My micro-ISV Way

That’s it! It’s been a year since Eternity debuted on App Store. For 4.99$. So, to celebrate that, it’s available for 4.99$ again! Until Monday , November 23.

When I first saw it, it was so cute and helpless. It had only 3 tabs, no data export, no settings, no charts… The time. It goes by so fast (gasp) ….

The nicer part first: how to get 5 starts? This is not as tough as you may think. There are millions and millions of iPhone and iPod Touch users. They’ve downloaded over a billion apps so far. Looking at this numbers it’s pretty obvious that virtually every app will find someone who like it enough to give an enthusiastic review.

My app, Eternity, got it’s first 5-star review, the day it was published. Let me quote it here:

I am giving an enthusiastic 5-stars because I think this is totally worth many times the money with out any improvements at all. I use it as a constant (eternity) running time log even while I am sleeping. I have created categories some even with several layers of sub-categories ranging from Family and children, Business and Partners, Music and multiple instruments, Writing and several books, and Miscellaneous and multiple recurring categories. The reports allow me to know exactly where I spent my time in practice in the broader categories and be able to drill that down to the more refined specific area. I never stop the timer ever but rather just start the next one which auto stop the former even knowing exactly how long I sleep and when. I even created a “What next?” category in Miscellaneous that fills the gap when I don’t know what to do next. This is a self management and tracking system dream come true. Of course you can run other programs while Eternity is still running and yes I have some improvement ideas but somebody must have read my mind on exactly what I needed. I now know exactly where my time goes with as much detail as desired with the elegant simplicity of the iPhone touchscreen. WOW!

For me, the most pleasing part was the one where the user describes my app as his “dream come true” and projection of his mind. It’s a great compliment for a developer when a user concludes, that software does exactly what he wants.

This was a review of the 1.0 version of Eternity (the first iPhone app I’ve ever written). Lacking many features, very basic. Still, someone liked it very, very much. Not that hard, is it? Write an app, publish it, wait some time.

OK, now the harder part…

How to get a 1-star review on App Store?

The recipe for getting a 1-star review is very similar: write an app, publish it, wait enough time (Eternity waited almost 7 months). Given enough users and time, someone will be dissatisfied enough to voice his opinion.

This is even more true for free apps. People download them just to see what’s in or because they are bored and browse the App Store. If they don’t know what the free app really does, which is very common in case of niche apps, they will give it 1-star review just because of that.

The 1-start review for the paid version of Eternity was:

To have a logging application on a mobile device without a way to purge the data is crazy at best. This application will take up some space and you would have to remove log entries one by one!
Contacted developer and was told it would be in the next version. I have stopped using the application.

(it was subsequently updated by the user and the rating was increased to 2-starts).

I’ve had an email exchange with the author of the review before he published it. I explained that Eternity requires very little storage space (about 150KB after over half a year of 24/7 logging, fraction of the space used by an mp3 song). So my first reaction was: oh, this user probably doesn’t understand what kilobytes, megabytes and gigabytes are. Hence such review. So I explained it in more detail and assured that Eternity won’t consume a lot of storage even when the log is not purged for years.

It turned out that the author was a developer himself and he perfectly understood what KB, MB and GB are. So his review was very technically oriented. Every software collecting data should have a way to purge it somehow. It’s a “must have” from a technical point of view. And I agree!

Note however, that such review could be written by a non-technical user as well: It’s my little iPhone. There is no much space in it. Do you think you can eat and eat it forever? No way!

So why Eternity didn’t have that feature right from the start? Well, that’s because I thought too technically developing it. It will take few hundreds of kilobytes after years of using, I have few months (at least) to develop data purging. Both technical and non-technical criticism of such approach is valid, however. It’s a bad practice not to have a way to delete data in a data-collecting software. It’s a bad practice to restrict user control (even a bit paranoid) over his mobile device.

What should you do now?

In my teen years, I was on a camp. When me or my fellows did not behave well, our instructor ordered us series of push-ups. After completing it, we had to say a simple formula: “thank you for improving my brawn!”.

So what should you do, as a developer and a micro-ISV owner, with a 1-star review? Well, you should accept the critique whether you think it’s fair or not. Say “thank you”. “The user is always right” should be your motto. Users have many expectations (sometimes contradictory), different views, requests, worries, but it’s always your job to reforge them into a robust shape of your product.

