When I started this blog, I decided I was writing it for my past self. The person who needed to just make a start with making apps but couldn’t find the motivation.

I searched high and low for proof that this could be a viable, profitable business model. So I searched for evidence of what other people were earning from making iOS apps. I thought that if I could see proof there was money there to be made, it would motivate me to do the same.

And it worked

I found a few articles and graphs online of people making a fortune. And this was enough for me to begin.

The truth about me 🤫

The truth is, I get motivated by these big numbers, but my goal is more modest than this. I’m always amazed when I see other people’s success; people earning thousands per month (and in some cases thousands per week!).

However, I do not need this. This is not what I set out on this journey for. To clarify, I would LOVE to earn money like that from my own apps, but my initial goal is much smaller.

🎯 I want to enable my wife to retire from her job if and when she wants.

That is it. My wife and I both work full time and we have two young(ish) children. I work as a software engineer for a tech company and so my work is very flexible, but my wife’s is slightly less so.

We have come to see our time with our children as our biggest commodity, one which we want to maximise as much as possible. We want to experience life with them before they are too old to want to experience life with us.

And so, we have looked at what our finances would be if she was to leave her high paid job as she wishes, and spends more time on herself and with our children. This is her dream, and I want to help make it a reality.

I don’t need to be a millionaire

When working it out, we actually don’t need thousands per week for this to happen, we need approximately $2000 per month of reliable extra income from my apps.

This sounds like a lot, and it is a lot for my apps right now, but it feels achievable given what some people earn from their apps every day.

And my trajectory suggests I can get there; in January I made $50, In July I achieved my all time record of $634. This has been just consistent work and effort on this business with my goals in mind at all times.

So what?

Why am I even telling you this? Because I enjoy sharing my story and my goals, and tracking my own progress. In 6 months, I’ve managed to get to a quarter of the way to my goal of $2000 per month.

Remember, I still work as a software engineer and earn a salary I am very grateful for, so anything from my apps is extra income. However, with the plan of going down to only one income as a family, there is a gap to bridge and this is making me want to work harder than ever on my side business.

My hope is that writing in this way might inspire someone else to get started. And to realise…

We don’t all need to be millionaires

Your goal might be closer than you think. If my goal was to become a millionaire, it would feel very out of reach and would likely de-motivate me. But creating a realistic goal like this has helped me see just how close and achievable it is.

And let’s be honest, I won’t stop when I reach that goal. Likely, I will set a new goal and keep going. But my goals will be tied to my life.

My goals from now on will all revolve around time, not money

How can I free up more time? How can I pay my obligations, my bills, without having to sell my time?

This will be the goal.

Earnings

With that, as I’ve not written for a while, here are my earnings for the past few months.

I’ve released a few apps in this time, mostly more quote apps, an app for UK citizenship mock tests and learning, and an AI wrapper to identify birds.

I’ve noticed that these last two apps have done very well with the lifetime or weekly subscription model. I had a slightly lower month in June as this was a month where I didn’t do much on my apps and was before I switched to experiment with my payment models, which had an instant impact.

I will be going into more detail in a new blog post soon about what paywalls I’m using, what experiments I’ve run with app icons, what YouTube videos I’ve been watching for inspiration etc. But for now, here are the raw numbers:

May

Release of Life in the UK app for mock tests and learning. This was a premium app full of content and features from day one, and was a pay-to-download initially. I’ve since switched this to a subscription model. You can see from the peak when I released this.

June

Slight dip as the initial boost from apple on the Life in the UK app wore off. This month was helped by the Laws of Power app having a particularly good month. Nothing else to write about here as I didn’t release anything new of notes.

July

My best month so far. This was the case of a successful experiment. I decided to switch the Life in the UK app to a subscription model. As the Apple boost wore off, it stopped making money on a pay-to-download model as there are just so many of these apps on the App Store. The competition is extreme, so I decided to make it freemium. This worked really well with a lifetime option and a weekly subscription option.

I applied the same strategy when I released my latest app in the last week of July, which is an AI wrapper for identifying bird species. This has also done well, with many people opting for both the weekly subscription and lifetime offers.

Quick conclusion

My next post will be about what videos I’ve watched online recently, what articles I’ve read etc. that have both inspired me but also given ideas for new apps and experimentation. It will be more practical and hands-on that this article was. The idea for the paywall and AI wrapper apps all came from videos I watched, for example, so this next article will be a repository of those things that I’m watching and are helping me at the moment. Also, anything in particular I’ve recently learned from these videos about ASO or split testing etc. will be in this article

All for now 🚀