Marketing your App to Mashable for free (How I got featured)

A month after launch, my app, CryFace was featured on the front page of Mashable.com gathering close to 1000 shares thus landing it in the category as 'The Next Big Thing.' These are the simple, and not so simple, semi-chronological steps involved in marketing my iPhone app to the front page of a major tech website.

As Seen on Mashable.

The question I hear most from app developers that have launched at least one app is," How do you market your apps successfully?" The answer is a complicated one that changes due to a whole host of variables. like many challenges there are multiple solutions to effectively marketing your app. The most important step in your marketing journey starts long before the first lines of code have been created.

Is your app Unremarkable or "Remarketable?" When thinking up app ideas to create this is a simple test to run. Will your new app be so remarkable that people using it will run and tell their friends about it? If the answer is no, well, then don't expect any media outlets to cover it. We all know the news media love sensational headlines so if you make it easy for the media by making a sensational app, your app has just become that much easier to market. The media also loves to have some story behind the app that they can share with their readers.

Let's look a little deeper into a synonym for the word sensation; emotion. Everyone who uses your app will have some sort of emotional response to it, if they don't that usually means they are indifferent to it and this will result in people not sharing your app, or simple saying, "meh." when asked about your app. Large media outlets do not report "meh"apps for free so don't spend time making one unless you have tons of money to burn and can brute force your way to a headline for a fee. Your app should have a clear and concise message that users can immediately connect with emotionally.

Looking back at the previous four apps I've made, they all revolve around core human emotions and desires. The idea of the app can be summed up in a few words so users can "Get it." right away. In the mobile space you have to communicate with your potential users immediately before they move on to looking for the next app so It is important that your app name and icon tell them what your app will do without them having to think too hard about it.

Vanity - How attractive am I?
CrunchTime - I hate my job hours, Can I work less?
Matchbooth - I'm lonely, Can I find a companion?
CryFace - People look funny when they cry, this app makes everyone cry.

Many people will tell you that marketing your app should start long before launch. I mostly agree with this but also recognize when you're an indie developer on a shoe string budget, this isn't always possible. You have to find other creative ways to make your app do most of the marketing itself.  

Having a full time job forces me to be super selective of where I want to spend most of my app development time. Traditionally marketing an app can be a full time job in itself so when I'm making an app I wait till all the app development is done before I can dedicate solid hours to marketing. Ideally I would love to work together with someone who is as passionate about marketing apps as I am designing and developing them. Since I don't have the luxury of time or a dedicated marketing guru here's my approach on marketing CryFace.

1) App keywords and app title optimization - This will boost your downloads tremendously if done correctly.  A large portion of people who buy apps search for apps via keywords.

2) After launch I did some research to see who the top tech and popular culture bloggers were that could possibly be genuinely interested in CryFace. I only wrote 5 different bloggers and heard back from one, who said she would forward my email to the team. I never heard back but I like to think that even if you don't get a response there's a possibility the bloggers are still checking out the app and if they like it but don't think it's a good fit for the story they want to write then they can still pass it along to other friends or bloggers to check out.

3) I wrote 2 press releases with sensational yet true headlines. One press release was written in a safe, traditional manner, the other was more attention grabbing stating that CryFace is the only app able to make Chuck Norris cry.  I worked on Crysis 2 and the game Crysis 3 was about to be launched after my app so I decided to play off the title of their wonderful game engine called CryEngine. The title of my first press release was... Ex Crytek Employee release Cry Engine onto App Store, Graphics will make you cry. For Press releases I used two websites that I've used in the past, PRWEB and PRMAC. Writing a press release will help you understand how to pitch your app. If you're having trouble writing one on your own just search the web for the press release of a similar app and learn from it. This will help you to create your own. You can also find countless articles via google on writing a press release. Remember, journalists hate reading press releases, keep it genuine yet entertaining to read.

5) Used www.fiverr.com and paid people 5 dollars to print out lots flyers with my app info and place them up around dorms and class rooms. (not sure how effective this was, I'm betting not very many people saw the flyers before they were taken.) I don't recommend this, as I did not see a noticable boost in downloads.

6) Started an Instagram page for CryFace using mainly Celebs.

7) Created a Facebook page.

8) Created the app webpage and press kit, before launching the app.

9) Created a tumblr page just incase. ( When I update Instagram the post auto propagates to the other accounts.)

