Editor’s note: This article was first published in May 2011. The claims about mobile connections overtaking PC growth and the prediction that paid apps would fade reflect that moment. OperadorApp’s figures, such as 20,000 downloads in 12 days, are from May 2011 and refer to the Spanish market.
The future of the internet is mobile, or so the experts say: they have seen mobile connections grow much faster than connections “via PC”. Apps have been a very profitable business, both on phones and on social networks. The problem is that the online market tends towards “everything free”, so over time paid apps will tend to disappear or be confined to small circles and niche sectors.
There are two routes in the app-building business:
Design and sell: You design an app that becomes so interesting to a large network or company that it wants to buy it. That’s what has happened with hundreds of apps on Facebook, some of which have sold for a few million euros.
Build and keep: Here you build an app not with the idea of selling it, but of owning it. If it’s a paid app and people find it interesting, your main earnings will obviously come from downloads by hundreds or thousands of users. If it’s exceptionally good, as some are, millions of people could be interested.
When the app is free, the revenue clearly has to come from the advertising built into it.
What is clear is that in every single case, this business idea depends on how well the product does with the end consumer, the internet user.
The two names of the moment in this profitable business are Rodrigo and Jorge, two young Spaniards who, after a Christmas app that had moderate success, went on to build another app that has already broken download records.
The app is called OperadorApp, and it lets users find out which phone carrier is behind a phone number. What makes it interesting is that ever since numbers became portable, so that any company can win a customer without them having to change their number, there has been no way of knowing whether you’re calling a Vodafone customer, an Orange customer, and so on.
The app is designed to save users a few euros: if you know the carrier, you have a clearer idea of the rate you’re going to pay and can act accordingly, instead of in the dark.
It was downloaded 20,000 times in just 12 days, and thanks to promotion on social networks and online media, this is expected to be just the beginning. It took them 30 days to build, and the two entrepreneurs are already looking for ways to sell ad space inside the app.
This reminds us that behind every business and company lies a profitable business with a future: advertising.
Further reading
- Business ideas to start this year
- 15 commandments for entrepreneurs
- Niklas Zennström, the tireless entrepreneur: a lesson in persistence
- Why new businesses fail
- How to start a business with no money
Featured image: Jeremy Levin, CC0 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
