Developers: Don't Quit Your Day Job
by Eric Norwood
October 8, 2009
We've all heard about app developers striking it rich; stories like Ge Wang and Steve Demeter's, inspiring tales of computer programmers achieving tremendous wealth overnight with something like Ocarina or Trism.
Last December, I quoted Brian Greenstone, of Pangea, talking about "lottery money" and how a "kid in his bedroom can literally make a million bucks just by writing a little app."
A different picture of the App Store is being painted by some developers these days. David Barnard, creator of Trip Cubby, reportedly earned more than $45,000 in his app's first quarter. Overall, he says he's made more than $200,000 off the App Store, but after costs, he's still well into the red.
Ethan Nicholas made an obscene amount of money off of his iShoot app, and even he is struggling. After quitting his day job, he describes his situation as "terrifying." Many successful developers, including Nicholas, are saying they aren't millionaires at all.
With most apps costing a lot of valuable time, tens of thousands - sometimes hundreds of thousands - of dollars to develop, and Apple's frustrating habit of rejecting most of them, doing business in the App Store is sounding more and more like a get rich quick scheme.
One developer is still doing pretty well, but without any thanks to the App Store. Steve Demeter made a lot of money on his app Trism, quit his day job, and invested his money in the Palm Pre. He says he "bought Palm's stock for $1.76 and sold it for $12," and while he won't say just how much money he's made, with a return like that it's got to be a lot. Even Demeter finds it "kind of ironic." Go figure.