Things You Need to Work on Before the Actual App Development

Blog Summary: 

Almost all app owners want the most bang for their buck, but only a few can live this dream. There could be several reasons for app failure, including the inapt pre-planning. For an app to be victorious and profitable, one needs to focus on several vital factors before heading to the app development process. This blog is going to enlighten some of the essential pre-planning elements demanded by a successful app.  

Of course, developing an app is not a cakewalk. Right from money, efforts, knowledge to time app development calls for everything in no small measure. After giving your best in every regard, you expect good ROI, immense popularity, maximum downloads, and lots of applause from users.

Before going beyond your dreams, have a glance at some dismal stats, 

According to the most recent research report of Statista, in 2019, about 25% of apps downloaded by users across the world were only used once after download.

Also, some mobile apps tend to lose 77% of the Average Daily Users(DAU) within the first three days after installation, and after 30 days, the number increases to 90%. 

Quite scary stuff! 

The above stats indicate that sustaining your app in the app arena is not an easy job. For that, you need to take care of every aspect in pre-planning and mobile app development process. A successful app requires an effective execution of the idea as well as a proper pre-planning of every component.

Why Is Pre-planning Crucial for App Development? 

Pre-planning is the vital thing you must take into account before starting the app development process. By carefully focusing on some essential points involved in the pre-planning stage, you can achieve some benefits like:

• Goal-oriented and focussed production and development process
• Lucidity of goals and concepts 
• Better planning for target audience and competition
• Accurate and suitable cost analysis
• Early insight into the target audience, market trends and competitors
• And many more that lead to a victorious app 

So, let’s find out what points you need to focus before heading to the app development process,

Things to Consider Before App Development 

Learn About Mobile App Users 

The success of any app largely depends on its users. Hence it is necessary to be aware of the behavior of mobile users. You need to understand,

1. What mobile app users expect?
2. What is their perspective towards using any app?
3. What motivates them to use the app?
4. What makes them abandon an app?  

By finding answers to these questions, you can build an app that is actually worthwhile for users. You can also avoid app abandonment and increase the chances of user retention.

Thorough Market Research is Pivotal

Deep and appropriate market research can help you to build a powerful app that can boom the app market. The study will mainly revolve around competitor apps. 

Here are a few points you must research about the competition:

• Which are the competitor apps? 
• What makes them successful?
• What is their USP?
• What are their strengths?
• What are their pitfalls?
• Customer reviews 

With this profound research of the app market, you will be able to define your ideas and goals precisely. Moreover, it will help you avoid mistakes and wrong strategies of the existing apps. You can come up with a better app that will offer more value to the users.

Brainstorming- Make the Wise Decision

Even if it is true that “too many cooks spoil the broth,” many minds can be responsible for successful app development. You must discuss your idea with the experts, your team or another group of people to form unique and innovative ideas for your app. Make sure to choose the people who can add value to your app idea by providing inputs from marketing, technical, customer and strategic perspective. 

Following points must be discussed during the brainstorming:

• What is the purpose of the app? 
• What problem is it going to solve for people?  
• Will it be lucrative for your business?
• Is it affordable and worth investment?  
• Will it fill the market gap?
• Will it be a paid or free app?
• How can you perk up the idea? 

With such precise brainstorming, you will get some valuable insights and feedback from people. And these outputs will be helpful for better development of the app.

Decide the Target Audience

It is one of the important elements of mobile app development pre-planning. To build a purposeful app, you must decide your target audience or users. Properly defined target users will help you in making informed decisions during app development. Also, it will assist you in promoting your app quickly and effectively.

You can decide the target audience based on their demographics and the problems they are facing. If your app can address the issue of a specific group of users, then this group can be defined as your target users. You would also need to identify the opportunity between their requirements and existing solutions in the market, to create an out-and-out app.

Prepare an Elevator Pitch

Summarizing your app idea can be a tricky thing, but it is going to be a necessary part of your app pre-planning. An elevator pitch or a nutshell description of your app idea can be helpful at the time of approaching the investors for fundraising. The elevator pitch is the concise, short and precise description of your app. While preparing this description, you should answer the below questions:

• What is your app about? 
• How is it going to work?
• What will be the core functionality of the app? 
• Why would people use it?
• What business goals will you achieve through it? 

By finding honest answers to these questions, you can prepare an accurate elevator pitch. This pitch will also give you a clear idea of what you are going to build and how simplifying the app development process.

