The difference between successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs boils down to perseverance; mobile app startup ventures are no exception. Heavily relying on a superb design, successful mobile app startups don’t happen by chance but rather through intrinsically mapped out strategies.
As an entrepreneur, your mobile app development strategy must feature the delivery of an exquisite and effortless experience on each aspect of the mobile app’s building blocks.
These building blocks can generally be grouped into four distinct components as will be illustrated. For resounding success in the highly competitive mobile app business, realign your goals to reflect the following components:
1. Design
Which audience are you developing your mobile app for? This should be a prime consideration when settling on the app design; it should be visually appealing to its target audience. Design should not be about plain looks but in extension, the feelings it evokes. The later is an invaluable traffic generation tool.
When designing the mobile app, ensure that it features the form and function component. As much as possible, make it easy for users to learn how to navigate the app from one feature to the next seamlessly.
Achieving this calls for the reduction of the learning curve to the bare minimum time, allowing users to quickly access what app has to offer. Generally refers to as User Experience (UX), this design component must be considered first.
The User Interface (UI) design component should then be initiated. It takes into account characteristics of the target audience such as age, gender, geographical location and other distinctive information.
Scientifically, color has been proven a major player in attracting clients to businesses; this is why product designs and logos have specific color combinations. Colors evoke emotions in people and this endears them to your product, making mobile app development a rewarding venture for you!
2. Value
Apps are made to solve problems in the real world. As such, your app should be valuable enough to the extent that they are willing to shift from their present solutions and pay for your services. While vouching for your app, sell it as a validated necessity rather than a mere solution as the latter may bring it down before it takes flight.
The most successful mobile apps today were borne out of real-life challenges the app developers were experiencing; these solutions were later made market fit, creating the most sought-after mobile apps today.
3. Reach
The success of mobile apps depends on the number of users it attracts. This makes reaching out to as many users as possible the toughest challenge you will have to overcome. Luckily, there are many platforms available for you to exploit preferably in the initial stages of promoting your app; later on, the services your app offers should be your main focus and ultimately the greatest marketing tool.
Having weekly executions plans throughout your various marketing channels will enable you assess their effectiveness over time; with this crucial information, you will know how to prioritize and get the best conversions. Use the magic of captive words to explain your mobile app’s value in a simple but confound statement.
4. Scalability
During your app development, ensure that it’s based on a platform that allows for modification. The app’s flexibility and adaptability is essential since your development strategy should envision tailor-making the app based on customers suggestions.
The product is intended for their use and it is a wise move to make them your highest regarded resource. From this, better features will be added to the app offering enhanced user experience.
Advisably, start off with a small group probably your family and friends; the importance being that you will be able to correct mistakes within no time. Having appealed to this manageable segment of customers, you will have the requisite know-how and confidence to approach an even more diverse demographic.
Related: How Much Money Can You Actually Make From a Mobile App?
Your customer’s happiness is worth a million!
Common Mistakes to Avoid in Mobile App Startups
1. Failing to build apps natively
UI, performance and functionality are metrics whose success is dependent on the platform which the app is built on; needless to say, they directly influence the app’s success. To avoid all these, it’s advisable to go all the way rather than swallow the cross-platform bait that’s so enticing to startups.
For every OS, develop the app separately. It may be expensive and time consuming but it surely pay off. Cross-platform is a long way from being appealing.
2. Failing to change/upgrade backend infrastructure
When proper implementation and API design lacks, your app losses the ability to handle the growing load it receives and this renders it unsuccessful in the real world. Ideally for the flawless functioning of an app, a maximum payload size of 4 KB is usually enough. The app’s pagination should ensure that data is not returned en masse but rather via paginated and cursor-type results.
Your app should also feature higher latency on every API call. This, coupled with allowing the user to send a similar API call to the server many times, assures the customer of certainty.
3. Failing to outsource mobile app development
Statistically, businesses takes four times as much time when they decide to build their app internally; it is a pain-staking process. By going internally, startups opt out of paying with money to pay with time. By any measure, this rapidly slows down mobile app startup success and eventually it may not turn out altogether.
The time taken to hire professionals with the requisite skills would be better used were you to fully appreciate the efficiency of outsourcing mobile app development. For the best results, you have to fully participate even after out-sourcing.
4. Perceiving that you are stuck with your first mobile app development firm
Quite the contrary, the most reputable app development firm make themselves obsolete albeit with time. Having amassed an insurmountable amount of knowledge, they are best placed to make recommendations and lay a platform for internal app development in future. As time goes by, you will soon have a fully capable development team capable of handling all scenarios.
To build success, it is important to outsource but to maintain the success, it is inevitable to hire a team that you’re comfortable with and that’s entirely dedicated to the success of your app.
Mobile app development is an enthralling venture but while at it, why not turn it into a source of income. The possibilities are limitless, you just have to stay sharp and float the next big mobile startup idea!
This post was written by Mehul Rajput, the CEO of Mindinventory, a leading mobile app development company. He does blogging as hobby and love to write on mobile technologies, Startups, Entrepreneurship and mobile applications.