Contrast · B2C · indie iPhone app studio
Raise money from family with a written case for why the App Store is a deal
Family invested; business still running 17 years later
Workedfinancing
What they did
Wrote a business investment thesis to his parents and uncle arguing the App Store removed the costs of hosting a store, bandwidth and payment processing; they invested and he founded the company in April 2008.
What happened
Parents and uncle invested; David is 17 years into owning the app business.
Related topics
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from this episode
- Contrast: Ship a phone-first app that follows iPhone design rules and gets a top blogger's linkFounder calls the link a turning point; no numbers
- Contrast: Email the Apple evangelists shown on WWDC slides when your developer account stallsAn Apple evangelist phoned back; became a lasting contact
- Contrast: Buy a spare iPhone, jailbreak it, and study the 500 apps already out
- Apple: Stop bundling your own apps and spin them off so outside developers can competeAbout a decade of few built-in apps; third-party apps like PageMaker credited with saving the Mac
- Apple: Hire developer evangelists and put their email addresses on conference slidesCredited with building the developer flywheel; WWDC 2008 sold out for the first time
- Apple: Allow only the TV remote for games to push a new way of playingGames suffered; controllers allowed 3-4 years later, too late for gaming
- Apple: Let every app sell subscriptions and take 15% after a subscriber's first yearHost says it drove the current App Store era; review fell from 7-14 days to 1-2
- Apple: Stop charging $129 for OS upgrades so everyone updates automaticallyEnabled automatic overnight updates; profits at record highs anyway
- Apple: Launch a $3,500 headset years early so apps are ready when cheap ones arriveHundreds of thousands sold; developer interest weak so far