A Dark Room – Amir Rajan
Sponsors
Are you developing a mobile app? Get anything from icons and buttons to your entire mobile app designed at 99designs! You can start your next graphic design project for as low as $199. Visit 99designs.com/Chat and get a $99 Power Pack of services for free.
PreApps provides an outlet for developers to harness early exposure, access beta testers, generate critical user feedback, and most importantly rapid downloads upon release. Get 10% off on ALL PreApps marketing services by using promo code AppMasters!
Subscribe to the Show
Subscribe via iTunes
Subscribe via Stitcher
Subscribe via RSS
About the Episode
You know how everyone says that games need to be free to have any chance of success? Well today’s guest hit #1 under paid app and shares all the tactics he used to get it to that point. Also, listen the brilliant viral strategy that he uses in the app when someone completes the whole game.
Amir Rajan is a coder, a game developer and freelancer.
Show Notes
Tactics to Hit #1 under paid apps
Amir Rajan believes that his app hit #1 because of word of mouth. He made this happen by making his app a premium game, meaning, for 1$, the user gets the whole game with no additional purchases and no ads. Placing his app was in the RPG category also helped as it made it easier to stay on top of that particular group.
Rajan also used Reddit Hookup to give away promo codes. He added a new twist by making a contest out of it. He asked users to read a part of his blog about the app and to comment on it and soon, players had conversations going. This kind of engagement got his app to have its own community of users.
Viral strategies for Your App Users
The one thing that is different with Amir’s app is the developer commentary at the end of the game. Once the user has beaten the game, an audio commentary of the history — how the game was made,the challenges the developer went through to create the game — is unlocked. Then he puts in a request to “gift” the game to another person because it is the best thing a user can do to help the developer. This helps in humanizing him and creates that special connection between him and his users.
It also helped that his target was wider than Rajan thought. His target was users his age but it turned out that high school kids loved the game because it encouraged the imagination. He advises that we should create engagement and maintain it by creating a community of users through a website wherein users can converse, be updated and exchange ideas.
What advice would you give to anyone looking to build a mobile app?
Don’t be there for the money. Don’t try to build the #1 app but build a bunch of meaningful apps in niche areas and do it because you love it. The money will follow.
Show Mentions
– Fav app: Hop Lite: (iTunes | Google Play)
Thanks for sharing the numbers