So far the most effective of all these for generating downloads for CryFace were numbers one, two, and six. App Seo, Instagram posts, and emailing bloggers. If you want something just ask but make sure you don't spam a bunch of bloggers, it's better to build a relationship with them. Also, send thank you emails. I usually send emails on Sunday to various blogs right before they have to go back into work Monday Morning.

Instagram is the new Facebook. Use it to build relationships with your customers and followers. Update at least once a week. When see people on their smart phones I like to notice what my target demographic is doing with their devices. They are using Instagram. Since Cryface is all about image creation and sharing with friends, posting the pictures to Instagram was a no-brainer. It also serves as an example of what the app does.

ChipChick.com, a women's lifestyle and tech blog, were the first blog to do a story on CryFace, a couple hours later Mashable had reported on the ChipChick article and placed it on their front page. Soon after, the article was shared and tweeted about for the next few weeks. A temporary sigh of relief washed over me along with a slight feeling of validation, I had just made another newsworthy app. I think I'm getting good at this. Now it's your turn! Go create an app worthy of the headlines.


Google Search Results for CryFace app.

*PS I forgot to mention a service found shortly after Cryface was being covered on Mashable.

I tried a service called http://ispreadnews.com/en/

What they do is ask you to fill out all the information on your app and, for a small fee, they will distribute your app info to all the known app review websites out there. When they are done they will send you a list off all the sites they sent your app to.

Sounds Amazing right? Well that's what I though too as about a hundred email messages came back from websites thanking me for my app submission. I was really excited about the service then one by one as I read each email, my excitement faded.

90% of the emails were the individual websites asking me for some sort of payment to get featured or reviewed. These prices ranged from $12 - $12,000. There were a few sites that didn't have some sort of fee for feature requirement. I have never paid for someone to feature or review my app before so I figured I should give it a try and document the results. In the coming weeks I will try two paid honest reviews and see how they pan out for downloads and exposure. It's good practice to always look at the Alexa.com ranking of each websites traffic before approaching a blogger or app centric website.

 I do recommend giving ispreadnews.com a try since it saves you time from having to individually message every app blog about your app. Just be ready to pay to play.

Marketing your new App.

It's done, it's done! Finally! Now what? Actually unless you've made an app that can market itself you're not done, you're missing one of the most vital steps, you have to Market it! At least that's what the marketing folks tell me.

You could have just made the best app in the world but if no one knows it's in the app store here's what will happen: Your competition who is scouring the app store for any new entries will see that your app is not getting any attention, steal the idea and throw a lot of money at marketing the hell out of their clone as if it was their idea to begin with and make millions. Business is business, it's pretty cut throat.

Make sure when you release your app that have a moat of users protecting it from anyone who wants to clone it. How do you get users? make sure they know it's in the store and they can't resist getting it.

A semi marketing postmortem:

I released Vanity back in 2009 with absolutely no marketing push what-so-ever except making a shady looking YouTube video in my bedroom and a poor looking website that I just changed yesterday...3 years later (actually the video is still up). Truth is, that it took me so much energy just to finish the app that when it was time to submit the final candidate I couldn't wait to hit the launch button. I had quit my decent paying job at EA after I shipped DeadSpace1, moved back home for a bit, started selling Google & Baidu stock to buy dinner at Aldi's. Here's what went well and what could have been improved at the launch of Vanity & the launch of CrunchTime, my next app.

What went well:

The idea was there. A simple idea that taps into natural human desire and solves a problem that was previously unsolved on mobile phones. Take a picture of a person and your phone tells you how attractive they are.

Users can't beat or finish the app, there will always be fresh faces to try.

The app is pretty controversial and makes for some great sensational headlines.

The app was affordable to make.

A week after launch UrbanDaddy was the first to pick it up as the "World's first face rating app."

Then Cosmopolitan ran an article about it, The NewYork times ran an article on it, Huffington

Post ran a story, Allure ran a story...etc.. all this happened over the course of a couple years. Then all the email

s came asking for me to let vanity be promoted and be included on other sites for a fee.

My marketing strategy for Vanity.

-The first thing I did after the initial sigh of relief of making it to the app store. Was Google... "How to market your iPhone app." After that I acquired a public contact list through mashable or Techcrunch of the 100 most influential female bloggers today and wrote a personal email to each and every one on that list offering a coupon for a free download. In hindsight I don't think this was the best approach but this was before I knew anything about writing a free press release. I emailed a famous female Japanese blogger with an offer to try the app for free, when I opened her reply email and read the words " Jackass - I love my android phone." I figured I deserved that for not doing my research before hand.

