How to Get Million downloads for your app.

Table of Contents

This is a case study on How to get millions of downloads for your app.
I was able to get 4 million downloads in 2 years  without spending any money. The total downloads as of September 2021 are 4.6 million downloads. The total income generated from this app has been just over $150,000. In the case study below, I have outlined every step of how I did it.

Android ASO: Keywords are more important than Ideas.

When I first started learning making android apps, I was still in college. I was not very content with my life. In a country like India education is the only way to succeed, or so we are told. Indian culture doesn’t encourage innovation and creativity. We tend to choose the safest route.  Throughout my life, my parents had reminded me that. Thus in college, I found myself suffocated because of this conditioning. It felt like I was giving up on my dreams. So I stopped going to classes. I didn’t have many friends and the ones I had always sought pleasure in demeaning others. I felt I just killing time and doing nothing with my life. It felt as if I was avoiding reality by playing computer games 24×7 which in turn piled over my misery and loneliness.  I didn’t show it but in the inside, I was desperate to change my condition.
So one day, somewhere in September 2013, without giving it much second thought, I deleted all my games and decided to do something about my life. I somehow got into android development. My brother had recently bought a Nokia Lumia phone(not an Android phone) and I was mesmerized by the way it’s music player looked. The UI to me at that time was really beautiful. It was so different than the boring android designs back then.  I found myself using his phone just to listen to music on it. At that time, I was using an android phone and I tried searching for a music player which was as beautiful as the music player on Lumia and I couldn’t find any.
While searching for music players, thousands came up on google store. I noticed that many of them had over a million installs which made me realize that so many people try out music players. It meant, there was a demand for it but it also meant there was a lot of competition. But if there is a demand, there will always be competition and I always had been a person who was never into knowing what others were doing and be intimidated by it.

I also realized, I had no money to advertise the app if I make one. So I had to make something, which is used by a LOT of people ! So; I decided to make an app with a simple idea, a huge demand, and not just a beautiful & easy to use app but one of the best in the market ! I ended up making a music player/media player and later called it ” La Musique a French phrase meaning “The Music” The Keyword here was Music Player. There are many other keywords which you can find easily. I have explained it below.

Note: Why are keywords important before you start developing the app? Because I could have wasted 10 months creating the app and ended up with no downloads if I the market/niche/keyword I had chosen had no demand. Mobile app development

So after deleting the app, I had an app to make but I knew nothing about android development. So, I did what any one would do in such a situation. I googled it. I googled how to make android apps. I was bombarded with tons and tons of blogs and video tutorials. I chose the The new Boston android tutorials because the guy who was teaching in the videos seemed funny and because I had to choose one. It is outdated now. It is a series of 200 videos each of about 5 minutes. After about watching 30 of them. I realized that I had to start my project. So I started it. Whenever I used to get stuck, I used to google it, if I couldn’t get the answers on google, I would ask them on Stack Overflow I was spending more than 16 hours a day, coding. Everyday I used to get up, skip classes, open my laptop lying next to me on bed and then straight up open Eclipse( the IDE I use to code on). No brushing of teeth,no washing my face,no brunch just straight to coding. I used to order food from a dhaba( a small diner) and then eat on my laptop. Once in a month or two, I would go out for an hour to talk to people so that I could feel normal again. Just before going to bed, I would leave 2-3 problems on Stackoverflow to be solved by others. Instead of reading Facebook feed at bedtime, I used to read online magazines like Entrepreneur , Business Insider and other tech and business magazines where I could find information on how to promote my app. On these websites I not only found how to promote my app, but I also came to know about how to have a mindset of Entrepreneur and the mindset is simply to never give up your dreams.
So after 5-6 months of coding, I had a product with a few features but the app didn’t look pretty. I knew I couldn’t design well, because I hadn’t designed any app in the past. Dribbble and in a period of about one month, I contacted over 200 designers to work for me. I was offering them 40% equity. The reply was always the same, they were all busy to work with some one without cash, or anything to prove his worth. But there was an app to be designed and it had to be beautiful. So I took a break and started freelancing till the time i could find any one to work with me. I freelanced for about 2 months. I earned about 1600$ and saved about 500$ from it. I was freelancing on www.freelancer.com. I decided not to hire a designer for the layout of the app because people were demanding much more money than I had saved and they weren’t of the same standard as I had seen on Dribbble. So I had three options, earn more money, convince some designer to work for me on equity or do it myself. I realized that it was only me who was supposed to do it. It was my dream to make it big and only I was responsible to make it big. So I googled up “pretty apps” and looked through the images and studied them thoroughly. I went to various websites which showcased app designs and I came to know a little bit about designing apps. I came to know which color combinations look good. What kind of fonts go well with each other. How many fonts to use. What kind of backgrounds to use etc. and by June 2014, I finished my app and it was almost ready to be launched on google play.
Note: If you do not have the money to hire someone? Do it yourself. If you are doing it yourself, try to do it with as little money as possible. You will learn a lot.

I would have always thought that I was a bad designer, if I hadn’t tried.

