I appreciate your transparency about your business model/data, amazing functionality and regular updates of Dash.app, no-bullshit attitude over maintenance of official docsets, and your involvement in the community.
Kudos all around and, while it ain't $2-4k, I hope you appreciate my sincere 'thanks' today.
I'd just like to echo this. I'm a (very) happy Dash buyer, and encourage any developers reading this on OS X to give Dash a look. It's one of those tools that you don't always need, but when you need it, you really need it. Oh, and it integrates quite nicely with Alfred and Sublime Text :) Kudos to 'kapeli for building some very useful, usable software.
Off topic, but I never knew that Dash existed. I frequently look up APIs through google, which always involves a few clicks, and Dash is going to make my life so much better! As I went down through the API list, I was amazed how many times I thought, 'adding that will save me some google searches'. I just bought a copy, thanks!
Plus with all the different integrations it has, it's really indispensable. I use the Alfred integration most of the time, since it's global. And I even got it on my phone, just to see what that's like. It's pretty nifty all-around.
I second the thanks for divulging your numbers...always great to see what's behind the veil here. Perhaps you should contact the OP's author and see if they'll write a followup about you.
And you shouldn't be shy about direct-linking your app (as well as the blog post)...I didn't know about it until now but it looks right up my alley. Thanks!
Did you simply release that app and customers come after?
Or did you have to pay a certain amount to acquire customers (i.e. paid advertising)?
Or did you acquire customers some other way?
No marketing really. At the beginning, almost all users came from the Mac App Store.
I've tried different marketing things along the way, like sponsored posts or Google Adwords. Probably spent around $500 in total on marketing during the lifetime of the app. None had a meaningful effect so I kind of stopped trying.
I mostly focus on engaging my users as much as I can and trying to make them happy, so that they will recommend Dash to others.
Thank you for answering. And wow, amazing results from using the default "marketing" you get with the Mac App Store (especially given the difficulties that so many others have reported).
The point is that being in the top doesn't mean what it means on iOS. On iOS you will be able to stay in the top purely by being in the top because people use the app store much more frequently.
On the Mac app store you being in the top is more a product of a lot of other things you do.
If you hit a nerve just like you did and I to some degree did you will do well even if you aren't in the top of the app store.
At least that's how I understood it, but perhaps I am putting too much of my own bias into it.
Not sure how it is on iOS, but I'd assume your app has to deserve to some extent to be in the top. If you're in the top because of a fluke (e.g. you got featured in some blog post), you'll fall as soon as the hype fades. No idea really, the most "high-ranked" I've been on iOS was around rank 80 Top Grossing in the Productivity category, which I lost as soon as the launch hype faded.
On iOS you are much more likely to stay in the top if you first get there. I.e. it has it's own mechanics internally and externally because more people visit the iOS app store.
Also much more sites are looking at the top in the app store and so your exposure for getting there is many many times more.
Further more much more iOS apps are inherently social so that helps too.
Yeah, but you're forgetting that's because Dash is awesome. I mean, it's really quite a useful app and I feel like it belongs in the top 10 for a very good reason, rather than the vast majority of apps.
See, some time ago (feels like ages now), I contacted him to see what would it take to add Chicken Scheme to the list of docsets. His response was quick and helpful.
My company got "bought" and I suddenly had zero free time to follow up. But that boosted my respect for Dash considerably. A assume other people will have similar experiences. I've recommended it to every single developer with Macs that I've met.
Now that I got reminded of it, let's see what I can do about that docset...
Every app is a special case, yes. I was just saying that the numbers in the article are not real. Redacted (the app) didn't stay in the top grossing rank enough. It just climbed and fell.
The Mac App Store is my main revenue source. I released my iOS app in November 2014. The revenue from it wasn't worth mentioning separately in last year's report.
This year, the revenue from iOS is around 10% of the Mac app.
The method listing does show headers/sections for Underscore. See http://i.imgur.com/agqawiL.png. As far as I can tell, this is the same as the side menu at http://underscorejs.org/. If anything is missing, let me know!
people shouldn't have to infer these types of things. Not everyone's brains makes the same connections in the same way, not because they're stupid, but because we all process information differently.
I looked at the page and it wasn't immediately obvious to me what it was.
Dash is... an app? a site? a collation of data?
If I'd hit the front page to something like:
> DASH
> An application for browsing API documentation sets
see you kind of prove my point about how people process data.
you thought perhaps my comment was a complaint, an angry statement, this couldn't be further from the truth. In actuality I was just reflecting on how good signposting (through pertinent language and UI) helps people interpret meaning on websites.
If you design your website so that your potential users/customers cant look at the front page and have an instant grasp of what your product is, then your website is failing to do its job.
Again I say, people shouldn't have to infer what something is by association. Saying "what is this? oh look, there's an appstore link, it must be an app" is not the right way to tell people what you've made. Unambiguous and engaging language is.
I assumed, looking at the site that it somehow scanned your code and attempted to document it for you. I may be cognitively challenged, but it wasn't clear to me what it was.
"Must be really good I don't use a Mac though" is regrettably ambiguous. It can either mean "Dash looks great; too bad I can't use it since I don't have a Mac" or it can mean "It's really great that I don't use a Mac", especially when read quickly.
Also, you were terse so that there isn't much content in your comment. As always, ask yourself if your comment is worth the time for people to read. Cheers.
I'm Dash's developer. Currently there is Zeal, that has access to all of Dash's docsets - http://zealdocs.org. Native apps for iOS and Windows are also under development and recently an app for Android has been released (http://lovelydocs.io/). Note: these apps are made by other developers, I'm just providing the docsets.
Zeal looks nice... but am I missing something or are there no urls available for just the docsets on the dash/zealdocs pages? I get that zealdocs can download dash docsets -- but quickly skimming the c++ source for editdocsets didn't reveal any obvious link to a http repo?
> Native apps for iOS and Windows are also under development
Oh, that's nice! I've had Dash for a couple of years now and love it, but it would be very nice to have it open on my iPad while I develop on my mac! Awesome!
I'm not able to find the docs for Django 1.0 and 1.1, but all others should be doable. Right now I'm focusing on fixing things for OS X 10.10, but I've added a todo entry for this and as soon as I can I'll add them.
There's a huge difference between climbing to the top and then instantly failing and actually staying at the top.
A full day in Top Grossing on the Mac App Store gives you something like this:
Ranks #10 to #20: at least $2-4k per day. Ranks #30 to #80: around $800-1k per day. Ranks #80 to #150: around $500-$800 per day.
All sums are after Apple's cut. They fluctuate a bit depending on the day of the week.
I make more than the mentioned $454 per day at ranks of around #200.
My revenue report from last year can be found here: https://blog.kapeli.com/my-year-in-review-2014.