How 276,000 pregnant women went to one man. Something like Success Story

“You will always regret that you did it too late, even if you start doing it on time” - (author)

An intriguing headline, isn't it? Read the article to the end and you will understand that I'm not joking.
I, like many others, constantly ask myself this question: what determines success? And what is success in general? Is there a universal formula by which success can be achieved? How did my project “Happy Pregnancy” manage to get into the TOP-30 paid applications in Russia and stay more than two years in the leaders in the Russian section of Medicine in the AppStore?

Opportunities around us.

In our rapidly changing century, stopping is death! Movement and search, search and movement. And another fight. Fight against failures, competitors, own laziness and apathy.
Conclusions that I made for myself once and for all:

• Never let lazy thoughts. A “thinking” person has a chance to become successful, “thinking” - never.

• Life gives a person a lot of chances to realize. To be attentive, not to miss your chance - this is one of the most important and most difficult tasks to start moving towards a goal.

The idea of ​​creating the Happy Pregnancy app .



If you have not yet closed the page with me, I assume that you are interested in what I am talking about. I propose to get to know each other better.

My name is Dmitry. I am 30 years old. Two years ago, I decided to create an application for pregnant women . Now it is the most popular Russian-language application for pregnant women.

Nothing happens just like that. I think, Newton, the apple fell on his head, too, for a reason. Surely, many apples and pears fell on their heads, but it was him who came up with the idea of ​​the existence of the law of gravity. Yes, because Newton was in search of this discovery. If it were not for the apple, perhaps it would have fallen into some kind of pit, but this law would have been born anyway.

It is not humble to compare herself with a great scientist, but before she was born this idea in my head, she also went a certain way.

Before creating a popular application for pregnant women, I worked as a photographer for a long time and successfully. Weddings, family and individual photo shoots. Having removed more than 400 weddings, more than one thousand photo shoots, I have gained a decent base and rating. But I was always worried about the problem of one "basket of eggs." I was well aware that, sooner or later, everything comes to an end and you need to look for parallel sources of income and self-realization.
But it was like that. Quite often, I had to photograph pregnant women and, of course, communicate with them. From these conversations I learned a lot about the problems of pregnant women, about the difficulties that future mothers face.

The original idea was to create a convenient organizer or diary for pregnant women. Rummaging on the Internet, I realized that the market is oversaturated with similar ones. And here, as if in Newton, an apple - on the head! Mobile technology! This is where you need to unfold and where the future is! This is what is always at hand. This is what people use daily.

What comes after the idea?

And here the most difficult begins. If you are not ready to stumble and fall, give up this idea - to achieve success and realize your ideas. How was it in my case? The idea was not kept in my head for long. I shared an idea with a client. At that moment, I was photographing his wife “in position”. He became interested in this topic and said that he could participate financially in the process, and we agreed to meet and discuss the details.

The meeting was successful, but we fantasized a lot. Classics: cafe, napkins, first calculations. It’s ridiculous to recall now, since we imagined the minimum numbers, but even those turned out to be significantly overstated.

The conditions were mutually beneficial and I received money for the application. I started to develop a project. Easy to say - set about ?! For a person who was never connected with mobile applications and programming, everything was new and complicated. I had to read Habr and start looking for developers and write the first TK.

Among the programmers there were different options: freelancers, small and large companies. One of the conditions was the presence of a developer or company in our city, so that you could come and explain incomprehensible moments on your fingers. As a result, we stopped at one young company for the reason that they provided turnkey development. And I didn’t want to look for different people: a programmer, designer, tester, and even lead the project myself.

It was expensive, but high quality. Now, against the background of existing experience, naturally I would try to gather different people and save. But then it was the best option to release the finished product.

Immersion and development

Submits, releases, updates, mockups and other scary, frightening words began to surround me. I had to spend some time to learn the vocabulary.

I like to show this screenshot to my friends - it slightly shocks them.



A lot of time was spent reading books, articles about pregnancy and fetal development at all stages, and then filling out the application with tips and other information. I had to study the very experience of sales on the AppStore, promotion methods, advertising and monetization of various applications of other people and companies.

First of all, I was engaged in the analysis of mobile applications in this area. The competition was minimal. Quite weak in the Russian-speaking segment, but very significant in the English-speaking segment. It was decided to make the application immediately in two languages: Russian and English.



The first drafts. I admit, it was exciting and interesting. In general, creating a new one is interesting.



I myself drew the mockups, made virtual versions of the mockups on the iPad, thought over the structure and logic of the application. Wrote TK for developers, about 80 pages, which in the end turned out to be still not enough.

The initial structure of the application:



And the tidy structure:



The name appeared quickly enough - “Happy Pregnancy” and was instantly approved among all my friends and acquaintances. Simple, pleasant, concise and with a keyword inside. Yes, it is longer than what is recommended for the AppStore, but at this point I decided to close my eyes.

What can the application do?



The application contains all the most necessary functions for expectant mothers. I will not talk about everyone, you can check and feel them yourself by downloading the Happy Pregnancy application . I will voice the most important and useful:

• The character "Baby", who happily winks at you and reports daily tips and advice for pregnant women, as well as the condition of the fetus and the pace of its development.

• On the “Baby” tab, you can see the development chart of your future baby, its weight and height, as well as the stages of development of individual organs.

• In the diary, you can add notes about your current condition, thoughts about the future baby, useful information, photos of the abdomen and ultrasound.

