Mobile applications have seen a tremendous evolution since their inception. 

You name a task, and you have an app for assisting you. That also means that people are becoming more tech-friendly and spending more time on mobile applications than before. Owing to COVID-19 situations, when social distancing is mandatory, mobile apps are more in demand. 

Can you guess how many apps the average smartphone user uses? Well, it’s 30 apps per month! 

The Apple App Store boasts of 2.2 million apps, whereas there are 2.8 million apps on the Google Play Store.

With so many apps in the market, the chances are high that your app might just go unnoticed if not designed and developed properly. It is imperative to build the app to satisfy the exact needs and demands of the end-users. Building apps is no more simply about some coding. 

Mobile app development has to encompass various aspects, such as customer requirements, customer acquisition, retention, support, and much more. If you are a startup trying to cater to a user problem with a mobile app, here are the top considerations: 

• What is the purpose of the app? 

As a startup, you surely have an idea of what services you are catering to. You are not building an app just for fun, but with a strong purpose. Determine the purpose and the motivation behind developing the app. What problem are you trying to solve? What do you expect the users to use the app for? How do you think the app will help you achieve your business goals? Have a clear vision and plan to make sure you serve the purpose. At the end of the day, it should offer the right solution to your target audience. 

• Who is your target audience? 

An app is designed best when the target audience is kept as the primary focus. Your app is meant to solve a problem and, hence, the target audience determination cannot be a guessing game or an after-thought. You can conduct surveys, research the online forums, and deploy tools to understand your market thoroughly. Various aspects determine the success of your app. Factors such as locality of your target audience, age group, likes and dislikes, app usage patterns, etc. play an important role in determining how the app should be designed and work. 

• Which app platform to choose – iOS or Android or both?

Whether to develop an iOS app or an Android app completely depends on your target audience and the smartphones they are more likely to use. Each operating system offers some specific features and if you decide to develop your app for that specific operating system (aka native app), you can make use of those features, and develop highly immersive app experiences. 

There is also a growing trend of developing hybrid mobile applications, as hybrid app development saves a lot of time and money. Developing hybrid mobile apps using technologies like AngularJS or React JS or React Native doesn’t need different developers for the different operating systems as the same app works across all platforms. It could potentially save the mobile app development cost by almost 50%. The entire app coding is done using one of the mentioned technologies and compiled for different platforms like iOS and Android. 

• What is the budget for developing the app?

The cost of an app depends on various factors such as the features that you are developing, platforms to release, and the scope of launch. For startups with bigger ideas, the app could cost easily up to a six-figure amount. To determine the cost, app developers look into the key considerations and fix a budget and predict comparable costs in their detailed analysis. You should also consider the time taken to build the app. Working with deadlines for each stage of development will be a step towards finishing a project on time. 

• Have you considered app usability, scalability, maintenance, and testing?

An app is good to launch once you consider its practical usage in the real world. 

The usability is the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction that the users have in achieving their goals through the app. An app needs to be intuitive, take very little time for a user to get familiar with the interface, and help users achieve their goals quickly and easily. 

The scalability of the app is its ability to handle the increasing number of downloads and users of the app. The app should be able to handle the user base without crashing or showing errors. 

Maintenance becomes an integral part of the app lifecycle so that the app does not become obsolete. You need to add new features, update the existing ones, fix bugs, monitor the app’s performance over a long-term maintenance plan. 

And, of course, the app needs intensive testing before it gets rolled out to the market. The testing strategy should include test plans based on application requirements, development of test cases, and design of test automation scripts. Apart from this, it should also include a plan for testing the app performance, security, scalability, and usability across devices of different screen sizes, networks, and operating systems. 

• How do you plan to monetize the app?

The app is made and is ready to be used. The next challenge is the marketing and monetization of the app. 

You need to design a revenue model to define the different sources to generate income. Your revenue model also defines what value does your app offer, who will benefit from using it, who will pay for the value offered by the app. The app revenue model is at the heart of your app development efforts and should be defined before even reaching the development stage.

Some of the many ways to monetize the app are: Freemium & in-app purchases and advertising, paid apps, subscriptions and sponsorship, in-app advertising, and app data monetization.

The app industry is growing rapidly, and the post COVID era is likely to be dominated by mobile across various industry verticals and functions. Many startup founders are ready to join the bandwagon and address the needs of their target audience through a mobile app. But they are often unsure of which platform to choose, how to develop the app, which technology partner to trust, how to monetize the app, how to define the features, how to ensure the app’s security, and how to make the users actually use the app. 

We are here to help you with your app development strategy, design, and development. Let’s connect to discuss how we can help you achieve a faster time to market.