If you want to become an App millionaire and haven’t heard of Nick D’Aloisio then you need to wake up from your slumber. This week the 17 year old sold Summly, an app he developed, to Yahoo for a reported $30m. Summly, which was developed a little over a year ago from Nick’s bedroom, is an app which provides bite-sized summaries of content from news and other sites.
Who Is Nick D’Aloisio?
As you already know, Nick D’Aloisio is a 17 year old London school boy from Wimbledon. While still too young to be a director of his own firm, he begun tinkering with apps for mobile devices as a hobby like any other teenager without thinking much about it. However, while revising for his exams and finding himself frustrated with Web pages that broadly repeated the same content he came up with the idea of making an app which produces summarised versions of news stories with the number of words tailored to fit into a single smartphone screen. The rest is history. Summly has since gone on to win one of Apple’s best apps of 2012 awards with over 90 million summaries read so far.
Who’s Next?
It could be you. Below are five steps that could help in your quest to make money and become a millionaire.
1. Idea
Pretty obvious huh? Yes, every innovation starts off as a simple idea. You can get a idea for an app trying to solve a basic problem or just providing simple entertainment. Generally, there is nothing like a bad idea for an app as long as it solves a problem or meets an emotional need.
2. Operating System
You need to know what plaform you want to design your app for? For example, Nick chose Apple so you may want to design an Apple app or maybe try something different. In that case do you want to create your own app for Android, or maybe even for a Windows phone? Furthermore, you may choose to be jack of all trade and simply go for all three.
3. Programming
This is often the tricky one particularly for those who have no idea how to write a computer program. While some may recommend hiring expensive C (for Apple iOS phones) or Java (for Android phones) developer, there are far cheapers ways of making your first app without having any knowledge of programming. However, you will need to learn these techniques from the masters. For example, check out Quoc Bul & Michael Moon’s book How to Make iPhone Apps With No Programming Experience.
This guide takes you though the step-by-step process of creating iPhone apps from start to finish. You will find out how to make non-disclosure agreements (NDA) that will protect your ideas from unethical developers. Furthermore, you will find 22 examples and actual codes of apps created from this book in the last 2 years with over 27 million downloads.
4. Fundraising
Fundraising could also be tricky sometimes depending on the scale of your project. However, you may be better off starting small and raising funds first from friends and family. Considering that it may not be advisable to go and pitch on Dragon’s Den just yet, funding can also be solicited from popular Web 2.0 project funding sites such as Fundly and Kickstarter.com.
5. The Launch
Overall, the successful launch of your app will depend on how clued up you are in relation to sales and marketing. You can create press releases, use social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube videos to market and promote your new app. However, a good app will eventually take care of its own publicity as friends, family and users in general will recommend it to others. You may even go on to receive rave reviews from websites and blogs. Likewise, users can recommend or nominate your app for awards to such an extent that it is feature-listed in a top App Store.
Yep, I already felt myself as miserable as possible reading about this guy a few days ago.. Well.. Life is tough!
Mobile apps are hot today. But hiring a programmer is too expensive. I used Snappii to make apps. It’s really easy, the web service allows to make mobile apps in minutes, and without programming skills at all. If you are short of time, they can make an app for you very quickly.
Great! Motivational article 🙂 I’ll definitely give a try to develop a app. Now-a-days it is becoming the best source of income for youngsters.
After reading your post I was like: Is it really true? Does this actually happen? But seems like it does 🙂 Heard that programmers may cost you a fortune so we can make use of programs like Snappi for this purpose. Thanks for sharing.
mobile app development seems to a great leveller, making stars of out of every Tom, Dick and Harry. And there are websites/apps that let u develop apps without breaking into too much sweat.
I think after reading about this kid, everyone would want to become a mobile app developer. Dealing with the fundraising part could be tricky though.
Amazing post! I need to check out this app. At such a young age, if he can build an app which is already launched and that too without any programming skills then anyone can build it. Kudos dude! Long way to go!
WOW what an amazing kid and I will surely share this to all my social media friends and I will also use this application.
It’s really good tips here for creating an app without having any knowledge of programming. We should give the book a try.
We should give the book a try. It’s really good tips here for creating an app without having any knowledge of programming. Nice post.
In the time of hard competition Nick D’Aloisio really doing great job in the field of technology. Thanks for sharing information about Nick D’Aloisio in this blog.
I was inspired with your article… I am still finishing my studies and I want to be a software and Web Developer..
Well-written article like this is the reason why I often visit your blog. Who would not want to be a millionaire, right?
Mobile apps are hot today. But hiring a programmer is too expensive. I used snappii dot com to make apps. It’s really easy, the web service allows to make mobile apps in minutes, and without programming skills at all. If you are short of time, they can make an app for you very quickly.
But then again don’t you work for them?