Customers rummaging through the iPhone App Store last week found a new bargain: a free version of
iGarageSale.
The garage-sale-mapping app by
Performant Design of Maple Grove was downloaded about 10,000 times last week, by far its highest ever weekly total. Now the developer hopes some of those downloaders will eventually decide to upgrade to the $2.99 pro version.
Performant Design is the name for the one-man, bootstrapped company founded in 2007 by Aaron Kardell. It initially focused on Facebook apps, including the Risk-like strategy game
World Conquest, which Kardell sold to Sillicon Valley-based
SGN.
iGarageSale, Performant's first mobile app, has been in and out of the Top 100 apps for its category since it was introduced about a year ago. Kardell estimated the iGarageSale paid app has been downloaded between 12,000 and 15,000 times.
"If you look at the graphs, I'd characterize it as a little bit of a roller coaster," says Kardell. The app's first big spike came last September when Apple featured it in the "New and Noteworthy" section of its app store homepage. The pace of downloading slowed over winter as garage sale season cooled, but it's picked up again this spring. Last week was the app's biggest week for downloads, although the majority of them were for the free, basic version.
"What we're really looking forward to seeing now is the conversion rate," says Kardell. The paid verison of the app allows users to save favorite locations and search the text of garage sale ads, which are culled from craigslist postings.
Kardell also recently created a company called
MobileRealtyApps.com, which creates branded home search apps for realtors.
Source: Aaron Kardell, Performant Design
Writer:
Dan Haugen