With numerous app challenges around, many would wonder if the future for apps is anything to bank on. For Stephen Maingi however, earning from his apps is now the trend.
According to Nokia’s statistics, Stephen earns around KSh100,000 ($1,200) per month from his apps hosted on the Nokia Ovi store.
“My journey with Nokia has been an amazing one,” he said. “Based on my success, I have already started work on a Qt and Windows Mobile version of my apps, and I hope to capture the smartphone user base next.”
In 2009, Stephen’s love for the IT industry grew and he self taught himself on app development. Soon he came up with a mobile app suit, which had 14 apps.
He didn’t have much success in finding investors who would help his project financially. He manually tried to sell his products but this was not fruitful. At the same time, he tried selling his apps by using PayPal but that didn’t raise much return either — given the lack of the payment platform here in Kenya.
In August 2011, Nokia announced that developers could publish their apps on the Ovi store for no fee. This was highly welcomed by Stephen. He published 12 of his apps on the platform and rebranded his company to Dolphins Data Systems.
Within two weeks, Stephen already started getting around KSh19,000 ($220). Seeing the fruitful returns on his 12 apps, he developed other apps and now has 200 apps on the store generating him about KSh100,000 per month.
“I recently attended the Open Innovation Africa Summit in Nairobi and this has inspired me to keep on developing mobile apps – there is so much opportunity in this space. The ‘3 idiots’ movie reveals it better: Make your passion your profession,” Stephen encouraged other entrepreneurs.
