Singapore firm builds 1,000 apps a month by promising a path to riches

For S$4,400 ($3,500) plus an annual S$1,000 fee, you will be told secret knowledge that, if applied faithfully, can grant you a regular source of passive income. Money would gush into your bank account in your sleep, and you’d have an opportunity to mentor others towards success.

While it sounds like another internet marketing or investment seminar pitch, a Singapore company has applied a similar modus operandi to mobile app development.

Call it an inevitable commodification of app creation. Founded in 2011 by Alan Yeap, the company, IAWorkshop, holds mobile app development courses where students can build software quickly using a proprietary visual app builder. No programming knowledge required.

But there’s a catch. While the fees may seem exorbitant now – the S$1,000 annual fee entitles you to build 50 apps, no more – they are set to rise even further, says Yeap in an interview with Tech in Asia.

In fact, by 2014, prices will almost double to S$7,888 ($6,287), while the subscription fee will hit $1,000. The first three-day courses are slated to be held in January, and will happen once every six weeks.

Today, the company holds three types of classes: an ad monetization course where students are taught how to build games, chat software, and apps for businesses; a class on building mobile apps and websites for property sales; and a mobile games program for university students.

It’s the ad monetization course that’s the most heavily-promoted, judging by the number of free preview classes that are held by the company’s trainers.

Become rich, but pay up first

Yeap says that the reason for the massive price hike is that the company has developed a “game engine”, essentially a visual games builder, that allows users to clone today’s most popular mobile games – like Ant Smasher, Temple Run, and Bubble Burst – simply by re-skinning a template and publishing it on the app stores.

Each game engine costs S$20,000. We have five engines. We’re charging more because we need a way to recoup the expenses from these new engines.

Which means that for the company to earn back the investment, they’d just need to sign up about a dozen customers. But what’s in it for attendees? It’s an opportunity to earn passive income by collecting ad revenue, the company claims, since a million downloads for an app on Google Play would be equivalent to about $50,000 in advertising revenue through AdMob.

All students need to do is constantly spam the app stores with their products, and IAWorkshop will take care of app promotion and approval. Essentially, they’re paying for marketing expertise, the app building platform, and an exclusive network.

A number of students have benefited from this arrangement, Yeap adds. Two 50-years-olds who have taken the classes have earned sizable income. One is making more than $100 and another over $400 a day from their apps, he claims.

Not so simple

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