• “Fight Timer” - will be incredibly useful during fights and will inform you when you need to go to the hospital.

• Questions to the doctor? Now you will not forget them if you write in the “Notebook for questions to the doctor”. Your device is always at hand and questions too.

• The graphs of weight gain and increase in abdominal volume will help the pregnant woman to monitor the increase or decrease in weight, control her diet and compare with standard norms.

The list is far from complete and, in almost every update, new features are added.

Deep immersion

From the codes and pictures began to draw a dream - a prototype of the future application. All kinds of logical bugs began to appear related to the calculation of dates and the display of different dates, but all of them were quickly and successfully eliminated. The monetization model took a long time to think about, but in the end, the optimal decision was made: to make a free, stripped-down version with advertising banners and a paid, but inexpensive version, without restrictions. Several price experiments have shown that the best app cost is $ 2.99. The decrease in value did not affect profitability in any way, while the increase reduced sales.



Free version - it was successful, as time and preliminary assessment showed, a tactical move. And the point here is not at all the little money that was earned through advertising impressions. With this technique, a significant number of users were attracted. And with them a decent rating, which could now be successfully used to expand and deepen the tools and functions.

The icon. I knew about its importance in advance. After tiring ordeals, three different pictures appeared, which I put on the court 4,000 people on social networks. They then helped determine the final result. In the end, I have no right not to listen to the opinion of those for whom all efforts are directed.



After a couple of years, the icon was redrawn, but this did not affect the application.

Nice start and first results.

In the first 4 days, there were about 70 app sales. And this despite the fact that advertising did not start anywhere.

In the process of development, another unaccounted category of buyers “surfaced” - these are men distraught with happiness. Having learned about the pregnancy of loved ones, these romantics are capable of much. In antiquity, for the news of conception, palaces and castles were given to pregnant women. Naturally, $ 2.99 is a trifle in order to ease the pregnancy of your woman.

I admit, I was disappointed with the results for six months. Although the dynamics were very positive and incomes grew. The whole problem was that we initially greatly overestimated the power of statistics that we ourselves invented.

Mobile app marketing

I thought about advertising from the very beginning. But there wasn’t much budget left, so I looked for any possible free or inexpensive ways.

I will say right away - in general, all the advertising moves and tricks turned out to be inconclusive and unprofitable. Newsletters from over 50 press releases to the editors failed. No one has written free publications either. On iPhones.ru there was a rare hamlo, about which I do not even want to tell anything. The prices of all editors were clearly overpriced, and judging by the reviews of other people who paid for posts on popular resources, the effect was not very high.

A promotional video was also shot, but not for advertising purposes, but more in order to clearly and simply tell about the application to those who get to the site:



My application is 99.9% organic traffic. From time to time there are small spikes in downloads when thankful pregnant girls talk about their experiences using the application on a forum.

Tips for those who want to do something

Of the main tips for someone who wants to make an application for the first time - get ready thoroughly! The more and in more detail you yourself think out everything, the easier and faster it will be for developers to implement your idea.

• Proceed immediately! “You will always regret that you did it too late, even if you start doing it on time.”

• High-quality preparation of technical specifications. There will be good technical requirements - development will be cheaper and less problems for programmers. The more detailed and detailed, the better for everyone.

• Plan marketing ahead of time. Advertising budget too. My case is more an exception than a rule.

• Feedback is an important and indispensable factor. Answer all letters. Users regularly write to me with requests, wishes, advice and complaints. Not a single letter, not a single comment on social networks remains unanswered.

• You do not start when you create the application, but when it gets into the Appstore. Here I will not surprise anyone, you yourself know it.

• Build the application and run it in the basic version as quickly as possible. Perfectionists in such a dynamic business will be the hardest. With updates you can then add the necessary functionality.

• Think about the benefits to people that the application will perform. Think about money later.

Problems and difficulties

Yes, they also exist. Not everything is as smooth as we would like. The release of new iPhones forces us to make constant adaptations. Despite such a large number of application installations, the income level is very floating, and current problems with the dollar exchange rate have significantly affected the purchase of a paid version.

Programmers are a separate conversation. Relations with the company had to be terminated due to the high cost of their work, all subsequent freelancers-developers could not give a good result and, even with the resulting bugs, reduced the overall user experience of the application. Therefore, I am still in search of an adequate developer (and designer) who does not disappear for weeks, complies with the deadlines and adequately estimates the cost of her work and, most importantly, wants to help others with her work, and not just make money.

But let me remind you - I am not a programmer and can not quickly solve problems with the application. I am not a designer and I can’t change the design quickly. I am a person who is full of ideas and wants to help pregnant women and try to do everything in my power.

I am ready to consider all kinds of proposals for mutually beneficial cooperation. Who cares - write, I answer all letters.

Plans and prospects

Today my application has been installed more than 276,000 times. The daily audience of more than 31,000 people and the audience is constantly growing.

Plans, as always, are in abundance. Ahead is the expansion of functions and amenities, the creation of versions for tablets and Android. Creating other applications for which TK has already been written.

If you liked the article and my thoughts on the development of a personal mobile application seemed interesting, leave your question in the comments and, in the next article, I will tell you more about numbers, graphs, statistics, money, expenses and income, as well as answer all questions.

This is my first article, so throw small tomatoes. The amount of information and experience is decent, but you cannot tell everything in one article. We will consider this an introductory part and in the following articles I will write each item in more detail.

Upon request, a link to the free version of the Happy Pregnancy app on the AppStore.