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Tell HN: I just made my first sale

48 points by ent101 ↗ HN
For the past year, I've been working on a side project called Outpan. Basically it's an app store for web apps (apps written in JS/HTML/CSS).

The whole project started out as a simple directory but a few days ago I finally finished the payment/store functionality and released it without any fanfare. To my surprise, one of the developers found out about the new feature and added a paid app priced at $5 (https://www.outpan.com/app/d0b0885a8d/voice-music), I genuinely thought the price was waaaaaay too high and there weren't any proper screenshots (I think the developer was just testing the waters) but the very same day a user actually bought the app!!!!

Even though it's only $5 and the user seems to not have liked the app (I reached out to them and offered to issue a refund but they refused!) this is still a crazy milestone for me as all this happened without a shred of marketing and totally organically! I've already put a ton of work into this project but now that I know that there seem to be people willing to transact on my platform I'm super focused on improving the entire buying and payment experience to perfection.

Anyways, a really small amount of money but a giant amount of excitement lol Please ask any question you might have about my experience, would be happy to answer.

27 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 86.8 ms ] thread
wheresmycraisin
Congrats! Hopefully single-sales days will soon be commonplace. However, be prepared for droughts as well -- I sell at app that sells 2-3+ copies per day on average, but sometimes I go 2 weeks without a sale and some times I get 20 in a day. There's little correlation between sales so what matters is long-term trends.
ent101
Thank you for sharing your experience. Someone on reddit brought this up too, so I'm sure I need to prepare for the same :)
Jugurtha
Hi. Maybe offer yearly or multi-year plans, possibly with a discount, to mitigate seasonality and make your revenue more predictable, so you can forecast and make decisions.

Maybe you can also have a feature that allows someone with purchase power to buy an app for multiple users at once, so you increase the average amount of a "buy decision".

Maybe a feature with a cart-like experience: I want to buy app A, app B, app C for user a, user b, user c.

Maybe a feature with bundles and packs that are geared towards a particular function. Similar to a LAMP/WAMP stack for web development, you can have (App A + App Z + App D) for $n.

Maybe a feature to transfer access rights for an application to someone else. I buy an app that I don't like anymore, can I barter? I give you that app, and you give me something else, like access to another app.

Maybe a feature for "App of the day". I connect and I have ephemeral access to an app for that day. It'll help discovery. If I don't like it, I just "stop" the app, and it'll give me access to another app that I can use for the remainder of the day. It exposes me to more applications and increases the likelihood of a collision?

You could then get data on apps I like and recommend to me applications I might like, with something completely different from time to time to pop the bubble.

Also, congrats!

bemmu
Clumpiness of randomness is always surprising.
algodaily
Have noticed this as well. It’s important to step back and look at longer term figures (either monthly or quarterly revenue, for instance). If you check your numbers daily, you’ll drive yourself crazy. Similar I imagine, to how newbie day traders feel, obsessing over fluctuating numbers.
exolymph
Congrats! No other feeling like it :)
asfarley
Congratulations, it’s a good feeling.
quickthrower2
Well done, and incase you don’t know about it I recommend talking about this on IndieHackers.com for more exposure and helpful advice.

Disclosure it isn’t my site, it’s well known / respected on HN though.

ent101
Thank you for the tip! I'll post on indiehackers tonight :)
laythea
Awesome and congrats! - Can I ask - How do you (intend to) deal with tax from sales generated overseas? Would you outsource this, or manage it yourself? I intend to release also, but I'm not quite at the release stage. My mind is full of these non-software related questions...thanks in advance.
ent101
I'm going to outsource it to an accounting firm, at least for the initial phase.
ent101
Can you please send me an email at cdangelo@outpan.com? I'm interested to see if I can solve this problem in a general way for developers :)
imhoguy
With sale of my own apps I would go with Merchant of Record or reseller solution. However in your case as you are reseller/marketplace not sure how that would go. I would be happy to read about your solution. Do you own a blog?
deepaksurti
Awesome. Many of us underestimate but on HN also appreciate how much effort it takes to take to ship something, so keep going at it. Respect!
ent101
Thank you so much. That's very kind of you.
semicolonandson
Congrats and nice idea.

I noticed quite a few web-apps already listed. I'm curious what approach you used to reach these developers?

ipi
“The 3 most harmful addictions are cocaine, carbohydrates and a monthly salary” says Nassim Taleb in his book black swan. I guess the first sale from the product you built also goes in the same line but in a positive way!
jfrej
That's a cool idea. And congratulations!

However, I get an error in my console when I navigate to an app:

> Uncaught DOMException: Failed to read the 'localStorage' property from 'Window': Access is denied for this document.

Chrome on macOS

atum47
Nice, I just published one of my games there, Qubes.

Let me know when you are able to make payments to Brazil.