Out of 100 emails I got back 5 that were willing to try the app and 3 that gave me feedback.

-I was approached by a guy who wanted to do a video review for vanity for a fee, so I said sure why not. His first video review was positive but he was trying so hard to keep the video under 1 minute that it ended up being a waste of time and money for me. I wrote him a letter to actually to use the app properly and he did resulting in a much better video presentation of the app.

-A French guy asked me to be a part of a free app a day promotion on his site for a fee of 150 dollars. I said sure I'll give it a try. It was probably the best marketing decision I made. I became the number 1 downloaded app in France over night boosting the visibility of my app. When the app hit number on

e I switched to 99 cents the next day.

-twitter page- I wasn't a big fan of updating the vanity twitter page, it felt like I needed to hire someone just for that.

- I added facebook connect and sharing features into the app

- Celebrities in Hong Kong began to use my app and say they loved it. This freaked me out a bit & it still does since I have movies in my dvd collection with the same actors and actresses. Seeing the smiles on their faces as they hold up my app is a bit surreal. But seeing people smile when they use may app keeps me inspired to make more cool new apps.

Bosco Wong after scoring 9.1 on Vanity.

"I got the highest score? I'm so happy! This app is amazing, what is it called? Let me download it too!" Bosco became the Siu Sang with the highest score of 9.1, even happier than getting TV King.

- Localizing the app and app descriptions into 5 languages was one of the best decisions I made. 40% of sales come from outside the US.

-What I should have improved on earlier.

- App icon: I was being all artsy and chose the mona lisa as my app icon. Mistake#2. No one knows what the app does when they see the icon. I changed this later to a face with a measuring tool. My Mom still loves the Mona Lisa icon and asks when it's coming back.

-App Name: to me Vanity was the perfect name for this app but a more marketing effective name would be "Ugly calculator." The media would eat that up and say that cyber bullies can use this app to be mean to children thus forcing the app into the limelight. It's sad but true a lot of people don't know what an app called Vanity does just by reading the name.

- I should have made the app free with a freemium model to gain lots of users who might not want to pay 2.99

-CrunchTime (my second big app) marketing strategy. (disaster)

- Hire some other company to do it. I talked to different companies till I found a company which I won't name with a good portfolio and results. They promised me the moon and tried to market CrunchTime the same way they had marketed other apps before it. The appstore is always changing and what may have worked once before to get an app to the top just didn't work. The company was more focused on getting my money, they didn't understand the app fully and due to a horrible development experience that went 8 months over schedule the app wasn't really ready for prime time on launch.

- The marketing team suggested I install tapjoy and pay for installs so I gave that a try. This was a waste of money for my app ( I think it works better for games). Everyone tried to wait for Christmas to boost their app into the top ranks and wait for the apple holiday freeze so they could ride the exposure to the bank. This could work if you want to pay 20 dollars per install for a 99 cent app, you could also just burn money for the same effect.

- In the end I received a very expensive printout of how much media exposure I received due to the marketing team and I told myself I will never do that again.

-One Positive result was that the app was featured by Apple in the new and noteworthy section of iTunes.

- Another positive was learning how to create a Presskit & getting to create my own little short film advertising the app.

- Made a standout icon.

Moving forward Marketing Strategy.

- Moving forward I will try to only create innovative apps that people will want to tell their friends about.

- I will try to make apps that help people.

- I will try to make apps that people will use at least twice a day.

- I will remember marketing folks are all jaded and want to be able to print the most sensational headlines.

-I will make apps that are simple at their core and that people "get."
-I will make apps that make people smile.
-I will make apps that are free(mium)

-I will learn from my mistakes.

-I will collaborate with talented developers.

-I will not let Apple automatically select a launch date for my app after review.

-I will brainstorm on new ways to get everyone to know about my app before launch.

Getting started with www.elance.com

Elance is a great web service but it is important that you know exactly what to expect when using providers to outsource your work to. The website can be used to significantly speed up the development of your software but it can also cost you a lot of time and money if you are not careful.

