Faster and Cheaper – Good News or Bad?

October 12, 2011 in Business Start-Up, Marketing with 10 Comments

In June of 2009 I wrote that we had started looking at the possibility of a 48 Days iPhone app.  At that time we were told it would be a $20-30,000 process of development.  While we were in discussions we had a couple other companies tell us that because they were doing similar applications they could do our project for $8-10,000.  Then our social media consultant began pointing us to websites like Mobile Roadie where for $499 we could build our own app and be ready to go.  About six weeks ago a 48 Days reader showed us a complete 48 Days App he had built.  It had nearly all the features we had even imagined.  At our request Dan Waller added a few more tweaks and readily agreed to run our promos regularly.  Our cost – zero.

So are the changes described here good news or bad news?  For me as a user, it’s great news.  If you’re a technology guy who based his business model on developing $30,000 applications, it’s bad news.  If you’re a musician who wants to build a fan base for your latest album it’s great news.  If you’re a record label with a four-story building and 80 employees it’s probably bad news.  If you are an author it’s amazingly good news.  You can go right to your audience without waiting to get your book on the shelves at Barnes & Noble.  If you are a traditional publishing house these changes just wiped out your big company advantage.

Change always presents the good news – bad news options.  If you see change as threatening, you will likely see the bad news.  If you believe progress always requires change, you will likely see the good news.  If you can build your business in a way that embraces change, you will recognize ways to take advantage of change rather than feeling victimized by it.  And it doesn’t matter if you are mowing yards, filling teeth, preaching sermons, writing books or building houses.

Incidentally, I’m delighted to allow Dan to profit from the $.99 investment from our community members for the 48Days App.  Is it my content – yes.  With the app people can read blogs instantly, see upcoming events and specials, and follow their own 48Days Schedule.  And I hope he makes far more than $30,000.  It’s still a great deal for me.

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  • Jim

    Any chance it will be available for the android phones soon?

    • Anonymous

      Jim,
      Absolutely – that is in process.

    • Anonymous

      Jim,
      Absolutely – that is in process.

    • Anonymous

      Jim,
      Absolutely – that is in process.

  • http://www.csbikes.org Robert Guico

    I’m confused… who wrote this post? :-) Or does Dan sometimes refer to himself in the third person?

    • Anonymous

      “We” refers to our 48 Days team – that includes me but several others as well.

    • Anonymous

      “We” refers to our 48 Days team – that includes me but several others as well.

    • http://www.FamilyLifeLearners.com NamasteMamaRose

      Robert, the last sentence where Dan talks about “Dan”, he’s referring to Dan Waller, the guy that created our 48 Days app.  Definitely gets confusing, but the name of the app creator is Dan.  :-)

  • Ricky Spears

    About 6 years ago I wrote a blog post describing how I used a couple different tools to use one company’s content (that they made freely available) on my mobile device. Well, they didn’t realize they had made as much content freely available as they actually had, so their CEO called to chew me out for “hacking” their site–which I certainly hadn’t done. I explained where the content was and how anyone could get to it with a web browser; they then moved that content to a more secure area. So what began as a call to chew me out turned into him asking me to build a custom mobile application for him (which I declined in this case for a variety of reasons). However, I wouldn’t have gotten that opportunity if I hadn’t done a little work to meet a need I had and then shared how I met that need.

    Kudos to Dan Waller for doing this for himself and kudos to you Dan Miller for working with him to make it profitable for both of you. I think if more people would create and share their creations there would be a lot more of this going on. Unfortunately, most people think they need to get paid first before they’ll create or share anything.

  • Dan

    I love this concept of micro-selling, whether it’s apps, eBooks, or something else, and I’m starting to put together a plan to do this myself.

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