What’s amazing about fortysquires is that I really didn’t expect to sell more than a few copies. It was built just to be a reference app. Remember, this is a paid ($0.99) app that competes against free, better-featured native apps for Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry. There’s also a mobile web version of foursquare (but it’s not HTML5 and doesn’t include geolocation, etc, like fortysquires does). I really thought I’d sell maybe two or three copies to developers looking to test out the workflow.
Yet, what I’m seeing is that real users are purchasing this app, everyday. Everyday, I sell at least one — but typically more like 3-4 — “copies” of the app. It’s not a gold mine, of course, but it far surpasses my expectations.
These are users from all over the world on all sorts of different devices. iPhone usage is >50%, but Android is close to 20%, and Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm, and Samsung all make the cut. And 50% of visitors are from the US, 25% from western Europe, and the rest is divided between many, many countries like Canada, Australia, Israel, Russia, many Asian countries, Costa Rica, Maldives, Camaroon, Kyrgyzstan, etc. In all, more than 70 different countries have checked out fortysquires!
” Case Study: Selling a paid mobile web app (fortysquires)