6 Years Ago, A Developer Made An App To Track Time. He Now Makes 5 Figures A Month From It

This is Carlos Ribas, an iPhone app developer

Image via null

When Carlos was working as as Senior .NET Developer, his boss encouraged him to "absolutely write some iPhone apps!" This was early 2009, Carlos recounts in a recent Medium post.

The boss, who is unnamed in the Medium post, had just read about Ethan Nicholas, another developer, who struck it rich by releasing a lite version of his game, iShoot. The boss told Carlos, "Ethan wrote this game without knowing any Objective-C before, and he was able to quit his job. You should give it a try."

"Part of me wondered about my boss telling me I should quit my job, but I really appreciated the encouragement to try new things," Carlos [recalls](https://medium.com/@carlosribas/how-hourstracker-earns-five-figures-a-month-on-the-app-store-85a20bb972eb). "I thought it over for a few days and started to believe it could happen. I began reading about Objective-C, the iPhone SDK, and the design guidelines."

When Carlos's wife, who had an iPhone, couldn't find a good app to keep track of her hourly job, he offered to make one. He borrowed her iPhone, and on 12 July 2009, released HoursTracker.

Image via null

Lifehacker picked it as the best time tracking app for iPhone. Apple made a short video about it, and for a while HoursTracker was more popular than even Angry Birds.

It's been 6 years since then, and he is still working on making HoursTracker better. His app makes more money than he could earn with a full-time job. Carlos says, "I made what I thought was a decent product, put it up for sale, and then I made it better."

While his story is unique, Carlos offered a few pointers for aspiring app developers. First of all, he made the app originally because his wife had a particular need.

Second, Carlos has continued to refine the app over time and again, not just update it for new versions of iOS.

Third and most important, Carlos, who views advertising as a necessary evil, has a clear and fair freemium model. Freemium is a pricing strategy by which a product is provided free of charge, but money is charged for proprietary features and functionality.

As Forbes notes, there's an important principle here related to human behaviour

Meanwhile, Carlos also advises to experiment with pricing

Image via null

While Carlos says the success of his app flies in the face of claims that no one makes money off apps anymore, Mashable reports that few people claims that Carlos had an advantage because he released the app in the early days of the App Store

In the end, as Carlos notes, if you can solve an important problem in a way that resonates with a sizable group of people, you can find success. "There's always room for a fresh take on an already well-served problem, too."

6 Years Ago, A Developer Made An App To Track Time. He Now Makes 5 Figures A Month From It

This is Carlos Ribas, an iPhone app developer

When Carlos was working as as Senior .NET Developer, his boss encouraged him to "absolutely write some iPhone apps!" This was early 2009, Carlos recounts in a recent Medium post.

When Carlos's wife, who had an iPhone, couldn't find a good app to keep track of her hourly job, he offered to make one. He borrowed her iPhone, and on 12 July 2009, released HoursTracker.

Lifehacker picked it as the best time tracking app for iPhone. Apple made a short video about it, and for a while HoursTracker was more popular than even Angry Birds.

It's been 6 years since then, and he is still working on making HoursTracker better. His app makes more money than he could earn with a full-time job. Carlos says, "I made what I thought was a decent product, put it up for sale, and then I made it better."

While his story is unique, Carlos offered a few pointers for aspiring app developers. First of all, he made the app originally because his wife had a particular need.

Second, Carlos has continued to refine the app over time and again, not just update it for new versions of iOS.

Third and most important, Carlos, who views advertising as a necessary evil, has a clear and fair freemium model. Freemium is a pricing strategy by which a product is provided free of charge, but money is charged for proprietary features and functionality.

As Forbes notes, there's an important principle here related to human behaviour

Meanwhile, Carlos also advises to experiment with pricing

While Carlos says the success of his app flies in the face of claims that no one makes money off apps anymore, Mashable reports that few people claims that Carlos had an advantage because he released the app in the early days of the App Store

In the end, as Carlos notes, if you can solve an important problem in a way that resonates with a sizable group of people, you can find success. "There's always room for a fresh take on an already well-served problem, too."

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