This kind of story always reads like a financial fail. He should pay himself a normal programmers salary (something around 50k/year for a beginner might be fine, also he is not a beginner, because he knows a lot about presentation and UX design) and THEN calculate his profits. Probably this App is way in the minus.
Also you must consider that he just has around 1k customers and all of them on the same plattform. Also these customers only paid him once and not regularily. That are 4 big risks: low number of customers, no guaranty to get any dollar next month and a high dependence on one plattform and high dependence on the success of this one app.
Another risk, I nearly forgot about, is that the core feature of his app, the speach engine, is not even his own. What if Acapela decides they make their own App in this direction.
Concluding everything I think he has a low income, unprofitable, high risk business. Not the position I want to be in, when I quit my dayjob.
edit I just now see that you posted the link yourself, Nathan. Please read all "he"s as "you". ;-)
You are right in a so many ways. From a business perspective it isn't the best model (I am looking for ways to add recurring revenue), I probably made minimum wage if you break down my time, and I don't have many customers.
But here's what I do have: emails from customers every single week saying how what I built is changing the lives of their child. Does anything else matter beyond that?
I'm working on something I care deeply about and am able to still provide for my family while doing it. That's the position I want to be in.
And there really is nothing to fear. You can supplement that income by building apps for other people in their spare time now that you have a valuable skill. There's no reason you can't have it both ways.
Also a valid argument. I think it's the first time in my whole life that I got valuable content from 2 counterarguments in the same thread. HN is awesome!
Concluding everything I think he has a low income, unprofitable, high risk business. Not the position I want to be in, when I quit my dayjob.
edit I just now see that you posted the link yourself, Nathan. Please read all "he"s as "you". ;-)