This could work, as "labels" in general are the proven way to play markets where there are lots of losers, some winners, and the winners win big. However labels ( i.e. music labels) redistribute money from winners to losers. I was thinking of something like this myself. The way I would have done it would be
1) Get money from investors or the app developers. ( the model is slightly different if there are investors, the former is more a standard business model, the second one is more a co-operative). If money is gotten from either make is large enough to cover marketing costs for all releases.
2) Be choosy about your clients based on items already released, or their potential i.e. if they show you a prototype. Or skills.
3) Be choosy about what is released. Allow all members of the labels to test, indeed ensure everybody tests and makes suggestions ( when it gets bigger hire testers?). The developer is now only one of the stake holders in what is released.
4) Take profits for the label, not for the developer. Give the developer an agreed percentage i.e. 50%, then take the rest and either keep it in the business, or hand it back to all owners. The winners subsidise the losers.
5) Release as a label, not as a single developer.
6) Get an email list going on a site. This in itself would justify people joining the label. A mailing list with a few hundred thousand subs is worth millions.
7) possibly the label may want to specialise in certain "genres". Not essential.
8) possibly it may use the same desginers all the time for consistancy. Not essential.
9) Some apps will have links within the apps to other apps from the same genre.
i am not sure if the label would pay for design, a music label would, but to start that could be left to the developer provided the choice of designer is approved by the rest of the group.
If the idea was for a company funded by investors ( and I was thinking about this myself) then we could advance money to people to write software ( the model of music, and book industry) and take the money back from sales ( profit is then divided at 50%).
If the idea is a co-operative then we should demand money upfront - say $5000 for each developer.
Realistically, if this label gets some momentum, then that money is nothing. Releasing apps into the wild is pot luck, releasing it under a label covered in the Mac press, or the iPhone press would guarantee first day sales, the rest is up to the application.
The brand is the label not the developer, so demand quality.
So I signed up, i think the OP should get 5 - 10 people with good ideas, skills, prototypes, and money to spend. All. ( dont let people buy their way in without skills or samples). And hire a good PR firm. And this could work.
