profits, when all backrs have been paid back, the developer receives all the revenue again.
The developer is able to raise money for his app now and not lose equity in the product. The developer also builds a community around the app. A lot of developers use it to reward past users.
Backrs are not investors. They impact their backing because they can promote the app to generate more retail sales. The more retail sales, the faster the backr gets paid back.
A couple of notes on your post: it’s important to not assume that backrs will find you, you need to promote your campaign with your networks. It’s important to educate your potential backrs on what appbackr is, and its important to communicate with them during and after. Let me know if you’d like information. We’ve had several MWA developers post campaigns with success.
Sarah
Hi Sarah,
Thank you very much for your post and infos that you gave me. A light in this new world was needed and now I understand much better how the appbackr works.
To understand how the system works and upload our apps its a piece of cake, thanks, but I can’t say the same about finding backrs to invest.
You are saying from experience that many backrs are actually for example review websites, witch will like to promote more the invested Apps because they would make some profit out of it, or the community around the app, like even maybe very satisfied clients, who enjoyed the quality and applicability of the product. Cool in theory, harder in practice, as there has to be place for other quality Apps too. Concurrence still exists and subjectivity could unbalance the products quality. Means we need to lobby a lot:).
Ok, so please tell me how our plan would work out: we upload 2 Apps on appbackr, and afterwards start lobbying our Apps and your website to many review Sites, specific educational websites like MWA, of course, and other additional people from our network. We still leave the possibility that other developers, much bigger then us, could think to also back our Apps. And, at the end, the money that we will receive will enable us to invest in the growth of our company, new ideas and good logistic, like the new Ipad 3 now, witch we have to have it for tests.
On more think, and I’m out: why not also think for the future at this website also as a investing business? I mean, its a 12 cent profit for every dolar for a finished app, its not bad in this economical world. And, at least for small amounts and good Apps, the risks are not so big.
Thanks a lot for suport
Vlad
I’ve just listed a family friendly anagram based word game app on appbackr called Gadzookery. Players create a sentence off of a target word.
If I’d have read this article first I would have contacted you before doing so.
Even so, I hope MWA take a look at mine, and maybe endorse what I’m doing.
Best Regards,