0:00:00Hello and welcome to Developing Perspectives. Developing Perspective is a podcast discussing
0:00:04news of note in iOS development, Apple, and the like. I'm your host, David Smith. I'm
0:00:08an independent iOS and Mac developer based in Herndon, Virginia. This is show number
0:00:11120, and today is Monday, April 15th. Developing Perspective was never longer than 15 minutes,
0:00:17so let's get started. So recording an episode on April 15th, you can't help but start by
0:00:22saying if you're in the United States, today is the last day to file your individual tax
0:00:26And as a good reminder, it is also the due date for your first estimated payment if you
0:00:31make those.
0:00:32All right, so the main topic that I am going to be getting into today is something that
0:00:37I've actually had a fair bit of interest in.
0:00:40And it's something that I think will be a good walkthrough if you're starting out or
0:00:43just a good refresher, if it's something you've been thinking about.
0:00:45And that is I'm going to walk through the process of setting up a business to make apps
0:00:49-- sell apps in the App Store.
0:00:50This is something I did in preparation for Feed Wrangler.
0:00:53I've started a new company developing perspective LLC, quite an original name. And I essentially
0:00:59I'm splitting it out from my old company, cross forward consulting LLC. And a lot of
0:01:03that is just to try and that it simplifies a lot of things and cleans a lot of things
0:01:08up. And that cross forward consulting as a company, as you could tell from its name was
0:01:12something that I originally created and developed when I was a consultant back in the day that
0:01:17it's a company with a lot of other other interests, a lot of things that it does. And what I'd
0:01:21like to do is, you know, sort of moving forward is to streamline a little bit and simplify,
0:01:26and maybe compartmentalize, you could even say, a lot of what I do into a separate company.
0:01:30And so that's what I did. That may not make sense for everybody and whatever, but that's
0:01:34what I did. That's the choice I made. And so here's kind of the process that I went
0:01:37through for creating that company. And what I was going to do, and I thought would be
0:01:41interesting, is to start from once I made that decision, to when I was ready to submit
0:01:45an app to the App Store, which, by the way, I was able to successfully do last Friday.
0:01:49And so essentially what I did is the first thing you have to do is you have to decide
0:01:52what kind of business you want to be.
0:01:54And this is where it's going to start to get into things that are, A, very specific to
0:01:58the United States.
0:01:59So I'm sorry if you're in another country, my guess is a lot of these things will be
0:02:01very different for you.
0:02:02But hopefully a lot of the Apple related stuff will be similar.
0:02:05And two, it'll start to get into areas that maybe could be construed as legal advice or
0:02:10accounting advice or those types of things.
0:02:11That's not what this is.
0:02:13As always, you have the sort of the disclaimer, this is just me talking about my experience.
0:02:16What makes sense for you is of course going to be different.
0:02:19in general, the sort of the first step you have to do is you have to decide what kind
0:02:21of an entity you want to be. And for a lot of for most people, it's going to come down
0:02:25to do you want to just be yourself an individual? Do you want to be an LLC? Or you want to be
0:02:30a corporation in the United States? Those are kind of the three choices you have with
0:02:34a few bit of nuances for what kind of corporation you want to be or what kind of LLC you want
0:02:38to be. Generally speaking, you it's kind of, do you want to be just yourself? Or do you
0:02:42want to form a business and a company to do that? And generally, in my experience, I've
0:02:46always wanted to create businesses. I like the sort of the general things of both liability
0:02:51protection that you in theory get from that. And it also was a really nice way to keep
0:02:55your finances and things separate from your own personal self. And generally the cost
0:03:01and the overheads associated with forming a business are relatively low. I live in a
0:03:05state, Virginia, where it's incredibly low. I think forming an LLC was about $100 and
0:03:11about maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes filling out a few online forms. And they emailed me,
0:03:16know, my certificate of incorporation right away. It was very straightforward. It'll vary
0:03:20depending on what state you're in. You can get a lawyer to do that to help you out. There's
0:03:23a lot of services that will form companies for you. But generally speaking, I like the
0:03:27fact that I created a company to do, you know, to do the work in the business of what I'm
0:03:31doing, because it separates, it creates this nice separate sort of separation between my
0:03:35own personal finances and my own personal sort of life and my work life and my sort
0:03:42of my professional self. And that's also really helpful, you
0:03:45know, should I ever want to do things with that business in
0:03:48terms of you know, maybe merge with someone else or grow into
0:03:51some into a larger company, or be acquired or any of those
0:03:54types of things. But being having a business that's a sort
0:03:57of a self sustained separate entity is really helpful for
0:04:00that. And so that's what I did. So I formed a new LLC,
0:04:03developing perspective LLC. Once I did that, the next thing I
0:04:05needed to do was essentially was register with the IRS, which in
0:04:09the US is the Internal Revenue Service, they're essentially the
0:04:12government tax agency, and I registered with them to get an EIN number, which is an employer
0:04:17identification number that allows me to essentially have a separate tax ID for the business as
0:04:22different from my own social security number, which is an important step.
