I wonder if there could be a Kickstarter for indie iOS apps (no companies allowed). Seems like an awful lot of time invested to design and build an app without really knowing if it'll be popular or make money.
The "pre-funding" model would be able to give indie developers 1) early fan base, 2) early revenue, 3) early validation instead of working in the dark
I remember reading how Threes was made and IIRC it was on the order of many many months and redesigns before users saw/heard anything. But they hit the lottery jackpot I guess
I think there needs to be more thought and research put into validating that your app idea is worthwhile. There have been traditional means of finding your market and using surveys or engagement to get a good feeling of whether or not people will actually want your product.
I make side-project apps all the time, but I'm aware that they are basically just scratching some itch I had. If you go into it expecting to make the big-bucks without doing market research and not having a marketing budget, you're going to have a bad time.
You could just use Kickstarter. Giving out rewards apparently is rather difficult thanks to Apple's App Store rules [1], but is doable [2] if you don't mind paying them the usual 30%.
Steam Greenlight sort of fits this. You can gauge desirability by how many people specify they would buy your game if it were available. But I'm not sure if you get any actual insight into the numbers.
The "pre-funding" model would be able to give indie developers 1) early fan base, 2) early revenue, 3) early validation instead of working in the dark
I remember reading how Threes was made and IIRC it was on the order of many many months and redesigns before users saw/heard anything. But they hit the lottery jackpot I guess