Mobile App is your business in mobile devices. The future of your mobile app can decide the future of your business. A successful app can surge your business and a failed app can flop all your efforts.
When you decide to get an app built for your business, it is important to understand that it is not just an app. Just the way your business needs thoughtful planning and continued efforts at all stages, your app also requires your attention and efforts.
For best results, you need to brainstorm about all these aspects well, before you start. Yes, it’s a difficult task to perceive all the issues beforehand. So, here is an overview of questions that can help you analyze the intricacies!
Questions You Need to Answer Before Developing Your Mobile App
1. What Is the Purpose of Your App; Is it Feasible?
Firstly, you need to answer whether your start-up or business really needs an app! It is important to understand that the app should not be built just because every business is trying to get an app built. It should serve a well-defined, logical purpose.
Is your app idea unique or just another app for something already popular in the market? If already popular, is there anything in your app idea in specific that can make it stand-out from others in the market?
Defining the purpose is not enough, the idea should be feasible. Carry out a feasibility study. This includes market research with data, statistics, and predictive analysis. With all this information, you get the idea of prospects and profitability. With this data you need to answer, “is it really worth the time and money invested?”
You need to evaluate who are the target users and stakeholder organizations that can have a possible interest in the app. These are the parties that will directly impact your app success.
2. How Will You Protect Your App Idea or Maintain Confidentiality?
A leaked app idea is a big loss for a business. Other businesses can copy the idea and launch the same before you do and thus grab your market-share. So, it is important to maintain confidentiality about the unique features of your app idea that can make it stand-out in the market. Find all ways to ensure this confidentiality.
Businesses use NDA for this. But, an NDA is not enough. You need to ensure that you get the app developed from a company with good experience and reviews that values the importance of confidentiality of your idea and maintains it.
3. Which Platform Will Your Mobile App Be Developed For?
Start-ups going for building an app, need to first decide the platform the mobile app is being developed for, Android or iOS. The choice depends on your budget and specific app features.
Android (partly open-source) is preferred for ease of approval, open-source benefits, customizability, maps integration, cloud services, larger reach, voice assistants, etc.
The iOS platform is preferred for amazing display needs; for example, gaming. Other positive factors of iOS are affordability, higher earnings, usability, development speed, updates, etc.
4. What Are the Major Features of Your Mobile App?
Businesses need to analyze the feature-set required in the app to be built. The app idea that has something extra to offer in the form of unique and unconventional features, will stand-out and achieve success.
You also need to have a specific idea of whether your app requires payment facility and in-app purchases as this requires extra development efforts to ensure safety.
5. What Are the Costs of Building the App and What Is Your Budget?
Businesses have a budget limit for building an app depending on the profits and other funding sources available. They need to plan and arrange sponsors and funds beforehand to prevent any hassles later, after having invested a lot of time in development. So, find the answer to “what is the budget available for building this app?”.
Cost is largely dependent on features. Estimate rough costs of development to include design and development, maintenance and support, and post-launch marketing expenses. Do expect some unforeseen added costs. Define your budget clearly and go ahead with the app building idea only if the estimate fits well within your budget.
6. What Is the Ideal Timeline for Getting Your App Built?
Decide the maximum time-frame for building the app as this will be a major consideration for selecting the development company. Note that stricter deadlines cost more in development.
Consider time for development, testing, improvement, and buffer for unforeseen contingencies. Specify a clear timeline. Check reviews and choose the developers that have a reputation of delivering the job well-within the timeline.
7. How Can You Prevent App Failure?
Last, but not the least; this is an important question to prevent loss of time and money due to failure and ensure app success. Think about how you plan to handle any adversities!
One way to do this is to understand users and analytics first. This will provide great insight into building the right app. Define your marketing strategy, both initial promotion plan and continued or perpetual to achieve steady growth.
To provide the best app experience to the users, it is a must to provide regular updates as per the response that your app gets! So, plan how often you should release updates for the app.
Wrapping Up
Building an app is the foundation of building a business. Your app can develop or mar your business, and as it is said, “Prevention is better than cure”. So, act cautiously!
Find answers to the above questions and pay significant attention to these factors before you finally decide to build your app. Hire an experienced mobile app development company to help you build your dream app!
