Congratulations on your well-earned success and thanks very much for your forthrightness about your numbers.
But I think this really shows just how hard it is to make real money in the app store. You have been as successful as any of us could hope to be there, yet your peak bounce is $8k/day. This is nothing to sneeze at, of course, but chances are very high it will quickly taper off the way these bumps usually do. In comparison, a decent engineer can pull in $8k/month easily, month after month. So my guess is that over a year you will be lucky to make anywhere near what you could have made at a salaried job with the same effort, and you're probably in the top 1% of earners.
The independence and freedom the solo dev enjoys is certainly worth something, but if you're considering abandoning a salaried job for a crack at the app store market be advised that you're likely to pay a tremendous premium for that freedom.
Thank you! And I agree with what you're saying (although it pains me greatly to admit it). It really is difficult to make a sustainable living from the App Store. Even the top apps don't pull in all that much and sales always drop off very rapidly after the initial hype wears off.
I think you'd be crazy to abandon a salaried job in the hope of making it big on the app store. I've been working on Dropzone pretty much full-time for almost 5 years now and only now am I starting to see some payoff. I'm wondering whether having multiple apps might be the key to a more sustainable income. Then you can cross sell and hopefully make more money overall.
Relying on Apple to distribute your apps is also very frightening. I feel that policy changes with regards to things like sandboxing could easily put me out of business, and there's no money to speak of to be found from selling outside App Store.
I love writing apps though so I really hope I can continue to do so.
I like writing apps too (iOS), although I'm slowly letting go of the idea that I can sell enough on my own to support myself. The job market for iOS/Mac developers seems strong enough, so you probably can pay the bills with those skills and consider your own apps as a portfolio.
But I think this really shows just how hard it is to make real money in the app store. You have been as successful as any of us could hope to be there, yet your peak bounce is $8k/day. This is nothing to sneeze at, of course, but chances are very high it will quickly taper off the way these bumps usually do. In comparison, a decent engineer can pull in $8k/month easily, month after month. So my guess is that over a year you will be lucky to make anywhere near what you could have made at a salaried job with the same effort, and you're probably in the top 1% of earners.
The independence and freedom the solo dev enjoys is certainly worth something, but if you're considering abandoning a salaried job for a crack at the app store market be advised that you're likely to pay a tremendous premium for that freedom.