My first time using Elance was an eye opener, I became so amazed and excited that I have finally found people that were willing to write all the code for my apps, here is how the creation of my first iPhone app, Vanity, happened. It started with a project proposal, Here is the original pitch:

What I need or require:

I need an iphone app created that allows a user to access the iphone camera to take a photo, The camera screen will have a custom 'provided' overlay similar to cross-hairs at the time of taking the picture allowing the user to line up their shot. After the shot is captured the app should analyze it, displaying a progress bar, then finally show data on a screen that then can be emailed to contacts on the phone. More details after an NDA is signed. What I already have versus what the provider will deliver: I am a graphic artist and have all the UI and screens designed. I need you to provide code and take my art and implement it into a working deliverable product in the form of a finalized fully working iphone app. Specific expertise/background that I am seeking: Iphone App developers and coders with experience and knowledge of how to create an app that uses the iphone camera. Timeframe for delivery: I would like to have this up and running in a month, faster if possible.

I hit submit and eagerly awaited a response. In the same day I received several proposals from companies all over the world saying how they are the best choice for the job. I looked through portfolios and contacted a bidder that sounded promising. I requested he sign an NDA before giving him more in depth details about the app. We finally agreed on $2,800 to complete and deliver the source code which I would build myself in Xcode and submit via iTunes connect.

There are certain things you should and shouldn't do when outsourcing work with elance.

You Should:

1) Design a flow chart of your whole app on paper before starting outsourcing efforts.

2) Create a design document that details everything in the app

3) Create a description and an elevator pitch that details what your app is about.

4) Be able to describe the core functionality of your app in one short sentence.

5) Prepare all assets/deliverables ahead of time.

6) Never pay in full from the start. Divide payments into thirds. Initial payment-beta payment-final deliverable payment.

original flow chart for vanity....

If you are an artist like me, number five is very important. Make sure you have all the buttons, screens, text, music samples, and art assets ready to deliver to your outsource partner in a zip file. This will save you any headaches later and prevent you from making changes as development continues as it will force you to finish and gives the outsource partner everything they need to finish the app without waiting on new deliveries.

It is very important that your outsource partner understands fully what your app is trying to accomplish. The sooner they understand what they are making and what you expect from them the smoother the development process will be.

Providers will always say yes before the last payment has been made so make sure they actually complete everything that was agreed upon in the initial agreement. If they said yes, they can create that feature in a certain amount of time, hold them to it. More on payments later.

Things to look out for:

1) Whatever you do, do not discuss any important development information on Skype. Keep all your discussions inside the provided elance work room. This is a trick providers use to take the talks offline so there is no official record of your discussions or agreements. Usually they do this when they want to ask for more money than what was agreed, or they want to change terms that have already been agreed upon. Whenever a provider says." Let's talk on Skype." just say no.

2) Know that providers usually have a front man that handles communication with you and your work is usually sourced to a coder within the organization or even outsourced to coders in Vietnam or India. It is best to communicate directly with the coder writing your code. The more people diluting the lines of communication the slower the process will be and the more mistakes are introduced.

3) Do Not Panic! The first thing you will notice when you receive the first working build of your app and fire it up on your phone will be all the issues that are wrong. It will seem overwhelming at first and you will most likely ask yourself , " how long is it going to take to fix all of these issues, I want to cry now." Don't focus on what is wrong right away, focus on what is working within the application. Most importantly focus on if the core functionality is working. If the core functionality isn't working make sure your outsource partner understands and focuses all their efforts on making that work.

Make sure you make a numbered list of all the issues and bugs that you find, and on the same line provide a solution to fix the bug. If they ever say that they can't fix a bug make sure they give you a thorough explanation on why they can not fix an issue and what they plan on doing instead.

4) Have the provider deliver the source code for you to build on your own phone, and make sure they test the app on real devices. Some lazy coders will just test your app using the xcode iPhone emulator.

5) Have a deadline and do not move it. My first app had a 3 week deadline. It was shipped on time within 3 weeks. My second app, I foolishly told the developer not to worry about rushing but to focus on quality...and they took almost a year.

6) There are a ton of Hacks on elance that will over-promise and under-deliver. Make sure you haven't hired a hack or your final product will be similar to a house of cards. This started to bug me so much that I wrote elance a letter.

7) Your version 1.0 will contain bugs, make sure the provider you choose will stick around till they fix any bugs they are responsible for.

8) Do not write feedback early, wait till the last minute possible to write your overall feedback for the provider and be honest. Some providers will ask you early on to write a perfect review and even give you a template to fill out based on 5 star reviews of their service. Don't do it.

9) If it seems suspicious, it is.

10) If you find a great developer try to form a long lasting professional relationship. I have my favorite coder/developer that I use...He was so excited about one of my app ideas he offered to work on it for free. While this is rare, there are developers out there willing to work with you for free or cheap if they love your idea. Remember it is a joint effort and if the app is a hit it will promote everyone involved in the creation.

