SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
897 His Mobile App Was Downloaded 8m Times, Now Builds for Others Doing $9m+ This Year
07 Jan 2018
Chapter 1: What is the story behind Brian Howard's journey in mobile app development?
This is the Top Entrepreneurs Podcast, where founders share how they started their companies and got filthy rich or crash and burn. Each episode features revenue numbers, customer counts, and other insider information that creates business news headlines. We went from a couple hundred thousand dollars to 2.7 million.
I had no money when I started the company.
It was $160 million, which is the size of many IPOs. We're a bit strapped. We have like 22,000 customers. With over 5 million downloads in a very short amount of time, major outlets like Inc. are calling us the fastest growing business show on iTunes. I'm your host, Nathan Latka, and here's today's episode. Hello everybody, my guest today is Brian Howard.
He co-founded his company InMotion Software back in 2008 with the vision of a studio focused on mobile development. He's now led the studio to create over 30 mobile titles with six reaching the top 100, including a number one hit in the app store. Today, Brian leads a team of 60 plus developers and designers. Brian, are you ready to take us to the top?
I'm ready.
All right, I hope you took equity in all these apps.
Well, yeah, some of them. Oh, good. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Well, let's just start right there. How do you decide? I mean, these startups come to you and say, Brian, we need this fancy app built. Here's the spec sheet. And by the way, we're broke as hell. Will you take equity and work for free?
Well, generally, no, not in those circumstances. Just a little background in InMotion. When we started, we started as a game studio. So our vision was basically build our own products, put them up for sale in the app store. And we were really, really successful at that in the early days.
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Chapter 2: How did InMotion Software achieve significant early success with its apps?
Well, I probably have to go back and check, but I seem to think it was somewhere around like twenty five to thirty thousand downloads a day. OK, good.
So you have early games that you guys released back in that time frame that were doing twenty thirty thousand downloads a day for some period of time at a dollar a pop. Yes, I'd say that's very successful.
Yeah, it was all right. There were good times.
Okay. Just real quick before we go away from that, what was your most successful game? How many total downloads?
So that game would be I Dig It. That was our number one hit. I don't know the exact numbers, but probably something in the order of 7 million. Downloads? Downloads. Some of those, we did run an experiment for a while where we did release it for free. So not all of those were paid, but there was a good majority of those that were paid. in that 99 cent price range.
And I mean, true or false, you made over 3 million bucks from that game after paying Apple 30%.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's probably that's probably in that ballpark.
I'd say that puts you in the top point one percent of game developers of all time. So so this will be a good interview. What happened after that? Why don't keep doing that?
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Chapter 3: What challenges does Brian face in the competitive app market?
Like, how does Apple know if it's a good user experience or not?
Well, they don't. And I don't think they worry about that much. They let the great stuff sort of rise to the top and stuff that doesn't kind of falls below.
How though? Like how do they know what to rise to the top? Well, that's a good question. I mean, is it like a number of downloads over a period of time? Is it a number of five-star ratings?
It's probably a combination of all those things. I think they've changed their algorithm over time. I don't know exactly what it is, but depending on the category and how you're searching, some of them are based off of the top grossing or maybe the top number of downloads. I'm sure they factor in how well the reviews have been from users and adoption.
They probably have numbers on how many people actually delete the app.
Okay.
So those are, they probably factored in all those things and, uh, make predictions.
I'm trying to, I'm trying to read your facial expressions here. Cause I would imagine with someone with your size of data of app downloads, like you use the word probably when you talk about this, you have to know some of these things. They're like levers you pull. Uh, come on, come on.
I wish I did. I wish I did.
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Chapter 4: What factors contributed to the pivot from game development to a service-based model?
And who is we? You and what are their co-founders?
Well, I started with my father, John. I kind of approached him with this crazy idea of, hey, let's go build a mobile development company. And this is before the apps were actually launched. So we were in very, very early. And surprisingly, he's like, all right, well, let's do it.
What year was this?
This was 2008. Oh, wow. Our first app released two weeks after the apps were open. So we were then very, very early days.
And it was a game.
It was actually, our first app was not a game. It was a... So there was these devices that you could put in your car and you would be able to measure like your zero to 60 or quarter mile time, right? Using the accelerometer. And these things were four or $500 pretty expensive.
So when the first iPhone was announced and I heard that actually had an accelerometer and I had this idea of like, Hey, why don't we go build an app that does that?
So you just put your phone in your car. Genius. How much money did you make off that?
Um, probably something on the order of 90 to a hundred K. Fucking beautiful. yeah, just with a fairly short amount of time. It was great.
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Chapter 5: What is the current business model of InMotion Software?
I mean, it was a lot of fun. And then, uh, I actually ran into a guy who sort of became my, my second hand. He, uh, he was, well, wait, what happened to dad?
You buy him out?
No, no, no, no. He's still around. Um, he's still here, but I'd always wanted to get into gaming. And I found this guy who's good, you know, became a good friend of mine, but, uh, he had come with like 20 years experience in the game industry and sort of, uh, during the fallout of, of, uh, Midway going under, um, he found himself without a job. And so we just say, Hey, let's do this thing.
Let's try, let's try doing the game thing and see where that goes.
And did you guys split the company 50, 50 or what?
Uh, no, no, not exactly. Um, we have, uh, four developed or four, sorry, four partners in the business at this point. Uh, me and my father own a majority share. So there were times where we brought in key employees where it made sense and, Yeah, I've got a great group of partners and they're great guys to work with.
Are you guys, in 2016, did you guys do more or less than 5 million in total revenue?
2016.
Last year? Probably about there. Oh, right about there. Okay, good. Now, do you kind of like the company where it's at? It allows you to pay yourself a lot of money each year? Or are you trying to grow? What do you think you'll do in 2017?
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Chapter 6: How does Brian Howard ensure quality in app development?
Yep.
Good stuff, man. All right, Brian, let's wrap up with the famous five. Number one, these are one word answers. What is your favorite business book?
Ooh, that's a good question. It's probably been Rich Dad, Poor Dad, probably.
Okay, number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying right now? Elon Musk. Number three, is there a favorite online tool you have, like Acuity Scheduling?
I mean, there's a lot I deal with. I don't know if any one of them are my favorites, but probably GitHub or we do a lot of Jira work, a lot of work with Jira, so.
How many hours of sleep do you get every night?
Ooh, that varies. I'd say good nights, you know, seven, seven or so. But, you know, it fluctuates.
All right. And what's your situation? Married, single, you have kids? I'm married with three girls. Oh, wow. You've got a full house then. Three girls. And how old are you? Me? I'm 36. All right. Last question. Take us back 16 years. What do you wish your 20-year-old self knew? Take more risks. You said that very quickly.
Yeah.
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