Apppulp - The Journey
The Inception
2 years ago, in a Ramadan just like this one, I started working on an idea that was in my mind for a bit too long. An idea that I would keep getting back to whenever I wanted to ‘do’ something.
Back then, I was working as a gamedev at PiLabs, working with the amazing little group we had over there. We had just gone through the experience of creating and publishing our first ever game in the AppStore. The pains of just getting it in front of the people, of begging the review sites for some coverage made the CTO, Amir Ali and the creative guy, Tabish think, what if we automate this process? What if we make a place where people could see how much our game is actually being played?
It striked us all. We pitched in with our own suggestions and so the original idea was born - to create a ranking that would rate games based on quality. To solve the problem of ‘marketing’ for the developers. To make the store ‘just’. Unfortunately, we didnt act on it then and it remained just that, an idea.
The Drag
Finally, after a few months, when my time at that place was coming to an end and I had a little too much spare time. I started working on it. Took me a couple of weeks to create a little prototype. But then again, it remained just that, a prototype, like many others.
The Start
I joined Gaditek. Got busy in setting things up there and It took me almost one more year to seriously get back to it and actually pursue it as a proper venture. We invested 2 months to create a compelling UI, support for different dev platforms and a control panel. Everything was set and it was Ramadan again.
We got our first break via betalist. 100 signups in one day. I still remember staring happily at google analytics at 8 in the evening with 5 active members on apppulp.com. That was the most I have ever seen there. People were actually taking interest. Life was good!
I started posting about it on forums. Talking personally to every single visitor who would open the site and compelling him to install it. To just use it free of cost and give feedback. Result? I spent a hell lot of energy with not so much return. At the end of first month, I barely had any live integrated games to show.
I started sending personalized pitch mails to gamedevs, not just pitching Apppulp to them but giving them some suggestions about their games. I employed blogging. Social media activation, using twitter, etc. Things were moving ahead. But slowly, very slowly. It demanded too much effort and the returns were painfully low. The enthusiasm died out pretty soon and things got even more slow.
Endgame
Meanwhile, Apple released an update of AppStore taking engagement into consideration. It rang alarm bells. We knew we were standing on thin grounds but we kept on doing it for the sake of doing it.
By the time December came, we saw many ‘app discovery’ going out of business for one reason or another. Appedia, AppAdvice, etc. Established businesses with thousands of downloads a day. And thats when we really started getting worried. We talked to a lot of people. Investors, industry guys, and they were all of the same opinion - its pretty damn hard to pursue what we are pursuing as Apple was doing a really good effort to solve the problem itself. We were now redundant for we took too much time to implement the idea.
So on one sad evening in January ‘14, we killed it. While I still dont have the heart to pull the plug but I guess it would be fitting to do it now, as its Ramadan again.
Lessons learned
- Time to Market! Got an idea? Pursue it with full force right now! This is the single biggest reason for our failure.
- You don’t have to do everything yourself. The enthusiasm and energy will die out in a few weeks. Try hiring some help.
- Don’t try to talk to every single user yourself. Limit your interaction to a few hours. Might as well run a proper marketing campaign. It may go against conventional wisdom but it will be a better utilization of your time because remember, its VERY limited.