November 2011 Monthly Income Report

Every month, Dave and I like to post a monthly income report for the world to see. We do this as an effort to maintain transparency for our business, keep us motivated to push for more income growth, and to inspire everyone else to push forward on their business ideas and form some passive income streams.

This month’s report is a bit late, but I wanted to get it into the iDevBlogADay roll since we’ve done so well since our last update.

What’s new with us

This month was crazy good. I’m not sure if it’s just the holidays, but we had a really good month in November, and it’s looking to be even better in December. I’m hoping this isn’t just due to the holidays, but we’ll see if our growth maintains through the new year. I’m not expecting much, but it sure would be nice.

I started working on two new applications in November, and Dave started working on one. We decided to work on our own ideas for a bit, so we can see if either one of us can come up with a money making idea. If one of us is successful, we’ll be sure to replicate across the other platforms. One of the best things about working with someone else is the ability to work on different projects, and focus efforts on whatever is successful. If you haven’t teamed up with someone yet, consider doing so soon.

What went right

Doubling Income!

This was an incredible feeling for us. In November we managed to double our income compared to October! Our apps seem to be picking up steam, and as we get more downloads, we get more eyeballs and ad clicks. I can’t wait until we double our income again. We look to be on track so far this month, so we’ll see what happens.

Started New Projects

Dave and I both started our own projects in an attempt to diversify our portfolio. I’m really excited about the next two or three apps I’ll be working on, and I can’t wait to get them launched. I’m moving away from the soundboards and trying to get into more utility applications, which is good.

iOS Meetup

November marked the sixth consecutive iOS meetup that I’ve organized in Orlando. Building an iPhone development community in Orlando has been one of the most exciting things I’ve been a part of, and is one of the events I look most forward to every month. I’m trying to get Dave to start an Android one so we can corner the mobile market in the city, so hopefully he’ll get on that soon. If you’re ever in Orlando, come check us out.

What went wrong

Didn’t Learn Lesson

File this one under things-we-should’ve-learned-but-didn’t. We wanted to put together a holiday themed application to try and take full advantage of the holidays. Unfortunately, we made the same mistakes in this project as we did for the Food and Wine Festival. We simply didn’t schedule enough time to bring the project to completion. I’m unsure of whether or not there will be a large opportunity cost, but it would have been nice to have an application ready for December. Hopefully we’ll learn our lesson the second time around, and make sure we have enough time to plan out our projects.

Split Focus

This is specifically an issue that I had this month. After I wrapped the Food and Wine festival application, I had two ideas that I wanted to work on that I was very excited about. Rather than isolate one of the projects and put all my focus on it, I decided to split my efforts and work on two applications at once. The result was very little progress on either project, and nothing to show for December. I decided to go ahead and put one of the projects on the backburner, and work on what I feel is the easier idea to implement. Hopefully that application will be launching this month, and will be ready for the new year.

Income Breakdown

November was a great month for us, as we were able to double our income from the previous month! We hadn’t quite doubled our highest grossing month, as we saw a bit of an income drop in October, but it was a great amount for us nonetheless. It’s amazing that this income is truly passive, and we’re beginning to be able to rely on a set amount every month. We only seem to be going up from here, and we’re really excited to see where we are this time next year.

Enough blabbing, on to the numbers.

Android Market

• Android – $268.45 (+210%)

iPhone Market

• iPhone – $9.13 (-7.5%)

Total Earnings – $277.58 (+201%)

We’re not sure if our income is beginning to ramp up due to the holidays, or if our applications are just rising in popularity. What’s interesting is that our income graphs follow our download graphs pretty accurately, with plateaus in downloads and income matching. If you have ad support applications in the app store, do you normally see an increase in revenue during the holidays?  I would love to hear what others are experiencing.

Upcoming Plans

Dave and I have set the following goals for December:

$500 month

What the heck, let’s try to take full advantage of the holiday season and try to have a $500 month. This would be our first major income goal, and would really help us believe that mobile applications are a viable, sustainable business. We’ll see what happens.

Launch Another App

Dave and I would like to launch one application each. That would clear a few ideas off our list and allow us to start the new year being able to focus on new ideas. Can’t wait to see how the new applications turn out. It’s always exciting when you have the chance to make some extra income!

Set 2012 Goals

We’re going to discuss our goals for 2012, so look for a resolution post in January. Neither one of us can wait to see where we are with this business by this time next year. It’ll be great to get a fresh start, and really bring focus to our business.

Thanks for sticking through this post! I finally got RSS set up properly in our WordPress theme, so if you haven’t done so already, consider subscribing to our blog. We’ll continue to post these income reports, but I don’t want to flood iDevBlogADay with them every month. RSS is the best way to keep up with what we’re doing!