I quit my high-paying job to follow my dream of launching a startup. Here it is.

You need to move this site to a host that can handle the load today. I'm getting timeouts and finally got the home page to load. I can't get any of the other pages to load either.

Kudos to you for following your dream, but I do have to say I'm fully against making it easier for people to move that which should stay on the web to native apps. We have web browsers for a reason.

Have you run this past Apple with regards to their App Store approval policy? I'd be worried about clause 2.12:<p>"2.12 Apps that are not very useful, are simply web sites bundled as apps, or do not provide any lasting entertainment value may be rejected"

Nice idea. I'd be interested to know (and if you're willing to share with the community):<p>1. What was your job.<p>2. How much did you get paid.<p>3. How much savings(runway) do you have to support this product.<p>Thanks!

It's a cool idea with a few players in the field. Did a quick check on a WP Blog and the application sandbox keeps crashing.<p>I only have two concerns. You are entirely at the mercy of Apple with this product. There isn't too much customization available so Apple may at some point decide to reject your customers apps. A lifetime membership might not help without the code for customization if you ever go offline. The second is the other players in here. I think people are going to want a lot more customization.<p>Either way, you've selected a market with a lot of demand. WPTouch and <a href="http://www.wiziapp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wiziapp.com/</a> are the main competitors I can think of. (WPTouch built into an app of course)

Genius, I'd invest all my money into this idea. From a marketing perspective:<p>1. big market (a lot of wordpress sites run by small &#38; medium businesses that would love an easy and cheap app) 2. practically sells itself (costs, ease of use, service) 3. if possible try to roll it out both ways (drupal and android)<p>Questions:<p>1. What about more complex and altered WP sites? 2. What will your to-market strategy be? More specifically: target customer<p>Again, a great idea and a very good feel for what the market needs. Congratulations!

Interesting idea, but can't get it to work. I created a test account and added 2 WordPress blogs to it: TechCrunch and the official Wordpress blog (<a href="http://wordpress.org/news/" rel="nofollow">http://wordpress.org/news/</a>). Went through the steps, downloaded the sandbox app on my iPhone 4S and tried to preview them. App instantly crashes when loading both sites. Is it just that these blogs don't have the required JSON plugins (possible)? Or is it that they have too much content for Appifier to handle? Either way, an abrupt crash doesn't inspire confidence. Do you have any sample blogs we can try to test this with?

For those having trouble with the site, I ended up looking at Google's cached copy and then finding the walkthrough youtube video that you can watch here: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QkwDDB0I5_g?autoplay=1" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/embed/QkwDDB0I5_g?autoplay=1</a>

First, congratulations!<p>The site looks good and the product seems interesting and useful.<p>Unfortunately, you're getting hit hard with HN traffic being number one on the front page currently and thus things are slow.<p>However I was able to load the index page and watch the introductory video.<p>One thing that bothers me is I clicked on your Terms of Service link and was prompted to login: you might want to consider making as much available to logged out users as possible and esp things like terms of service which I may want or even need to read before signing up.<p>Otherwise, best of luck!

I don't want to knock your product, because I know site owners will love it, but does anyone actually like and use these simple apps that wrap a website?

Congratulations on the move to startup life! Great looking website and nice user experience for publishing.<p>Posting the service on HN is one of those things I wish I had thought of a few months ago, I still have a lot to learn - thankfully a friend sent me this link since he knew what we were doing. TainoApp (<a href="http://gettainoapp.com" rel="nofollow">http://gettainoapp.com</a>) does all that (Wordpress to native iOS app), plus full platform support for Windows Phone 7, and Android (wrapping up Blackberry and MeeGo support as of this posting) you can see it at work here - <a href="http://goo.gl/nuZcm" rel="nofollow">http://goo.gl/nuZcm</a>. So far, it seems we're the only ones that can do Windows Phone 7 - hopefully someone in the community can point out other projects we haven't heard from that already does it, so that we can continue learning from others.<p>We have the tech specs ready for implementing support for most of the CMSs out there (Tumblr, Posterous, and others including Tresite - heavily used in latinamerica), but decided to focus on Wordpress installs first since the install base was larger we were able to churn out an mvp faster since we were more familiar with the wp architecture.<p>Our focus had been on engaging one on one with customers and quietly testing out different revenue models - but this kind of torrent of feedback would have been truly welcome. It wasn't until the start of the new year that we decided to test an introductory offer for the platform - aimed at the latinamerican market first (it's google translate friendly - <a href="http://goo.gl/Y5JZL" rel="nofollow">http://goo.gl/Y5JZL</a>). I felt we were missing a lot of the features I wanted, so I held back from doing a public push to get feedback - that was a big mistake. Seeing everyone's comments for Appifier has been an uplifting experience - so keep at it!!! One of the toughest things I've felt is being out there and being open to scrutiny by other startups. Maybe we can chat sometime and talk a bit more about some of the mistakes we've done along the way - drop me a line at jramphis at gettainoapp dot com. Best of luck!

