Yeah, I think games are an entirely different beast. I make a productivity app, which I will admit, is much less sexy than a game. I think games target a younger market in general (not having any actual data to back up that assumption) who are more likely to go download things from the store.

timothyb89 is quite right. The cost wasn't just for a standard server, much of that came from the number of datastore reads I was performing, since the original backend wasn't using memcache the best, etc. It also wasn't syncing in the most efficient way, so that added a lot of overhead. There is still room for improvement, but just with a weekend of optimization, I've been able to reduce the cost by an order of magnitude. That, mixed with the automatic scaling makes it quite competitive.

Thanks James. I wish it hadn't been in a panic mode, but it worked out well and the users have told me they really like the new backend. The Mobile Backend Starter was a great starting point, but I needed something optimized for my app and didn't want to disappoint new users. Passionate users really are a great motivator.

Thanks Jagat, I have had a great experience as an Android developer and working hard to make a product that people like has been a fun thing to do. Getting emails every day from users that like the app, even though they usually ask for a feature or two, is a great motivator.

I guess it sort of is, hOOk, though I'm not sure how to write about my specific experience without it being just that.

Before my app was featured, I was looking online for two pieces of information, how to get featured and how many downloads I could get from being featured.

All I could find for how to get featured was "make a good app", turns out that part is true.

I couldn't find anything for what to expect as a result of being featured. Some people shared general looking graphs, but I'm sharing actual numbers so that people can have an idea of the process, and the result, of being featured.

Sometimes HN is quite appropriately nicknamed Hater News, and we're also no less likely to get trolls than any other community!

Thank you for an amazing write-up. I wish more developers would open up about their experiences in public!

Yeah, since I'm a single developer, and not a company, my wife wouldn't like it if I shared the money aspect with the whole world. I thought people might be interested in the download numbers though, as how that translates into revenue is very dependent on the app.

When you're married, your wife plays a big part in a lot of decisions you make vs when you're single.

Disclaimer: 30. Married for 5 years.

Wife's the scapegoat. Saying "my wife wouldn't be happy with X" is just saying "I don't want to do X" while shunting the blame away from yourself.

You're obviously not married.

I'd say I don't have a wife, but there's a woman who'd be mad at me for saying that ;)

Seriously, people use the wife or parents scapegoat all the time. In high school my mother told me if I was at a party and being peer-pressured into something I didn't want to do, to blame her in order to get out.

Absolutely. I have friends like this.

I am, for one, happy to see that people with families bootstrap businesses. I imagine that it can be tough financially and time-wise. So, naturally, significant others should be in the loop.