From the Ray Wenderlich (I hate liches) interview of Marco Arment:

It’s easy to look at successful, painstakingly crafted, impeccably designed apps from well-known developers like Panic or Omni and attribute their success to their craftsmanship, design, and delightful details. Far too many developers believe that if they polish an app to a similar level, they’ll be successful, too. And then they pour months or years of effort into an app that, more often than not, never takes off and can’t sustain that level of effort.

This is part of what I tried to say in, "Your app's not Marco's" last year.

If I was going to be blunt, I also don't think Unread has quite as much market appeal as Overcast. Overcast has some serious bugs -- I've had it display many and even download one latest podcast from feeds I've listened to and am not actively subscribed (no response yet from support@overcast.fm) -- but it's arguably a better podcast app [without excuse] than, say, Downcast. I stopped using Unread a few months after I purchased. Even in the non-IAP state, Overcast is a pretty good app. I had to have faster playback speeds, so I shelled out the cash. It hasn't given me a reason to stop using it yet.

Jared Sinclair went all-in with Unread. Look, I'd argue $42,000 over six months of sales is a success. But he went all in for eight months before that sales period started. That's the crux of Marco's warning. Don't do that.

Your app's ceiling is only as high as the need it can potentially serve. See how high the ceiling is sooner than later (he says as he continues to test his markdown editor that he hasn't released...)

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