I've said it and been laughed at but the App Store is a shovelware market. A tiny fraction of apps gain enough volume to offset their low prices, and of those many are the result of paid downloads (tap joy).<p>There is a pervasive delusion that launching an app means immediate access to a lucrative market, but the reality is that it's highly competitive with extremely low returns.<p>If you are looking to make money off a mobile app (not establish saas mobile extension) rapidly launch MVPs of your apps to see if there is any demand. Don't invest in perfect designs and ux until you've validated that there is a user base worth investing in.
I agree that it <i>is</i> tough being a small agency building apps, but I don't think high value apps are in themselves unprofitable. I think whoever submitted this has perhaps misjudged the title a little.<p>The problem is that as time has gone on, more traditional agency suppliers have entered into the marketplace. This makes it <i>really difficult</i> for small players to compete. All the big digital agencies are doing app dev in house, and even the big consultancies are getting in on the action (Accenture, Deloitte, etc). I don't think Agant were helped by the fact they weren't based in London either.<p>Hypothetically, let's say you're a large retailer looking to get an app built. Who do you go with: the small player with great creds, or the well established agency that you already used to build your eCom site? I can tell you which one your <i>procurement</i> department will recommend you go with.<p>This isn't really an app specific issue, but one that occurs generally in the agency space (be it traditional print, digital, etc): mid-tier agencies find it very hard to compete. On the one hand they're getting their toes snapped at by one and two man shops who can undercut them, on the other they're not big enough to command attention at RFP stages against vast agency conglomerates.
I take a bit of issue with the editorial title on this post. Can someone please define "high-value app"?<p>I know on smartphones everything is an app, but these from Agant are mostly auxiliary content plays, interactive titles to accompany other printed work. I was reminded of the glory days of the CD-ROM browsing their portfolio. Content like this has often been beautiful and compelling, but rarely profitable.<p>The problem on the content front is that you are competing with (1) print / Kindle, (2) the huge library of existing movie and TV content already available for tablets and phones, and (3) the entire internet, where most of the content is free to the reader.<p>Most of the paid apps that do well add specific functionality to your phone: managing files in the cloud, controlling physical devices, exercise companions, etc. Often they are tied with hosted services: Evernote and Dropbox, for example.<p>For this reason, I'd imagine Agan saw bigger success with UK Train Times rather than Explore Shakespeare.
Sometimes I feel like I passed up a big opportunity not getting in on the iPhone market. Other times, I feel like the app market is like very packed concert where people get crushed and trampled, and avoiding it was a good move.
After looking at their portfolio, I'd say that high-cost/low-audience apps are hard to make profitable. Let alone building a business around such apps.<p>That being said, some of their apps look beautiful. Wish them all the best of luck on their next venture.
This is really sad to me because I aspire to run my own shop just like this one day, creating apps and software for ourselves and clients. I too see myself as a maker, not a business developer, so maybe this is a red flag to reevaluate.<p>Most of the apps that Agant has produced appear to be aggressively priced (seems most are around £9.99, the most recent at £24.49). Though, they do target a rather niche market. I'm very curious as to whether the apps did not sell well or simply did not cover the cost of operation. Whatever the case, now that Dave is the sole employee the revenue of the existing apps will not hurt.<p>Finally, I'm also wondering if Dave ended this adventure simply because he was not enjoying it, or if Agant was spiraling into debt. I can't really tell from this post. He does mention that making it in the App Store is difficult, but that some of the apps were created for clients (some being partners). I can't imagine that there wasn't enough good work out there for a talented team of proven developers+designers.
As long as you're realistic with yourself and a client the app store is still fertile ground, as much as any platform. Yes, there's a lot of apps and there has been a race to the bottom in terms of pricing, but there's still a reasonably strong market. XCOM was released at a reasonably high price, to a niche set of gamers and is seemingly making sales as it was (possibly still is) in the top grossing.<p>I don't know whether the title is fair. The article doesn't say 'we're not profitable', it just says it's a risky market to make high value, premium products, but making that kind of product in <i>any</i> market is inherently risky.<p>It's a shame, their apps are nice, but I think it's more a developer wants to develop, not chase down the next contract to keep the wages going so hopefully we'll see more work appearing.
I would not call a retail app "high value." Alternatively, I would not call retail sales of the software itself a good way of supporting high-value apps.<p>I have two kinds of clients: Ones with hardware as part of the product, where Android is an embedded component and the software is specialized to work with the hardware; and ones with business models that do not depend on the end user paying a one-time retail price.
If you're going to make high value apps, your marketing can NOT be app-store dependent which is tough. I would employ highly targeted paid download advertisements either through Facebook or other methods, as well as an excellent web and PR presence.<p>I do not agree they're not profitable, but they're NOT going to be "set it and forget it" style successes.
Most of these are not really applications, seems to be mostly just the equivalent of small adverts that would normally be a relatively cheap Flash page or Facebook app. Or they're just CDRom style multimedia experiences which we already know are not that profitable.