Well, I run an Agency Agicent App Company (https://www.agicent.com) that has been creating/ managing/ handling apps for almost 12 years. Handled MVPs to full scale Apps like HASfit that gets 4 million active user so I think I can answer this question with possible cost breakdown - (Note - am considering Tinder features as of Dec 2021 and a comparable quality product and not just half baked one) -

1. Wireframes & Designs - Approx 200-300 hours, cost $ 6 to 8 K
2. Architecture & Design/ Tech identification - Approx 160 Hours, Cost $ 5 - 6 K.
3. Implementation on Front end (on iOS/ Android) - Apprx 700-800 hours, cost $ 15-20 K.
4. Implantation on backend and admin panel and integrations with payment gateways, third party SDKs, analytics etc - Approx 500 hours - Cost $ 15 K.
5. Testing - Approx 300 hours, cost $ 6 K.
6. Project Management - Throughout, Cost 12 K
7. Server side cost/ AWS etc - nominal unless you buy a slew of services or have large no of users.
8. Maintenance - almost 200 hours a month would do the job of maintenance very well.

Now, you can get a quote of half the price (and even 1/4th of this) when you go out shopping for the app development quote and that will vary geography by geography; but If I do it and you want as good as a product as Tinder then above cost holds true.
Hope this helps, feel free to book a call for more discussion on app development costs, revenue generation methods, app promotion, setting offshore development team. Here is the link to book a call -https://clarity.fm/app-developer

And here is an interesting app cost calculator from us, we prepare manual quote and share with anyone who fills it - https://www.agicent.com/app-development-cost-calculator

This is what I suggest as pre-requisites
1. Figure out the niche you want to target them, if general is your target then you'll have to put more efforts in pitching ofcourse. I suggest, goniche by niche; this way you'll be able to track who's left and who's done too.

2. Clearly devise and define your partnership offering, that what exactly are they going to get if they partner with you and vice versa. What value are you bringing to their table and how are you easing out their pain points. Leave no ambiguity and if possible, make it as a resource on your web page and let anyone view that (and point your prospects to that resource) this way they'll know it is more authentic since its public.

3. If this strategy of yours is critical to your biz then I strongly recommend putting a dedicate person or a team to execute this on daily basis as a project. If full time hire is costlier at your location then hire a virtual assistant (trained on data extraction and social outreach etc).

Now the methodologies to find software companies in Sydney -
- A simple google search with different keyphrase combination will be your first bet. You find a company on google, then find their decision makers on linkedin and send them inmail or connection invite with a short note describing what you're looking for.
- Do give them a call to action wherever possible.
- A search on portals like clutch.co for software companies in Australia will give you great results of companies who are very active in selling/ branding themselves and they make a better prospect for you.
- A direct company or executive search by using linkedin location/ industry and keyword filters on premium profile will help too.
- Do exploit local Australian biz directories too, they are similar to clutch and linkedin but more precise for Australian companies.
- Keep talking to people, the more you speak and listen the more you know and be able to shape your offering in a better manner.
- Keep your partnership offering document straight forward, quick to read and absolutely unambiguous.

I hope this helps and I wish you success.

Answering as follows -

1. Apps that do not charge upfront usually draw their revenues from the advertisements.

2. The advertisement process is not something that you manage (unless you've your own ad engine), but you use third party Ad SDKs like Google admob or revmob etc as an integrated service on your app. They don't need your app to be famous before they show their ads, but they start rendering ads as soon as you've 1st user and ads are either based on location or context or user-type or a combination of all of these parameters. So you need not to sell your advertisement space to anyone manually at all, these Ad SDKs (software development kits) do take care of that and ofcourse take their cut.

3. You can, however, think of selling your ad space manually by contacting businesses via various methods once you are actually famous and have meaningful number of active users. You can do so simultaneously with the ongoing Ad SDks. People also use more than one Ad SDKs depending upon their app type and spaces available.

4. The categories you mentioned like gaming, travel and social are actually good in terms of rendering ads. The gaming being on the top.

In gaming, you can not only do contextual or locational ads but also tie up with other games to do cross-app ads, like they advertise your app on their game and when user installs your app they pay them game credits and vice versa. There are several services who facilitate such cross app promotions also smoothly.

The earning depends upon several factors again, starting from number of active users to their time spent on the app daily, then location, then frequency of adds (how many times you show your ads to one single user per session) and so on. But bottom line is the more number of " Active users" (not just the ones who've downloaded) you've the better earnings you'll receive. It can be as low as $ 100 per month or may go beyond 10 K per month.

There are various studies about the ad revenue, and many people say if you show 50 K banner ads per day (to any number of users, 10 K users or less or more) then you'll easily earn $ 75 to 100 per day. Video ads get more click through and therefore more revenue.

Hope the answer helps. Just in case you want to calculate the cost of your app idea development, then feel free to try our App cost calculator here - https://www.agicent.com/app-development-cost-calculator

Thanks,

Hey Buddy, I've been developing apps since 9 years so I think I can answer your questions -

1. Hire a development instead of an individual, companies are more accountable, have teams, fall back plans and can handle multiple technologies and tasks (like design, front end, backend and so on).

