I've made almost a million dollars in 2 years as an indie developer. I also know many others as successful as myself or more so they are definitely out there. A top grossing iOS app makes 500k per DAY, so there are definitely a lot of success stories out there in the app world. Not many of them hit techcrunch, as they are mostly "lifestyle businesses"
A quote: "For those who have never heard about it, AppCampus is an initiative by Microsoft, Nokia and Aalto University that grants 20,000 to 70,000 Euros per Windows Phone application. You apply to the program and, if you get approved and deliver the bits according to specification, you get the grant and you still own everything (all of your shares, IP, etc."<p>It's easy to measure the true potential of a mobile OS -- pay attention to its creators' desperate offers of money to develop apps for it.
The question suffers from selection bias, the reason you don't have small teams making millions is that small teams making millions hire more developers and stop being small.<p>Sure there are companies that are financially successful and choose not to grow (i.e craigslist, plentyoffish) but <i>they're</i> a tiny minority.
> Seriously, how many stories of a small team making at least 70k from a single app have you heard in 2012? Not many.<p>Maybe it's because we're from different places, but a team of three creating $70k in revenue in a year is not rare or even that great of an accomplishment (that's not a reasonable living wage here). Maybe it is if you're spending your time making a free game or a $.99 throw away app, but there's no reason why three smart people can't solve a problem for a type of business and generate real revenue. Like patio11 and his Appointment Reminder app.
You don't even have to apply if you have already an interesting and popular app on other platforms. A client of mine has been contacted by Microsoft and been told, that they wanted to sponsor the development of his app for Windows Phone. And so they did.