Jury.me

Over the past few days, I've stumbled upon a word that more of us should know as it so perfectly captures this moment in time. Commit this one to memory, because you're probably going to want to use it often.

​My talk, "Thriving in an App Store World", from Çingleton Deux was released today. If you're looking for a more visual and audible version of my 5-part series on app pricing (along with some other valuable advice), you should check it out.

By now you are probably wondering how much more this Jury guy can go on about elasticities and pricing and all the rest of these shenanigans. Well, this post will wrap things up on this topic. I've have spent the past four posts extolling the virtues of demand curves, revenue maximization, charging what your software is worth, and avoiding being a commodity. In this post, I'm going to show you how you can take real world data and use it to make better real world decisions about how you price your app.

When we last left our fateful heroes, we had just finished learning about elasticities, demand curves, revenue maximization, and had conducted a very important thought experiment about the price of our app.

The burning question you still find yourself with is this — Can I​​ actually charge a higher price for my​ app? Well, I'm here to tell you, "It depends." What it depends on, however, should end up shaping not only how you approach product development but also the type of products you choose to invest your time in creating. Let's dig in.

But what about your app? Can you charge a higher price for what you've created? And why should you charge a higher price? Can't you just make it up in volume? After all, what's 25,000 customers if you can have 50,000 or even 100,000 customers or more?​

The Top Grossing list is where you want to be. These are the apps that are making the most money, and making money means food on your table and a sustainable business for years to come. Don't be ashamed of making money and don't let anyone else shame you about it either. This is the livelihood for you, your families, and your coworkers.​

So what separates Top Grossing and Top Paid apps? Let's take a quick look at some raw data from when I ran these numbers in late February and early March.

At Çingleton and NSConference this year I spoke at length about App Store pricing and offered an analysis of the trends, problems, concerns, and recommendations for how to navigate these waters as a developer. At the urging of Craig Hockenberry, I decided to turn these into a series of blog posts so there's a good written record and searchable form of this advice. I hope you enjoy the read.

"I've solved this problem before."

"I need to sort out the technical requirements first…"

"​I've already implemented the following…"

If you ever hear someone utter phrases like these at the start of a project, chances are you are in for a world of trouble.

You need an MVP. Yes, I just used a classic phrase of venture-capitalist balderdash. I'm sorry, but stick with me here. For all the mistrust of VC funded product in our community, there's a valuable lesson in this phrase.

Deploymate is a simple concept, executed wonderfully by developer Ivan Vasic. Deploymate quickly and easily tells you if you are using an API in your iOS or OS X project that isn't present on the minimum OS your app is configured to support. As any experienced Cocoa and Cocoa Touch developer can tell you, missing these small availability details is incredibly easy. It's also incredibly painful when you do. 

Ask any car enthusiast about the Nürburgring and you’ll probably see the little boy or girl in them make a brief appearance. It’s hard to hold back the excitement and reverence that the indoctrinated have for this track.

For several weeks now, Johanna has been asking me what I was going to name my new BMW. Her black Ford Focus is already a named member of our household, going by the ever appropriate “Schwarz” (black in German).

I’ve never named a car, so this was an odd task. How do I name a car I haven’t met? What should I be considering when naming it, anyway? Is it male or female? And how the hell do I pick a good name? Ugh, this was going to be complicated.