Is Reskinning Dead? 2016 Answers

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Is reskinning dead? (scroll to bottom to watch video!)
I keep getting questions about this very important topic and I wanted to address it once and for all.
First, let’s lay out what reskinning is: it’s concept of taking a template or source code of an app, repackaging the graphics, inserting them back into the original code, and bam you’ve got a new app. How it used to work was, if you picked the right theme and the right keywords, it would explode in popularity and you’d make hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I made a lot of money doing this in the past, but the times have changed. It’s a controversial practice, and understandably so.
 
A few years back, the market was ripe for this to happen. It wasn’t a great new development, but the market liked it and it worked. The practice blew up and people took it as far as it could go. As they say, it is what it is.
But all good markets eventually cut out the things that don’t make sense. It became very clear by 2016 that, without adding any value to a template, you’re not going to make a lot of money.
Thus, people aren’t seeing results like they used to, and they’re asking if this is dead.
The simple answer is yes. Old school reskinning is done.
 
The thing is, “reskinning” is a bad name for a general concept that is anything but. The base concept sits at the heart of any long-term business with any service or franchise offering.
When you go into the automotive business, you create a new car with similar structure and features to existing cars. When you create a new McDonald’s franchise, you’re doing the same thing. The model is simply using templates as a foundation, building a product quickly instead of creating something custom from the ground up every time.
 
But when people were doing this in the app business a few years back, they weren’t adding any real value. Instead, they were finding holes in the algorithms and capitalizing on Apple and Google’s inability to push up the best apps and push down the worst ones.
Users weren’t used to it, and they weren’t savvy enough to spot it. Now they are.
So if you think you’re going to take a template, replace the graphics, put it in the app store, and watch the money roll in, think again. That model is dead and gone, and we’re better off for it. That isn’t a real business, not in the long term. Everyone who was heavy into this has moved on to greener pastures.
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What’s the deal with apps now?
The good news is that there’s more money to be made in the app business than ever before. Even with a lot of the income concentrated at the top, there are still billions of dollars out there for anyone to get a piece of. There are hundreds of thousands of these niche markets opening up.
But it’s going to take work.
You need to get published. You need to go out and get traffic from other sources, become partners with websites and niche brands, and buy traffic on Facebook and other platforms. You really need to build your own brand, create an actual business around your apps.
You can no longer just keep stuffing more apps into the store and expect to make real money.
If you’re merely seeking temporary opportunity for easy cash, you’re going to come up empty handed. There are no longer any little pockets where you can sink in and avoid actual work.
Truth be told, if you think there’s a really easy way to make a ton of money really quickly, you’re in the wrong business. That’s not what I’m about, and it’s not something that works anymore. It’s all about following a system that works really well, working hard, committing to action, and playing the long game.
So reskinning in its old form is absolutely dead. But this is a good thing.
We’re at the dawn of a third wave of the internet. Just think about all the different people and businesses out there that could use an app. If you can provide that, if you can tell them that you can monetize their online presence, they’ll say yes.
 
So if you’re thinking about doing the reskinning thing, you need to ask yourself two questions.
1. Are you trying to build a business or just seeking a quick opportunity?
2. In a year, if I worked really hard on something and it worked, what business would it be worth it to be in?
With apps, there’s a lot of hard work to get to the upper level. But think about the endgame picture: you’ve got a million downloads and your product is out there just running, printing money. That level is harder to get to than in other businesses, but once you’re there and you’ve persevered, it’s the ultimate business to be in.
With such low overhead, so much scale, you’ll have so much more freedom in business and in life.

The app business is so big, with so much potential, but you need to think differently. You need to go out and find marketing solutions, you need to go out and create monetization solutions. We’re here to help you with that and so is the Bluecloud community.
See ya,
Carter

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