How to make your app go viral: By designing a great looking app !

App Icon: How to create a million downloads app icon

So now it was time to polish the app and it was time to use the money I had saved up while freelancing. The first thing I needed was an icon, because on google play it is the first thing a user sees. A good and unique icon was a necessity. Even though I had managed to design a good UI for the app, I was bad at Photoshop, I had never drawn wire-frames. So this time, I decided to take some help. I created a contest on Freelancer for the icon for 40$ so that I can get ideas. I got lots of them but most of them were trash, except one, so I hired the designer and awarded him the contest with a deal that he would be making more mockups for me.

Android phone mockups & awesome screenshots for your app.

After the app icon was done, I hired the same guy for the screenshots. You can also get professional screenshots just by googling it. A google search of ” android psd mockup” results in thousands of mockups which can be used in a screenshot. But I decided that I would hire some one to do it. Also a cheap solution can be Fiverr, where professionals can be hired for 5$ to do the screenshots. The reason I wanted to make professional screenshots were because people pay more attention to visual content than text. The selling point for my music player was the UI/UX. Being on a short budget I wanted to convert every click into a download and the presentation was my biggest tool. There is a high probability that a person clicks on the link, goes to the download page but doesn’t download because of poor presentation. I had to make sure that it didn’t happen.

App Presentation A

Build a landing page for your app.

After the screenshots it was time for a website and a video. The reason I wanted to get a website was, when I had to submit the apps to the review websites, my app should look professional. The good review websites out there get a lot of apps submitted to them on a daily basis, they  don’t have the time to go through all the apps in depth. So they judge your app, on how it looks, how professionally it has been presented, which includes a website and a video as well, besides obviously the screenshots.  I paid around 60$ for the website to a friend ,but you can get it done much cheaper. A website with a single landing page, wont cost more than 40$ if you hire some one to develop it from the freelancing websites like Freelancer . The other way is, getting a template from ThemeForest for around 20$ and doing it yourself.

Create a Video for your app

Now if you are not aware enough, you might end up paying around 200-300$ for a video like this But I got it done for 65$ with a help of a freelancer and this is how we did it together. First we went to videohive and decided on the video template we wanted to work on. It was of 25$. Then he told me that he will be working on Adobe after effects of some other video editing software and will be making the changes. So if you know how to work on these softwares,the video wouldn’t cost you more than 25$, if you have an audio already. He was ready to do it for 20$,but I told him I will be needing a lot of revisions so I paid him 40$. About the audio, he already had purchased a few audios which he used in the video. But you can get the audio,from the same website for roughly the same price. If you are looking for a voice over, you can get some excellent voice over done at just 5$ from Fiverr

Making money from the app

I somehow knew that if I put it up for a price, not many people would buy it. I have never known a person who has bought an app or paid for an app/software/ or a game. Maybe it comes with being an Indian that no one buys digital goods around you, so you already know, that selling is hard.

So the app had to be free, and the money had to come from ads, since there aren’t many quick alternatives that you can find. Other ways obviously include getting sponsors (not very easy to find) ,selling usage data (which a lot of users frown upon) and few more whatever you can think of in any other business. Another advantage of ads is, as the user base increases, the income per month increases. It’s not one time sale, so even if no one is downloading the app,but all the past users retain it,you will still earn approximately the same as you did in the last month.

Ad Earnings of first six months from the music appThe earnings started from 3$/day to 130$/day. With some experiments, I was able to reach 300$ a day. The growth in the income can be seen due to growth in the user-base. The first 6 months got me roughly 8000$. In the next 12 months, made 50,000$ from ads. In the year of 2016, the expected income is above 100,000$.[/caption]

Marketing the app to 4 million downloads

It was 8th July and I had launched my app. Until this time I had been adding random people on my Facebook from college , any acquaintance or any person indirectly related to me. I added about 1000+ people.

App Store Optimization (ASO)

Then I wrote the description, optimized for ASO. There are websites for  ASO like SensorTower and SearchMan which can be used for figuring out which keywords to use.
Here are the general rules of ASO

  •  A keyword should  be around 5 times in the description. Evenly spread out all over the description. If the description is reasonable long, then this limit can be exceeded. If you overdo it, google might penalize you. If you don’t want google to penalize you, just put admob in your app. Google ignores small issues then. I have personally tested it.
  •  The main keyword for the app should be inside the name of the app on Google Play.
  •  A keyword should be inside the package name.
  •  Link building: Spreading the link of your app on websites, social media, forums helps in ASO.

Facebook Strategy for downloads.

