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Have an app idea, What Next?
So you have an app idea? That's great news, kudos to you. With so many developers and market buzz it is hard not to get confused. Well, read on to explore the roadmap ahead in your quest for realising your app dream. You are just three steps away from seeing your app as an app store success.
The three steps are
- App Idea exploration & market validation
- App design and development
- App Marketing & Promotion
So lets get started:
Step1. App Idea exploration and market research:
The first stage is all about brainstorming and nurturing your app idea. This process forms the basic foundation and steers the entire app development process. It, therefore, rightly demands the maximum thinking and effort.The following are the major milestones in this process:
Getting an app development idea: The Product
Who is your target audience? How will they use your app? Asking the right questions is the main driver at this stage. Understanding the target audience and their pain points requires both market research and brain-storming. You may use several brainstorming tools to dig deeper into the idea and offer a unique value benefit.
These along with an appropriate market research will provide a good base to nurture your app idea.
Nurturing the idea & Competitor Analysis:
Market research is the best way to nurture your app idea. An effective market research will guide you towards either a market-niche or a broad market segment. However, you must know that app stores do not accept those apps that cater to a very micro-niche audience. Market research also involves analyzing and studying the app store. This helps to spot emerging trends and thus leverage their popularity. Among the popular resources include topappcharts.com, the app chart section of the app stores is also a major resource. You will also learn by studying about the existing competition and analyzing their apps. You may ask yourself such questions
- How is my app different from the competitor's app?
- How can I offer a better user experience?
- How can I add more functional features into it?
- Who is their target audience and how can my app offer a USP?
Putting it down on paper:
The next step is to accumulate all that you have gathered and analyze the information to choose the core functionality of the app. Try to explain the app idea into a two sentence 'elevator pitch' and in a few sentences. This is necessary to get clarity on the core app functionality. The culmination of these three above steps will now guide you to the preferred platform of choice. You may initially prefer either the iOS, Android or WindowsPhone. Each offer unique value benefits. Apple, for instance, offers more opportunities for revenue monetization along with premium user experience. While Android offers a larger user base and larger market audience. WindowsPhone too now commands a commendable loyal user fan base.
Gauging the value proposition & analyzing its USP:
Once you have chosen your preferred mobile platform, the next step is to make it standout from the rest by listing out its value proposition. Look for similar apps or categories in the market and make note of the things that you like and dislike about the apps. Chalk out the unique features and what unique value proposition that your app offers.
This will help both in influencing the platform decision as also the app marketing campaign. These also help in improvising the app idea and getting more clarity is marketing the app.
Step 2. App Design & Development:
The process requires you to explore your app idea along with the design you wish to have on the app. The app design & development demands high investment of money and resources. Thus, you can now either choose to make your own app through various DIY app building websites like appmakr, iBuild app, como. However, if you are looking to offer a premium experience using the latest mobile technologies, hiring a developer is imperative. Thus, you will have to consider the cost of development, deployment and marketing the app.
Thoroughly screening your app idea on to a paper and with kind of designs you wish to have:
An initial part of mobile app development is prototyping and designing of the mobile or web application. You may utilize various online tools to create rich iterative wireframes and share them to get feedbacks. Wireframes offer an easy way to verify the usability of the application by allowing users the opportunity to visualize and navigate through the app. Some popular application prototyping tools include popapp, sketch, Omnigraffle, proto etc. These tools will help you to organize app content in a systematic manner. These enable a clearer understanding of the structure and core of the application. Thus, you can create and explore different types of user experiences to build a user-friendly and fully-functional app. You can do this all by yourself if you possess the requisite skills. Thus, you may pursue the app development in-house by investing in resource, or if budget is a constraint then outsourcing is a cheaper and wiser option. However by teaming up with professional developers you can further ensure powerful, feature-rich apps.
Budget constraint? outsourcing is a cheaper an a wiser option:
Outsourcing your mobile app development has multi-fold benefits, given that you choose a reliable outsourcing partner. App development outsourcing offers the following benefits that help expedite the app development process:
- Ability to leverage the skills and expertise of talent not available locally
- Cost- saving
- High quality testing services:
- Allows to focus on core competency and other tasks
- New ideas and continuous improvisation with agile development methodology.
Connecting to few of the leading companies through BDC:
In the marketplace, there is a continuum of developers that range from the amateur next door to the highly specialist development company. It is essential to choose the development company that helps leverage their experience and expertise. Don't let cost alone be the factor and rush straight for offshore app development companies. Instead survey and search for development company that can connect best with your target audience. You also need to look beyond just plain coding skills and equally focus on qualitative skills. The development process will not be fully fruitful if there is not effective communication and teamwork. Further, the development company must also offer after-launch app service and maintenance support. This ensures that the app is constantly in sync with the evolving mobile technologies and consumer trends. Thus finding a proven, vetted and high quality development is a major challenge. Thus, you can choose popular online software business marketplace like BDC to connect with developers across all mobile platforms.
