Stephen over at Unobserved Musings wrote about an ambitious plan he tackled with a colleague: creating an iPhone app in 8 days. It’s not 8 days of straight development for this project, either. He and his colleague have other obligations, too.
Is what we are attempting even possible? Can two individuals really give up all of their free time, and perhaps much of their sleeping time, for 8 days, just to make a single product on the side of their other commitments? Success or not, it’s going to be a wild ride – but Josiah and I are determined to push ourselves and prove to ourselves we are capable of anything.
Over the course of the next few days, screen shots were uploaded, and details of the development process were hinted at. By the end of 8 days, a finished game was indeed ready, and it was soon available for purchase for iPhone users everywhere. After a week, Stephen posted about the first week of sales.
Bottom line: sales were disappointing, mostly due to the fact that of the people playing the game, only a small percentage were doing so legally.
On the other hand, in a little over a week, Stephen has created a game that he can sell, and his marketing efforts are still kicking into gear. And he does have legitimate sales, which still seem to be coming in. I’m more encouraged by the fact that he was able to start selling a game that didn’t exist as of a couple of weeks ago! When I created Sea Friends, it took me a month, and I felt that was fast!
After only 8 days, Stephen now has something that can be nurtured or abandoned. If sales start to pick up, great, but if not, he only lost a little over a week of development time and has learned so much from doing so. Sounds win-win to me.