031 : How to raise money to fund your app with Hunter Gray

Hunter Gray from Klutch In 2011, Hunter Gray turned his app idea into the capital needed in order to get the product built. In this episode of the podcast, he shares exactly how he pitched his idea for the original version of Klutch to investors, and how the venture capital world has changed in just a few short years. Not everyone will be able to turn their ideas into cash, but Hunter explains the methods that worked for him and talks about what might work for you, too.

There’s so much discussion of bootstrapping today (and for good reason, it works), but it’s nice to have a different perspective on building an app business. If you’re dying to get your app idea in front of investors, Hunter explains exactly what you need to do to make that interaction as successful as possible.

Continue reading →

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:56 — 43.4MB) | Embed

Why massive web traffic is mostly worthless

The other day, I was browsing Reddit when I stumbled upon a question in r/blogging:

reddit-blogging-question

I got this! I got this! — I thought. I shared my story: how I managed to use my old personal blog to escape the retail world and get a staff writer job at Laptop Magazine.

I got a few upvotes out of it…but more importantly, there were a lot of great questions. One of the things I saw asked, time and time again, is how bloggers can get more traffic to their website.

The problem is: this is the wrong question to be asking. Continue reading →

021 : Pitching, press, and passion with TechRadar’s Joe Osborne

Joe Osborne of TechRadar When I was in high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I ended up taking a theater class as an elective freshman year (my mother’s suggestion) and loved it. I took more and more classes until I was eventually staring in almost all my high school plays (oh god, don’t click that link).

It only seemed natural to carry that passion over to college (as I still had no idea what I wanted to do) so I enrolled as a Theater major. But when I got to college, I just didn’t feel like acting any more. It was my creative writing classes that were the most fun for me, so I switched to an English and Creative Writing tract. For my honors thesis, I wrote a play.

But I still didn’t know what I wanted to do. When I graduated, I got a job in the mall at French Connection selling clothes. I was still working retail when I launched my first blog, IAmDann.com, and just wrote about random stuff. Seriously, go back to the first posts on IAmDann.com and check out the unorganized and unfocused content I was producing.

But I kept writing, and kept posting content. And after a couple years, I had a realization:

I was a writer who wrote a play and had a two-year-old blog.

As I was doing all that work, it didn’t feel like I was accomplishing anything. And even though I didn’t have much focus during any of that time, I suddenly had a pretty impressive sounding CV.

I used that blog to land a full-time writing job at LAPTOP Magazine, and the rest is history.

When people say that you should follow your passion and do what you love, it’s because someday it’ll be valuable. If you love video games, and write a short post after every video game you play, it won’t feel like work. You might not even get any traffic. But eventually you’ll have a massive portfolio of work and you can turn that into a real, paying job.

My guest today is Joe Osborne, Reviews Editor at TechRadar, who is passionate about technology and video games. Unlike me, he had focus from early on, writing for small local blogs and systematically working his way up to his current position. In this episode of the podcast, he shares exactly how he did it, what he looks for in pitches, and shares his thoughts on the future of tech.

This episode is just plain fun, and it goes to show that you really should be pursuing your passion, even if it doesn’t feel like you’re getting anywhere as you’re doing it.

Continue reading →

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 57:26 — 46.1MB) | Embed

How I built and promoted WorkBurst, my first OS X app

workburst-bts-header

My first OS X app, WorkBurst, is now available in the App Store! To celebrate, I want to share with you my entire process, from idea to app release. I did everything without writing a single line of code. The total cost? $304.

The most important lesson here is that you don’t need to learn how to code to make apps. You should learn to code if you want to know how to code. If you want to make apps, there are other, more direct paths to take.

Here’s mine. Continue reading →

Pitching journalists: 5 things your competitors aren’t doing

Pitch email writer's block

I got to see a lot of pitches when I was working full-time as a tech journalist. Every morning, my inbox would be filled with a new batch of people wanting my attention — everyone from major PR companies to sole entrepreneurs launching their first product (and I’m not the only one!).

More often than not, the pitch emails would be absolutely terrible. It wasn’t just the novices that were making mistakes — even major marketing companies would churn out terrible press releases. I often wished I could reach through the computer, grab them by the shoulders, and yell, “YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!”

Instead, all I could do was hit the Archive button. And archive I did.

But all this incompetence is great news for you: with just a little bit of work, your pitch emails will be better than 95 percent of the competition.

If you want to drastically increase the effectiveness of your press emails, here are five things you should be doing. Continue reading →