Some successes seem hard to replicate, getting featured on Hackernews’ front page feels like that to me. Probably my first ever feeling of “yuss, I made it”. An app that teaches you 5 words everyday and donates ad revenue to NGO that feeds underprivileged children? Fantastic idea, never served its purpose though.
I must have updated the app for a few months post launch. The HN feature did provide a great boost. However, people didn’t want to see banner ads and a few folks promised sponsorship and backed out. The app remained live until the APIs used were too old for the Play Store and got naturally booted out. However, the feeling of dropping a notification everyday and watching users on the dashboard come on the app in realtime from countries I didn’t even know existed, is fresh and rewarding even today.
No, the title of this article is not misleading to bring in more clicks. I really made an app that feeds poor children.
I launched it few days back. It’s an app that improves your vocabulary and a part of the revenue goes to feeding poor children. Every time someone visits the app, 10 paise is donated ( think Freerice).
But why I made this?
Because I always wanted to , be it my imaginary entrepreneurial venture of a t-shirt company where each different t-shirt would donate to a different organization or be it an app that improves vocabulary, if the margins aren’t too thin, then donating for a cause with every purchase, every session should be there in all the ventures.
But advertisement revenue is very low and most of the times apps do not make any money!!
Yes, I know that, and I also know 10 paise per session isn’t even what I earn right now but I hate banner ads, pop-up ads and am a firm believer in native advertisement and that’s what I plan to do, native advertisement between the words in my app, something that mixes well with the whole app experience.
There are no ads right now, I don’t even make any money (not a surprise) , where are the donations coming from.
From my own pocket, given the modest traffic received, I am not donating a fortune yet. Also, donations are to be made bimonthly, hence the date for first donation is more than a month away.
Does it have any impact on the users?
Yes, users love the fact that they get to do some good work while doing good for themselves. Gamification might be a great way to engage users, but if you can make them feel good about themselves, nothing can beat that.
Am I looking for sponsorship?
2020 – Not really.
2015 – Yes, Yes, Yes. In less than 10 days of launch, we made it to the front page of hackernews (thank you hackernews community for your compliments and constructive feedback). We have seen users from 90+ countries, 500+ downloads (different app stores like Amazon app store, 1market etc combined and also Firefox OS) and more than 2k+ views.
