Spend Stack:A Case Study & Stuff

Ubiquitous “Who Am I”- Run Dreaming In Binary

- Write for Sitepoint, Tuts+, and Sinch.

- Pluralsight Author

- Application Dev at HealthMEDX

So - Spend StackSpend Stack is a shopping list app that keeps a running total with sales tax included.

The Big Picture

Marketing VideoSpiffy!

Target Audience/GoalsAll cash spenders

Encourage predictable shopping or spending

Generic enough for most all shopping lists

Easy to use, pass the Deb-Mo test.

Who is it for?

The User InterfaceReally takes place in two places

A list is open All lists

My Goals

•Segue for Dreaming In Binary

•Help solve a common problem

What I wanted to do with Spend Stack

•Build up portfolio

•Hook into the iOS community

Believe it or notI’d already been bit by the App Store before

Making money was not a primary goal

Sold 4 units at launch.I did not retire.

DownloadsI still haven’t retired

Not surprisingApp Store is tough

- techcrunch

20,000Apps released each month:

“Here’s What We Did!”Seems like PSAs for their app - but hey, good for them.

We bought a 30 second commercial during the Super Bowl - it really helped our download numbers!!!

Lessons LearnedUSED:

What went wrong - technology used

SHOULD HAVE USED:Plain UIView for navbar Frame calculations Key-Value iCloud Model-View-Ahh Screw it AppDelegate as a God class Manual library imports Xcode snapshots Stackoverflow No common sense So so so much more

A navbar - derp! Autolayout Document Based Storage Model-View-Controller *AppDelegate for nothing Cocoa Pods Git The docs Common sense So so so much more

Discovery - your freinenemyGet noticed or die a slow death

So - what do you do?Lucky, press, or get featured by Apple:

•Generate buzz

•Use new APIs

•Be relevant based off of time of the year or event

•“….Make a great app”

Get lucky/Get Press/Get Apple to love your app

Marketing - What I Tried

Press Release via PR Mac

The Basics

Kinda Helpful?You immediately get spammed with emails:

They mostly just get reposted on other sites

Local Community

Local news is great:

417 Mag

KY3 Interview

Springfield Newsleader

RayWeinderlich.com

They are your best friends and initially, your biggest fans

Reviews are important

Never prompted

Hard to find

Nobody cared

But how do you get them?

Reviews are important•After a “good” thing

•Give me the option to ignore

•If no, ask for feedback

You have to ask, but under the right conditions

Reviews are importantI use this same philosophy on Medium:All about how and where

Mindset of app development

You should build a business, not an app.

You are not just a developer, you are an:

Not just an app

- entrepreneur - marketer - salesman - QA analyst - product owner - social media maven - …etc

Know when V1 is doneAgile Development at home! It works.

Weigh each feature against mission statement

Example: Color Schemes - Cool, not essential

Or enjoy development hell

Check out your competition•App Annie is good for this

•Download the competition

•Point out what you did that they didn't

See what they suck at and what they rock at

Jargon Loses People

•Spend Stack came from a name generator

•Nobody knows what a stack is

•A list is familiar and easier to understand

Nobody gets the whole “stack” part.

“Oh look! It’s a stack! Like the lists! I mean stacks!”- No one ever

App Meta Data

Financial was the wrong category

It very much matters

Important: Not So Much:•Category •Keywords •Screen shots

•Descriptions •Update notes

That Said…Games are by far the most popular

Less Market Saturation > Better Chance To Chart

Manage your timeBuffer for social media

Placeit & Promotee for product shots

Github (the somebody already solved this scenario)

Cut corners and be efficient as much as possible

Manage your timeI wrote all of my old website from scratch

Are you wasting time somewhere?

Manage your time•12 hours in a week to work on DIB

•Blog post once a month

•1 post takes 4 hours to write

•1 post takes 2 hours to code

•= 4 hours left for everything else :- (

Maintaining my website myself wasn’t an option

Manage your timeMoved to SquareSpace

Moving to a CMS saved me a lot of time

Using a CMS: •I put out more content •Edits are super quick •Changing things is trivial

Using Medium: •I write technical posts over swift weekly •Easy to share •Network with other developers

Manage your time•Tough to find time during the week

•Weekends are great, but you need to relax too

•Find the sweet spot, which meets these reqs:

Find your “sweet spot” - for me it’s Saturday mornings

You know it’s available

You’re inspired and motivated

You know you can focus

Manage your timeStick with one project - but think ahead

Speaking of projects

•What do *you* want to make

•Do people/the market want that

•Does it solve one problem well

•What can you bring that other haven’t or can’t

Find what you are passionate about, that might make sense to others

Don’t think about money, but create something that can make it

Learn how people use your app

•Almost always used for grocery shopping

•Nobody uses categories

•People choose ugly color schemes

It might not be what you expect

Connect with the community

Email everyone back who sends feedback

Incorporate their ideas if it makes sense

Connect on Twitter, too

It scores big points

Look Professional• Put your best foot forward

• In time, hard work will pay off

• In the App Store - Success could take years

• Epic Games - 1 in 10 games succeed

Fake it till you make it

What do you want to be?Jordan Morgan - iOS expert

I realized representing me and DIB were fundamentally different and they were clashing

Dreaming In Binary - Software

•Split blogs out to medium •Tutorials and teaching

•Social media is focused on things I make •Doesn’t confuse people with technical things •Blogs only pertain to apps

Future of Spend StackCompletely overhaul UI

- Negative Space

- Stupid Easy

Focus on:

- Grocery shopping

- Universal app

What’s Next

Next for D.I.B.See more at bit.ly/halotimeriosHalo Timer

Plugs@jordanmorgan10

@dibsoftware

bit.ly/iosdevguide

dreaminginbinary.co/jordan

Come find me

Adaptive Design in iOSGetting Started

(end of June)