Sites that hit the homepage on HN crash so often I dream of quitting my job to launch a startup whose sole service is to HN-proof your site &#60;/jest&#62;

Congrats on the launch. I have some feedback, but a random question for you first - did you work at Deloitte in their S&#38;O practice?<p>Now for the feedback - assuming your audience is a non-tech WordPress user, I'm suggesting that you do A|B testing on the use of "Native App". From experience talking to clients on the marketing team or communications team, most don't know the difference or meaning of "native app". To them, an app is an app is an app - native or not.<p>The key question that these folks care about is "will my app have a custom icon that represents my brand", "can i submit to the app store", and "will my customer see this icon on their iPhone once they download it?".<p>So, my hypothesis is that if you strip "native app" from your copy (all of your copy) and just focus "custom app", "custom icons", "app store submission", "WordPress to iPhone", your target audience won't miss a beat and won't blink at "native app".<p>If you end up testing this out doing A/B tests or user research, I'd love to hear the results.

Cool! I will be using such a service several times this year. Honest question - what makes your service more special than the other services out there that claim to do the same thing?<p>P.S. I do like the one time charge option... I haven't seen many that have that as an ooption.

Do you include the WP markup in your generated app? Or do you transform the markup into Objective-C code (so no HTML/CSS included in the app)? The latter would be much harder to implement I think.

I'm not sure I see the benefit of converting a website into a pseudo-app, then charging for that app. Users would effectively be paying for the wrapper when the same content is available without charge via a browser. I realize this happens all the time and there are a plethora of site shortcuts-as-apps in the app store, but the fact that they are abundant doesn't make the practice any better.<p>I'm honestly curious about the use cases for this and what extra value this provides for the user over using the website in a browser.

This is awesome, I know loads of people who will use this, including me if I ever have time! A couple of questions though:<p>How does payment/subscription work? Is there a limit to the number of apps you can publish under the monthly plan, or is there a cost per app and then a monthly fee for the analytics and push? Is there a nice user interface for push? Where can I see a demo of it all in operation (the management of an app that's out there)? :)

Congratulations! I am sure its a proud moment after taking the big step in life :).<p>A nice concept as well (btw, the hackernews effect is slowing down/timing out your site).<p>On a tangential note (maybe), are you also liking running the startup (a company)? I am sure developing the product would have been an awesome experience, but when it comes to manage and run the company it calls for something else. How are you liking that?

Go Montreal ! :) Slight issue though - I created an app, says everything went well, downloaded the sandbox, but nothing appears under "My projects". Does it take time to update ? Also, "Push composer" and "Analytics" in my admin panel link to "#". Are these just placeholder links to let users know that the functionality is coming ? Good job on shipping the product !

How is this app different one WPTouch which also turns your WordPress into something iPhone friendly: <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wptouch/" rel="nofollow">http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wptouch/</a> I know you turn the site into a native app, but WPTouch works just fine with HTML and CSS. Is there something I'm missing?

<a href="http://mobilito.net/" rel="nofollow">http://mobilito.net/</a>, the free website I launched this week (<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3419941" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3419941</a>), could help you to promote the app: show users how their website looks awful/unusable on mobiles currently.

At what point is it okay to post you have started a new website / business on hacker news?<p>Here goes my karma. Since we are doing shameless plugs here are my two (and yes I quit very high paying jobs ... 1.5~2 times more than @gozman ...):<p><a href="http://snaphop.com" rel="nofollow">http://snaphop.com</a><p><a href="http://evocatus.com" rel="nofollow">http://evocatus.com</a>

Don't stress on missing your opportunity. Your 'How Hacker News crashed my site' post will get just as much traffic

Would be interested to hear how you (and others) handle the transition from salaried work to startup life...