I set up a Facebook page ,and bought some 40,000 likes from freelancer for 40$. I thought I might be able to promote it to the people there. But it seems like all the likes were from fake id’s. Even if they were real, they were generated from scripts without user’s knowledge. I thought it can be used as an audience, but turns out it was a waste, as Facebook has changed it algorithms, and a post’s visibility only increases if it gets enough momentum(i.e comments and likes). It is quite obvious that no one would be interested in a post from a page which they never liked themselves. The post never reached 40,000 people which was my intended target.>

I put up a status on my Facebook page thanking everyone on how everyone accepted my friend request and then putting up the story of my app and a link to let them know where to get it from. When you start your post with “Thank you everyone………” it usually gets attention because it seems as if you are making an announcement. If you achieved something and you are thanking random strangers for it, people are pleased, which is shown by them liking your status and hence downloading your app. There is no denying that a large portion of people feel happy for you as well and hence like your post. Usually if you give people credit, and some how justify it( i justified it by letting them know that they accepted my friend request ) people will take the credit even if they had nothing to do with it because it makes them feel important. Everyone wants to feel important, because it makes them feel better about themselves. It’s an insecurity created by a void. A void created by lack of abundance, one of the reasons you can easily spot the difference between a “new rich” and an “old rich”. Lack of abundance creates an ever longing desire to prove to everyone that you are rich, that you have made it. There is a need of being validated by others because there is no security within. One of the reasons that everyone wants to feel special and they get offended when some one says they are not. One of the reasons why everyone is waiting for that one idea that would change the world to start their own business. If everyone was special then what would special mean ?

The way to realize your insecurities, in fact every action you do, every reaction you make, every habit you have, the way you walk, the way you talk to everything you do can be realized by meditating. I have always felt mediation is way more than a tool to relax. Rather relaxation is just a side perk of mediation. But we will talk about meditation some other time. The reason why I felt the need to share this is because once you know the scarcity and insecurities within you, you will be able to see it in the world . How you use it is up to you. Skin-whitening creams created a multi-billion dollar industry out of it, I just said “Thank you ….”

I was at my home during that time, it was the summer of 2014 and our college had closed for the summer vacations. I changed my schedule and started sleeping 9 hrs in 2 days .i.e 4.5 hrs a day. I remember I never wanted to sleep during that time, I can’t explain why. A lot of things had to be done and there was no time to sleep. I remember trying to wake up until I couldn’t open my eyes. My eyes would become all watery due to the strain from looking at the laptop screen for I searched for lists of websites which review android apps. Sent them a copy pasted message and often making intentional mistakes while typing the subject like “Android ‘ApP’ Review”, to get their attention as they get a lot of emails during a day. I tried to make it look as professional as I could. But tried to keep the message friendly and short. I wrote about 100 emails each day.
I created a list of all the emails for future use and to help out other people.

I started Posting on Facebook groups. The groups on Facebook are full of advertisement from startups and app developers. The post here shouldn’t look spammy and should get attention. I didn’t post pictures that would blend in, and user would ignore. A picture with white or black background might blend in easily. Material design blends in, because every other app looks the same, one of the reasons I didn’t put it in my app. It was something I realized from dribbble, every other designer was designing apps which showcased material design. I tried making the posts look like a request, and not like an advertisement. I asked for feedback and posted some nice screenshots that people would find tough to ignore. Many times , I got 1000 downloads a day just from Facebook.

Sometimes I told stories. No one wants to listen about your organization, your culture etc because these things don’t appeal as personal. To be honest, you are not a glorious entity that anyone would care about your culture. But personal stories do matter because people can relate. The most important thing of all was, instead of focusing more on the features, I focused more on the User Interface. I posted on about 100 Facebook groups each day.

Youtube

I started sending messages to YouTubers to review my music app. I targeted keywords like “android apps” “android” “technology” “android app review” “best apps” and search these keywords on YouTube and filter the results by channels and sort by view count. Then I used to open their about page and drop a message.  The message shouldn’t be longer than 4-5 lines. I sent the message to about 3000 YouTubers. If you search “Music Player” on YouTube, the video containing link to my app comes at #2.

App link building.

I started writing on Quora and reddit and a lot of forums about my stories on how I was doing it or I posted about the app. After 3 months of doing this, I had gained near to 100,000 downloads and a steady download growth of 9-10,000 daily downloads which ultimately got me to 2 million downloads within one year. And a total of 4 million downloads in roughly 2 years.


million app downloads

4.5 million app downloads

  1. January 31, 2016 - Reply

    Can u make an app for me. how much it will cost

  2. February 1, 2016 - Reply

    Nice job with your app! It’s crazy that you were able to accomplish this much starting from scratch and $0.

    • February 1, 2016 - Reply

      @Dustin Lum

      Thatรขโ‚ฌโ„ขs what I thought,until I started travelling and realised that having a roof on your head , food on your table, a laptop and an internet connection cannot be considered as 0.
      But I get your point, and thank you ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. February 1, 2016 - Reply

    Hi Ankit! Happy to read your entire journey again. I chated with you on FB and got to know few things at that time. but this post of yours showed me how much effort u had put in right way. Awesome! keep it up.

    • February 2, 2016 - Reply

      @Lalit Taparia

      Yes, I remember you ๐Ÿ™‚
      And Thanks !

  4. February 1, 2016 - Reply

    And again this gave me such an awe inspiring inspiration to do something on my own!
    Great Post ankit! thanks a lot ๐Ÿ™‚

    • February 2, 2016 - Reply

      @karan singh chhabra

      I am glad I helped ๐Ÿ™‚

  5. February 1, 2016 - Reply

    Hello Ankit,

    Congratz on your success I was wondering:

    Which Facebook groups did you post on. And which forums/reddit forums did you post on

    • February 2, 2016 - Reply

      @Greg F.

