When the first iPad was released in 2010, Pierre Abel and his wife were homeschooling their two daughters. The couple quickly realized that tablets can be a great child-friendly tool to enable learning and encourage creativity. Pierre, a developer and designer of Apple applications since 1983, then launched their family design studio L’Escapadou in France. L’Escapadou roughly translates to ‘the little escapade’ – the act by which one escapes his or her duties, constraints of daily life and habits to go and have fun.
Since starting L’Escapadou in 2010, Pierre has created six educational apps for children. He found inspiration for the apps in the Montessori method and his own daughters’ learning and creativity. While Pierre is responsible for the programming of the apps, he and his wife work together on design and graphics, and their two daughters do the testing and provide feedback. Their innovative apps received reviews by publications like the New York Times, Wired, and Children’s Technology Review.
Ten years later, L’Escapadou still sells its apps on the App Store and the Google Play Store to parents and counts an increasing number of schools as users. In fact, L’Escapadou has made over half a million app sales to schools on the App Store alone. Educational sales made up for 45 percent of its App Store revenue in 2018, with consumer sales constituting the other 55 percent. On Google Play, about 99 percent of its revenues (ca. $286.000 or €284.000) come from individual consumers and $3.74 million (ca. . €3.46 million), including $1.28 million (ca. €1.18 million) in educational sales on the App StorE, which is remarkable for a small family-run app design studio.
Pierre says platforms allowed someone like him to be so successful and opened a lot of doors for him. While the app ecosystem changed from when he got into it in 2010, Pierre would not have the ability to access the global market any other way. For L’Escapadou it is crucial to reach a global audience, especially in the United States (its biggest market), Canada, and Australia. Without app stores, it would still be impossible for Pierre and his family to make a living selling exclusively to the French or European market. He is also aware that as the app market matures, marketing and app store optimization become more important.
Pierre says that joining the App Association helped him to understand the app market better and allowed him to meet other developers. Many software engineers aren’t familiar with issues like marketing or compliance with different regulations in foreign markets (like COPPA). Our members consider the ability to learn about strategies and share best practices with our community an important resource. The App Association is proud to represent L’Escapadou, and success stories like Pierre’s illustrate the dynamism of the app ecosystem and the opportunities it continues to provide for children’s education, creative minds, and consumers around the globe.