Launching the Java App, first paying customer and the mistakes I made along the way

In my first post, I mentioned how I got started with the first App idea. This was pretty much the first step in my long entrepreneurial journey which was to follow. I just didn't know it back then!

The year is 2008 and the first App "iChess" for Java/Symbian was almost ready. It was time to get it in the hands of the chess users out there.

iChess Java - ready for launch!

How do you know when the app is good enough for a public release?

• The User Interface (UI) and the User eXperience (UX) was decent for the first version and I like to make sure these two things are well in place before any release. Being a user myself, I knew the UX was fine. Being a chess player myself helped. And a decent UI made sure users don't fall off immediately. This means no outright spelling mistakes, mis-aligned items, messy layout or glitches. I have followed these two principles all these years. Never release anything till I am myself satisfied with the look and feel of what I am making public. And this helps attract and retain users. More about this in an upcoming blog where I will talk about how I get inspired by other Apps and maintain an album of reference images (of other apps & designs).

May not be the most beautiful UI designed by professionals, but neat enough for version 1

Scorecard.
Funny, but after 13 years, the iChess Android/iOS scorecard pretty much has the same content. Except that, 'Carlsen' has replaced 'Gary' in that bold text!

• Test & test more: Providing a bug free experience to the users was very important. So besides the simulator and my personal phone, I used my room-mate's phone to test out the App. It did not come as a surprise when the UI looked very different or some things did not work on another device. Fragmentation existed back then as well!
• MVP: Its not easy to know how many features to include in the very first release or where the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) ends. It was important to not spend too much time building something, only to realize later that there is no market for it or you are in the wrong direction. So I just built 3 screens: first screen with the very core experience (loads a random chess puzzle on a board), a screen to view the performance (scorecard) and a settings screen to adjust basic things!

How to set the App price and pricing model?

Showing Ads inside the app was pretty much non existent back then. So I chose the remaining logical option of charging upfront $ for the App. But I never like the idea of buying an unknown thing without trying it for some time. So I created a Demo version with limited puzzles which users could try before they decide to pay for the full version.

Demo version definitely helps to get more downloads and acquire users. So I have followed this strategy till date and even have apps which are limited but free (not just a demo). Demo version was hosted on websites like GetJar and even on my own personal website, which surprisingly, even after 13 years, still exists! For paid versions, I hosted the app on multiple sites like Handango, Mobihand and later the Nokia Ovi store.

I set the price of the paid version to $4.99, partly influenced by all the prices of products in the US which invariably would end with .95 or .99! A couple of months later, when version 2 of the App was released, I bumped up the price to $9.95, since by then I knew users liked the app and it had value!

How did I prepare for the App launch?

The two basic things that were required for the App to be hosted were the Images & the Content.

• Images. I designed the app icon myself, unfortunately it wasn't very good or pleasing on the eye! (see mistakes below). I also took actual app screenshots which showed the app in action and created GIFs out of them.

• Content. Since it was still a hobby project, I wrote the textual content, store listing, FAQs myself. I am sure, I had never written so much (apart from the code at work!). Habits change when you are excited about something! (more about this in an upcoming post on how my reading habits also changed over the years)

• Website. I built a website on my own too! I never had any prior experience of making websites. But hey, where there is a will, there is a way! Making a simple static HTML website using software did not turn out to be difficult. All I had to make sure is it does not look crappy!

Website definitely helped since I could host screenshots of the app, demo version files etc. But I hosted it on tripod.com* which provided free subdomains ex: <name>.tripod.com. (see mistakes below)

How did I get my first paying customer?

Luckily the website where I hosted the paid app (Handango) had a sizeable user base. After the app was public, I think within the first week I had my first paying user. Oh what joy!!

Actual email received after the first product purchase. No I have not framed it. The frame is made up.

I would never know if this customer actually tried the demo version before making the purchase, but I could see there were already 100s of downloads of the demo version and that people would not mind paying for it.

Later, I published the Paid app on other stores like Mobihand and Nokia Ovi store.

Did I market the Apps?

At this point, nothing besides the basic website which I created and 2-3 app stores where I launched the demo and paid apps. I still had to judge if the idea would resonate with other users. However, throught my entrepreneurial journey I have always preferred organic growth over paid.

What mistakes to avoid?

• Get a designer! I had moderate skills with photoshop and was capable of picking up random images from the internet and scribbling or modifying them for my needs. But an App's icon makes the first impression on the users. If I would go back to 2008 and redo this launch, I would pay someone to make a better icon. That $10 spent then would would have definitley earned many more dollars since then. (In an upcoming post I will talk about how I finally took the step of outsourcing these things and what websites helped along the way). Also the app's screenshots can be professionally done instead of bare bone screenshots.
• Get a domain!* I should have got a domain early on and chosen a brand name instead of "asimpereira" and hosting on tripod. Its not difficult to do that later, but by then your links are spread out on multiple websites and it can be a pain to change. Moreover first impression is the best impression!

The above two things would have made the App look more serious and professional.

Bonus: Why did I choose the name iChess?

Back then, iPhone was all the rage and so were words starting with the letter 'i'. I decided to choose 'i' since it sounds similar to 'eye' and the app was meant to train one's tactical eyes. A chess player needs to see hidden possibilities in a given puzzle and sharpen his/her eye (technically its the brain). This 'eye' is also the reason for the hideous App icon.

iChess. One of the ugliest app icon I have made!

Moreover, an inverted 'i' is a '!' which signifies a good move in chess. Hence the name.

I could either choose a generic name like 'Chess puzzles' or coin a unique name. I decided to stick with the latter. NOTE: In Android apps, for ASO reasons, I have also included words like "Chess puzzles".

In the next post, I will fast forward couple of years plus couple of Apps and talk about how these apps landed me my next job and how things started to get serious thereafter!