You're building apps the wrong way and I will prove it to you with only one sentence.
I'm Alex from rebeloper.com and make sure to SUBSCRIBE to the channel. That one sentence is:
You do not have an exit plan. So today we are going to talk about the 7 golden rules of apps that sell.
Let me just tell you the 7 golden rules of apps that sell even before you start building
your app. So this video is about building out apps with this in mind how you can exit with a cell of
your app and yeah I think that this is very very important when you are building out your apps you
have an app idea and you are going to build that out with these 7 golden rules in mind. It will
be much, much easier than let's say you already have an app and you want to sell it but actually
some of these rules do not apply for your app and then the evaluation will be really, really small
and maybe you can't even sell it. Now this video is sponsored by BLUETHRONE.IO where you will
be able to sell your app and there's a link in the description go ahead and check them out, they are
really, really cool. Now this evaluation will be also done by Bluethrone. So please keep in mind
that when you are going to build out your app these should be your 7 golden rules, okay.
Now what is the second one? Well start with the exit plan. Even before you have an app idea this is
so crucial. People just say that, okay I have an app idea they heard it or just put it one by one
and just put it together but is your plan really great? Do you have an exit plan? How would you
exit this business, this app? How would you do that? How would you sell that? How would you
manage marketing business, all of that? Well if you do have an exit plan then you have a good
app idea and what to do before the first line of code? Well build your app with the exit in mind.
And this is what you have to think about when you think about okay I want to exit, I want to sell
my app. Your app value will depend on some key characteristics that we are going to take a look
at today. These metrics are used when emulating your app for sale and build your apps already
with these 7 key traits in mind. So what are the 7 golden rules? How to not suck at
an app idea, okay. Rule #1 is your niche is a raging river. So try to think of
all of the niches that you want to position your app in well actually your app should be inside a
niche that is a raging river. It's not stale, it's not just a little pond that nobody's talking about
it should be a raging river. And niche trendiness is key for app evaluation, I hope you do know that.
Is the river where your app is leaving moving faster or slower? Or here are some other questions
that you might want to think when you are kind of trying to build your app and whoever is going to
buy your app will ask these questions like are your downloads increasing, decreasing or staying
stable? Hopefully they are increasing. Or are new apps appearing regularly in your niche. Now this
depends you might want apps to be appearing in your niche or you might not. Is the volume of some of
your common search words increasing or decreasing. Again increasing should be preferred. Is the price
of the search words increasing or decreasing again increasing. Is the cost per install increasing or
decreasing. Now if you are trying to, so if you have an app idea and we are trying to build this out
please do ask these questions because after a while and we will see when you should actually
sell your app after a while you will need to face these questions and if the answers are not in your
favor then hope most probably you will not get a sale or a good sale. So let's move on to the
golden rule #2 and that is maintenance costs are low. Now when you are building out your
app think of your maintenance cost. Will there be really, really high or really, really low?
If the maintenance costs are low that is a gold mine for the buyer. So think of how complex
is it to sustain your app and here we have the roof replacement problem. So let's say your app
is a house and how easy it is to replace your roof? If it's really, really hard than you have to
dig down and change a lot of issues let's say with the wall or with the windows then that is not,
that is really a complex app and it is not really sustainable because over the years and yeah
apps do need updates. So this is a key factor that buyers are looking for and yeah let's
just grade your app about design complexity, if the buyer wants to change the UI or
just wants to modify it will it be easy for them to do that. So just create it from one to ten.
One being the lowest and ten being the easiest like the one the hardest to let's say
change the UI. Back office control and management of your app complexities.
So do you have to hire any people for managing your app. Technological complexity like do you
need a whole new rewright maybe from objective C from Swift or from UIKit to SwiftUI so that
is also something that you need to consider when you are building this out because buyers
will definitely think about these. Content complexities. So how many views there are.
Yeah about the the updates. So how can this app be maintained and after that you give yourself a
total score and of course the higher the score the better. So yeah, do you think about these
complexities. Let's move on to number three. So rule #3 is the your payment model and
this is your payment model is your business model, Aristotle said, well not really, this is just
a joke but do keep in mind your payment model is your business model. Now what type of payment model
does your app has is. It a single payment like you just have like on the App Store you have it
for 199 or 10.99. This is a single payment the user just purchased it and it has it for a lifetime.
Is it ads based like you just add in ads from Google or whatever. You just add ads it's free for it for
example for download and then it has ads or is it a subscription where people are subscribed to
your app and pay on a monthly basis, of course you do know now by now that single payment is
the lowest evaluated then comes ads and then subscription. So if your app is subscription based
that is kind of a good sign for your buyer. It's kind of a gold mine, okay. Rule #4.
Platforms supported. Now this is kind of a tricky one because as you know this is an iOS channel and
I highly support like I'm all in for the Apple platform but do keep in mind
that maybe your buyer or even you might want to cover also the Android platform. So one
or two platforms, that is the question and there is indeed a curse of one. For example if you are all
in for Apple like for only on iOS. Whenever Apple changes something you just have to deal with it
and if you are on two platforms, well okay you're dealing with the iPhone app but that change isn't
available for your Android users for example. So for is the revenue or future potential worth
maintaining the app on multiple platforms. This is the question that you need to ask when supporting
your app on multiple platforms. Like for example let's say you have a very well and good revenue
converting app on iOS but the Android part not really. So you have to kind of calculate
is it worth the effort, is it worth the money to just pump there for the Android version.
