Mobile Apps and Games – developer experience
I ventured into mobile apps development back in the early days of mobile apps and games in 2012. Google Play and Apple Appstore had just swung into full operations and out of curiosity and my software programming background, I could not resist the lure.

I came up with a few ideas, bounced them off my wife, friends at the office and settled for a few.

Next, I started looking for a good development team to help me put my burning ideas into shiny apps and games. The search led me to rentacoder.com (now freelancer.com). I posted my ideas and within a couple of days I had a few guys propose to develop for me. I quickly settled for an Indian guy, who eventually became a close friend from then on, though we never met physically till date.

We partnered (shared cost and shared products). I provided half the cost of development, while he hired a team to do the development. Then, there were no app developers in Nigeria (I could be 100% certain of this).

I was so enthused with the whole idea of making forex off Google Play and Apple Appstore, this, especially fueled by all the novella stories of how young guys made fortunes on some games or apps drove me to the extent I was practically blinded to all the issues that were going to affect me in the course of this journey. I never thought everything through. Then came the issues, but good enough as it seemed now with hindsight, I was at a point of no return!

Stringent registration and KYC
Being a Nigerian, or to a large extent, an African, comes with a few challenges. One is documentation. At that point, I had close to no documentation besides by work ID card. I didn’t even have an international passport (just because I had no need for it then, a young man relatively just arrived Lagos and starting a career).

Like I said, I was already too pumped with enthusiasm to let any challenge stop me, so I quickly registered a limited liability company and registered on the app platforms as a business entity rather than an individual. I had to go through the grueling but eye-opening process of company registration, Tax registration, opening a corporate bank account, including a domiciliary account.

The rest of the process went pretty easy but took weeks. I even had a few calls (about 3 times) with Apple and I was quite elated to be dealing with almighty Apple. It was a very cool feeling! Good enough, Apple accepted to transfer my earnings to my local bank, which was a huge sigh of relief. However, from the stories I heard then, Google Play was the cash cow, not so stringent, and where to make the most revenue. So, I was more excited by Google Play than Apple Appstore.

Payment remittance
My excitement for Google Play never lasted, I discovered my first shocker quite early. I could not get my earnings from my Google Merchant account (for InApp products) transferred to my local Nigerian banks. Google had a list of supported countries and I remember agonizingly checking that list everyday for months. Hoping for a miracle that never came, as at then. The other stream of income (which I realized later was even the bigger chunk) was from mobile ads. Because the best monetization model then was Freemium – i.e. make the app or game free to download and play, sell InApp products such as power boost, gems, bigger guns etc. while serving ads on the overall game real-estate. If a user purchases any InApp product, the ad serving is stopped.

– Payment remittance is an issue that still persists till date. Most western digital platforms out there are developed and optimized to serve the western market. .
I resolved to surmount this new challenge by all means – like I said, I was beyond return and I couldn’t see myself failing on this. So, I set out to research and do the leg work as well. I noticed they had the US and UK as top of the list (obviously) and I decided to get bank accounts in any of those countries. I contacted a few friends in the US but no luck, I couldn’t get any help, besides, I wouldn’t have really liked to use someone’s bank account for this, given it’s a long-time business I envisioned would make me very rich. Didn’t want to stress or have issues with anyone.

To cut the story short, I went to different banks in Nigeria, all the ones claiming to have branches abroad, I was rejected at all. The most embarrassing was a first-generation bank that had a “foreign” branch in Osborne estate, I called and went there early in the morning. The lady couldn’t hide his disappointment and disgust for my line of business (I think maybe she considered it fraudulent). I had to explain what coding, mobile apps and games, how much I expect to make, what others are doing, Google Play, Apple Appstore were about. I also think, because apps and games were really new then. She was not nice at all, she told me off, that I should just go, that they only seek clients with up to $50k earnings per month (I’m sure she just made that up to piss me off). But then, given the stories I had heard, I was sure I was going to make a lot more than that. I was aiming for a million dollars actually.

Eventually, after a long search, meanwhile I kept on developing the apps and games, I stumbled on GTBank UK branch (Ajose branch) and that was my saving grace. I rushed there, went through very massive KYC, and strung some funds together to get the GBP5,000 minimum deposit for the saving account and that was it. I had a fresh UK account. Google Play here I come!

more from: https://paulonu.com/my-personal-experience-as-a-content-creator-from-nigeria/