Interviews

Top Android devs earning $25,000 a month with StartApp, claims Itay Rokni

Indies picking up $5,000

Top Android devs earning $25,000 a month with StartApp, claims Itay Rokni
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For some, the idea of a 'search bolt-on' – a search tool attached to apps that generates revenue whenever it's used – initially wasn't an all too attractive one.

Wouldn't Android users be angered when a search app was effectively forced upon them? Wasn't there a chance gamers would abandon any titles that employed such a tool in droves?

According to one of the men involved with such a platform – StartApp's marketing veep Itay Rokni – quite the opposite has happened. Rokni claims some of the top apps employing StartApp's technology are making up to $25,000 a month.

We caught up with Rokni to ask why, 150 million downloads later, he thinks StartApp has answered Android's monetisation call.

Pocket Gamer: 150 million downloads in less than a year. Is that the kind of growth you were expecting?

Itay Rokni: Not at all.

We didn't expect such growth in our wildest dreams, but the need from Android developers to make more money from their apps combined with our unique offer led to an extremely fast adoption of our product.

In addition, one of our strongest channels of growth was our developers spreading the word, after seeing the great results with their own apps.

Early critics suggested users wouldn't appreciate a search bookmark being installed on their handsets. What has reaction been like so far, and can you track how many people remove the app in question?

I can say that users are performing millions of searches every day using our search and most of the users that used it once become an active users.

We're doing our best to minimise the 'surprise' factor for users, by adding a short text in each app description about us and a EULA screen at app launch, giving the user an option to read, understand and choose to install the added search.

We are making a lot of effort to be as transparent as possible with our end users.

As a result of our efforts, Android security and privacy app Lookout used us as a positive example of doing it the right way in published guidelines for mobile ad networks.

At launch, you estimated developers could earn anywhere between $10-50 per 1,000 downloads. What kind of revenue are developers bring in a year on?

We have some top developers earning over $25,000 a month and growing, and we have many independent developers that earn over $5,000 a month which enables them to quit their day time job and making Android as their main business.

We're super excited to see these numbers. This was the reason we started StartApp.

Overall, how is Android performing for developers these days? Do you think there will be a need for other inventive solutions such as StartApp to bring in revenue for developers supporting the platform?

With the incredible growth rate Android is showing, I'm positive there's room for more solutions to be introduced.

Any solution that offers a developer to generate revenue is another step up towards pushing this OS into new heights, so obviously, we welcome it.

As long as our SDK is integrate in the app as well, of course.

Thanks to Itay for his time.
Keith Andrew
Keith Andrew
With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font. He's also Pocket Gamer's resident football gaming expert and, thanks to his work on PG.biz, monitors the market share of all mobile OSes on a daily basis.