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I'm a student and an iOS developer. I am trying to pay for advertising for my apps. Is this a situation where I'd want to raise venture capital? I develop my apps solo, sometimes my own ideas, others are contracted out.

If yes, how does VC work? (Yea, an open ended question, I know.)

Edit:

Here are a few more details:

I've considered both iAd and other promotion websites. They all require several thousand dollars which I don't have right now.

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3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

I'm a student and a budding facebook developer, with other previously launched windows software, so I'm in a similar situation. The best thing I can suggest from my own experience with advertising software, which I did profitably, is to start small and make sure you can turn every dollar you spend into at least a dollar in income.

You won't need VC unless you're looking to go into this full time with a staff, office, equipment, etc. Even if you DO want to do that (I know I would go for it) you'll still have to explain why your product is different and why it would be profitable, which is easier said than done unfortunately.

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up vote 1 down vote

Going on the few details you have given, I'd say VC is probably not appropriate.

Can you bootstrap to pay for what you need and then reinvest your sales revenue into marketing and development?

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What do you mean by "bootstrap"? – Moshe Mar 23 '11 at 13:37
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping – Ross Mar 23 '11 at 17:25
up vote 0 down vote

Two Options:

  1. Word of mouth. Free, if you find the right people to root for your apps (blogs, reviews, etc.)

  2. How about Google AdWords as a low-cost method (to start)? I haven't yet reached the stage where it makes sense to use it myself, but the feature of setting a budget (say, $20/month) seems pretty cool.

You don't need a VC at this stage.

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Can you recommend some blogs? – Moshe Mar 23 '11 at 17:55
I would start with checking with the customers that have rated your apps well; see if they have blogs and ask. You really don't want to be disingenuous about it, because people can see through that. – emptyset Mar 24 '11 at 19:15
Any idea how to get in touch with said customers. They don't leave contact info. – Moshe Mar 24 '11 at 19:36
That's odd. Nobody emails you about bugs? Nobody comments on your website? – emptyset Mar 28 '11 at 14:14

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