We had heard many times that business ideas are justs solutions to existing problems. I this talk I will explain how accidentaly fixing a problem I encountered myself when I moved to a 'big capital' like Madrid back in 2009 was the point of origin of 'GreenLionSoft', a 2-Guy Company I co-founded 4 years ago. Today we can say that we can make a living on developing Android Apps, but it has not been an easy path, the play field has changed a lot in the last 10 years and It will change in the future for sure. We have learned many lessons the hard way in many fields not just related to developing apps but bureaucracy, taxes, monetization and Google Play Dependency. Indeed, last Christmas Google Play terminated our company account, which meant closing our company, but unexpectedly, after dealing many horror and crazy situations with Google we got it reinstantiated back 23 days later.

1. MADRID · MARCH 29-30 · 2019
Pablo A. Martínez Andrés
CEO - Android Lead @GreenLionSoft
@pamartineza
linkedin.com/in/pamartineza
Making a living on Google Play
(and other Horror Stories)

2. Is it actually possible?

3. 1 %
3 %
9 %
87 %
<1K $ 1K-10K $ 10K-100K $ >100K $
Distribution of Average Monthly Developer Income
Source: inmobi 2018

4. - Hey Pablo, you are a lucky guy… -
(What I hear, by a friend, colleague or somebody on the internet)

5. - I am a great believer in Luck.
The harder I work, the more of it I
seem to have -
(What I think, by Coleman Cox)

6. - Getting successful developing
apps is rather a Marathon of
sustained work than a matter
of being lucky. -
(What I answer, by Pablo A. Martínez)

7. Graduated in 2009 as “Industrial Engineer”
specialized in electricity and electronics
20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

8. Probably the worst moment in recent
years to find a Job in Zaragoza
(Yes, the lucky guy)
20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

9. Got an offer as an Electronic PCB designer
for Airtraffic Control Systems in Madrid
20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

10. Moving to Madrid and tackling with Public Transit
20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

11. First news about Google’s Mobile OS open for developers
20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

12. LG-GW720, my 2019 “Self-Christmas-present”
20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

13. Started learning Java and Android late at night
20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

14. 20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Published first App, “Metrodroid Madrid”, 0,99€ price tag

15. I know, with our 2019 eyes these screens look terrible…
20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

16. 20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 201920102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Admob allows free Apps with Ads providing better revenues

17. 20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Switch professional career?

18. R&D Android Developer at Samsung
20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

19. 20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
We officially register our own LLC to develop Apps

20. 20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

21. 20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
We finally reach economic independence

22. 20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
We finally reach economic independence
Some tips we have learned after 10 year of
coding and a 20+ apps published:
· Play Store listing and revenue is achieved in the long term (2 years)
· Automate build, testing and deploy, as much as possible
· Delegate UX/UI to a professional
· Interstitials and video Ads are suitable for Games not “utility” apps
· Admob is the advertising network that has more inventory
but pays less at the same time
· Focus on a niche, you probably can’t compete with big players
· If you have a company/start-up that its business model is based on an App (or Apps) distributed
in Google Play YOUR FUTURE IS COMPLETELY F****D JEOPARDIZED AND YOU NEED A PLAN-B
· Invest on marketing and App ads
· Modularize and reuse code, follow SOLID and CLEAN principles

23. What you have to keep in your minds
20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

24. TL;DR; A 2018 Christmas Horror Story
· Result: A ten years long Android career and a successful start-up killed for Christmas.
· December 24th. Received Google Play account termination email. It mentions it is due to
prior violations of “associated accounts” outlined in previous emails.
· Never received any communication prior the termination regarding any infringement not
solved or previous emails regarding to an “associated account”.
· December 24th. I appealed for human assistance by suggested text form because Google
Play lacks of a proper Developer Customer service by phone or assigned account manager.
· December 25th. I received 24 hours exactly after the termination communication a canned
email telling me that my appeal has been rejected. (Most probably rejected by a bot)
20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

25. How we managed to solve this crisis

26. The power of an Open Letter
· December 30th got a phone call from a “European Google Dev Relations” person
· He contacted the Google Play Reviewers team somewhere in India to request
further info and we concluded the following:
(My colleague still thinks his account termination was wrong but he appealed and
got no support as thousands of developers out there)
· Our company account hadn’t committed any violation, it was terminated due being
“associated” to my personal account.
· My personal account hadn’t committed any violation either, it was terminated due
being “associated” to a colleague account.
· This colleague account was terminated due “Intellectual Property and Trademark
Violation”.
20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

27. Termination due to Account Association
· Sharing access to Google Play Console
· Sharing same hardware
· Sharing same keystore/app signatures
· Sharing credit card
· Sharing WiFi/internet
Google Play hasn’t disclosed how it works but our personal
experience and other Account terminations described on
the Internet lead us to believe that some reasons are:

28. Termination due to Account Association
· Our personal accounts remain terminated.
· 21 days later our Google Play Account was reinstated after several exchanged
emails with Google Dev Rel contact trying to demonstrate our Company
Account was an independent account isolated from our personal ones.
· During this time our Ad units were suspended and we lost our Google Play
listing position.
20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

29. Our Plan B
· Developed our own “App Update” infrastructure besides Google Play
· Research new business models like chat bots, Alexa, etc…
· Tech teaching and writing as alternative revenue sources
· Get more relevance in the Android Community to make this problem visible
· Or just close and find a new Job ☹
20102009 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

30. Questions? Un-Conference?
https://greach.contestia.es
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