In the marketplace, there is a continuum of developers that range from the amateur next door to the highly specialist development company. It is essential to choose the development company that helps leverage their experience and expertise. Don't let cost alone be the factor and rush straight for offshore app development companies. Instead survey and search for development company that can connect best with your target audience. You also need to look beyond just plain coding skills and equally focus on qualitative skills. The development process will not be fully fruitful if there is not effective communication and teamwork. Further, the development company must also offer after-launch app service and maintenance support. This ensures that the app is constantly in sync with the evolving mobile technologies and consumer trends. Thus finding a proven, vetted and high quality development is a major challenge. Thus, you can choose popular online software business marketplace like BDC to connect with developers across all mobile platforms.
Finding companies through BDC:
So how does one find the most suitable mobile app development company in the software business marketplace like BDC? There are various screening tools like company-finder and company comparison tool that help narrow down the search results.
So how does one find the most suitable mobile app development company in the software business marketplace like BDC? There are various screening tools like company-finder and company comparison tool that help narrow down the search results.
BDC offers three crucial tools
- Company Finder: The company finder tool helps potential clients as a screening tool to navigate the dynamic company listings. The company finder tool helps you screen development companies through values as service type, country, hourly rate, employee strength, and year of establishment. This helps narrow down the search in sync with your unique business needs.
- Discover by work: This tool lists all the mobile application portfolio of various developers on one platform. You as then use screen the search results by choosing from functionality, particular industry, category as mobile platform or web framework and finally your preferred companies. The visually appealing tools provide a first hand comparison about the design and development capability of the development companies.
- Company Comparison : The company comparison tool provides an insightful comparison of all major factors that go into choosing the most suitable development company. Moreover, as the companies are listed along with their company profile and app portfolio, you can get a good assessment of different companies.
Asking for a RFP ( Request for Proposal):
Once you have shortlisted a few development companies, you must send them RFP ( Request for Proposal). A well written RFP is the key to selecting the best mobile app development company. RFP helps to attract and gauge the approach of development company. Going ahead, the RFP the basis for comfortable working relationship between the parties. You must also consider asking for NDA to ensure that the intellectual right is protected well. An RFP brings precision and helps in decision making by eliciting bids from potential vendors for app development. A good quality RFP must contain:
Once you have shortlisted a few development companies, you must send them RFP ( Request for Proposal). A well written RFP is the key to selecting the best mobile app development company. RFP helps to attract and gauge the approach of development company. Going ahead, the RFP the basis for comfortable working relationship between the parties. You must also consider asking for NDA to ensure that the intellectual right is protected well. An RFP brings precision and helps in decision making by eliciting bids from potential vendors for app development. A good quality RFP must contain:
- Confidentiality statement
- Submission details
- Introduction and executive summary
- Business overview and background
- Detailed specifications about the app
- Assumptions & constraints
- Terms & conditions
- Selection criteria
Once you have analyzed the companies, and selected your best development partner you must then set the roadmap for app development, testing, and marketing. This strategic approach ensures a comprehensive and well thought approach to app design and development.
Getting them to design the mock-ups, helping you finalising which one to go for:
Your mobile app development partner will prepare mockups and prototypes to develop the app concept and test usability of the app. Not only do they help in exploring different user experiences for users, they also expedite the app development process. They are easy to create, help in improvising the app functionality and great for app usability testing.
At this stage, you will also need to introduce in-app purchases or make a freemium app to ensure that your app brings in the revenue and grows further. This is the stage, where you along with development team include these features into your app. These will be achieved by creating mock-ups and prototypes that are within the guidelines of the respective app store.
You can easily share the mockup and prototype in real time and collaborate, user feedback and even test on multiple platforms, even before writing a single line of code. There are various design prototype tools too that quickly transform the design into interactive prototypes complete with gestures, transitions and animations.
Once the app is ready to launch :
Your mobile app will now go through various stages of design, development and testing. In a highly fragmented mobile market, mobile app testing has gained significant importance. A high quality app testing ensures consistent high performance across devices. It further enhances the app as a brand amplifier. Moreover in the hyper-competitive app economy, users do not give apps a second chance and will quickly move on.Therefore, mobile app testing is highly significant. Both the emulators and real world devices must be used to offer a convincing and through consistent user experience. Once your mobile application is ready, its is time for app store submission. This is again where the experience and expertise of the developer will offer you leverage for a successful app submission. Their experience in development and deployment ensures that your apps get a smooth entry into the app store.
However, the race to top has just begun, and The first 15 days are of utmostly crucial for a new app. Therefore, you must create an app marketing campaign to create a buzz around your app. There are various powerful tools for app marketing and app discoverability. It is best advised to hire one of the leading app marketing companies to offer effective quality results. Once again, leading software business marketplace like BDC can help you connect with the top app marketing companies.
Step 3. App Marketing and Promotion:
Return to BDC to find leading app marketing companies to boost your application in the market:
BDC world-wide with their company profile and successful campaigns. You can quickly screen the companies using tools of company finder, company comparison and discover by work. An effective mobile app marketing campaign together with app analytics drives higher user engagement and higher discoverability in the app store.
Thus, app development is an incremental and collaborative approach. Each party leverages their skills and experience to translate the app idea into a mobile application. Once the app is listed on the app-store, it must constantly be monitored and updated for any bug fixes and new trends. Once the app is a success you can continue to reinvent user experiences and enhance usability with each future update.
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