So the first thing I did was developing the “data purge” functionality (it waits for other features to join, before the next update is released). The second is writing this entry to document a bit harder part of “My micro-ISV way” .

What to do to avoid 1-star reviews?

This can’t be said enough times: think like users think (or at least try to). That may be hard for several reasons, however.
First of all, there are many users and they, well…, “think different”
Second. You, as the developer, know your software inside out (yes, that’s a common illusion among developers, including me ). Because of that, what’s obvious to you, may be a mystery to the user. In a one-person company there are not many people to take a (blank) look at your creation . Before users do, of course.

Third. It’s hard to wear your “software engineer” and “average software user” hats at the same time. And you have to do that all the time. Do you think 256 is a nice, round number in the eyes of the user? Think again

Looking at the 5-start reviews, I’ve had a bit of success in thinking like users do, but there are still many 1-start aspects of what I do. I’m aware of that.

What does it mean in a micro-ISV world?

Running a one-person company, you’re responsible for all the good as well as bad things. There are no layers of tier 1, 2 and 3 customer support between you and the end user of your products. Your praise is very public, but your shame too. That’s very different from a corporate software development world, as far as I know it.

BTW, that’s why I gave my company a name after one of my nicknames: Komorian. I wanted my business to a bit personal too. That and the lack of good, unregistered domain names . I know it’s lame (do you want to hear a lame company name? Stand up and say “Google” out loud .

The conclusion of this story is that when you screw up in a micro-ISV, there is no-one else to blame. So be prepared to take the blame yourself. It may be tough, I know. But “this is the business we’ve chosen!”. Now, who said that? The first three readers sending good answers get a free copy of Eternity (via promo code – valid only in US App Store, sorry).

Where Eternity name and icon came from?

When I started developing Eternity Time Log, the first name for it was Hourglass (it’s still in many place in the source code). But before I released it in App Store, another time tracking app had showed up with a hourglass as the main theme for its icon. I had some hourglassy icon designs ready, but I decided to change the name of my app and the icon to something a bit more distinguishing. So you could tell your friend: “I got this cool app on my iPhone. It’s for time tracking (yeah I know, I’m a freak ). But try it. It really makes a difference. Look for …”. And you would tell the name of the app or show the icon on your device and both would be easy to find. So I wanted something differentiating from other time tracking apps and time related at the same time (lot of “times” in this sentence:-P). “Eternity” was definitely a time related word and still pretty unique App Store-wise, so I choose it. “Snake eating its tail” is one of the symbols of eternity so it looked like a perfect fit too.

So why change the icon now?

I still think the name “Eternity Time Log” was a good choice. If you’ve heard about my app and search App Store for “eternity”, you will find it right away. With google search it’s not that straightforward. There is Samsung Eternity mobile phone so when you search google for “iPhone eternity”, my website will probably not show up on the first page of the results. But if you search for “iphone eternity app” or “iphone eternity time …”, something related to my app should be placed by google gods at the first spot. But this is searching. And what about browsing? Eternity is rather not an “impulse purchase type of app”. It’s a niche application for someone who knows what he’s looking for. You would not spend $7.99 just to get a taste of it. So if you’re gonna download it, you’ve probably already heard of it or you’re browsing iTunes App Store whispering “time, time, time…” mantra .And the problem with “snake eating its tail” icon is that it’s a symbol of eternity (and not very well known for that), which is somewhat related to time, which is somewhat related to time tracking which is too distant from your mantra to catch your eye when browsing countless pages of apps even for “time manager/tracker/log” search result. That’s the problem. I finally got it off my chest, I feel so light .

Snakes are scary

I also had some complains that the “snake” icon is scary (even demonic) and too dark. I sympathize with you, I’m afraid of snakes too. That’s when you figure out it’s a snake on the picture (”is this a zipper?” asked one of my friends ). On the other hand it seems too toy-like and not-very-business-looking for some tastes. I understand that too.

“So what the frig is on the new icon” you ask?

Well, it’s a combination of a hourglass and another symbol of eternity – “8″, which has its origins in, guess what, hourglass (as far as I know). I hope it’s closer metaphor to “time, time, time…” mantra and still quite distinguishing. I also hope it’s simple, beautiful, elegant and will bring me some much desired design awards . Come on, at least you have to admit it’s not scary . I’m releasing the app with new icon in the 1.3.1 bugfix-only update (currently in review by Apple). The basic goal is to catch some more eyeballs on App Store without sacrificing all the uniqueness. I have no idea if it’s gonna have any impact on downloads and sales, but if it will, I should be able to notice it in the absence of any additional features. It’s a small experiment in some way. I showed the new icon to some Eternity users and they liked it. I hope you’ll like it too.

