Ask HN: Out of runway and ready to sell my Mac apps. Interested?
I'm Bob Warwick. A few months ago I graduated from University and decided to work on making a living out of three apps that I've been selling on the Mac App Store. Though my monthly revenue has been growing, I didn't save enough money before starting out on this. I recently hit an expensive problem that means a portion of my savings I was relying on are unavailable. In other words, I'm suddenly out of runway and in need of hard cash.
I'm a good developer, but I'm afraid I'm not a very good marketer. I firmly believe that any of these apps have the potential to bring in a solid revenue stream in the hands of someone who can promote them correctly.
I'm looking to close these sales quickly, so preference will be given to offers that are able to pay sooner. I'm unfortunately traveling right now, and though I have backups of the source code that I can get you quickly, you won't receive the latest version until Monday August 8.
To sweeten the deal, I'll happily make myself available for up to 100 hours of remote consulting time at a reduced rate of $50/hour to any of the buyers. You might use this time to add a couple features that you feel would improve sales, or if you've got another project that you need an experienced Objective-C developer for I'd be happy to work on that as well.
Why Buy These Apps:
- Lower risk than developing from scratch: All three apps are stable apps that have previously been approved in the Mac App Store. They'll need to be re-approved to transfer to your account, but we know they don't break any app store guidelines.
- Good sales figures with no promotion in the last year other than being listed in the Mac App Store. Even some basic marketing skills could help boost sales.
- Low support burden. I developed these apps while I was in University and spare time was at a premium, so they're all as self-explanatory as possible.
Vital Statistics:
Stone Hill Time Card
Current price in App Store: Free
Estimated Users: 5000+
Asking Price: $5,000
Includes Time Card web app, which lets users send data from the Mac app to a web service so their employer can see it. I quietly launched this a couple weeks ago and haven't had any sign ups. This is effectively 'for free' with Time Card, but it could turn into a nice source of recurring revenue.
The buyer might increase the price of Time Card, or advertise another application or service to it's existing users.
More Information at http://www.codehackers.net/timecard and http://www.stonehilltimecard.com
Stone Hill Invoicer 2 - Invoicing for Small Business
Current Price in App Store: 29.99
Revenue in July 2011: $480 ($336 after App Store fees)
Asking Price: $20,000
Will include: http://www.stonehillinvoicer.com (currently only used for email)
More Information: http://www.codehackers.net/stonehill
Locations 3.0 - Location Based Preference Management
Current Price in App Store: 19.99
Revenue in July 2011: $420 ($294 after App Store fees)
Asking Price: $15,000
More Information: http://www.codehackers.net/locations
If you're interested, please contact me at consult@bobwarwick.ca. I'll be answering questions on this thread as well as I can, but I'm currently traveling so I'll be doing them as connectivity allows.