While popular belief holds that there is no money to be made in the Mac App Store, at least one industry figure believes its still possible make a million with your Mac apps. Denys Zhadanov, VP of Marketing for Readdle explains why.
Exactly a year ago we launched our first Mac app — PDF Expert. It quickly became #1 app on the App Store and won App of the Year Runner-App later on. For those who don’t know, PDF Expert is a fast, robust and beautiful PDF editor.
More than 1 million people visited PDF Expert site, 150K trials were downloaded and over 50K units sold.
Zhadanov says the company realized that with over 5 million people using PDF Expert on their iOS devices, it made sense to offer a Mac version to bring a consistent user interface to the table for users in both camps. They looked at the available Mac PDF apps, and saw them as outdated and poorly designed. The company decided to create a “best in class” PDF editor for the Mac.
The app quickly became the #1 app on the Mac App Store, and was the runner-up for 2015 App of the Year. Readdle didn’t stand on their laurels though, instead they kept pounding away, offering 8 major updates to the app in a short period of time.
Zhadanov says Readdle has had success in the Mac App Store due to its direct connection with its customers. “We’ve conducted dozens of interviews and surveys, trying to figure out real problems people have. Thanks to you, we can improve our product to solve those problems.”
Despite what seems to be an irreversible trend toward mobile use, and almost daily rumors of the Mac app market’s death, Zhadanov thinks it’s still possible to make millions by “creating amazing Mac software.” He cites Omni, 1Password, CleanMyMac, and PDF Expert as examples of his belief.
“Yes, there are plenty of free tools, but if you create an amazing product that provides good value for money — people will buy it.”
Zhadanov encourages developers to create apps for sale in Mac App Store, citing its relatively low number of apps, leading to a greater possibility of being noticed by the Apple editorial team. He also suggests making sure the app supports the latest and greatest Apple technologies. He cites the recent release of the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. A number of apps offering early Touch Bar support have been featured by Apple.
To read more from Readdle’s Denys Zhadanov on how to make a million in the Mac App Store, and his thoughts on how Apple could make the Mac App Store better, be sure to read his blog entry, available here.