      I posted on 1500 facebook groups.
      I searched for keywords like sony,samsung,lg,and other companies,then keywords like android ,apps etc and joined them all

  6. February 1, 2016 - Reply

    This is once again an awesome read, Ankit. Keep it up and congratulations. Your hard work and sleepless nights paid very well.

    • February 2, 2016 - Reply

      @Arka Bhattacharjee

      Thanks Arka !

  7. February 3, 2016 - Reply

    Great artical ankit,inspired!!

  8. February 4, 2016 - Reply

    Awesome man changed it for yourself ๐Ÿ™‚

  9. February 4, 2016 - Reply

    How did you make money from freelancing projects? Can you tell me some good sites and how to choose a suitable project? I am talking about your startup budget which you have mentioned in this article.

    • February 4, 2016 - Reply

      @Rohan Gayen

      I made money from freelancer.com by doing android projects.

      • September 2, 2017 - Reply

        @admin

        Did you start getting projects instantly or did u had to wait because I had to shut down the account because of not getting projects.

        • September 6, 2017 - Reply

          @Aaveg

          I didn’t get them instantly

  10. February 5, 2016 - Reply

    Nice post man, really inspired me. However, can’t find your app on the play store. Can you share the link. Thank You

  11. February 5, 2016 - Reply

    Great experience ankit….

  12. February 13, 2016 - Reply

    really great well done

  13. February 15, 2016 - Reply

    So with this lot of money, what are your next future nd career plans ? ๐Ÿ˜€
    Btw i am using your apps, they are beautiful !

    • March 8, 2016 - Reply

      @Prayag

      I don’t find it “lots”. Although I would agree It’s certainly good to begin with. I don’t have solid plans of what I want to do.

  14. February 16, 2016 - Reply

    Whenever I read your story in any forum, I also try to make something but I stuck somewhere in the middle . how did you overcome failures…

    • February 17, 2016 - Reply

      @Pankaj

      You won’t fail if you don’t give up !

      • September 2, 2017 - Reply

        @admin

        Truly inspiring post.

    • June 7, 2017 - Reply

      @Pankaj

      I believe one of the biggest reasons for failure is switching to something else when you fail. Even after facing so many problems, Ankit never gave up the goal of making and promoting a music app that everyone would use. He was very clear about what he wanted to do, and there was no 2nd option. This is what I can relate to, as I am always distracted by doing too many things and no one thing stands out, leaving many mediocre tasks.

      • July 6, 2017 - Reply

        @Parth G

        Nicely put. And one of the reasons we quit is because we lose confidence in what we are doing and also ourselves.

  15. February 17, 2016 - Reply

    Hello Ankit,
    Really happy for you,
    You really motivated me more and more,
    5 months ago, I released my app, I faced exactly the same problem as yours and decided to challenge them and to not spent any money and do everything by my own.
    Last week, the minister of IT of my country talked about my app and about my little story.
    Now I’m reading your story, I felt extremely motivated and decided to follow your path.
    I wish everyone know about such story so everyone can live his life the way he like and stop being a prisoner from 8am to 5pm.
    By the way, I were invited to an Android Congress in my country in order to tell my story next March, but now, I will be focusing in your success story.
    I wish that we can be friends, here is my app’s Facebook page, please send me a PM message on it and I will invite you: https://m.facebook.com/audiator/
    Congratulations man,
    By the way, I’am now enjoying your La Musique ๐Ÿ˜€

    • February 17, 2016 - Reply

      @Hamdy BENSALAH

      Thank you,
      I sent you a message

  16. February 20, 2016 - Reply

    Hell of a story Ankit. I read it on Quora months ago and now I am here. I am doing the same but with Blogs. I have apps but they are basic education apps with few thousand downloads however my blogs are very niche specific making me around $60K in 2015 and I am expecting the same or little bit more in 2016.

    Best of luck and I will be taking a few lessons from your app story to work towards my apps =D

    BTW I’m from Faizabad.

    • March 8, 2016 - Reply

      @Pandey

      Good to hear your story, I have a cousin as the same age as me who lived in Faizabad for a few years

  17. February 24, 2016 - Reply

    Hey Ankit..!!!

    Good Job.
    Got motivated when I read ur success story. Really appreciable. Really liked it. This is amazing.

  18. February 28, 2016 - Reply

    It’s always nice to have a senior from St. Dominic Savio College who for me have become an inspiration.I have also started learning android development and I regularly keep a tab on your answers on QUORA for my daily dose of motivation.God bless!!

    • February 29, 2016 - Reply

      @Mahim Khan

      Hey, How do you know I am from St. Dominic’s ?

      • February 29, 2016 - Reply

        @admin

        I don’t quite remember but once through my friends group I got to know about you.

        • March 8, 2016 - Reply

          @Mahim Khan

          When did you pass out from Dominics ?

