After 200+ Apptopia developers email'ed Apple, and after 15+ months of hustle its finally possible!

Hah, I just mused on Twitter about how it would effect Apptopia! Great to hear.

Really wild point. So malicious, but i guess in the same sense that would be a "clever" way to "pay yourself". The seller is someone we have worked with before and has multiple listings with Apptopia (and has had them for a few months now). They also have separate payment profiles. So if they are the same, they have gone through great lengths to hide it...

Still good to keep an eye on. Thanks for making me think through it.

I really appreciate the kind words.

Wow. This is an amazing point, and quite honestly i am sorry for not including it. My intent is to have people DO SOMETHING WITH IT. Not just to look at it. I want people to very much do anything they find of value with it. Would that be more GPL or BSD? I will update the post...

Go with BSD if you want people to do something with it. Unless you don't want for people to make closed source apps with it, then go with GPL.

Post Updated to reflect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses

Thanks for pointing this out guys. JK

Note that there are 2 common variants of the BSD license: "2-clause" and "3-clause". Don't forget to specify which one you mean.

I'm using the ISC license (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISC_license) which is equivalent to the 2-clause BSD, but does so with fewer and simpler words.

Also, the MIT license (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_license) is quite popular. It is also equivalent to the 2-clause BSD, but not quite as short as the more modern ISC license.

You make a really fair point. In fact, its why most really successful apps (and software companies in general) all have a free-to-paid model or some sort of trial basis.

With Apptopia, we build in a "Code Review" layer. So if you are concerned about the quality of the code you are buying we can dive as deep as you would like before the acquisition is final.

Also, all apps listed on Apptopia are currently on an app store (so all buyers can and should be testing the apps as a consumer, before acquiring it).

Either way, appreciate you getting involved in the conversation. Hope the code is of some value to you =)

Jonathan

I can only hope you will be improving the said 'Code Review' layer in the future. The 'app' in question is nothing more than a thin layer of badly written code wrapped around a 3rd party library (PhoneGap). It can be made into (and sold as) an indeterminate number of "<insert subject here> video player" "apps" just by changing the hardcoded search terms (affirmation also enforced by the fact that the /bin directory in the zip contains a 'motorsport video player.apk' "app")

Actually this is up to a buyer to ask review code or not, and there are different levels of code review, so, as Jonathan said you can dive as deep as you would like. The buyer in question did not ask for any.

Most app developers can only monetize 10-15% of their users via "common methods". Selling your app allows you to monetize 100% of that user base. Not such a bad deal.

Really emphasizes the need to prepare NOW for these types of opportunities. Especially now that we are talking about $100's of millions (if not Billions of dollars).

Sounds a little bit like the wild wild west / gold rush to me. I like it.

Scotty - thank so much for the shout out man, this is Jonathan, I am the founder of Apptopia. To help add some value to the convo:

We actually partner with AppBusinessBrokers - good guys. They handle the $200,000+ spectrum while we really specialize in the $1,000-$150,000 range. SellMyApplication is unfortunately more of a marketing site and lack the real data/stats and the ability to help with the actual transfer.

We are happy to help however we can, and actually thought you might find this informational post about iOS transfers specifically really valuable: http://blog.apptopia.com/iosappstransfer/

Hey Nick - a quick Devil's Advocate thought for you. I have heard a lot of people lately say that they want to sell ______ (insert anything) and that is has a lot of potential. They are working on another project and need the money to move that project forward.

I challenge you, as I have challenged these people in the past, if it has "that much" potential than why not continue to do it yourself?

I am sure if you saw an opportunity to make a lot of money, you could get past the idea of working with investors, and media folks. Shit if you made enough money you could just hire someone to handle it.

Thoughts?

Jonathan

This project has an opportunity to make a lot of money. But it's going to take a lot of money. And a lot of time.

I simply don't have my heart in it, anymore. That's why I'm selling. I have other projects that I'd like to focus on, and this project has become basically stagnant for the past year. This is the type of project that can't become stagnant - halfway through the year people want data on the next year's vehicles, and that takes time.

The amount of money that Auto Swatch can generate depends on the amount of time you put into development, and money you put into marketing and advertising. I'm the only developer, and I'm burnt out, and I know nothing about marketing / advertising, and have no more cash to put into those details.

We tried a few different business models but were never able to make any of them work.

@tamdenholm - I am creating a company called Apptopia - we will be almost exactly that. A marketplace to broker the sale of mobile app (micro business acquisitions).

Have fantastic traction so far, and I have a handful of apps already for sale if you were interested I am @jonathanckay.

I would also be very interested in this list, for myself and others. Email in profile.