Nice idea! I like how it's focused on wordpress and iphone (rather than turn any website to android/iphone/etc.) Care to share some implementations details with follow HN-ers? :) I.e. Do you have a "plugin-converter"? How do you transform the "normal screen width" to a "mobile feeling"?

The word "native" jumped out at me. I wonder, for the target users you are aiming, if it's enough to say "...an iPhone app...". To me, it's the same feeling as "to kill a running app". It's common for tech people to say but doesn't have personal touch.

Typo: Sign up today and see just how quick and easy it can __free__! No credit card required.

Why you are using JSON API instead of XMLRPC which is more popular and enabled by default for some providers such as wordpress.com?<p>Disclaimer: I am doing similar thing and will launch soon..

Nice demo video, although I am not sold on the idea people want or need to consume blogs natively on their phones. But, hey, hat tip for testing the idea in real time :)

Very very nice concept. Would attract so many WP site owners who want to have an app.<p>Please share some technical and transition stories. Also is the homepage a little slow, or just me?

Why did you choose to form an LLC instead of a C-Corporation?

Interesting.<p>This looks like a container similar to PhoneGap, but more specialised to some sort of feed from the WP website, perhaps RSS.<p>Is there really that large a market for this sort of thing?

This is a concept that I had a lot of fun thinking about but never had the resources to make happen. Good luck. Can't wait to be a client. Looks very promising.

Bad signs, it's slowing down. It's taking more than 20 seconds for me to load. Scale it up, scale it up fast, buy more processing power from your host

Does converting a WP site to a native app really enable more "features" than, say, WP's own mobile styling or something similarly built with HTML5?

I guess WP is the first step, I'd love to see this also for Other blogging engines like blogger, posterous or tumblr.

Wish you all the very best. Make sure you scale up today, as I am going to pitch for you wherever my reach is.

Your dream was to write software to reformat Wordpress generated HTML so it can fit on an iPhone screen?

How do you handle the random WP plugn?

WPtouch == 90% bang for $0 bucks + 1 minute time investment. TheAppifier's nativization of blogs has its niche: - for blogs that has large, religious, passionate following. - for marketing departments who love to announce "immediate availability of mobile app".<p>It does not add any "native" functionality though - just save people from typing URL in mobile browsers. True/false?

Nice idea. With 10K people signing up for lifetime you get 499*10K = almost 5 million, not bad!

Do you have any ballpark numbers for wordpress hits day -&#62; expected revenue from appifier?

I'm one of the team at PrimaryBlogger and we would be interested in using this :) Good work!

Cool idea, but this is just going to make the signal:noise ratio in the app store worse =(

Logo suggestion: The 'f' in the font you're using can very easily be mistaken for a T

gozman, you are an inspiration.

Nice site! Glad you made the jump to follow your dreams, good luck!

Looks like you're coming into the same space that OnSwipe is in.

Very nice idea. Couldn't stop admiring it. Congratulations!!!

nicely done! i wish i could do the same, must do the same ; )

risky idea. sounds good but apple just hates template-apps.

Congratulations on starting out on your own. Takes courage.

nice work,pretty useful for bloggers,I believe.All the best for your startup.Btw,How long did it take to launch this startup after you left your previous job?

This is a neat idea. Best of luck! Looks great.

our site is back up now. visit us at <a href="http://theappifier.com" rel="nofollow">http://theappifier.com</a>

great idea! who do you think the target market is for this? developers that create corporate websites?

I can't get the site to load.

cool idea, looks nice, thanks for sharing

What tools did you use to convert PHP to obj-c?

very clever logo btw. I like the riff on the established convention.

Nice idea but you have some competition. Won't mention sites on here, played with a identical solution a few weeks ago. Also found somewhere that is doing a WP app for a one off charge of $17, you download source code, edit it, compile it and submit it to the app store.<p>Dave

Nicely done. does it only support blog type of web-sites are can you handle more of custom wordpress sites as well? For example can it handle membership type of sites where payment processing is required via CC or Paypal?