0:04:26So you go and you just it's the same kind of thing.
0:04:28You go into the IRS website, there's a few things you fill in, it's relatively straightforward
0:04:31and you'll end up with a number at the end.
0:04:33So now essentially, you have everything you need, for the most part to get started with
0:04:37building, heading towards getting into the App Store and setting up an account there.
0:04:43This has changed a little bit from a few years ago. And now Apple is essentially has deeply
0:04:49integrated what's called a DUNS number into the process. And DUNS is a number that are
0:04:54done in Bradstreet is a company who essentially does credit reports and those types of things
0:04:59for businesses. So if you can imagine a lot of people have credit reports, you're getting
0:05:03mortgage or credit card, they'll pull out your credit report from I think Experian or
0:05:07Equifax or these kinds of companies.
0:05:09Then Bradstreet is kind of an equivalent for businesses.
0:05:12And Apple is fairly sort of has bought into them and tied into them as a way of sort of
0:05:17verify businesses and get some information about them.
0:05:20This really this only applies if you're forming a business, you can also create a developer
0:05:24account as an individual.
0:05:26That's up to you.
0:05:27That's kind of what you're doing.
0:05:28If this is maybe just a hobby or something that you don't really need to go whole hog
0:05:31you can do that and it's a little bit simpler
0:05:33if you're doing it individual.
0:05:34But what I'm gonna talk about is pretty much the process
0:05:37if you are forming a business, if you've done that,
0:05:38if you're taking this seriously and kind of
0:05:40going whole hog and building this thing,
0:05:42this is the process you'll have.
0:05:44So basically, once you've formed this business,
0:05:47you've formed this company, and the next thing
0:05:48you're gonna do is you need a Dunne's number
0:05:50before you can start the developer
0:05:51enrollment process with Apple.
0:05:53And there's actually a form on the Apple website
0:05:56where you can go in and you can essentially
0:05:58submit all the information that Dunne and Bradstreet
0:06:00Street will need and submit that to them via Apple. You can also do this directly via Dun & Brad
0:06:04Street. If it's a company that's been around for a while, this isn't a new creation, you may actually
0:06:09have a Duns number that you don't know about. So you can go to Dun & Brad Street and look it up and
0:06:14see if one exists. And essentially what this allows is it gives Apple an avenue to verify that
0:06:21you are in fact the business that you're talking about, that you are incorporated, that you do
0:06:25exist, that a lot of the information that you're doing is valid. But the process for setting it up
0:06:30It's fairly straightforward, but I will warn you, this whole process can be very time consuming
0:06:35in terms of calendar time.
0:06:37It's not a lot of actual time investment, but a lot of the things is you submit it,
0:06:41you wait, something comes back.
0:06:43You submit it, you wait, and something else comes back, which means that if you are, the
0:06:47time to do this is early in the development process.
0:06:50I think I started this process about six weeks before I was expecting to need to submit,
0:06:56And it didn't take that long, but it was very helpful
0:06:58for me to be able to do that upfront,
0:07:01and so that I didn't have to worry about it.
0:07:02I've had some friends who kind of,
0:07:04when they get, they're like, they finish their app,
0:07:05they're getting ready to submit,
0:07:06and then they start the process.
0:07:08And it can be very frustrating that it then takes
0:07:10a week or two after the fact to actually get it all set up.
0:07:13So just something to keep in mind.
0:07:14If you're thinking about this, do it as soon as you can,
0:07:17because you don't want to be frustrated waiting.
0:07:18You can't put your app in review.
0:07:20You can't do anything until you've started all this process.