Now the ideal part would be to be dominant on both worlds. Like have a good revenue on iOS and also
have a good revenue on Android. Now the model might be changing like on the revenue model for the iOS
you could be well like a one-off payment and one Android a subscription based and still be half and
half but yeah you need to consider all of these things. The next one rule #5 is age.
Now what do I mean by age. The older the app is the better. Why is that? Because it is time tested.
If it stood the test of time it's a safer bet for the buyer to buy your app and that kind of makes sense.
If you are on the App Store for longer and downloads keep on pouring in that means that your
app is a good investment for the buyer. Now here's a kind of a rule of thumb less than 20 months
for a year it's okay but it's not likely that you will have enough. Now between 12 months and
18 months that's kind of reasonable you can expect but if your app is more than 18 months old then
you have a short chance that the age is there and you have your data, you have your downloads.
Yeah, so the age should be kind of like 18 months old and build your app with the future maintenance
in mind. What I mean here is that you will have to maintain this app for 18 months. You will have to
do the bills maybe you are hiring somebody it depends on your payment model of course but
do keep this in mind. You should stick to your app at least 18 months, okay. Let's move forward with
rule#6, know your why and this is really important. This is coming down to
the data. So we have here every developer says it's not working but why. It's working but why.
So be able to explain. So buyers will ask you kind of these questions and you
have to be prepared to answer them and when you are building out your apps you should consider
these answers that you want to give to these questions when you are
building your code, selecting your text stack, all of that. So here you go a few questions. Is your
revenue downloads graph pointing to a specific trend? So this is kind of just a trend?
Does your revenue downloads graph look like a stormy sea? Meaning that it's somewhere up and somewhere
down, so that's not really what, buyers really want, they want a really stagnating growth. Really all
the way, like just pointing all the way up. Is your niche seasonable? Do you know why? So basically if
it's a seasonal app then the buyer will be able to profit from it only seasonable. So is
your traffic heavily based on user acquisition or social media boosts? Now you have to be
transparent here and yeah we will talk about this in just a second but you have to know if your
app is gaining momentum only because you acquired some users or had some social media boost and you
have to tell your buyer that, okay this is what happened here. This is why we had all of these
downloads, okay. Have you experienced compliance problems with Apple / Google. Yeah if your app
has these compliance problems you have to be transparent with your buyer and hopefully you
will tell them, okay this is how we solved it, this is what we did to be compliant with Apple / Google.
What's your app's biggest weakness according to reviews? Now this is a big one because actually
your app is all about your customers and the customers will give you reviews, stars and also
with text yeah and and they can be harsh. So you have to be aware of the weaknesses. It's not like
okay if you just present your app's weakness the buyer will just shy away and not buy your app.
But you have to know their weaknesses maybe the buyer already knows how to fix that weakness.
So yeah you have to explain a lot of these questions that the buyers will ask. So yeah keep in mind that.
#7, be transparent and yeah as I already told you, you have to be transparent. Honesty pays don't
hide skeletons in the closet. Now nothing breaks a buyer trust more than finding unexpected surprises.
So just be open with the good and the bad and the ugly. Go ahead and just show your plate.
There's nothing, you shouldn't hide anything basically. Transparency is key. Yes!
So if you come to these seven golden rules why sell, why build an app that sells? Let's take
a look at this. Why would you sell it, because you have a great app idea and you say, okay I'm going
to stick with this, I'm going to build this and then it's kind of like, okay but this is my app,
I love it, I want to take care of it but life happens and why sell your app, well here are some reasons
why developers do sell their apps and will sell their apps. Maybe you want to take a break.
Maybe you want to finance the growth of the business. Maybe you want to build another app
like a new exciting project that you want to take care of. Maybe you need cash right now so life does
happen and if you do need cash, you want to sell out. Too many apps to maintain, maybe that's your
problem that you have too many ideas and you have a lot of apps and yeah you don't have time or the
budget for maintenance or and this is kind of the most that I so you have no real marketing
skills. You are a developer and you are just building these apps out are tremendous they
do work well but you have no idea about marketing. So there's a marketing cap right over there.
You can reach just a certain amount of people with this, okay. So my question is what is
your exit plan? What is your exit plan for your app that you are building right now? With BlueThrone
go ahead check them out it's at bluethrone.io you might be exiting in as less as 21 days.
Go ahead and check them out. Now you know how to build a sellable app. An app that sells and then
once you do that or maybe you already have an app that adheres to all of these 7 golden rules or
maybe most of them go ahead and check BlueThrone out because they will most probably buy your app
if you do have all of these golden rules in place. So now that you know how you want to build your
app that will sell eventually it's time to move forward and learn about SwiftUI. Now why do you
want to learn SwiftUI? Well that is the future that Apple is promoting for iOS apps. If you do
like this video go ahead and give it a thumbs up and while you're at it make sure to hit that
notification bell to get notified of new videos like these ones. This is about SwiftUI and also
this is about SwiftUI. Go ahead and check them out and as usual I will see you in the next one.