Made, Is Making, or Will Make?

• March 3, 2010
• 106 notes

Properly conjugating a verb helps distinguish among past, present, and future events.  Mobile developers and the tech press seem to have an awful time with conjugation, often making bad decisions or writing misleading headlines on account of that apparent confusion.

Gas Cubby *made* $32,446.54 in the 30 days following March 25th, 2009—the day it was selected by Apple as the Staff Pick of the Week and featured prominently throughout Apple’s online ecosystem.  I’m not actually sure what Gas Cubby *is making* because Apple doesn’t allow real time sales tracking.  I do know that Gas Cubby *made* $266.34 yesterday and I hope it *will make* the same or more today, but using daily or monthly sales as a predictor of future earnings is perilous in the rapidly changing, cutthroat mobile app space.

After nearly 2 years in the App Store and having crafted countless spreadsheet models, I still have trouble accurately estimating future sales.  Sales skyrocket when an app is covered by the press or featured by Apple, then seem to settle into a predictable pattern, only to plunge 50% or more for no apparent reason.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop people from busting out a calculator for a little presumptive math.  Let’s see, $266.34 a day x 30 means Gas Cubby *is making* $7990.20/month ($97,214.10/year).  Interestingly, if you use those same calculations for March 25th, 2009, you’d get $93,215.10/month ($1.1 million/year).  Try February 11th, 2010 and you’d get $5,381.70/month ($65,477.35/year).

The problem is, when a present tense verb is used with a specific duration of time that extends into the future, it turns into a sort of presumptive present tense (Wikipedia tells me that’s a modal tense, as opposed to a pure tense).  Take for example the sentence “Bob is working today.”  If you left it at “Bob is working” it would indicate his present state with no indication of what might happen in the future.  Saying “Bob is working today” indicates his present state, but also leads to certain presumptions.  Depending on the time of day the statement was made and Bob’s occupation you might assume that he’ll be working until 6PM, but there’s really no way to predict Bob’s future.  So, if it’s March 2nd and someone says “Gas Cubby *is making* $7k a month” most people interpret that sentence as “Gas Cubby *will make* $7k in the month of March.”

Hearing that an Android developer *made* $13k in one month is encouraging for the platform, but to say that this particular developer *is making* $13k a month is subtly misleading.  With all the press surrounding his blog post, I wouldn’t be surprised if Edward makes more than $13k in March, but as the press hype starts to fade and Google inevitably removes the app from its featured position, I doubt Car Locator *will make* anywhere near $13k/month.  I’m not saying he can’t build a business around this app and innovate his way back into favor with Google and the press; but, if I were him, I wouldn’t quit my day job just yet.

When I started App Cubby in April of 2008 I jumped head first into the fray without any kind of backup plan; no day job, no savings.  Then a month later I found out my wife was pregnant.  I wouldn’t say I thrived under that pressure, but I survived and somehow managed to build a few great apps and learn a lot along the way.

The stress and countless 100 hour work weeks make me a bit more touchy when I see misleading headlines and presumptive math in the mobile space.  Sure, a few developers have struck it rich—some deservedly, some not so much—but it’s a complex and ever changing market.  I wish the tech press would take a more responsible approach to covering the space rather than sensationalizing the “mobile app gold rush.”  The distinction between *made* and *is making* may seem subtle, but it’s important.