<story><title>How HoursTracker earns five figures a month on the App Store</title><url>https://medium.com/@carlosribas/how-hourstracker-earns-five-figures-a-month-on-the-app-store-85a20bb972eb</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>debacle</author><text>One thing that I really notice a lot as I get older is that so many people say it isn&amp;#x27;t possible to make money anymore, early adopters had it easy, etc. People say this about apps and startups and the like.&lt;p&gt;I tell myself these same things sometimes, but then I have to check myself - it is actually easier to make &lt;i&gt;way&lt;/i&gt; more money on an app these days than ever before. What is bigger is the risk proposition, which is why people tell themselves that success is entirely about luck - if your own skill doesn&amp;#x27;t matter, there&amp;#x27;s no reason to try, and if you try and don&amp;#x27;t succeed it isn&amp;#x27;t your fault.&lt;p&gt;This is a very real trap and I think in the reddit age (where if you aren&amp;#x27;t a cynic by 15 you&amp;#x27;re behind the curve) it is a mental virus. The world still rewards value, even if it takes some time. The people clamoring that it doesn&amp;#x27;t are doing so because they want to believe that it isn&amp;#x27;t their fault they didn&amp;#x27;t succeed.&lt;p&gt;You need to be willing to emotionally and mentally invest yourself in something with a reasonable chance of failure or you will never, ever succeed. The people that you see who you are smarter than that have succeeded haven&amp;#x27;t gotten there because of luck - they&amp;#x27;ve gotten there because they tried. Luck just helped.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>serve_yay</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s partially a problem of silent evidence. For this time tracking app there are hundreds mouldering in some corner of the App Store. And the people who made them aren&amp;#x27;t gonna write any blog posts, and we wouldn&amp;#x27;t read them if they did. It&amp;#x27;s a blockbuster model, sure it&amp;#x27;s possible to make money but unlikely. It&amp;#x27;s possible to make money acting, but you probably won&amp;#x27;t. That&amp;#x27;s just how it works out. I don&amp;#x27;t think that&amp;#x27;s so cynical.&lt;p&gt;Those who succeed in such a scenario are often insensitive to the unlikelihood of their success - so are those who fail.</text></comment>
<story><title>How HoursTracker earns five figures a month on the App Store</title><url>https://medium.com/@carlosribas/how-hourstracker-earns-five-figures-a-month-on-the-app-store-85a20bb972eb</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>debacle</author><text>One thing that I really notice a lot as I get older is that so many people say it isn&amp;#x27;t possible to make money anymore, early adopters had it easy, etc. People say this about apps and startups and the like.&lt;p&gt;I tell myself these same things sometimes, but then I have to check myself - it is actually easier to make &lt;i&gt;way&lt;/i&gt; more money on an app these days than ever before. What is bigger is the risk proposition, which is why people tell themselves that success is entirely about luck - if your own skill doesn&amp;#x27;t matter, there&amp;#x27;s no reason to try, and if you try and don&amp;#x27;t succeed it isn&amp;#x27;t your fault.&lt;p&gt;This is a very real trap and I think in the reddit age (where if you aren&amp;#x27;t a cynic by 15 you&amp;#x27;re behind the curve) it is a mental virus. The world still rewards value, even if it takes some time. The people clamoring that it doesn&amp;#x27;t are doing so because they want to believe that it isn&amp;#x27;t their fault they didn&amp;#x27;t succeed.&lt;p&gt;You need to be willing to emotionally and mentally invest yourself in something with a reasonable chance of failure or you will never, ever succeed. The people that you see who you are smarter than that have succeeded haven&amp;#x27;t gotten there because of luck - they&amp;#x27;ve gotten there because they tried. Luck just helped.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>placebo</author><text>Yes, it is still possible to make money, even a lot of money, writing an app but that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean early adopters didn&amp;#x27;t have a big advantage. Market vacuums will always be filled and the later you arrive at the scene, the higher the probability you will have to rely on hard marketing work to be noticed and stand out in the overcrowded application markets.&lt;p&gt;The good news is that:&lt;p&gt;a) Persistence and hard work will usually pay off in the long run (assuming your product does indeed provide some sort of value)&lt;p&gt;b) There will always be new vacuums. If keep you a close watch on developing trends you might be able to climb on the tree when it&amp;#x27;s still young and sit back while it grows, instead of spending your resources building giant ladders...</text></comment>