Indie Diary #1 — Indie App Sales

I never really related about my indie apps journey until now in this blog. And that’s a miss because there is so much things to share!

Today, I’ll take some time to discuss Padlok participation to the Indie App Sales earlier this week, how it did, and what we learned in those two days!

Padlok

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The sale

This July 11th and 12th, a big sales organized by Matt Corey was organized, with more than 100 participating indie apps!

Among those apps: Padlok, offering Padlok Premium at a reduced fare:

• $1.99 the first year of subscription then $3.99/year (50% off)
• $9.99 instead of $14.99 for the lifetime purchase (33% off)

Before the sale started, I took time to write a press release, but I had no time to reach the press itself. And I figured with the number of apps participating, the press would write about the event, and I was right: 9to5mac, macstories, 512pixels and others wrote about the event, but as I expected also, Padlok was never mentioned.

I expected it because a lot of applications participated the sale, including very successful apps.

But also because Padlok really is a niche app, targeting people living in cities where there are a lot of extra info to associate with addresses, like door codes. Very common in Paris and in France, it’s almost inexistant in foreign countries, making the app basically an over-engineered address book app with no use-case for most.

Even sadder, the image picked by 9to5mac is not even showing Padlok’s app icon. Even if it wouldn’t have made any difference, something in my heart broke a little when I noticed.

Most of the visibility for Padlok during the event came from Mastodon, where I have knocked out messages during the whole event.

The outcome

Taking into account the visibility, and the public of Padlok, it went pretty well during the sale.

Weekly impression on the App Store increased by 85%, and product page views increased by 344%!

Conversion rate also have increased by 19%, and I had twice as much download as usual.

Regarding the purchases, I had no new subscription at all. All the purchases were “one time lifetime” purchases.

It tends to confirm that even if the subscription model provide a better visibility for earnings; it’s less popular than lifetime one-time purchases. And I can relate to that.

Lessons learned

• At the beginning of the event, I did not have a marketing asset to include with my Mastodon posts, catchy enough to intrigue potential buyers. Before the end of the first day, I created it and published it.

• The only chance for Padlok would be to get exclusive press coverage as it have happened already on iGen.fr. To do so, I plan a very big release for Padlok somewhere next month. Communication will start in the next few days to give press time to plan about it. I don’t expect to be featured with this release, but I take this as a challenge to improve my communication skills with the press for upcoming projects.

• Padlok maybe is in a niche that is too small. Plus, it’s unavailable on Android, making it less attractive. After the big release for Padlok is complete, I’ll take a break with Padlok for a few months, to use more of my time of others promising projects that you’ll ear about soon!

• First step for this break will be a small app we started this winter, and that we’d like to launch this fall. It’ll be a one-time purchase only, and it’ll help us learn a bit more to launch an app, and let’s hope with the press in our pocket!

As a final word, I’d say that I’m more motivated than ever for upcoming tasks. We surely had hopped to do better results, but we’re already grateful for what we have achieved already with Padlok, and we are learning so much in the process that it’ll hopefully end up well!

Padlok

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