The archive · Developer & Business Tools · Product decision · 2012
Appifier bets WordPress site owners will pay for native iPhone apps
He quit consulting to sell WordPress owners native iPhone apps: Appifier hit #1 on Hacker News on 2012-01-11 and its servers collapsed under the load.
Appifier
What the business is
Appifier turned WordPress sites into native iOS apps: a WordPress plugin exposed site content as JSON, and Appifier rendered it in a native app with push notifications, offline reading, and App Store distribution, sold on one-time or monthly plans.
Starting capital：Self-financed: the founder left a consulting job paying over $80k a year and funded development with short-term iOS and WordPress consulting gigs.
How it started
Mike (gozman), a software engineer who added an MBA and worked in management consulting, quit a job paying over $80k a year at 28 to build his own product, funding the build with short-term iOS and WordPress consulting. He said the idea came from small-business owners building WordPress sites who kept asking how to get onto the 'app store' — everyone wanted an app nowadays — so Appifier filled that niche.
What happened
On 2012-01-11 gozman posted the launch to Hacker News under 'I quit my high-paying job to follow my dream of launching a startup.' The post reached #1 on the front page, and the marketing VPS could not take the load; he redirected traffic to the Heroku-hosted app engine while WPEngine offered a free migration and a year of hosting as a case study. Early users hit sandbox crashes, and the thread's central worries were Apple's App Store rule against apps that are simply web sites bundled as apps, template-app rejection, and cheaper WPTouch-style alternatives.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
Mike (gozman), a software engineer who added an MBA and worked in management consulting, quit a job paying over $80k a year at 28 to give his startup dream a shot, saying that if he could not turn it into a business he would go back to salaried life. The idea came from small-business owners going digital on WordPress who kept asking how to get onto the 'app store' — everyone wanted an app — so Appifier was built to give any WordPress site a native iOS app.
The product paired a WordPress plugin that exposed site content as JSON with a native app that rendered it, adding push notifications, offline reading, and a sandbox preview. The founders financed the build with short-term iOS and WordPress consulting gigs, and pricing included a one-time lifetime option alongside monthly plans — commenters noted the one-time charge was rare in the space.
On 2012-01-11 the launch reached #1 on the Hacker News front page with 342 points and 191 comments, and the traffic promptly crashed the marketing site; WPEngine offered a free migration and a year of hosting as a case study while gozman routed users to the Heroku-hosted app. The thread's sharpest warnings were Apple's rule against apps that are merely web sites in a wrapper and the risk of template-app rejection, with WPTouch and similar services named as cheaper competition.
What has to be true
- The trigger was observed demand rather than a technology hunch: WordPress owners kept asking for apps they could not otherwise afford, so Appifier sold an outcome — an app in the App Store.
- Launch day made the market visible: #1 on the HN front page with 342 points and 191 comments on 2012-01-11, enough traffic to take the marketing site down.
- A JSON plugin feeding a native UI with push, offline reading, and live re-branding separated it from free WPTouch-style mobile themes and simple webview wrappers.
- The whole business sat inside Apple's review policy — apps that are simply web sites bundled as apps, and template apps, faced rejection — a dependency the HN thread flagged the same day.
What can be applied
Sell outcomes, not technology: 'everyone wants an app' was a niche with budget even though wrapping a site felt trivial; the real risks were Apple's review rules and template rejection.
Aftermath
As of 2012-01-11 Appifier was live: the app engine ran on Heroku while the marketing site recovered, the founder answered bug reports in the thread, and WPEngine had offered free migration and hosting. The batch's material ends that day, so later adoption, pricing, or Apple review outcomes are not documented here.
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