by Chad Mureta
Author, Entrepreneur, App Millionaire

This is not what you think — investing in technology is completely different than it used to be — and my investment techniques have nothing to do with someone else’s determination to become successful. Today, we have the ability to rely on ourselves, outsource 100% of the work, and manage an idea through the use of technology. This puts us at a unique advantage over others who continue to ‘bet’ on the success of startups, IPO’s, or other major stocks and bonds. Real estate was once this good…

In 2007, I was in a horrible car crash that crushed my left arm, and I ended up spending
a few months in a hospital bed, watching my real estate company collapse in front of my eyes. My friend gave me an iPhone, and I started fumbling around with it. Having no tech skills whatsoever, I felt immediate ‘relief’ when I could use this phone to do just about anything, and with only the use of one arm. I made my way to the App Store, and started to check out the winning apps. Over time, I started to see patterns between the winning apps, and I developed a hypothesis on how this process works.

Now broke with my real estate company turned upside down — still stuck in a hospital bed — I borrowed $2,000 from my family and outsourced my first app idea to a developer in India. I told him exactly what I wanted, took pictures of the inside of other apps to show him how it would all work, and put my app up on the store. Before I knew it, I was getting downloads. It wasn’t long before I developed what was to become the most popular Emoji app of its time, getting a record 500,000 downloads per day.

But, let’s backtrack for a moment…and talk about the financial side of becoming an App Developer, and why I believe this to be the new wave of investment strategy for the 21st century. In my opinion, this is the biggest thing since the internet, and I’ll prove it to you.

Let’s consider the impact of the internet:

Currency: Internet created a new marketplace and now represents approximately 80% of all retail purchases; this is outside of the creation of a digital information age that is hard to calculate, in terms of multi-national capital gains.

Jobs: Internet has redefined ‘unemployment’ and ‘entrepreneurship,’ as many people now make their livings buying and selling on ebay, for example.

Education: Information is now abundant, available for free, and represents an opposite dilemma. Instead of having trouble locating an answer to a question, the challenge has now become finding the ‘right’ answer.

Communication: Language and location are no longer barriers to communication. With tools like Google Translator, it’s now possible to learn about current events in just about any city, worldwide. Likewise, important world current events are now hard to miss.

Now, let’s take a look at the impact of the App Marketplace:

Apps now represent more than $1BB in payouts from Apple per MONTH. However, this is not being divided very evenly, across developers. Instead, the top 10% of developers, in terms of popularity of apps, are making the majority of the revenue.*

Currency: Apps have created an international, multilingual, ‘free’ marketplace that makes revenue from only the most loyal of fans. People are giving away their absolute best and most addictive features to their apps, and then asking for ‘upgrade’ to a paid version for their ‘true’ fans. This has changed the mentality for making money, and it’s done so digitally (well, actually “mobilely”.)

Most notably, the App Marketplace has given the world access to Apple’s database of customers, while simultaneously protecting all of our information.

Jobs: First, traffic and visitors leading to the dot.com boom, then information

technology began representing web 2.0, social media stepped in and created crowdsourced growth, and now‘idea technology’ represents yet another new industry. Instead of having the best ‘information’ out there, an app entrepreneur (appreneur), can simply explain a great idea to a developer and it can come to life as a real business.

Education: The best language, math, history, literature, and science courses are now available through multiple means on an app. Instead of only having access to a written resource, educators are able to leverage their lectures and coursework, post it conveniently in University apps, and share useful presentations given by other professors, worldwide. Now, we have the ability to learn through apps — and from the best teacher in the world — and then discuss in class, to critically think about topics and apply them for long-term retention.

Communication: Mobile apps have shifted social media from computer-based updates that take place during work or free time to mobile updates that can take place at absolutely any time. We no longer have to wait to find out about news by watching television at night or surfing the internet and combing through sites. As a result of apps, we now receive push notifications — ex. updates from friends through social media platforms — and we can easily share them with our entire database by moving our finger across a screen and pushing it once or twice.

*NOTE: Interestingly, most of the people in the ‘top’ of the marketplace don’t have any expertise in programming or technology. They are entrepreneurs that know how to choose and market their apps.

So, you might be wondering how you go from outsourcing an app to 500k downloads per day. I’d love to share and teach you, but before I do, it’s important that you understand which 3 strategies to never use when creating your app:

3 App Strategies to NEVER Use — WARNING (wastes money quickly)