11) Give credit where credit is due.

So now that you've read all that you're ready to write your first proposal and wait for all the offers to start pouring in. Surely you can save about $2,800. Think of it as an investment that will continue to bring money in from around the globe while you are asleep. I love it when I get an email notification on my iPhone from www.appfigures.com while I'm in bed reminding me that I've just made more money in one day that my regular job at the time payed in a week.

Don't be afraid to experiment with app ideas. I once tried to see how fast I could create an app that's unique from start to finish and upload it on the app store. The result was "Doomsday Clock." An iphone app that linked up to the original doomsday clock and displayed how much time we have left on Earth. (yes it's a real clock)This app cost about $300 dollars to make and almost made all its money back at launch before some lawyers representing the real physical doomsday clock sent a cease and desist letter & wanted to know how much money it made. The point here is don't be afraid to experiment, I learned a lot about the process through research, trial, and error.

Do you feel that? It's a revolution!

A big change is coming and for some it has already arrived. The internet has given us instant access to a wealth of knowledge and resources that previous generations didn't have. Working for someone else from 9:00am - 5:00pm until you're age sixty and then retiring so you can start actually doing all the things you never did through out your life is fast becoming the old and busted lifestyle model. People have started creating their own jobs, products, and businesses based on their own interests.

A large number of people complain about not having the time while working a full time job to pursue creating anything outside work. Quitting their jobs is not much of an option because that means there will be no funds to survive. In this current day and age, money buys you time. If you had 1 billion dollars, would you keep going to work? Or would you quit and spend those hours doing the things you love doing? Traveling, learning how to cook, learning how to surf, or fly a plane? What if someone told you that you don't have to quit your day job and you can still make enough money to be financially free to live the lifestyle that makes you happy?

As a kid I got an allowance from my parents as a reward for doing chores I didn't really want to do. Washing dishes, taking out the garbage, mowing the lawn... I think it was something like $20 dollars a week. That was the first time I realized I didn't want a traditional job, I wanted to have a job doing something I liked. I got paid, but I much rather be playing my favorite video game, drawing, or racing Record Breakers but I wanted the money so I could purchase those games, toy cars, pencils and sketch books. I often wondered how I could get everyone in the world to just give me 1 dollar, once. That would solve the problem of me having to do those terribly lame chores, I could just pay someone else to do it and focus on doing the things I enjoyed.

Fast forward to the year 2011. The question has changed to become a bit more realistic. "How can I get 100 million people to give me a dollar?" The answer is " Give them something truly irresistible." A new question arose, " How would I distribute my new irresistible product?" I found my answer in the palm of my hand, it was my iPhone along with this thing called the internet.

Apple has created an amazing marketplace called the app store that gives anyone the opportunity to sell products to 160 Million iOS users (as of Jan 18th 2011) that own products like the iPhone, iPad, & iPod touch. Apple has also simplified the process of purchasing apps down to a user just touching what they want and the developer gets 70% of the profit, Apple gets 30%, and the user gets a nice new shiny toy to play with on their mobile device.

So millions of people are waiting for you to create the next irresistible application but you're not an artist or a designer or a programmer, thank the internet because there is help. For the code in my applications that help came from a website called www.elance.com They really opened my eyes to the ability to outsource anything you don' t have time to do, or you simply just don't want to do. Time is precious so the more people you have doing your chores, the more time you get to accomplish the things you really love doing.

As a professional game developer I dealt a lot with outsourcing at work, but I didn't realize I could outsource any tasks I had in my personal life to other professionals around the globe who are willing to help. I will dedicate a whole post to www.elance.com soon. I have used elance for 99% of my coding work for all the apps I have created on both Android and Apple iOS. They are great for completing your projects but there is also a lot you should know about the service. I'll go in depth next post about what I have learned about using elance to help create iPhone apps.

How can I make an app? I'm not a programmer.

Before I set out to make the iPhone app Vanity I really hadn't any idea how one would go about creating an app. So I started collecting as much information as I could about the things I would need. Early on I noted all the things I could do myself and all the things I didn't have time to learn. I could create all the art assets and design documents, I already had a Mac Pro dual booted with Windows, I had the internet, and an idea. In the beginning I decided I would take the time to learn Cocoa Touch, the coding language for iOS that is built on objective-C. Previously, I took one programming class in college (SCAD) and had taught myself basic website design so I thought that I could handle learning how to code my own apps - But that, my friend, takes time. Time I did not have. So initially I put app development on hold and moved on to other projects that I could complete faster and had total control over; creating websites. I created a few websites then began moving onto projects where I needed code support.

