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1 Million Downloads

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I am happy to report that my apps have surpassed the 1 Million download mark on Windows Phone.

This is the first post in a series of blog posts I will be writing about my lessons learned, mistakes made, best practices, monetization and promotion practices, among other things, so keep an eye out!

I've been able to get to this special landmark a few days before 3 year anniversary of my first app launching on Windows Phone.

I would love to share my development experience with you all, in hopes of helping all aspiring app developers out there.

My first app (or rather a game), Tic Tac Toe,  launched in the store on 25-Mar-2011. I wrote this as a personal learning experience on Windows Phone. I included ads in the game and I soon started seeing some ad revenue trickling in. I used to get excited when I made 5c/day in ad revenue in early days - simply because it meant someone out there downloaded my game and was playing it. Soon I saw that number climbing up, 10c/day, 25c/day and soon I was seeing $1/day in ad revenue coming in.

By then I had already launched a couple more apps in the Windows Phone store, Transit Maps USA and Dictionary, the first Dictionary app on Windows Phone. It got featured in the Windows Phone Store and I immediately saw the effect of that as to the increase in my downloads and ad revenue. And since then I haven't looked back and launched new apps constantly on the platform, though in the last year I have been focused on updating my existing apps with new features rather than creating new apps, given the time constraints as
this is a hobby outside of my job. I've been able to help create Windows Phone apps for some big name apps on the store as well along the way.

Given that I was developing apps at a rapid pace for the platform, I got accepted to receive early access to the Windows Phone Mango (WP 7.5) update in 2011, before it launched and subsequently to Windows Phone Apollo (WP 8) in 2012, as well.

My current apps on the Windows Phone platform include, in chronological release order:

As you will see from the list above, I launched a majority of my apps in 2011 and then focused on maintaining and updating those apps for the most part with a few other apps launching in 2012 and 2013. I have several unfinished projects that I need to find time to finish and
polish to publish them in the store. I also have a wish list of many more apps that I want to develop.

When Windows 8 was announced, I ported my Unit Converter and Tic Tac Toe apps to that platform as well and saw some good download numbers for both of these apps.

In Part 2 of this blog series, posted on my personal blog, I've provided a detailed breakdown of my app statistics and the download performance associated with major releases, updates and promotions.
In Part 3 of this blog series, posted on my personal blog, I will talk about mistakes made and lessons learned.
In Part 4 of this blog series, posted on my personal blog, I will talk about monetization and promotion mechanisms I've used over the years and which ones have worked better than the others.

Cheers,
Paras Wadehra
Do you DVLUP?
Twitter: @ParasWadehra
FB Group: https://bit.ly/WinPhoneDev
My WP Apps