The real cost of developing a mobile app
Today is Monday and Subbu has woken up feeling super inspired! He keeps reading about these entrepreneurs who quit their jobs and made millions of dollars. Could these headlines be real: “Mungodumbo raised $19 million from Money Capital”.
Subbu has made a decision; what he needs, is to develop an app. Develop an app and become a gazillionaire. He has a vague idea, something to do with cats and sharing and marketplace with advertisers including a freemium model. Perhaps even something for the corporates.
Our friend goes on a search on Quora:
“How much does it cost to have a mobile app developed ?”
The answers he gets are varied, to say the least.
@statingtheobvious says: Hey man, your question equates to “how long is a string?”. Hope this helps?
@findsrobotssexy replies: Yo bro, did you consider developing the app on Android. IOS ties you down, it makes you feel really heavy. Android is a lot more open. It is so open and welcoming, anyone can enter it. You can even invite your friends. Think about it. Just my two cents.
@knowitallsinceforever replies: Just for context, I have been developing apps and managing app development for 98 years. I have an additional 15 years of experience in C and have advised Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and even got to advise Nicholas Tesla, albeit briefly. So I think I have a fair idea on what it takes to develop an app. First of all…….
Subbu scrolls down the page, the response is so long, he decides to go to the next one
The next response has 10 thumbs up, maybe he should check that one out
@troll: Do you want to make money sitting at home scratching your bum. In fact you do not even need to scratch your bum or even have a home. Click this to earn a guaranteed $86,000 per month, spending only 8 seconds a month: http://itissoobviousiamfullofshit
@wtf says: Sounds very exciting. All the best with your app journey. But have you ever considered becoming a barber instead? Very reasonable hours, you make good money and get access to unlimited razor blades. Everyone is into app development these days, but there are other options. Think about it!
@friendlyleech says: Hey Subbu, I am looking for someone to develop my app too. Let me know if you find someone, would be really interested! Also open to brainstorming. Here is my phone, email and home address. You are more than welcome to my birthday party this weekend. Best of luck bud!
@nosyjoe: just curious if you don't mind me asking, what app are you looking to develop. I am ready to sign an NDA to know your app idea. I am fully aware that the idea is everything for a business to succeed
@onlyspeaksincode says: well how many wireframes are you looking to develop for the prototype? Are you looking for a relational database or NoSQL? Are you concerned with translating this to pure objective C later or are you happy with a platform? Are you currently using docker or are you looking to host this on a private server, if so Linux or windows? Linux might be expensive to set up but a lot cheaper in the long run. Just some basic questions to think about.
WTF! thought Subbu (For some reason, Subbu always thought in abbreviations).
@neverbeenintech says: I don't have much experience in this but I would have thought that you should not pay more than 20% of the potential revenue you intend to make post-seed capital excluding the commission to the partner but including your house rent minus the groceries. Just seems logical. Hope this helps!
PS: I am a sheep herder
Subbu then sees a reply from @condescendo:
Hey bro, just on a completely separate note, what is this app for, have you thought about who the target audience is? Do you have experience in this industry? Is this market saturated? I think you need to look into all of this first before looking at having an app developed, just saying. Separately I hear that “Consultmenow” (definitely owned by @condescendo) does market research and idea validation for you, which then makes starting your business a sure success.
@useme replies: It will really depend on what you want the app to do, does it need complicated cms with login system? are there gps enabled features? Does the app need to sing you to sleep? We develop apps from $20 onwards but can go up to $2,000,000,000,000 depending on the features. Hope this helps!
@desperateforwork replies: an IOS app will cost you $34.68 and an android app will cost you $29.08. To proceed further please contact pickme@wehavenoexperience.com
@selfplug replies: Self-plug, appydevvie do a great job at developing mobile apps. We also develop apps for windows, blackberry, nokia symbian, sailfish and any future operating systems that have not been invented. Check out our portfolio: www.appydevvie/portfolio/mostoftheappsareajointeffortwherewecoded3linesofhtml
At this point, Subbu is thinking, maybe I should just learn to code myself. I mean surely it is easier than finding an answer to the budget.
He decides to call his friends Javuray and Peethun, both of whom give opposing views. Javuray tells him that Java is the only true programming language. Peethun tells him how Python skills are so versatile, agile, and transferable that he can use them in other languages, for his real-life relationships, cooking, and even parenting.
After a lot of toing and froing, he decides to pick Objective-C, well because that seems more useful for ios development.
Now all Subbu needs to do is learn Objective-C. This of course is a much much harder task than picking the language itself. He once read that a true really real programmer only learns from hard printed books that contain at least 600 pages talking about the origins of the language before getting to the first line of code.
After spending one month teaching himself from the “Uber ultimate book on Objective C”, he is able to print “Hello World” on the screen. Feeling thrilled about it, he goes out to celebrate and have a pint of beer, and then two, and three and….
The next morning he realizes that this learning speed is not going to get him anywhere. New plan needed ☝️
His friend Gamerface tells him that the best way to learn is from video tutorials on Udemy, Udacity or Skillshare.
Subbu signs up to 3 tutorials after thoroughly verifying all the user reviews and weeding out what seem to be fake ones (a lot of fake ones).
Following one week of tutorials, Subbu realizes that he has watched more youtube videos the past week than in the last 4 months. He also unintentionally managed to learn a surprising amount of information about honey badgers. He only opened youtube to better understand a concept that was missing in his tutorial. Something about youtube, however, made it a rabbit hole. Perhaps he should inform Google of this bug.
The sad part was, even after all this time, he did not really understand what “git” is.
He decided to try a final video tutorial, made by a highly reviewed teacher who successfully sold 18 startups (why is he teaching on Udemy?), but stopped the video when the introduction started with Github.
His friend Jason told him that learning to code is not about the content, it is about the community. He should definitely do a coding boot-camp. They will teach him everything he needs to know in 3 months flat, following which he can easily get a job as head of software development at Facebook or lead rocket algorithm manager at SpaceX. Well, this looks interesting, thinks Subbu. The only downside to this camp though is he will have to remortgage his house and sell one of his kidneys to pay the fee. Do I really need two kidneys? he thinks.
This unsuccessful learning journey has completely stressed Subbu out! He finally contacts @desperateforwork, who replied to his initial question on Quora regarding the cost of a mobile app.
Subbu writes: “So you said an apple app costs $34.68, would you accept $18?”
A reply comes back almost immediately: We have a deal! Can I please have your PayPal details and do you do free shipping?
