So, you’ve done all the research on starting a mobile application development business. It was a year or two ago that you came across an interesting statistics that changed your whole life. You read that the app development industry is expected to generate a revenue of around $189bn by the year 2020. While you were reading this, Google already understood you’re into Mobile app development and it started throwing more search results and banner ads on this. You were followed on Instagram and Facebook to try out tools for app development.
At one instance, your friend also wrote and shared a LinkedIn Pulse article on the rise of on-demand economy and why it made perfect sense for businesses to start a mobile app. Further driven by this and your newfound knowledge on blockchain, artificial intelligence and machine learning, you thought the world awaits an app that was only residing in your mind at that time.
You worked on it day in and day out. Fast forward two years, your business is doing just fine. You still go to meetups for networking and over half of the other businessmen present don’t know your app.
You’re probably thinking why what happened and where you went wrong.
Or, you could be the tech guy who’s tired of developing apps and websites for others. Perhaps you wanted to launch one by yourself and start a company.
Regardless of who you are and where you come from, both of you have just one vision in mind – to establish a sustainable app development company that rolls out amazing apps and reaps profits in return. Since this is not easy, I come in.
With my personal experience in launching several apps for businesses across the globe, I can confidently say that my expertise would help your business go a long way. So, without wasting any more time, let’s get started on some actionable steps you could follow to take your app development business from good to great.
Tap Into The Right Market
There’s an interesting quote that says that supercar manufacturers like Ferrari and Lamborghini don’t have television ads. While it did sound bizarre, the fact that its target audience doesn’t belong to the class that sits and watches television made the entire approach seem plausible.
Targeting the right audience is key to pushing your app and its usage. For instance, let’s say you have an app that is a marketplace for kids’ toys. Now the right target audience here is not the kids but their parents. Though kids are the ultimate consumers, they don’t have the purchasing capability. So, targeting parents is the ideal approach.
So, when you’re launching your app, you have to perform tons of deskwork like
● analyzing similar apps in the market
● their strategies
● understand how they’ve positioned their apps
● read reviews on what customers expected and what fell short in the apps
● what users appreciate about the app
● the target audience of the app and its demographics, behavior, preferences and more
All these pieces of information will give you comprehensive insights on the overall market potential of your app. Right now, you have to understand that your app is just an idea. It does not have any attribute of its own. You feed one attribute after another depending on your research.
So, if you’re launching a new app, perform these steps. If you’ve launched your app and it’s not doing like you thought it would, analyze your targeting and explore different markets.
Become More Productive
There is a general misconception around productivity. In developing countries, productivity is equated to the number of hours one spends on working on something. In fact, it’s the opposite. By being productive, you should be able to get more things done.
So, if you think the app development process is taking too much time, perhaps it’s time to find out where things are going wrong. Probably your entire process or workflow is designed to take a stagnated approach. Or, you focus more on process than output. Having a workflow definitely paves the way for productivity but if unchecked, it can only delay the app development process.
Today, there are mobile app development tools that offer quick development times. With React JS and other frameworks, you don’t even have to code differently for different operating systems. So, your go-to-market time should be very less. If productivity lacks in such an agile environment, I suggest you revisit your strategies. You can do the following:
See if your team members have the right tech infrastructure they need to develop apps. Being ambitious is a good thing but not being equipped to realize it isn’t.
● Implement productivity frameworks like Agile or DevOps or others.
● Get suggestions from all your teammates and not just managers. Probably they have insights what managers overlook.
● Use the latest tools and frameworks for development.
● Have an effective testing plan.
● Optimize communications and have everyone be on the same page as you are when it comes to your app.
● You can always improve workflows and processes even though they’re doing fine.
Hire The Right Talent
Your people don’t just make your apps. They make your company/business. So, it makes complete sense to hire the right one. As a startup, I suggest not taking the textbook approach to hiring. Understand what your app is and chart out a solid SDLC plan. This will give you insights on how many people you need to get the jobs done.
Then, hire the right people. While technical skills are inevitable, also pay attention to how they can fit into your culture. This will go a long way because those who won’t fit in might not stay with you for a longer time. This means you have to keep recruiting again and again. Though it might take time in the initial stage, always go for the right one and not the best one.
With enterprise mobility in place, you can also go for remote workers or experts from around the world. They not only help you cut down on costs but can bring in a different perspective or exposure into the entire development process.
So, what do you think? These sounded pretty much clichéd in the beginning right? But noticed how there are misconceptions in every layer? That’s why most companies fumble or take a longer time than they need to make it big. Your app development business doesn’t have to. Follow these steps, keep experimenting and go the distance.
Make this year and the decade count for your business. Good luck!
