points by motionlessveloc 4 days ago | 0 comments
Making an app has always been approximately 1% of the work involved in turning an idea into a business.
[–] dannyw 4 days ago
[–] smodo 4 days ago
It can still be true though, because entry is nothing without sales and a continued search for product market fit. I don’t know about 1% but if you say ‘for every 100 apps launched in 2015-2020 only 1 turned into a sustainable business’ I’d say that’s in the ballpark.
If code becomes cheaper that may change the business fundamentals but it also means capturing customers becomes way harder.
[–] senordevnyc 4 days ago
In a former life I was a freelancer who built first version mobile apps for seed and pre-seed startups. I’m a decent dev, so what I built was always good enough. Virtually none of these startups survived, and there were dozens of them.
[–] vinibrito 3 days ago
What did you move into next?
[–] CuriouslyC 4 days ago
Even a decade ago marketing/growth was the massive lion's share. IMO just building something has been near meaningless since at least post-Ruby on Rails. The app stores have been inundated since the late 2010s.
[–] nemo44x 3 days ago
I’d challenge that and say that the opportunity cost was massive. So you needed to be super precise and confident in what to spend the time doing.
Now that opportunity cost is much lower so experimentation is more practical than before.
Maybe it’s 1% or 10% today, but a decade ago, having/assembling the technical chops to know how to build something was a huge part of the meat / barrier to entry.