How Keynotopia Makes Money
By Richard
I loooooooove this business! So it shouldn’t surprise you that I’m declaring it as one of the best examples of how to make passive income from software. First, let me rant.
Keynotopia allows people to prototype apps for desktop, ipad and mobile using tools they already know like PowerPoint and Keynote – and it does this by supplying a library of things like wireframes, buttons, etc for use in these programs. Just drag and drop stuff to create a real looking app in minutes! As their killer slogan goes “$49 will save you 49 hours!”.
For me, someone who doesn’t know how to code apps, but wants to get them developed according to my designs, this tool is freaking insanely great! No diving into Photoshop and frustrating myself into a quivering heap. Instead I can pump out designs and ideas in the next 2 hours that would otherwise take 2 days.
If you are interested in diving into the app business, this is the number one tool I would advise. Being able to work so rapidly allows you to play around with many different ideas and approaches. And it’s this approach that allows one to generate the killer idea.
Anyways, back to the muse. It was originally featured on Four Hour Work Week. During that guest post back in 2011 the creator, Amir Khella, said he makes about $5,000 to $10,000 a month from it.
Let’s pause on that for a second. This is a digital product. The profit margin is probably 90%+. Love it! But probably the thing I loved most is how Amir said he was already creating this stuff for consulting work he was doing. Ie he turned a resource/skill he already had into a product.
There was maybe a little extra work in getting it ready for market, but not much. Go away and think about what you already have that could be useful to others? Just an example to jog your mind; say I landed a job in consulting with McKinsey, I could turn all the things I had into a saleable info product – think sample resumes, cover letters, interview Q&A, networking database etc. Boom. Sure it takes a little extra work, but it’s definitely something that will be of huge interest to others. So yeah, think byproducts!
Another huge point to takeaway from Amir’s success is the fact that he didn’t invest a lot of time taking the product from his computer to flawless software product. No way. Instead he took a bit of it – the library for iPad apps design – and made it available for free download on a long and super useful how-to blog post. That’s it.
Minimal investment and a ‘wait and see’ approach. This testing turned out insanely well, as over 10,000 downloads in a few weeks happened. With this proof, he whacked up a website with a premium WordPress theme and an ejunkie payment link, and got a sale the next morning. That is how you do it!! Passive income is this easy when you come up with your idea, test it and then roll it out.
A lot of this case study scream Lean Startup and I gather Eric Ries philosophy of minimum viable product influenced Amir’s approach greatly. Since achieving success all those years ago Amir has added pack after pack of prototyping tools. Everything from the iPhone to Windows 8 packs are here now, with a total selection of 12 packs available – ranging from $39 to $97. PS one final point; Amir said on 4HWW that he split tested his landing page 29 times over one month, and consequently reduced the bounce rate from 59% to 12%. If that doesn’t encourage all of us to split test like crazy, I don’t know what will.
Visit Keynotopia or check out Four Hour Work Week where case study originally spotted