      • March 12, 2016 - Reply

        @admin

        I am from the bath 12-13.

    • March 1, 2016 - Reply

      @Mahim Khan

      me too ๐Ÿ™‚

  19. March 2, 2016 - Reply

    Thanks Ankit,
    Your story charged me up fully,….well i want to ask you that do you consider this while making app that size of your app should be less/short in order to boost downloads or you just dont care about app (.apk) size and put everything in app which makes app look awesome and user friendly???

    • March 8, 2016 - Reply

      @Nishu

      I try to keep it at a reasonable size, but other than that I don’t care much

  20. March 8, 2016 - Reply

    Hey ankit,
    Good to hear your story….way to go !

  21. March 8, 2016 - Reply

    Hi Ankit,

    How did you learn Android programming, did you take a course?

    • March 8, 2016 - Reply

      @Brendan

      Hi,
      No I didn’t take a course, I learnt it online from free resources like Youtube, stackoverflow.com and google

  22. March 14, 2016 - Reply

    Hi, Ankit nice to hear your story u are a hard working person. I also have an app startup and want some initial user. can u plz tell me how can I get initial user?

    Thank you

    • March 15, 2016 - Reply

      @Shubham garg

      I already did, in this blog post

  23. March 18, 2016 - Reply

    You are truly an inspiration buddy.

  24. March 22, 2016 - Reply

    hello ankit…u hve done very great job.,,,good luck bro…
    my question is…
    i m fresher student..then if i want to learn android then what should i learn first??
    also tell me what is career opportunity for an android developer?also
    how much time to learn android ??

  25. March 24, 2016 - Reply

    Greetings! Very useful advice within this article! It’s the little changes that make the most important changes. Many thanks for sharing!

  26. March 25, 2016 - Reply

    Hi Ankit,
    I have always been passionate for android/design just like you though could not follow it,
    As being a working professional it was difficult to devote time for the things you love,
    its such an inspiring event to read it.
    i have some basic ideas (New apps required by industry / needy) to share with you since i can not put time on development of apps. maybe your help can get some success to it.

  27. March 25, 2016 - Reply

    Ok. This inspires me. I have always had this idea of making apps. I am 17 and in class 12 and hate other subjects except for CSC. I have always wanted to make a change. I learned XML,CSS and html5 in my after-boards 10 vacation and have almost learnt all the basics of java and Android programming (I have also followed new Boston). I want to learn more, but I felt in shortage of Monet for internet connection. I started a blog and tried doing affiliate marketing. Luckily, I was able to pay for my internet bills. I still run a tech blog just to earn $25 to buy a GPlay Dev account. I hope someday, I will accumulate the amount. You inspire me to work with a even greater labour. Thank you.

  28. March 25, 2016 - Reply

    Hats Off ! Very Inspiring ๐Ÿ™‚

  29. March 28, 2016 - Reply

    A Genuine Article Sharing Genuine Details which Mostly people don’t !!

    Loved it .. !!
    Thanks for Motivating Mate ๐Ÿ™‚

  30. March 28, 2016 - Reply

    Such a Long Inspiration story ๐Ÿ™‚ Thanks for Sharing with us ๐Ÿ™‚

    • March 28, 2016 - Reply

      @MC.Naveen

      You are welcome Naveen

  31. March 28, 2016 - Reply

    Hard work pays, proved once again.

  32. March 28, 2016 - Reply

    Hi Ankit, what service did you use to monetize your app, and how does the conversion ratio/legalities work for you?

  33. March 29, 2016 - Reply

    Does your site have a contact page? I’m having trouble locating it but, I’d like to
    send you an e-mail. I’ve got some creative ideas for your blog you might be interested
    in hearing. Either way, great site and I look forward to seeing it develop over time.

  34. March 29, 2016 - Reply

    Awesome brother,thanks for inspiring us. Many of your lines touched me:)
    Wish you good luck for your future projects (y)

    • March 31, 2016 - Reply

      @Samarpan Raj

      Thank you very much

  35. March 30, 2016 - Reply

    Hi Ankit…Really an inspirational story..Kudos to you for your efforts and success..I’m from Bangalore butmy hometown is in Lucknow..Currently I’m in Lucknow..Would it be possible for us to catch up. I’m working on a very exciting idea and would love to discuss with you.

  36. April 5, 2016 - Reply

    It’s really a great and useful piece of information. I’m glad that you shared this useful info with us. Please stay us up to date like this. Thank you for sharing.

  37. May 10, 2016 - Reply

    I like this post, enjoyed this one thank you for posting. “The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” by Albert Einstein.

  38. May 12, 2016 - Reply

    Great Work Man,

    You had a great story to share, I wish everyone should have atleast one story to share before or after life. You give inspiration for all of us to make our stories.

    Thank You, God bless you.

  39. May 18, 2016 - Reply

    One of the inspirations of all developers. Good job bro ! Keep it up (y)

  40. May 23, 2016 - Reply

    I was on verge of giving up on my idea. Your story have inspired me again. Thanks for sharing your story. Wish you an amazing future..

