“Creating Great Mobile Apps! (snark)”

The following is a re-post of something I said on Facebook just over a year ago. The topic came up today in a conversation on Twitter so I figured it was time to move it to here where others can see it.

Written after Twist went under.

How to create a great mobile (iPhone/Android) app in the current business climate:

1. Go to school, fail math. HARD.
2. Have an idea for a cool product.
3. Get your programming buddies together, create a demo.
4. Optional: Show it to a venture capitalist. Get lots of money to grease the skids for the first release.
5. Finish the app.
6. Release the app. Make it free for everybody. You'll make it up in volume! (See step 1.)
7. Get lots of users.
8. Wonder why you're not yet profitable.
9. (Optional) Get more money from the vulture capitalists!
10. Spend lots of money on marketing.
11. Spend lots of time on a big update that makes the app prettier and funnerer.
12. Wonder why you're still not profitable!
13. Go out of business. Disappoint the millions of users who would have paid for your app had you let them.
14. Blame the system. The app store. The market. The business climate. Never consider your own utter failure at math, because who needs math when you have millions of customers ^d^d^d^d^d^d^d^d^d users!
15. Return to step 2, wiser and stronger for your failure, to create an even better business based on a free app (in a completely different space).

This just keeps happening.