On January 1, 2010, the official support groups for all White Peak Software products will moving to Google Groups. The new URLs are below:

Labor Mate
http://groups.google.com/group/whitepeaksoftware-labormate

Killink CSV Editor
http://groups.google.com/group/whitepeaksoftware-killinkcsveditor

Why the move? The old forum software I used was becoming a pain to host and keep running. Also, almost all support questions and bug reports I receive come via email and not via the support forum. In other words, the this support forum was rarely used. And frankly I do not like web forums. I prefer email.

Google Groups offers the best of both, web forums for those who prefer it and email for those who rather interact with a community via email. I know the move will be a pain for the select few who use this forum especially if don’t already have a Google Account. But the small pain outweighs the benefits of the move.

Also, I hope this move will help the online community to grow. Time will tell if that happens or not.

No support group URL for SMTP Diagnostics? Support for SMTP Diagnostics will be email only going forward. Use the contact us page to send your questions and bug reports.

For those who might be new to this blog, my name is Kirby Turner. I run White Peak Software, my independent software company, and have done so since November 2003. That makes White Peak Software slightly over 6 years old now.

There have been ups and downs for White Peak Software over the years but 2009 seems like the most challenging for me. For starters I have transited the company from one that offers services (aka contract programming) focused on Microsoft technologies to an iPhone company. This is a major step in my ultimate goal of eliminating service work all together so I can focus on writing and selling my own software products.

There is only a day and a half remaining in 2009. Even so, I thought now is a good time to post a year in review for 2009. My primary inspiration for this posting comes from Patrick McKenzie of Bingo Card Creator frame. While I make a good living from contract programming, it is not the ultimate goal for my company so I will focus the business stats reported below on the product side of the business only. Besides, the product side is likely more interesting to other indie developers out there.

Business Stats for the Year

Product Revenue: $15,217.57 (reflects payments received in 2009 for product sales between December 2008 and November 2009)

(Sales numbers below reflect sales between January 2009 and December 2009. For those doing the math, the sales numbers below will not add up to the product revenue total reported above.)

SMTP Diagnostics Sales: $737.10 (change from last year -24%)

Killink CSV Editor Sales: $9,089.20 (change from last year 6%)

Labor Mate Sales: $4,104.10 (change from last year 1,515%; U.S. sales only; includes sales between January 2009 and November 2009)

Web Stats for the Year

Visit: 19,943

Unique Visitors: 17,293

Pageviews: 41,381

Traffic sources: 25.55% Direct Traffic, 25.55% Referring Sites, 48.87% Search Engines (with 44.60% coming from Google)

Trial software downloads: Unfortunately I just discovered that my tracking of downloads broke at the end of April so I don’t have the stats. Bad me for not being on top of this.

What Went Right

• Marketing efforts this summer for Labor Mate helped increase sales.
• Labor Mate remained in the 100 in the Health and Fitness category for most of the year, reaching an all time high ranking of 34.
• A mention in MacBreak Weekly podcast caused a one week boost in sales.
• Got my first taste of in-app advertising thanks to Matt Martel.
• Sales for Killink CSV Editor continued to grow despite not releasing a single update the entire year.
• I reduced my technology focus on the service side of the business from a broad range related to Microsoft to a smaller set of technologies with a primary focus on the iPhone. I spent half the year doing full time iPhone development, which has been great. Unfortunately this transition involved ending relationships, some long term, with clients not interested in iPhone development, but it also meant building new relationships.

What Didn’t Go So Well

• Failed to release Killink CSV Editor version 2. I’m hugely disappointed by this. I had a number of setbacks at the end of 2008/beginning of 2009 that derailed Killink CSV Editor. I’ll spare you from the list of excuses. At the end of the day I screwed up.
• Failed to release my second iPhone app. Another setback for 2009 that effects my ultimate plans for the company.
• I had a serious time management issue for most of 2009. Life with a kid has introduced new challenges for me. For almost half of 2009 I juggled my time between taking care of the kid and working on White Peak Software. The kid won most of my time, leaving little time for the company. This time management problem meant I spent what little time I did have on the service side of the business, ignoring the product side.

Plans for 2010

• Spend more time focusing on my products. The kid starts daycare next week which will should help out on the time management, although it does mean another expense to pay out.
• Release Killink CSV Editor version 2. This is long over due.
• Release Labor Mate 2. This will be the app I originally dreamed of but never implemented.
• Release at least 2 other iPhone apps. Details coming on the new apps.
• Eliminate service work entirely by the end of 2010. This means I will be able to focus 100% of my “work” time to my products.