  41. May 24, 2016 - Reply

    Hi Ankit,

    Your UI/UX design is unlike others out in the market, The response can be a little faster, But nevertheless great application. Now that you have crossed the 1 million threshold, I think you should target 10million downloads. In case you are receiving ideas, I have one. Why not include a mood based player. Agreed, this is found on many other players, but I find most of them boring. Probably a few new mood settings can do the trick, Eg: Many play songs today in car’s while stuck in traffic or going to work. Many apps don’t cover how a person feels at such situations.

    Also , the app can come with option to sync with google playlists.
    Your Wellwisher,

    • June 9, 2016 - Reply

      @Gautham

      Hey Gautham, Thank you for the suggestions and feedback, I will add a lot of things to the app, it’s not done yet ๐Ÿ™‚

  42. June 6, 2016 - Reply

    Hello ankit, which add network u would prefer to use in android app?

    • June 9, 2016 - Reply

      @rakesh

      I use facebook and admob

      • June 9, 2016 - Reply

        @admin

        thanks for reply,
        i have a app business partnership idea and want to share with u . can u give me your personal email id..

  43. June 9, 2016 - Reply

    thanks for reply,
    i have a business partnarship idea and want to share with u . can u give me your personal email id..

  44. June 22, 2016 - Reply

    Congratulations Ankit!

    Well Done and Well deserved! I am impressed by your hard with, zeal, enthusiasm, passion and your style. Keep it up.

  45. June 24, 2016 - Reply

    Hi, we have a game that featured more then 130 countries, the feature end today
    Will you mind to talk with us email skype give us some guidness, also we might do business together, partnership who knows

    Please send me your email or skype

    Thanks in advance

  46. June 27, 2016 - Reply

    Your story inspired me so much. Please try our app and give feedback for improving it more:
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wallpaperteam.wallpaperhd

  47. June 28, 2016 - Reply

    Hi Ankit, well done
    i need some suggestion from you. how can i make money from mobile app.

    • August 11, 2016 - Reply

      @Radha Patel

      Work for the App.
      Don’t work for the money.
      If your App is good , money will automatically reach you!!

  48. August 12, 2016 - Reply

    Hello ankit,

    How much will you charge to downlaod my apps over i million and how much time it may take ?

  49. August 16, 2016 - Reply

    From inspiring your story,I have made an application of ringtone maker and mp3 cutter.
    This is unique app.It has feature ,no application at play store has.
    Which can allow you to edit and set your default audio to any field like ringtone,alarm,notification or set as any contact.

  50. October 18, 2016 - Reply

    Dude Google play shows your app download of 1million and u are wrote ur download is 2 million …Please clear the gap…

  51. October 19, 2016 - Reply

    It is very inspirational posts, I came to learn many things from your post.
    Thanks for sharing Ankit.

  52. October 20, 2016 - Reply

    I was focusing on app size and testing to prevent crashes, my app worked fine on all mobile phones, never crashed but I think I lagged behind in promotion. Now I am working on another app I’ll not lie but I really need money and don’t want to do the things that other want me to do. I was stressed and this stress was taking me to hell but I knew what I love to do that is developing android apps.
    Actually I left an IT company to come to Canada for studies but now I have to work and study to manage my expenses the only 2 hours I have for sleep, I want to spend those 2 hours in developing my app which is creating a lot problems for me but the time I am developing apps motivates me to do much more better. So reading your story gave me that inspiration and just because of your story I feel that I can do something in my life, something good. So the whole day I wait for those 2 hours so that I can do what I love to do.
    Anyhow thanks a lot man
    I’ll be more lucky If I can get some ideas and instructions from you.

    • October 20, 2016 - Reply

      @himanshu chopra

      Wow! I do not have words, your struggle inspires me. Keep going ๐Ÿ™‚

  53. October 20, 2016 - Reply

    Hi Ankit,
    It is very nice app. Good Work !!
    Which mobile ad platform you used to monetize your App and what is it payment structure means(monthly/weekly and minimum payout)?

  54. November 4, 2016 - Reply

    Hi ankit
    what book referred for learning languages like java etc

    • November 21, 2016 - Reply

      @ridhi

      Hi
      I didn’t use any boob but there are many courses on youtube for free which you can learn. I learnt from google searches and I asked answers on stackoverflow.com

  55. November 12, 2016 - Reply

    Hi Ankit, You are a great source of inspiration for me. Can you please tell me where you learnt android development. It would be helpfull for me

    • November 21, 2016 - Reply

      @Anuranjan

      Hi,
      There are many courses on youtube for free which you can learn. I learnt from google searches and I asked answers on stackoverflow.com

  56. December 3, 2016 - Reply

    hello ankit brother

    i read your article FIRST APP, ONE YEAR, 2 MILLION APP DOWNLOADS, 0$ SPENT IN TOTAL
    really brother your article touch my hearts

    my name Nilesh Kanzariya
    (4th year Production(manufacturing) Engineering Student)

    I’m from Gujarat (India)

    my question is

    i want to make one Android app for me but i have no any ideas about app develop so brother you guide me please for making app. all details ask me about making app
    and all source ask me for learning app development.

    your article really inspired and motivated me

    thank you so much.

