Craft Apps
Stepping back, in one of my favorite episodes of Exponent, James Allworth and I coined the idea of The Internet Rainforest (although, now that I think about it, we mostly refer to it as the Internet jungle). The idea is that the economics of the Internet work for two types of businesses:
- Massive businesses that can take advantage of the Internet’s scale to reach a huge number of people very cheaply and efficiently
- Niche businesses that can take advantage of the super low costs involved in running an Internet business to reach a very narrow niche of people all over the world very cheaply and efficiently
I find it odd that so many indies want to make “opinionated” software, which by definition limits the audience, and then price it as if trying to reach the widest audience possible. This strikes me as trying to have it both ways. Either you want to target a niche, or go for scale. If you target a niche with your design and features then try and price the app for the mainstream, you’re going to have a very hard time being sustainable.
The mainstream simply doesn’t care about your high-quality, artisanal approach to app making. They want what’s free and what’s popular. To get their attention, it takes millions of dollars an indie doesn’t have.
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So you have to let go of this notion of making up for it in volume. You can’t easily convert people who don’t pay for software with your amazing hand-crafted experience.