I had some meetings with a coder friend about helping me to create the website www.ismygamefun.com It was meant to be a website that game developers could visit and answer 20 questions about their game. The data entered would be compiled and run against a certain algorithm then a score would be returned as an estimate of how fun your video game would be based on the answers given. A scale from 0-100% would be used. It was meant to be a site that rivaled metacritic.com and learned what key elements of a game and its development cycle could affect the perceived fun factor of a video game. That project never got out of the planning phase and became lost over time as new ideas formed. I don't think my friend really believed in the potential of that website.

At our next lunch meeting I told him about an idea I had for and app that allowed a user to take a picture of someones face and it would spit back a number from 1-10 based on facial attractiveness, something that had never been done before on a cell phone. I presented him with ways it could be done ( by manually or automatically plotting points) but I wanted to know if he thought it was possible and if he could code it. His excitement level really didn't match mine and he was really focused on the super technical aspects like what would happen if it was too dark to take a picture with the crappy 1st gen iPhone camera. I really think his slight disinterest in beginning development on the idea was because he was really swamped with projects of his own.

I left the meeting telling myself that I really need to find a way to make this happen. It took some time to figure out that a web service called www.elance.com was the answer. ( more on elance next post)

The important thing to know is that it is very possible to create an app without knowing how to code.

Train your brain. Brainstorm.

A good idea is one of the most important things to have before app development begins. This is the foundation of your emotional work it will inspire you and drive you to complete your goals. There are alot of people who's journey into app development ends here at the idea stage because they claim they can't think of anything cool or everything has been done before. This is just fear, people are trained from an early age to be afraid of failure so the easy way to not fail is to never try. Allow yourself to brainstorm freely. Don't ever be afraid of initially thinking too big or having a bad idea. I have books filled with bad ideas but without all those bad ideas I would have never been able to arrive at the good ones. If an app that makes fart sounds can bring in $10,000 a day, well I'll just let you finish that thought.

Find the time to brainstorm. Inspiration comes in waves so take advantage of these times to fill up notebooks with your ideas and you will be pleasnatly surpirised with the results. Even with a full time job there is always time to set aside for personal brainstorming sessions. I have made it a habit to set aside atleast 1 hour a week devoted to coming up with ideas and more time at the peak of inspiration. There are alot of distractions, ie Facebook status updates, Jersey Shore episodes, MTV, but stay focused and dedicate that time to exploring your own thoughts. Some people like isolation while trying to create new ideas but that can be somewhat damaging to fresh ideas. You never know what can spark an new idea, a drunk guy at a party saying." where da ladies at?" a girlfriend wondering where that other girl bought that dress or her shoes? A song you like. Inspiration is everywhere and can spark ideas you weren't expecting. It's more natural of a process than trying to force yourself to have a fresh new idea.

Now that you have your idea in mind it's time to act on it.

Reading the book Linchpin , by Seth Godin inspired me to create this blog.

The Five W's

Who? What? When? Where? & Why?

These are probably the questions you're asking after arriving here on the appfat website. So let the answer session begin! If you don't care about the answers to the five w's feel free to skip to the next post.

Who am I? My name is Tav Shande. Hello and thank you for reading. You will probably Google me (I hear that's what people do these days) so there's no real need for a lengthy introduction.

What is Appfat? Appfat.com is where I will share information on creating iPhone and Android apps and juicy, hopefully helpful, insight on everything I have learned in the past two years in app development. My goal is to be the first place you visit if you have ever wanted to make an app of your own but didn't know how or where to start and what to expect. The first series of posts will follow the creation of Vanity, the World's first face-rating app which also happens to be the first app I ever created.

When? There's no time like the present.

Where? www.appfat.com This journey starts in San Francisco, takes a road trip across the United States to Atlanta, Georgia, hops on a plane to Germany and then returns to the bay area.

Why? After creating Vanity many people ask me for advice on making apps so here it is, all in writing, for your consumption and enjoyment. Why the name appfat? Well of course it's because Fat is tasty. The real reason is because the name is short, memorable, was still available as a domain name, and funny but also because I hope to add a little fat to those hungry minds out there wanting feast on some app creation insight.

So after reading all that please allow me to add a sixth 'W' - Welcome to Appfat.

Vanity, #1 downloaded photography app in France & Belgium. #2 in China.