I successfully launched my free app last week. What now?
Last Wednesday I launched NumPad, the web app I've been working on for a few years now (I know, I know) and thankfully it went really well. As of right now I've had over 95k page views and 45k uniques. I also got a lot of positive comments from HN, Product Hunt, reddit, and twitter.
The reaction it got has given me the motivation to continue working on it, but I can't decide how to monetise it. I think I have two obvious options:
-
release it as a single-purchase desktop app
- pros: I already have a prototype desktop app, I've already had people ask me for a desktop app, can be sold on the Mac app store.
- cons:: no recurring revenue.
-
turn it into SASS with document sharing and collaboration
- pros: recurring revenue.
- cons: no one has asked for it, it would be a much bigger development effort and might never get finished.
But there are other approaches, and combinations of those two, I could try too. 2 might only have one pro that I can think of, but it's quite a big one, and could be the difference between this being a sustainable project or not. Nonetheless I think the head start I already have on the app is enough that I'm already leaning towards 1.
Does anyone have any advice, or a similar experience that might help me choose?
P.S. I'm going to be attempting to build in public to an extent on my twitter if you want to follow along.
This is a tough spot for free apps. Free users/free seekers contribute to vanity stats, but not to your bottom line. The reason you get a bunch of initial interest is because it is, well, free. The second you start to monetize, you'll lose a huge portion of interest (which is fine, but understandably discouraging).
For monetizing, you have to ask if your app is something people will feel they want to pay monthly for, or if they'd rather just pay one-and-done. Or, a credit-based system. Understanding the audience and making an educated decision on the market is what you'll need to do (as there is clear-cut rule here).
That said, the quickest way to monetize is one-off payment.
Thanks, that's a pretty sensible analysis. And is probably pushing me even more towards a single-purchase approach!