[Journey] Building an iOS & Android App Empire

[nakamura]

Posting in an epic thread, I'll monitor this thread with great interest.

A tip you might interesting in - a lot of freelancer React Native devs are looking for work right now and on the cheap. You can use the finished product on both Android and Apple phones.

Yes, but difficult to find a good one. So far I only have good experience with one out of 5 that I tried on Upwork. Many of them have poor English skills and therefore don't fully get the ask. Some others are a rip-off, asking for additional money just for copy-pasting a piece of code into another file. So yeah, you might be right, but finding a decent one is the hard task.

@nakamura How many apps in total have you published since the start of your journey?

Around 10 apps for iOS and 6 live apps on Android. Many apps on Google Play got removed before, so normally it would be around 15 Android apps

I didn't quite get it...

develop apps, earn money through ads

 

[nakamura]

Update:

Daily earnings: $130-150

No App got removed since my last update. Turns out the NUMBER 1 reason my apps got removed before were competitor flagging and reporting them. So what I noticed was there are competitor (which actually joined the niche much later than I did) from 2-3 countries only mass reporting apps. What did I do? Simply block these countries. My guess is they were also responsible for my Admob account to get limited.

At this moment I am focusing on one app, which I think might be popular. I will develop it using Flutter, so it will be available for iOS and Android. After this, I already have 2 more projects in mind, which might be very profitable.

 

[Heiko]

At this moment I am focusing on one app, which I think might be popular. I will develop it using Flutter, so it will be available for iOS and Android. After this, I already have 2 more projects in mind, which might be very profitable.

Cool, seems like it's finally getting on the right track for you. Curious how these next apps will turn out for you

 

[baidovich]

Update:

Daily earnings: $130-150

No App got removed since my last update. Turns out the NUMBER 1 reason my apps got removed before were competitor flagging and reporting them. So what I noticed was there are competitor (which actually joined the niche much later than I did) from 2-3 countries only mass reporting apps. What did I do? Simply block these countries. My guess is they were also responsible for my Admob account to get limited.

At this moment I am focusing on one app, which I think might be popular. I will develop it using Flutter, so it will be available for iOS and Android. After this, I already have 2 more projects in mind, which might be very profitable.

Good job!
For this one:
"... from 2-3 countries only mass reporting apps. What did I do? Simply block these countries. "

You found these countries from the images you've received from Google Play team right?

 

[nakamura]

Good job!
For this one:
"... from 2-3 countries only mass reporting apps. What did I do? Simply block these countries. "

You found these countries from the images you've received from Google Play team right?

Yes, turned out the Google Play Team was simply attaching the same pictures, that these scammers sent to them.

It all wouldn't be a problem if Google wouldn't have this weird "zero tolerance". This means, they are also suspending you, even if you actually DIDN'T break their rules. Then, if you send an appeal, they will find another weird reason or they simply don't reply. Its like: "Ok, you have been reported, this means you are bad guy, and we don't want bad guys, so you don't even need to defend yourself" or another example: You get the death sentence simply because someone sued you. No trial, nothing. You don't even know the name of the judge. You just get an automated message with your death sentence and all you can do is sending an appeal and beg for your life to who knows. And then this stranger decides whether he has mercy with you or not.

But I don't blame them. The thing is: There are just so many developers with bad intentions on Google Play and also many, which have no clue about the policies at all. I mean, they are totally breaking the rules without even knowing it. No wonder Google has this unofficial zero-tolerance policy.

 

[nakamura]

Update:

App status: No app has been deleted. I uploaded one more Android app today (based on Flutter).
Earnings: $130-180 per day (really varies these days, seems a bit of a rollercoaster with the ecpm)
Ad spending (I only use Adwords): $16 per day
What else? I signed up for Huawei App Gallery, Amazon App Store and the Samsung Galaxy Store.

Like I mentioned above, I uploaded one more app. The special thing about this app is: It is multilingual. I added 6 languages from tier 1 countries. The competition apps are all "only" in English.

