Podcast: Warm, Clothed and Fed: Developer Run iPhone Businesses
By Keep my kids warm, clothed & fed: Beginning iPhone Programming Class: Portland/OR Nov12-13 & Los Angeles/CA Nov19-20. Only $799 w. early reg and “mo” discount code.
This episode of the podcast is a little different than usual: there’s no guest. Instead, it’s the audio from a speech I gave last week at the 360iDev conference titled Warm, Clothed and Fed: Developer Run iPhone Businesses.
The speech takes apart the iPhone market and looks for opportunities for developers to earn a sustainable comfortable living without turning into something they’re not — e.g., sales people.
I gave the speech to an overflow crowd and, I’m pleased to say, it was well received. So I’m sharing it here.
You can listen using the Flash player below, download the MP3, or subscribe to the iPhone Developer Podcast using the instructions at the bottom of this post.
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Music credit: Silent Night by the Travesties
Great presentation. There’s some useful stuff there. Particularly (for me) the comments on social proof.
I was at this event in Denver and thought the talk was very level headed. For me, it is helpful to find of the bigger picture when trying to make a living at this. So, I did like your ideas about essentially charging more for value, doing consulting (at the right price point) and providing services to developers.
One thing I disagree with this the implication that we should not have a sales mindset. It seems to me that this is something that we as developers need to get over (or outsource I guess).
I really enjoyed listening to this session and wish I’d found the podcast sooner. One question: there are a few places where you refer to slides and while their absence is not critical, it would be helpful to see them. Are they posted anywhere?
Thanks Dan. Nice talk. A breath of fresh air in a sea of hype.
It would be great to see the slides too.
I don’t have much use for a beginning iPhone programming class, but I would be interested in a class in the kinds of data mining you talk about.
Chris: I present in a somewhat unusual fashion. I use a lot of slides — 165+ in this talk — that are mostly images and short phrases words. They’re kinda worthless as a stand-alone entity. That said, I’ve posted them to here
Thanks for posting the slides. They are quite entertaining even out of context.
Great talk, thanks for posting it. On the product development side, I think Facebook is a largely untapped marketing resource—glad you mentioned it. For some time I’ve been thinking about how to integrate it into my app, especially since my app’s users will be college students—the creative marketing possibilities are exciting (talk about permission marketing!)
As I mentioned on my blog, one topic I would have emphasized (based on my research, I have yet to launch my first app) is design. One important way to distinguish your app from the sea of “good” apps is a beautiful and fun interface. Think TapBots or Tap Tap Tap. These teams included at least one really great designer and produce polished apps that sell. Apple suggests that design should permeate the development process (see 7 Ingredients of successful iPhone apps and watch Apple’s presentation.)
I would recommend design-challenged developers to partner with an awesome designer. Do whatever it takes to turn your good app into a delightful app.
Hi Dan,
sorry i missed you at the iDev360 conference here in Denver. Hopefully next year. I just discovered your site and podcasts and listened to 3 of them last night. Great stuff, I will be a subscriber. Thanks, Mark
Dan’s podcast of his talk in Denver was just great, I hope that in the future if you record your talks that the audio is easier to hear, but the information is so good that I will listen to it again despite the low audio.
Mobile Orchard is my favorite iPhone developer site, thank you Dan for all you do to help us as individuals and as a community.
Marlene
W, C and F is the sweet spot in my opinion and it’s nice to see some sanity out there. There’s been too much hype, too much sensationalizing this past year. If developers come into this market with realistic expectations, that this is a business not a casino, then they have a good shot at hitting their target.
The point that was only touched on in the podcast but which I felt was the highest value is that of “assets”. Contracting out one’s labor produces no assets. You do a days work and earn a days pay. When the day is over you’ve got the next day of work (hopefully) to look forward to. If not then you’re busted.
It’s a serious point to consider when deciding between contract work or publishing your own apps. It’s just my opinion, but the latter will produce superior long-term returns.