If you expect “Yet another iPhone developer made a fortune selling farting app” kind of story, you will be disappointed. Read on if you want something different. Not that I have anything against farting apps and their developers. I really don’t.

What? When?

Actually this day is both behind me and yet to come. It means I already told my employer that I quit, but for various reasons and obligations my contract ends May 31. Until then, I’ll be finishing various projects and in May I’ll be on leave.

It’s not about money, it’s about sending a message

Did I make a fortune selling on App Store? As for now I don’t even make enough to pay my bills. So why did I quit my day job? Let me tell you my little story here.

I wanted to write software since I was a kid (and that was when ZX Spectrum was the king). I owned SHARP MZ700 (have you even heard of it ), Commodore 64, Amiga 1200, PC and a Mac. Eventually I became a software developer in a big corporation and I’ve been working there for almost 9 years.

I always liked tactical and economic games. I spend many hours playing them but at the same time I felt that I should start playing a real game instead. It was really bugging me. So about two years ago I registered my one-person company and developed my first app: weight training assistant for Nokia phones called Treneiro. I needed it, used it, liked it, but I sold only a handful of copies.

Few years ago, mainly for personal reasons, I got interested in personal development, time management and similar topics. So when the iPhone and the App Store came out it was natural for me to develop an app that I needed and then try selling it. That’s how Eternity Time Log was born.

As I mentioned, I haven’t make big money selling Eternity. But the feedback I got from costumers was very, very positive and encouraging. As I write this, there are 14 user reviews from 4 countries for the paid version of Eternity on App Store. 13 of them gave Eternity 5 starts for 5 possible and the one with 4 starts is still titled ?Awesome app? . I also got many ?Love this app!? emails where people say my small app changed their life for a bit better. And that’s hard to ignore. A big THANK YOU here for all these emails and reviews.

So as Joker said in ?The Dark Knight?: it’s not about money, it’s about sending a message.

The message for you, dear reader, is that I’m committed. If you find my app useful, I’m committed to make it even more so in the future. Otherwise, I’ll be out of business. If you find my story interesting, I’m committed to make it more interesting in the future, following my little dream. If you come back to this blog, you’ll see how it unfolds.

The message for me is that there is no going back. I hope I can grow my business and I hope to grow too, in the process. Being creative, providing value, ?making something people want? as Paul Graham describes it, is too important for me to pass over the small opportunity I have right here, right now. I may fail. I’m just a human after all. We will see.

But the whole universe is in crisis!

Well, ?I don’t have to tell you things are bad?. Mr Howard Beale will do it much better

Hard to believe this scene was filmed the year I was born and ?hits it? so well again.

For me, the whole ?crisis thing? is politicians game, but our money, if not more, is at stake. So it obviously impacts me and possibly you too. But in hard times people tend to go for real value instead of casual pleasures and this can be an opportunity.

Going the self-employment route is my answer to the situation. I think I can create more value this way than working for a corporation. Because big corporations are like ogres. Why ogres? Because (if you didn’t know that already) ogres are like onions and onions have layers. Onions have layers -- ogres have layers -- corporations have layers. And it’s hard to give/get value through them. And yes, all three can make you cry .

Because of that I don’t think that cubicle job is a good investment of my time and time has a lot of value to me. I’d like to invest it better and help you in pursuing that goal too. That’s for the start and we will see where I’ll go from there.

So here it is, something ends, something new begins

Is this a bad moment? A bad idea? Will I be able to create enough value? Will money follow it? That remains to be seen. I make some money already, I have some savings. I plan to update this blog once a week until I have more time in May. It will contain stories about Eternity development, my small business development and my personal development. English is not my native language, but I hope it will get better too. If you find any errors in my post, it’s perfectly OK to let me know about them.
Contest

If you’ve read that far, a little contest for you . What ?Network? and ?The Dark Knight? movies have in common? That question turned out to be too vague. So what’s the link between actors Peter Finch (Howard Beale in ?Network?) and Heath Ledger (the Joker in ?The Dark Knight?)? Besides profession of course . The first three readers sending good answers get a free copy of Eternity (via promo code -- valid only in US App Store, sorry).