Hold on… That is turnover… not salary or income. I have to save for periods that I’m not employed (frequently), save my pension, pay my car, insurances, phone bills, taxes… you name it.
That 3K is nett… I guess? 16 hrs a day? 6/7 days a week? Do they keep you in a cage or what?
You have your PhD?
As as consultant/information manager I worked for banks and insurance companies. The last Xojo project I did finished a month ago and I got 120,- ex VAT. That was very good indeed. Now I’m doing a Xojo job for a less fancy company. Rate is 85,- ex VAT. Still good.
100 ex VAT charged to customer is maybe 30 to spend for living on the end, I guess.
Running a business generates a lot of costs, so be aware that you need to earn a lot of money as revenue to get profit on the end.
[quote=105184:@Markus Winter]Woooow! That’s a cool 18,000 a month (4.5 weeks) for a LOT less work than I used to do in the lab (10 to 16 hours a day 6 to 7 days a week) for peanuts (about $3,000 a month).
[/quote]
That is awfully low (at least in the US) for someone with a scientific PhD!. Were you academia? Was it a Post-Doc?
the only way I would ever post those numbers was if my company went public and the government FORCED me to. Why does it matter if I sold 1 or 1million apps? my ability to sell an app has nothing to do (or close to nothing to do) with what language I wrote it in. There are some apps in the Mac App Store that are high selling (#s of apps sold) that are written in Xojo. Then there is are some up there that arent selling at all (very low #s sold). Has to do the with the program over the language.
[quote=105101:@Jay Menna]I was in your situation a few years ago, but I was trying to find out the details of 4D Developers. I got the same flak from folks saying that “Its confidential” and you will never find out.
We did this: We put up an ANONYMOUS survey monkey and asked a few questions. Some answered some did not. Everyone want to know. We only shared the results with those who answered the survey.
In hindsight. It was a pretty good back of the napkin indication of the real world.
PS: We asked why do you keep theses figures confidential as past of the survey/. The “Its confidential” people were either “Knee jerkings” saying “its confidential” or felt embarrassed that heir number were not that good.[/quote]
Very good thinking.
Not really that amazing… In many industries there are industry associations that conduct these surveys on a very regular basis. They send the surveys out to all of their members and request the survey be filled out. The company filling out the survey can do it anonymously or not, their choice. But only association members get access to the data. This is very valuable, and when we are asked we usually fill them out honestly and accurately. Some of them can be really simple, some more complex and time consuming but the data you receive back is very valuable. Doesn’t Xojo conduct surveys occasionally; how do you use Xojo, etc…?
Not likely the OP will get much of a response in this type of environment, but you can’t blame him from trying
It’s hard to see how this could be useful to your company unless perhaps you already had knowledge of some posters’ product types and prices that you combine it with
It would be very useful to know the norms/average/mean
If you want a copy of the results: do the survey and leave your email address.
If not : well you can ignore it.[/quote]
I suspect many Xojo users may fall into the - use Xojo to develop apps for use only by their own company (internal apps), thereby are not distributing or selling the product. Not sure where that would fall into your survey. However, it would be good to capture because you may learn that a lot of people are using Xojo differently than you think. Just a thought.
How many? Hundreds, No Thousands, No hundreds of thousands. Long ago I filled my mattress with cash and have bought countless mattresses since in order to hide all the cash. I really need to stop selling apps. I have no free time. All I do is stuff money into mattresses all day. Ever since I added that darn “Made with Xojo” tag my life has been hell. I’m drowning in cash.
I don’t know what percentage of Xojo developers make their living from “apps” alone but I’d bet it is fairly small. Custom development is more likely. The price of admission to Xojo is fairly low and many successful Xojo/RB users are people who were given the power to succeed in their niche areas of expertise.
My eyes were really opened Father’s day weekend while talking with my kids (26,26,23,20,15). The subject was music and we were discussing Rdio, Spotify subscriptions vs. buying music. They were adamant that $0.99 was too much to pay for a song. They feel a $10 -$15 per month subscription with freedom to play what they want, when they want is better than “paying” for music. They consider it free music. For some reason the monthly price is palatable where ownership is a horror to be avoided.
Things are changing at an alarming rate. Software is becoming a commodity.
Time for another Single Malt. Anyone know if I can get a subscription to that?
[quote=105286:@Peter Fargo]They were adamant that $0.99 was too much to pay for a song. They feel a $10 -$15 per month subscription with freedom to play what they want, when they want is better than “paying” for music. They consider it free music. For some reason the monthly price is palatable where ownership is a horror to be avoided.
Things are changing at an alarming rate. Software is becoming a commodity.[/quote]
I am the total opposite. I prefer to pay for individual tracks and keep the files. If it’s an artist I really like I’ll even acquire the physical CD.
[quote=105184:@Markus Winter]Woooow! That’s a cool 18,000 a month (4.5 weeks) for a LOT less work than I used to do in the lab (10 to 16 hours a day 6 to 7 days a week) for peanuts (about $3,000 a month).
[/quote]
I used to contract to a few oil & gas firms.
At one I replaced several people so they could go work on a project.
When negotiating compensation I asked about how many of the team would be there (wanted an idea of my work load)
I was told “None”.
That meant I was doing 9 peoples jobs - hourly rate was suitably commensurate.
I lived this and one inverse experience. In 1996, the company I was working at was bought by another one, all the “high-level positions” were gradually “substituted”. When my time came, they analyzed what I was doing, and few months later a team of 5 was contracted to replace me.
I’ve seen that happen as well - as part of this engagement eventually.I was hired as part of two fairly large oil & gas co’s merging.
They needed these 9 to work on integrating the accounting hr and other systems.
After things were done IT had swelled to just under 1/3 the entire head count of the company.
Things eventually settled down to IT being about 1/5 to 1/6 the head count but it was still way up over the previous percentages.
Before the merger it had been about 1/10 in one company and about 1/8 in the other.
It is my personal opinion that selling apps that cost 0,95 cannot generate enough turnover unless you hit the jackpot with something like Angry Birds. Don’t sell to the public, they consider 4.95 an ‘expensive app’. I focus on B2B, and do not ‘sell’ applications (because that would mean fixed price), but agree on an hour rate/fee IF possible.
Prices of package software are mainly driven by offer and demand. Yet another address manager, for instance, maybe difficult to sell and will end up at the bottom of the price range. But when an app is original enough and fills a real need, it will naturally sell for a higher price. Market share is also a thing to consider. When one is the last one on the list, chances are public attention will be low no matter the price.
I have been selling for over a decade MICR fonts (special magnetic characters at the bottom of US and Canada checks). This is a rather narrow niche market. Having started eons ago, my site is listed well and has a solid visitor base. Sales are pretty steady. That said, 5 years ago, the best seller was a $99.95 package. Today, it is a $19.95 package. This is a strong trend that seems unavoidable and impacts all my products.
If prices went down to $0.95 I would most certainly loose interest and look for something else. Think about it : to generate $10,000 in gross sales takes 350 sales a day. I may not be the best but I am rather below that figure.
Being close to the Golden age, I consider my software activity more of a retirement plan than a starting carrier. So it’s nice to have a lower, but steady, low maintenance income. But you are quite right : B2B is the way to go for a decent earning. Actually, as far as I understand it, selling apps for instance in the MAS can be a spinoff from other developments that puts additional butter on the bread. I find that more astute than placing an app for free download. I am not so sure a one Dollar app is so irrelevant, actually, as compared to a free one.