    รขหœยบรขหœยบรขหœยบรขหœยบรขหœยบรขหœยบรขหœยบรขหœยบรขหœยบรขหœยบรขหœยบ

    • December 27, 2016 - Reply

      @Nilesh Kanzariya

      there are many tutorials which you can use for free

  57. December 20, 2016 - Reply

    Hi Ankit,
    I am planning to build a music based application. Would you be interested in developing it(as a freelancer or equity based)

  58. December 21, 2016 - Reply

    What freelancing jobs did you do exactly?! How long did they take *one project approx*?

  59. January 6, 2017 - Reply

    Hi Ankit, that’s some awesome achievement and wonderful sharing. How would you advice someone like me who has a day job and have zero coding knowledge to build an app? I work as a marketer so I guess I’m considered lucky to have the marketing part covered when I actually own an app.

    Thanks!

  60. January 14, 2017 - Reply

    First off, congrats for your app mate.
    Well, I’m an aircraft engineer, with no higher background in computer science whatsoever. Just studied C++ in my final year of school. And I know some basics of Java. That’s all.
    I’ve recently found myself inclined towards the computing world, especially android apps.
    Based on your experience, what would you suggest me to put in my to-do list(apart from java) before i could go around and attempt to build an android app?

  61. January 27, 2017 - Reply

    Amazing.

  62. January 31, 2017 - Reply

    First of all congratulations for launching an app completely on your own and becoming an entrepreneur at such an young age. I was really fascinated after reading your blog and the times and the challenges you went through when you are trying to become an entrepreneur. Thank you very much for sharing your journey with us. It would definitely be an eye opener for many young entrepreneurs and developers. Keep sharing your work.

  63. February 7, 2017 - Reply

    Really inspired a lot from your story
    Just wanted to know how much does a app with 1 million downloads about 50% daily active users can earn through adds..
    I have a app logo designer with 5000 downloads just launched 15 days ago just curious to know how much money i could earn if i reached that level..
    Please reply me

  64. March 2, 2017 - Reply

    Hi Ankit this is vinay , i am a new developer in the gaming industry. I wanted to ask you that what are the revenue sharing terms of google. I have heard that google don’t gives you your share until 1 year, and the keeps your first 20 k to 30 k then starts to give you your extra revenue. Is that true???
    Please help me I want to make my own games !!!

    • March 4, 2017 - Reply

      @Vinay

      not true

      • March 5, 2017 - Reply

        @admin

        Can you tell me what are the conditions of earning money from apps and games from playstore ?

  65. March 4, 2017 - Reply

    Hi ankit , lovely story. Very impressive achievement. Kindly , please can you tell , how much revenues you still make as google play shows 1 million downloads whereas as given above it is 2 million.
    Also , if i wish to make a app through a developer and market it well, do you think it will be worth spending as i am a non- tech person .
    we can also talk for partnership also or you can guide.
    How much relevant is app business today as there are already so many apps in same domain.
    Please guide and comment.
    Thanks

  66. March 26, 2017 - Reply

    Can you please tell me what are your skills in programing languages? You use JAVA or more like C++?

    And if you have some programing skills before?

    Thank you and keep up the good work!

  67. April 5, 2017 - Reply

    Hello Ankit sir ,
    Thanks for all your guideline . You are really an inspired person . I also got 80,000 download of my android app . I also received 1 time transaction from google adsense. But due some unauthenticate click my account was blocked. I want to know that how can start my journey again?

  68. April 25, 2017 - Reply

    amazing journey, i am launching my own music streaming app later this month

    can you please elaborate on your ads strategy? banner ? Interstitial ? rich media?
    where is the best placement in the app for the best ecpm?

  69. June 10, 2017 - Reply

    Hello Ankit, am Francis n 32yrs old.. av been nurturing an app idea since 2yrs nw but afraid to start because I wz told it costs a lot, now I see how u started with almost nothing. Secondly being from Nigeria, I don’t know how this will sail through, but I believe it’s a very good one and have edge/advantage above existing ones.

    Will like to connect with you via email pls for advise sir.

  70. July 6, 2017 - Reply

    Hi Ankit,
    This is truly inspiring, I too had made an app but due to my perfectionist nature never uploaded it to google as I was never happy with the finished app, even though all my friends and family loved it.

    Your post has inspired me to get back to this and actually make something that solves a problem that I and many other face.
    Thankyou for this again.

    If you have the time, I would like to ask you what actually you were freelancing as? I mean were you a freelance programmer or a designer or something else and which platforms did you used and how were you able to earn 1k$ in two months. I am a freelancer and it took me a few years to actually reach that number. I would love to learn more about your freelancing experience.

    Thanks for taking the time to read this.

    Regards and best wishes,
    Aditya Sharma

  71. July 17, 2017 - Reply

    What language do you use?what computer do you use and what operating system? I have a great idea for my game and the monetization will be ads and iap. Planning to start on android first and jump to ios. What language is best for android.

