Archive for the ‘Announcements’ Category

Hello, future

Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Introducing Grades Blog

Introducing Grades Blog

Hi, this is Josh Olson, Jeremy’s brother.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you know that Jeremy has spent a lot of time thinking about how to market iPhones apps, with an emphasis on a strong launch.

It worked. But sales have slowed down since the launch. Instead of being depressed, I think this is a fantastic opportunity to discover the secrets to long-term iPhone marketing and profitability. To make Grades profitable in the long-term, in version 2.0 we will be experimenting with iAds and in-app purchases to generate more sustained income (see Jeremy’s post on iAds 1 cent per impression and $2 per click). Because we can’t afford a traditional marketing campaign, our marketing strategy will center around networking on Twitter and on my new Grades blog, where I will be sharing things I’ve learned from college to help students get good grades without excess sweat and stress.

My plan is to reach as many college students as possible through the blog; this will expose them to our app. This will open doors further networking and more exposure in the online college community.

So the story continues. I’ll be posting about what I learn as well as various thoughts on iPhone marketing and design as they come up.

Posted in Announcements, Grades, iPhone App Marketing | 1 Comment »

Big things

Friday, June 4th, 2010

So summer is here and I’ve been insanely busy. I’ve been a bit quiet lately so thought ya’ll deserve and update about what I’ve been doing.
GradesIcon

Grades

Grades 2! A bunch of new features and a new business model, which I’ll talk about later.

Grades marketing. my brother, Josh, and I have been planning a marketing strategy for the Summer to go along with the Grades 2 launch. You’ll be hearing more from him as he gets more involved. I think we have some pretty good ideas for turning Grades into a long-term profit machine.

By the way, that post about the Grades launch is still coming. I’ve been swamped but will begin to have more time for stuff like that (see “Skookum” below).

Screen shot 2010-06-04 at 11.18.23 AM

App Savvy

This is really exciting. I’ve had the privilege to be interviewed in Ken Yarmosh’s upcoming book about building successful iPhone apps. It’s called App Savvy: Turning Ideas into iPhone and iPad Apps Customers Really Want.

We’ve enjoyed working together so much that I’m going to go ahead and become a technical reviewer for the book. There’s not really anything technical to review but I’ll be helping him with the ideas and thought process of the book.

Let me tell you, this book is chocked full of great interviews and insightful advice for anybody looking to build successful iPhone apps. For a reduced price of $20, you would be nuts not to pre-order it (and no, I’m not getting a cut – it’s really good).

skookum2_0

Skookum

Those who follow me on Twitter may have noticed I have been retweeting @skookumlabs a lot. Here’s a little secret: that’s because @skookumlabs is me. Skookum, an innovative development firm in Charlotte (and my employer for the past year), is giving me the opportunity to spend more of my time blogging and tweeting about the stuff I learn!

Basically, I’ll be heading up Skookum’s marketing efforts. Part of that includes doing more of what I’ve been doing with Tapity, which means I’ll have more time to talk about everything I learn about building successful iPhone apps.

I’ll also be helping Skookum market their brand and their first product, Teaching Target. I’ll be doing this by helping Skookum build a culture of inside-out development and sharing. Everybody loves a good story so my primary strategy is to turn the development of our first product into a fun story, filled with insights about building and marketing great software. We’ve already published the first few chapters of this story and it is already drawing a good deal of attention: check it out on the Skookum Blog (and be sure to subscribe).

I’ll write another post soon about how my relationship with Skookum will effect Tapity but I think this is good for now. Back to work! Would appreciate your thoughts.

Posted in Announcements | 3 Comments »

Woah. Thanks!

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

This has been an amazing two days. Yesterday Mobile Orchard posted a link to Tapity in their “This week in iPhone news” post, calling it a “nice new blog related to iPhone development.” It was glad to see my hours of work and research getting some recognition from a blog I respect.

Today, TapTapTap—one of the most respected iPhone app developers out there (and my personal favorite), wrote an entire post recommending Tapity. I don’t really have the words to describe how honored I am.

In a word: Thanks.

Posted in Announcements | 2 Comments »

Brainstorm: GradeGuide?

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

photo
I just had a super duper half baked idea for the user experience and branding of my first iPhone app, hitherto known as “Grades.” Just as I was about to log the idea away in my secret files, a ninja dashed into my room and took a picture with his iPhone. I am still a bit bewildered from the whole thing but I recently received an anonymous email with no subject, containing a single attachment: the image you see to the left.

Sorry about that. Really.

In all seriousness, though, I am considering theming and branding the app as “GradeGuide.” The name describes what the app does better than just, “Grades”. Plus, who can resist alliteration? I’ve got some exciting marketing ideas to go along with the theme. More on that later.

Posted in Announcements, iPhone App Marketing | 4 Comments »

Progress!

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

iPhone Simulator
This man is excited. The screenshot above is not perfect, it’s not complete, it’s not ready—but its not a mockup, hence the exuberance.

Until a few weeks ago the actual Grades code base was a patchwork quilt of sample code and tutorials coerced into doing my will. I trashed it.

A bunch of things clicked a few weeks ago and I decided to start from scratch. It was a good idea. Today, a few weeks later, I have a lean, mean, Grade machine—the core functionality is already built. The best part: the days of constantly referring to sample code and tutorials are over—I finally understand, albeit to a limited degree, how it all works together. Its thrilling.

I was hoping to finish the beta before finals. At the rate I’m going, I may have the whole deal ready by then. No promises.

I already have some fellow UNCC students who will be helping me test out the beta but if you want to get in on the action, post a comment on this post.

Posted in Announcements, iPhone App Development | 10 Comments »

Tapity.com (the un-awesome version) is operational and why you should care

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009


So we decided to tell the world about what we’re doing: discovering ways to make a viable business out of building awesome iPhone apps. After busting a name, stuffing a few bucks into Hostgator’s mouth and waving a black wand (iPhone): bang (bing?), we’ve got a website. Now we’re sitting here, sweating with anticipation for that infamous Google Analytics graph to spike upwards, sharply! That will happen, of course, when our visitor count goes from zero to one.

Why you should care

Because if you don’t you may miss out on a wonderful tale of how two college kids went from rags to riches. Or not. We probably won’t make a dime, but wether we make it or break it, we’re gonna yap about it. In Detail. This means that if we make it, you can learn something. If we break it, the same. Briefly, we plan to blog about (because what is a blog post without bullet points):

  • The design process. We’ve found a striking characteristic among successful iPhone apps: great user experience. Usability, discoverability, aesthetics. We hope to host a detailed discussion on what works, what doesn’t.
  • The development process. Programming hurdles, what kind of stuff eats up time, coding techniques.
  • Marketing, Marketing, Marketing. If we make it, they’ll come. Not in reality, usually. We don’t think betting our app ideas on the viral/novel factor is a viable business plan. We have some good app ideas but we’re going to invest a ton of time and money (mostly time) into social media marketing; thus, the blog. We’ll talk about how we are using Twitter, Facebook, and even this blog to market our apps (and we’ll let you know what’s working and what’s not). Once our apps get in, look forward to app store positioning mania.

So we hope you come along for the ride and comment early and often; lets get this conversation started.

p.s. This is the “un-awesome” version because it is a default Wordpress template. I have designed a custom template, which will eventually become “the awesome version.” More on that later.

Posted in Announcements, Uncategorized, iPhone App Marketing | 4 Comments »