Hypotheses:

- Rankings will increase faster because of better retention rate
- Lower uninstall rate (those who can't speak English)
- More earnings (people are using the app more/navigating and reading through the app because its in their native language)
- Better Clickthrough rate and conversation rate in the Play Store (which will also have an impact on the rankings)

So lets see whats going to happen, I keep you guys updated.

 

[N1ckG2]

How do you check your app rank on Google and ios? Ittried several tools with huge difference.

 

[nakamura]

How do you check your app rank on Google and ios? Ittried several tools with huge difference.

There are some websites where you can do it. I am just using keyapp.top. Not sure if they are accurate. I never double-checked it with another source...so no idea.


App Update:

All apps are still alived. Either it's Google who completely changed their suspension behavior/policy or my app won't get reported anymore. Maybe a mix of both.

Earnings still around 100-150$ per day. Since I am using 4 different ad networks (FAN, Unity, AppLovin and Admob) I am not logging into each of them every day to check the earnings.

These days I am making two more apps, which might be really successful. Lets see!

 

[thetoothfairy]

you're killing it my friend. Keep it up. I myself also want to get into mobile development. Which path do you think is better? Java/Kotlin/Swift or React Native?

 

[nakamura]

you're killing it my friend. Keep it up. I myself also want to get into mobile development. Which path do you think is better? Java/Kotlin/Swift or React Native?

I would use Flutter, easier to use and you can use it for Android and iOS.

 

[nakamura]

Guys, just to show you how absurd Google is and how crazy things can get: Read this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/androiddev/comments/mp9za4

Someone took down his whole accounts and he lost tens of thousands of dollar...and Google won't do shit about it

 

[alexio]

Yeah, happen to me also (well, I didn't lost as $ as him). Google doesn't give a shit about developers, which is, I think, can't be legal (because we paid for this account, google play dev is not free, so when we pay, we should have some legal rights)
Apple is not like that, and deserves the 100$ year to get support. I mean real support.

 

[nakamura]

Apple is not like that, and deserves the 100$ year to get support. I mean real support.

100% agree on this. They are way better. I know many people hate on Apple and their products, but as a developer, I have to say they are on a completely different level. Google is like a digital totalitarian system. You don't even know who you are talking to, there is no phone number, no real email contact, there is no liability, nothing. They suspend the developer and Admob account with thousands of dollar in it and they simply keep the money and nothing happens. Its like there is an invisible force that can destroy you anytime for anything. I am not exaggerating, it is really like this.

 

[alexio]

You are not exaggerating at all. I lost my account with $ inside.
I pay for the account, I earn money without any weird activity, and they are keeping my money. I don't see that legal at all.
Except if they can prove to me that I did something weird, but with proofs, not automatic emails.
I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see that legal

And yes, I don't like in particular Apple, but working with app dev and android dev is a different world. Like black and white.
By the way, now, a new app in the play store will takes days to be publish, but in apple store, it can take hours. Apple is just better

 

[fiftyfifty]

Hi

I just finished reading your journey, congrat my friend, I did enjoy reading it.

And I have some questions:
How do you find good niche ? any tips to find one ?
What about keyword ?
and what's your next goal in this journey.

Thanks

 

[NimaZeynali]

Hello,
Good luck with your journey but have question

what do you think about quality qoutes app? does it have potential to earn 500 - 1000 each month?

 

[WarlordYT]

ban wave is starting like they do every year this time ,for both admob and dev account ! get ready .. lot of indian devs have also been banned

 

[nakamura]

ban wave is starting like they do every year this time ,for both admob and dev account ! get ready .. lot of indian devs have also been banned

Yes, let's see. I guess if they want to suspend accounts they will do so before payout..which will be around 21-23rd of this month. At the moment I have two admob accounts. One which I received several payouts already and is 3-4 years old and another one I created 3 months ago for my company.

 

[nickirv]

Hi nakamura,

How do you find potential niches to build apps on? Could you pleas elaborate on the process of finding niches on the app store and tools you use to do so?

Thank you.

 

[NimaZeynali]

Hello,
Good luck with your journey but have question

what do you think about quality qoutes app? does it have potential to earn 500 - 1000 each month?

Bro can you answer this please? thanks