I’m sure you’ve watched the YouTube video, downloaded their application, or at least seen it on your friends’ iPhone or iPod Touch. Now let me take you behind the scenes and show you how a simple idea can get you known all around the world. Today I talk with the 3 developers of iSteam and find out why they decided to give away their flagship application for free when it launched.

Could you give us some brief details about the 3 people behind iSteam?

GreatApps LTD has currently three shareholders:

1.Kostas Eleftheriou (25), is our Chief Engineer and Managing Director. He lives in London since last November. GreatApps LTD is his second business venture; his first was www.zulutrade.com.

2.Vassilis Samolis (22), co-founded GreatApps with Kostas last November. He lives in Athens and his day job is GreatApps. He is mainly occupied with the Business Development of the company.

3.Bill Rappos (22), is the Art Designer & Community Manager. He also lives in Athens and simultaneously with GreatApps he is a student at the National Technical University of Athens.

How does it feel to have your work seen(and enjoyed) by just under 2 million people all around the world?

We are really thrilled! In fact it is one of our greatest motives; we get emails from places all around the world. Here are our two favorites. . .

“You have saved my life, every time I want the kids to quiet down, I give them my iPhone with iSteam loaded. Thank you GreatApps”

“Everybody in my neighborhood asks to play with iSteam. iSteam Rules” Tom, New Zealand

How did you guys come up with the initial idea for iSteam?

iSteam is a child of a brainstorming session that lasted a week; just 1 out of the 150 ideas in our ideas.xml file. What made us choose to develop it, though, were the criteria we wanted our next App to fulfill such as development time, projected revenues etc., the most important of which being the viral effect. We wanted our next application to be so cool, that you can show it to your friends and immediately attract their attention.

To achieve the above we knew that we have to take advantage of all the technologies of the iPhone, but also concentrate on one that hasn’t been taken advantage so much. We wanted to blow on the mic for something to happen, then build an App around it. So, combining mic blowing, tilt controls, email and your photo library we came up with iSteam.

Funny trivia: iSteam’s first paper iteration was a windmill app; blow on the mic for the windmill to spin. Of course it would be called something like iWind, or iBlow.. Ok, probably not iBlow.. ;)

So we chose iSteam and after 7 days of developing, we submitted it to the AppStore.

Was it something that you thought would do well in the App Store. . .or was it almost a shot in the dark?

We didn’t expect this kind of success, but we were really confident about the idea. It was something unique and it had the viral effect we wanted. Plus, with the ability to save and upload user created images, baptized Steamies, there was the potential to create a community. Above all, though, it was something in the Kostas’s gut, telling him to push 150% for this idea.

During the development process did everything just fall into place? If not, what issues did you run into that you didn’t expect(or
some that you did expect)?

Since we had no previous experience developing for Apple platforms, there were a lot of issues with using a new framework. Kostas had to learn some of the basic operations and data structures from scratch, and on top of that the language (Objective-C) was also new to him. Soon after the first approach however, Kostas became familiar with the technologies behind the iPhone and from then on it was just like most development projects. An interesting note is that while many people are unfamiliar with Objective-C and Apple platforms, the Development Kit provided by Apple is top notch and very easy to use.

There was a lot of hype around this application before and after it’s launch. Do you regret releasing the application free for the first week. . .or do you think this actually helped out in the long run?

Oh.. Here is a topic that generated a lot of disputes initially. We believe that having the application free for the first week helped us in the long run. One might estimate that with 3k copies per day (that was the download rate during those days) we lost almost 15k $. But, from our point of view the installed customer base we acquired during the free promotional period was vital for the further success of the App. Those 1 million (free) users were our marketing, our advertisers! So, it is a move we don’t regret and intend to follow for our next applications too.

There have been complaints from some developers saying it costs too much money to developer applications on the App Store. . .but you’ve actually made a profit(and you’ve given it away for free on more than 1 occasion). Could you give some details on your expenses and your revenue so far?

As you can understand we cannot provide you with specific details. What we can tell you are some facts. iSteam has sold (until today) over 70k paid copies. The second free period ended last Sunday and it was also part of a promotional strategy. Finally, contrary to other devolopers’ claims, the expenses are really insignificant! Actually, that was a very important factor that convinced us to launch this business venture. To create an Application you need a Mac, a DevKit and man hours.

I believe your story proves that thinking outside the box is a major key in making a successful iPhone application. Are there any other key points that you would repeat with your future applications?

Yes one has to do other things than be open minded. We would definitely promote our future apps again through youtube, facebook, twitter and of course blogs and news sites. Unfortunately just the “good idea” is not sufficient. The AppStore is saturated with applications (over 17k today). You can easily get lost. It is very important to draw the attention towards your idea otherwise your chances are really narrow.

Will anyone(or everyone) be quitting their day jobs, and start to develop iPhone applications full time?

GreatApps is our full time job! Currently we are investing a significant share of our earnings in order to develop. We are currently hunting for programmers so we can run additional projects simultaneously. We have a lot of ideas, a lot of synergy and gradually we increase our productivity. We are also not bound to the iPhone; should an opportunity arise in another platform, mobile or not, we are sure to take it, we are flexible enough. Who knows maybe one day become an SA?!?

Can you give us some ideas or hints on projects you guys are currently working on right now or in the future?

We have already began the development of our next application which will hopefully be ready (for Youtube at least) in a week’s time. Unfortunately, we cannot disclose you the idea, what with the Appstore being such a competitive market. While we are not afraid of copycats, it is somewhat flattering being copied, grasping the initial buzz is really important. But, once its on, you will be the first to know :)

With iSteam’s success, do you feel the extra pressure to create something as good(or better) than iSteam?

Its true that there is a LOT of pressure. We fear becoming the guys that made iSteam and then disappeared. We fear people attributing our success to good fortune and not our hard work. We want to establish our firm as an important player in the AppStore and the only way to achieve that is with another success!

So, to answer your question: Yes! we have become even more annoyingly picky than we were when we chose to develop iSteam.

Note – I want to thank Kostas, Vassilis, and Bill for taking the time to do this interview. If there is one thing I want to point out, it’s that developing iPhone applications doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. You don’t even have to be a big-name corporation to get the attention needed to ‘stand out from the crowd’. Yes there is a sea of iPhone applications in the App Store(over 20,000 currently) and yes it is hard to get attention sometimes. But developing unique applications(and not just another calculator) makes it so much easier.

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