Forecasting Growth and Infrastructure

We received some bad news today... Google's AppEngine team contacted us to let us know that our "special elevated free quota" will revert back to the standard free level in a few weeks & we'll be billed for any overages. AppEngine's resources were a huge part of plan & the elevated levels were very important to seeking profitability with gpsAssassin. Now that its gone, I had to go back and run the numbers again.

Over the past week, things have settled down with our metrics. The 'pirated software' frenzy has diminished to less than 30 per day and the existing players are falling into a nice rhythm. Using resource averages over the past three days, I modeled a forecast of 10x and 100x growth.

• Total Users: All the players that have signed up to date
• Active AVG: Daily average of Active Players
• Total to Active: Ratio of players that are playing at any given time
• CPU Hours: Based on current usage, total CPU Hours used on AppEngine
• CPU Free: Google provides 46.3 CPU Hours for free (thank you!)
• Over / Under: Represents our demand as compared to the Free Level
• Daily Cost: Multiplies our Over/Under CPU Hours by $0.10 per AppEngine pricing
• Monthly Cost: Anticipates 31 days of the Daily Cost
  

Based on CPU usage, we're very close to paying for resources already with just a soft launch! When we go free & start promoting, I fully expect thousands of players to flock to the system - especially with the viral 'recruiting' nature of the game. Achieving a 10x growth will happen quickly, and the 100x may not take long either. We can handle $285 per month, but the $4K per month is a huge expense.

The trick to this whole equation is balancing against revenue. Unfortunately, we don't know how users will adopt our 'in-game' transactions and Offer system. This lack of clarity/knowledge puts us in a precarious 'chicken or egg' situation. At this point, we have to prepare for the expense and hope the revenue works out... Ironic since I've said "hope is not a strategy" at least 100x in my life :)

Hello Apple Tester!

On May 8th, we submitted gpsAssassin to the Apple App Store and waited with baited breath. Approximately 6-8 days later, we saw a new registration in the game & immediately performed a general search for the users email address. Lo and behold! We saw the address affiliated with many (and only) iPhone/iPod websites. We were getting very excited and to put our mind at ease, Jackson suggested we use their GPS coordinates to see where they were testing. Sure enough, we saw them pop up Google Maps at Apple's Headquarters!!!

Unfortunately, the trail went cold after that encounter. The tester only performed a few functions (they never even killed anyone!) and usage of that account went dormant. For 20 days, we waited patiently (except for the begging tweets) in hopes of seeing our application released. We had originally set the release date as May 31st, 2009.

By the time June 4th, 2009 arrived - we were getting nervous. In fact, we even asked for help from our friends at Offerpal & TapJoy. I have no idea if they helped, but by the evening of the 4th - WE WERE APPROVED! The only downside is that our application was instantly made publically available and we potentially lost some marketing steam because we couldn't do a build-up to launch campaign.



Regardless, we're super stoked and now the REAL work begins. We'll be making some final tweaks to the next minor release and once we're done (aka: once people can buy Blood Money or Professional Status), we'll embark upon a significant promotional campaign. Wish us luck!