To say Matt Martel is a swell guy is an understatement. He is a super swell guy who does what he can to contribute to the iPhone development community, and he is somewhat a role model for me (though I doubt he knows it…yet). He started and ran a regular iPhone developer meet up group in the Boston metro area, he is willing to share his thoughts and feedback on the business of running an indie shop, and just this week he made a special offer to indie iPhone developers.

I first met Matt, and his wife Trish, in September at 360iDev Denver. Turns out Matt and Trish lived in the Boston area too. I say “lived” because they recently moved to Colorado Springs, but that’s a different story.

Matt and Trish have an indie software company called Mundue, and have published a few casual games for the iPhone and iPod touch. The most popular is reMovem, which I find to be highly addictive. Two favors of reMovem are available, a freeware ad-support version and a $1.99 paid version. The paid version comes with additional play modes which make it well worth the price.

A few days ago Matt made an offer to the indie iPhone development community that was too generous for me to pass up. He offered to include ads for apps in his popular game reMovem, the free edition. I was a little hesitant at first because I have not tried advertising Labor Mate this way before. Past experience with Google Adwords for Killink CSV Editor has turned me off of ad placement to market my products. However, I’m learning this week that might be a mistake.

In the first 24 hours the Labor Mate ad received 112 clickthroughs, and 238 total clickthroughs within the first 48 hours. Admittedly I was surprised by these numbers. First, Labor Mate is very niched app, and second, I thought “Who wants to learn more about a contraction timer while playing a game?” Boy was I wrong. 238 people found out about Labor Mate in a 48 hour time period that probably would have never known about the app. I find this to be great.

Unfortunately it’s hard for me to say if the ad has resulted in additional sells. According to Matt, “Most ads are getting an average of 1% clickthrough (CTR) which means 50-150 clicks per day. That’s really not much, and with conversion (sales) rates of 5% you might not notice any difference.” This is true. I haven’t noticed any change in the normal sales pattern for Labor Mate over the last couple of days. Still, I’m happy to know at least 238 additional people have learned about Labor Mate.

Thank you very much Matt for your generous offer to the indie iPhone development community. This little experiment has been a huge eye opener for me. Thanks for the opportunity to participate.

Now everyone go buy reMovem.

I have been working feverishly over the last few weeks to finish version 1.0 of a client’s new iPhone app. But it seems like I’ll never be finished. There just so much more we want to add to the app. This is true for most, if not all, software releases. “If I just had another day then I can add this really neat feature.” That one day becomes two days which becomes three days and so on.

One thing to consider with an iPhone app is the review period. The review period is about two weeks for most app. If you are like me then you will think, “Two weeks for review? Then I better spend another few days on the app before submitting.” But my opinion on this is changing.

Apps can be rejected from the App Store for all sorts of reasons. A misuse of an icon. Use of a private API call. Crashes on start up. The list goes on. Even though you may spend a few more days on the app to get that one additional feature in, you don’t know for sure if the app will be accepted or rejected.

My client app has some interesting and unique features that involve having voice and data connections at the same time (I’ll share more about this later). Given its uniqueness there’s a good chance the app will be rejected initially and an even better chance the review process will be longer than the average 14 days. So I’ve decided it’s time to submit the app even though the app isn’t as complete as I would like.

Yes, there are more features planned for the app and there is a known (minor) bug or two, but we don’t plan to “go live” with the app for another couple of months. Submitting now, however, will help eliminate surprises down the road.

My way of thinking about the app review process is changing. I’m starting to think a better approach is to submit early and mark the availability date for the app to some date way into the future. This will give you an idea of what to expect from Apple and the review process earlier in the development process. And you can always submit an update or two before the future availability date.

Of course you want to make sure the early submitted app is usable and stable, and that core functionality is present, but I see know reason for waiting until you have a completed version 1.0 app to submit to Apple. Submitting early should be a part of the development lifecycle process.

I’m making an early 2010 New Year’s Resolution. I’m going to blog more. There. I’ve said it. And in a blog posting no less. This entry will haunt me if I do not stick to this resolution.

I’ve done a horrible job at blogging since my son was born 20 months ago. This is true for all 3 of my main blog site, my personal blog, this company/tech blog, and even the blog about my son. Of course it’s not his fault. I blame Twitter.

I’ve developed a bad habit. If I can’t share it in 140 characters than I don’t share it. This is wrong on so many levels, especially since 2009 has been such an important year for White Peak Software, which I will explain in an upcoming blog.

So with that, you can expect more postings on this blog.