2. Cost depends upon features you need, it can start as low as $ 1500 if you hire an offshore company like us, you may also try calculating some cost range by selecting options and describing your idea on this app cost calculator - https://www.agicent.com/app-development-cost-calculator

3. Timeframe depends upon features again, though none of the apps I developed in past took more than 10 weeks as for first set of features. The more features you want to involve, the more the cost and time goes up.

This old post might help you as well - https://www.agicent.com/blog/how-to-hire-app-developer-successfully.

Thank, me later. )

Well, this happens during certain periods with almost every sales person I guess. :) Here is what I'd do (and I do as well) -

1. Send them an email, politely wishing them best, and asking to chose the reason they didn't chose you; give them options like - a) price was super high b) wasn't happy with communication so and so forth. I get a reply almost always to such emails if the buyer is genuine.

Also, you may lately find that most of them were not looking to purchase at all, so don't bother much either.

2. Check the competitive rates, figure out what others are charging for the same work. Need I tell you the ways to do that? :)

3. Just general review your in-sales process (where you send agreements to sign, deal closing documents etc) or probably do a role playing putting yourself in customer's place, and ask you colleague to play you. It sounds interesting, and it works equally good.

At Agicent (my company - https://www.agicent.com), we sell app and web development services, and we always role play to figure out what "Category" of customer would search for which keywords, and then we divide those keywords according to role and work on them (for content, marketing, pitch etc).

Hope this helps.

- Believe in yourself, commit to yourself that either you're doing it or not doing it and if doing it, then anything that comes should be considered as an experience; you shall overcome everything gradually.

- Have something as stress buster in life, relationship, workout, partying, breaks, they work wonder.

- Focus on your customers, if they are happy then you're happy, simple thumb rule.

- Don't think or worry too much, when moments come where you don't know what to do or what do at first, then do what is most easier and in your control.

- Most of the problems that we think of are usually no problems at all, they get disappeared the moment we stop thinking about them, if some don't then they are the real ones needing your attention.

- Do have friends, never be hard on yourself, learn to forgive yourself, understand and really believe that you are doing something good; accept your weakness and appreciate your strength but don't be either too demotivated or even narcissist, find a sweet spot (I'm still trying though) and that's it.

- Be ready to "say" things directly to clients or employees or partners when something is brutally tangled, most of the times people support, if they don't then you know how to deal with them (lol).

- Sales has answer to 150 % of your problems, so do it yourself/ head it yourself. An entrepreneur is the biggest and most committed sales guy you can ever recruit and incentivize so invest in yourself and your sales.

I've had my ups and downs in last 9 years with Agicent App Company (https://www.agicent.com) and many times it felt like I was going no where, but then I restored to doing the minimum thing I could do and somehow it worked so far. I don't follow all what I "preached" but I believe if we do a part of these points at times of trouble (you don't ask the question you did in good times!), they really help.

Lots of strength and peace!

mocqups, mockflow, flinto, balsamiq, marvelapp, invision and many others, with a single google search you can find plenty of such app wireframe creation and prototyping tools.
Some are good for even laymen, some are better for people already know some designing.

If nothing works, then drawing on plain paper and sharing with designer/ developer would be sufficient as well, though in this case you'd need to rely on designer/ developer's creativity on the top of your rough designs. We've many clients who just gave us an idea and couple of sketches depicting app's flow and we made whole good apps out of it.

We've compiled a list of 10 mobile mockup creation tools at this link https://www.agicent.com/blog/a-look-at-10-of-the-best-mockup-and-wireframing-tools-for-developers, I hope this helps you more.

I've written a whole big blog post on this topic some weeks back, have a look at http://www.agicent.com/blog/how-to-validate-app-idea.

You can start with as simple as doing google search the idea and see how many competitors are already there, and if there is no one at all, and then can go doing as complex researches as doing competitor's analysis, using tools like keywords planner, vima, ideasquare etc, and also take help of your friends.

You need not to, you can very well be a seller of a mobile app in individual capacity, you should go to register yourself as a company (developing & selling apps) only when you've a regular team that needs salaries, or your investors specifically want you to do so.

In initial stages, all you need is an app developer time like the one we offer (if you don't develop yourself), a developer account on itunes and google play (so that you can host the app in your name), and a bank account attached to those store accounts.

It is not much difficult to migrate your individual store accounts to enterprise one once you've a company ready in future, so don't worry about these things and focus completely on development, marketing, and user retention of your app project.

So far as type of company is concerned, you can settle for LLC and keep it lean until you change in future for Inc.

It depends.

if minor branding changes mean = changing the logo, putting new labels then its not a job of more than couple of hours (or even lesser than that).

If minor branding = logo change, change of whole skin, layout then it can be a little longer job.

It also depends upon what kind of contract you have with the App developer, like if they cover this "white labeling part" already in the cost or its a new demand from your side.