0:07:23So anyway, so you go in, you submit this form
0:07:25Dun & Bradstreet. And you just kind of wait and you wait a little bit and you wait a little
0:07:28bit. And at some point, you're going to get a phone call at the phone number that you
0:07:32or this is what happened to me anyway. I got a phone call from a representative at Dun
0:07:36& Bradstreet and they wanted to talk through a little bit of the business, its background,
0:07:40if there's other businesses associated with it. It's just sort of a lot of verification
0:07:44and kind of a brief interview, filling in a few details, being sure they understand
0:07:48exactly the type of business you are, the size of your business, the kind of revenue
0:07:53new uni you're expecting to have, all those types of things.
0:07:55And they're just kind of, it's very pro forma,
0:07:57but it was just an interview that someone called
0:07:59and you kind of work your way through.
0:08:02Then after that, it was a couple of days,
0:08:03and eventually I got my DUNS number.
0:08:05And so that was the, once I got through that point,
0:08:07now I'm finally at the point that I can sign up with Apple
0:08:10for a developer account.
0:08:11So you go to developer.apple.com/ios or /mac
0:08:14if you're going into the Mac developer program,
0:08:16the process is exactly the same,
0:08:19but you can kind of just start it for me at a different point.
0:08:22developer programs are fairly straightforward. You pay $99 a
0:08:25year, and you have the ability to submit apps to the App Store.
0:08:29That's essentially sort of the deal. I think your developer
0:08:32program comes with a few other random things like you can get a
0:08:34couple of technical support requests, access to maybe I'm
0:08:37not sure if betas require a paid account or just a free account.
0:08:40But generally speaking, you need you know, you if you're going to
0:08:43sell apps or some or distribute apps to the App Store, you need
0:08:46a paid account for $99 a year, which in general is just sort of
0:08:50the cost of doing business.
0:08:52You'll go through the signup process.
0:08:55And this is one of these things that takes a little while.
0:08:58You'll go and you'll fill in a bunch of forms.
0:09:00You'll give them a whole bunch of others--
0:09:02your DUNS number, your address, who you are,
0:09:04some contact information.
0:09:06Then you submit that.
0:09:08You wait.
0:09:08I think it gets verified by a person there.
0:09:10They send you an email back saying, hey, great.
0:09:12You're approved.
0:09:13Now keep going.
0:09:14And then you'll actually go and you'll
0:09:16take your developer program, put it in a cart, go and buy it.
0:09:19for, you know, you pay your $99, come back, and you do a lot of back and forth. It's fairly
0:09:23straightforward, but it takes a bit of time. This is, again, something that you just want
0:09:27to do when you're not rushed. So do this as early as you can. You go through the process
0:09:32and you end up at the end with a developer account. So this is something if you go to
0:09:36developer.apple.com/ios, sign in, suddenly you have a developer account. And suddenly
0:09:41you can do a bunch of things like you can create, you can add devices to your developer
0:09:46portal, you can create bundle IDs, provisioning profiles, all those types of things.
0:09:50Which are important for development. I'm going to be focused more on the iTunes Connect side
0:09:54though. So the next thing you want to do is you go into iTunes Connect. And iTunes Connect.apple.com
0:09:59is the place where you actually manage all of the commerce of the App Store. All of those
0:10:04types of things are all done through iTunes Connect. So developer.apple.com is like the
0:10:08developer portal. That's where you have all the documentation, you download betas, all
0:10:12that information. iTunes Connect is the place you go for all of the more app store related
0:10:17things, both finance and contracts and those types of things, as well as actually managing
0:10:22your applications, getting sales reports, getting payment reports, etc. So you go into
0:10:27iTunes Connect and the first thing you're going to want to do is go into the contracts
0:10:31section, contracts legal and accounting I think it might be called. It's on the left
0:10:35column. And what you want to do in here is you need to set up a bunch of contracts. Basically
0:10:40you need to enter into a series of legal agreements with Apple and give them a bunch of information
0:10:44about yourself before you can actually go about the business of submitting applications.
0:10:48This is slightly different.
0:10:49I think if you are doing paid applications or if you're only doing free, so if you're
0:10:52just signing for an account to distribute a free application, a few of the steps you
0:10:56don't have to do, which makes sense because if Apple's never going to be paying you, they
0:10:59don't need to know your bank account information, for example.
0:11:03But generally speaking, for most people, I would recommend that you just set up the paid
0:11:07process in general because it gives you a lot of flexibility down the road.