  72. August 23, 2017 - Reply

    ?worth reading I am at your first stage in college with less movies and games trying to involve in app development , but had no idea what to do next รขล“ล’ your post helps ?, feels confident

  73. September 5, 2017 - Reply

    hi ankit
    great to know about your online success.keep it up bro.can you please tell us which ad network do you use in your app.

    • October 12, 2023 - Reply

      @abhisek

      Hay, Ankit is using Facebook Ads and Admob ads to his Apps.

  74. September 10, 2017 - Reply

    Hi Ankit,
    It’s really a great inspiring story the way you made yourself successful. I do have some queries, So can u please do answer them.
    1. I do heard that RPM won’t be good enough for Indian traffic? so is it true? if yes, on Average what would for Indian traffic.
    2. I don’t have a bigger target and i want to aim for only $500 per month, So for this how many installs need for an app (i do know that it depends on usability too, but, asking you in general), For example: By the time of your first 6 months, you said that u made $8k, So then how many installs do u have to achieve that?

    I hope you do answer as i been very confused on above queries as i seen different people do answer in a different way,

  75. January 20, 2023 - Reply

    This is the first that I have read your story, but it is inspiring. I have hopes of one day designing my own apps, and a story like this shows not only the dedication required, but also gives solid advice on how to make it happen. Congrats on your success, and here’s to a bright future!

  76. February 10, 2023 - Reply

    Hi Ankit is posting my apps link in youtube comment will get me downloads or it will be considered as spam.

  77. March 26, 2023 - Reply

    Hi Ankit, it indeed is an inspiring story, also like to thank you for putting good analogy and insights provided in this in-depth article. ๐Ÿ™‚

    I agree with you 100% on Facebook Testing Example you experienced.

    Also, if you find time, please let me know whats your feedback on my new app, I just published.

    Best,
    Rohit

    • April 3, 2023 - Reply

      @Rohit

      Hi ankit,
      Good work.

  78. April 2, 2023 - Reply

    Thanks for this story, your guideline is more than appreciated .

  79. July 1, 2023 - Reply

    Does the income still comes from your app?

    Tell me plz?

  80. September 25, 2023 - Reply

    Hi Ankit
    Read about you on yourstory.com. Would you like to share how you monetised your app? Which ad network you used and any tips for new developers on the type of advertisement one should use ?

  81. September 30, 2023 - Reply

    Hi,

    I’m impressed by your story. I would like to hire your services?

    We’ve got a pair of iOS apps:

    1. My Mechanic: 950 k downloads needed
    http://apple.co/2tgwtVR

    2. My Mechanic +: 50 k downloads needed
    http://apple.co/2swdU3m

    We need a million USA downloads of our iOS apps, in specific USA cities.

    The cities are:

    Atlanta
    Baltimore
    Boston
    Chicago
    Dallas
    Denver
    Los Angeles
    New York
    Philadelphia
    Phoenix
    Sacramento
    San Diego
    San Francisco
    Seattle
    Twin Cities
    Washington

  82. October 6, 2023 - Reply

    Great blog post! If you were to do this in 2018, is it still viable?

    Also, what would change or do more of?
    Anything different for 2018? Is Instagram a viable way 0f promiting an app?

  83. October 11, 2023 - Reply

    Hi Ankit,
    great success!
    but a question remain their in mind that how did you post(in what manner) about your app on facebook that bring you about 1000 downloads daily? approximately how much group did you post in total.

  84. October 12, 2023 - Reply

    Hay, ankit I have an app in playstore, I need some help from you, can you please reply me.

  85. November 6, 2023 - Reply

    Hi Ankit .Great inspiring story you have revealed before us but please tell me one thing that how u have earned from ur music app although it is one time downloadable and after that it is often used as an offline mode by users.Have u placed ads unit on it or not? If not? Then please tell me how u have managed to earn such a huge amount from Google play store.I am eager to know if other method is available.Please tell me because I m a software engineer and I have also maked up my mind to create an awesome app just like yours.

    • November 27, 2023 - Reply

      @Sandeep Rao

      As ankit has stated above, he uses facebook audience network and google admob ad units in his app. So, the app has ad units within it. If you are trying explore other methods of app-monetization, then you should try some sort of subscription model that fits in with your app content. Please note that there is no one way to monetize your app and if one thing works for any particular app it may not work for yours. Every app is unique ( if otherwise intended) and the best monetization model will be known by trial and errors.
      Good Luck for your app and ‘Appy marketing ๐Ÿ˜‰ .

  86. December 16, 2023 - Reply

    Hi Ankit, Can you please share the post copy of the content you used to write on facebook. I also developed a music player and till now, i have got only 400+ downloads within 7 days.

    Give some suggestion for improving the downloads.

  87. December 17, 2023 - Reply

    hello Ankit Srivastava, am really inspired by your story. I too put up my first android app a few days back. its not my best but reading yo story has inspired me to give it my all in the remaining products I’ll put up. Thank you for inspiring us.

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