Translate Your Ideas into a Simple Flowchart 

Now that you have created a nutshell description of your app, it is time to create a simple, though clear flowchart. It is the finest approach to convey your app idea, functionalities, and workflow to the developers. A precise and easy to understand diagram helps in simplifying the visualization, communication and production. Make sure that the flowchart is simple, concise, understandable, comprehensive, and comprises screen-by-screen navigation.

Determine the App Budget 

Budget is the primary thing when it comes to mobile app development. Deciding an app development budget can help you to invest the right amount at the right place. While planning for the budget, you can also find out ways to cut down expenses. According to your pre-decided budget, you can head to finding the investors and raising funds for the app. 

Your app development depends on several factors, such as:

• The platform (iOS/Android/Multi-platform) 
• Future profit 
• The number of features 
• App complexity
• Marketing goals 
• Team of developer you will hire 

In order to set a precise budget, you have to deeply study all the aspects and identify where you can save some bucks. There are lots of unnecessary things involved in app development that you can save money on.

Determine the Way of App Monetization

How can I earn from an app? This is the most asked question by app owners. If you are heading to app development and still don’t have an exact answer to this, then you can hardly make some bucks. To make maximum profit with your app, you have to recognize and decide your app monetization strategy in the pre-planning stage only. A lot of options available for earning through apps, such as:

• Paid Apps: This is the primary way of making money. You can offer a completely paid app to the users for which they have to pay some fixed amount on the app stores.

• Freemium: You can offer a free version of the app with basic features, and for advanced features, you can provide a premium version. 

• In-app purchases: With this approach, you can sell some useful or needed digital and real products within your app. For example, if it is a game app, you can offer game cash, outfits, gems, etc. at some cost. 

• In-app Ads: This is the simplest and most popular way of app monetization. You can add paid ads in your app by contacting some advertisers or businesses. 

• Sponsorships: You can also choose to partner with specific advertisers and brands who will pay for user actions. It is the best app monetization option and a win-win situation for you and the partner brands. 

• Subscriptions: This app monetization option comes with the advantage of a recurring stream of revenue. You can offer users more useful and interesting stuff on a monthly or yearly subscription. 

You need to opt for the best app monetization option that suits your app idea and niche.

Start with Small for Bigger Achievements 

No one can predict the success of an app until it reaches potential users. You can’t decide whether your app will be accepted by the users or not, whether it will get enough downloads or not, etc. Introducing a full-featured app to the large group of the target audience can lead to lots of risks, mistakes and loss. And your competitors may take advantage of your mistakes that occurred in the first instance of your app. The best idea to avoid this situation is to build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) instead of a fully-functional app.

RELATED: HOW MVP IS A SAVIOR FOR STARTUPS?

You need to add the basic features to this early version app and offer it to only a limited group of users. Your early users can be from your close network or social media followers who will use your app and give you valuable feedback and suggestions. With the help of this feedback, you can make the necessary improvements. Once you are convinced about your app idea, you can start adding advanced features to the basic app. After this, you can introduce a feature-rich, robust and full-functional app to the entire group of target users. Taken as a whole, starting with a basic version of an app can lead to a better app and great success.

How to Get Capital to Start App Development?

Money is the top-most concern of every developer or entrepreneur willing to build an app. Most of the investors don’t prefer investing in an app at the idea stage. This is because they understand that there will be lots of similar ideas. What makes the difference is the execution of the idea. Overall, getting funds from investors to start app development is a difficult job. Thus you should look for other alternatives such as bellow:

• Bootstrap: Bootstrapping is the first approach you can consider, which means you have to raise capital through your existing investments, job, savings or alternate venture.

• Friends and Family: Probably friends and family are more forgiving and patient than angel investors. Thus you can have a word with your family members or friends who can believe and invest in your idea.

• App Contests: If you don’t want to reach directly to the angel investors or business incubators, then try participating in various app contests. In such contests, the best app ideas win money or funds for the early stage, i.e. development.

• Angel or Seed Funding: Angel investors tend to invest in ventures having an idea or concept which is only on paper. You can reach these investors and articulate your idea to get initial funding for app development.

• Loans: Banks do offer loans to entrepreneurs having a revolutionary business idea. You need to prove your idea to the bank with proper revenue projections, market research, etc. 

These are the most common and preferred ways to raise initial funds for mobile app development. Go with the one that will be convenient for you.

Move Towards App Development with a Powerful Pre-plan!

If you dream of grabbing immense success with your app, you must work on the above elements of app pre-planning. Once you have a powerful and efficient pre-plan, you will be good-to-go for actual app development and can witness exceptional outcomes with your final app.