0:11:11If you decide for whatever reason to, for example,
0:11:14to register with IAD or all these kind of things, it's good to just have that all
0:11:18set up, have it in place,
0:11:19so that you have that flexibility down the road. And it's fairly straightforward. You'll go in,
0:11:22you'll sign a bunch of agreements, which is the first step,
0:11:24which is essentially, these are legal agreements between you and Apple
0:11:28defining the terms of selling in the App Store. You need to go in and set up
0:11:32your banking information, and this is essentially just a way for Apple
0:11:35to get a hold of, you know, to pay you money
0:11:38based on your sales.
0:11:39And so you need to give them, you know, a routing number
0:11:41and all this kind of information as you kind of expect
0:11:43so they can send you your payments, which is great.
0:11:45And obviously if you're going into this
0:11:47from a business perspective, it is vitally important
0:11:49that you get it right and that that's all set up.
0:11:52Next, you're also gonna need to give them
0:11:53some tax information, and this varies
0:11:55from country to country.
0:11:56In the US, this is essentially just filling out a W9,
0:11:59which is another IRS form where you'll now put in
0:12:02the EIN that you got, whatever, you know.
0:12:04like I talked about seven minutes ago, where you go and you give them your EIN number or
0:12:09your social security if you're doing it as an individual, and it lets Apple be able to
0:12:14report things to the IRS as they need to.
0:12:18And I think that's generally the process.
0:12:19And now you're sort of, you're set up.
0:12:21One thing I will mention, and this isn't that actually caught me with when I was setting
0:12:25up Feed Wrangler, is Feed Wrangler includes an in-app purchase.
0:12:28And I just wanted to point out that in-app purchases will fail with very strange error
0:12:32messages if you do not have a paid contract in effect and in force.
0:12:37And so I had, just because I was where I was in my development cycle while I was doing
0:12:43this, I'd set up my in-app purchase for the application.
0:12:46I'd started working on it and then I hadn't actually gone through my contracts yet and
0:12:51set them up and I kept getting these really strange in-app purchase errors.
0:12:53And it turned out in-app purchases will fail in your account until you have a paid contract
0:12:58set up, which makes sense, but was kind of cryptic, and once it was I finally worked
0:13:02it out, it was easy to fix, but I just wanted to mention that here in case that happens
0:13:05to you.
0:13:06But generally, so now once you've got all your contracts set up, your payment information,
0:13:09your tax information, all that set up, now you're ready to submit your applications,
0:13:13and you can kind of get started.
0:13:15And so you go into the Manage My Apps area of iTunes Connect, and you can say I want
0:13:21to create an app.
0:13:22One thing it's going to do is it's going to ask you what the display name for your company
0:13:26or person should be in the store.
0:13:27And this is one of those things that you get one shot at.
0:13:29So be very careful about typing it.
0:13:31Make sure there's no typos, making sure it's
0:13:33exactly what you want it to be.
0:13:34And this is essentially just the name
0:13:36in iTunes in the App Store that would
0:13:37be displayed next to your app.
0:13:39So in my case, it was Developing Perspective LLC.
0:13:41It could be whatever it is that was relevant to you.
0:13:43But be very careful with that.
0:13:44And you only get one chance to do it.
0:13:46So be careful about that.
0:13:48Then you go and you choose your application.
0:13:50You'll say, I want to create a new iOS app.
0:13:52And you'll set it up.
0:13:53And you go in and you enter in the information,
0:13:55metadata, title description, screenshots, icon information, those types of things, set
0:14:00up in-app purchases if you have any.
0:14:03And from that point, you're essentially, you're set up.
0:14:05You will go into Xcode, you will actually, you'll go into the developer portal, create
0:14:09the profiles you need to sign your applications with, and then you'll go into Xcode, build
0:14:14an archive, take that archive and submit it to App Store, and you'll be waiting for review.
0:14:19And so that's basically the process.
0:14:20It's a little bit complicated and a little bit time consuming, like I said, but it's
0:14:25It's fairly straightforward in that you just kind of work your way through it.
0:14:27There's an excellent--I'll have a link in the show notes to the sort of--the starting
0:14:31off page in Apple's documentation that work--walks you through this process.
0:14:35And it's really like I said, it's--once you--if you follow along, you're fine.
0:14:38It's just taking--it's just time consuming.
0:14:40So make sure you do this as early as you can.
0:14:42All right, that's it for today's show.
0:14:44As always, if you have questions, comments, concerns or complaints, I'm on Twitter @_DavidSmith.
0:14:47I'm on AppNet @DavidSmith.
0:14:48And if you want to email me directly, david@developingperspective.com.
0:14:51We have a great week.
0:14:53Happy coding.
0:14:54Bye.