Turn Your Mobile App Into a Successful Business

In the world of hundreds of thousands of applications and startups popping up, if not every hour than every couple of hours for sure, it is way too hard to have a competitive advantage and take its place in the market under the sun. Still, nothing is impossible if only you have a great product, business model, and strategies to promote the idea on the market. Want to know how to develop a mobile app worth your investment? This guide has been prepared for those ambitious minds interested in mobile app development and a flourishing digital business in 2024.

Statistically, there are over 2 million abandoned apps in Google Play and App Store for Q3 2023. This is sad news to hear. On the contrary, the market is huge and expected to reach 935B by 2023.

Luckily, with this article at hand, you can take your piece of a pie and be able to:

• Increase the chances of your mobile app success
• Avoid the major pitfalls during the mobile app development
• Create a mobile app with a growing user base and high user retention.

Once read, you will find all ins-and-outs of generating app ideas and the process of mobile app development.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A GREAT MOBILE APPLICATION

For starters, let’s clarify what actually makes a good mobile app. What are those aspects and metrics you should pay attention to the most? Definitely, a good app is the one that solves some pain points as well as provides a flawless user experience and top performance.

Thus, take a quick glance at the following points that most top-performing digital products have in common. All of them:

• Provide a specific solution
• Do one thing but really, really well
• Deliver high value for their target user
• Are simple in their functioning
• Maintain high performance and security
• Have regular updates and bug-fixing
• Offer a personalized experience
• Some even provide offline functionality
• Many are offered for free, at least in the early stages.

Thus, to create a great digital business, you need to create a top and qualitative product at its core. Secondly, to increase your chances of a successful app launch, it is necessary to incorporate well-prepared mobile app development and marketing strategies.

Keep these aspects in mind since all the next sections of the guide elaborate on each step you need to complete to develop app ideas that would win users’ hearts.

DEVELOP A MOBILE APP THAT SOLVES A PROBLEM

Many beginning entrepreneurs, including those creating mobile apps, underestimate the necessity of the research. They genuinely believe in their app ideas. However, this is similar to the bullet shot in the void without any feedback from the market, selection of the niche, and a clear vision.

The next three steps can be united into well-thought-out research that is necessary to complete to develop a mobile app that will bring you profit.

MARKET RESEARCH FOR A MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT

Exclusion of market demand is the number one reason startups fail, making up 42% of cases. Thus, the initial objective is to understand the market need, fulfill it with your offering, and choose the right market and target audience.

You may already have some experience and distinct knowledge in some spheres. Alternatively, you can find a partner who has the necessary expertise and knows the potential problems people face in a particular area.

1st – if you have some app ideas – test your hypothesis for its market potential.

In this case, you can use SWOT analysis [Strength-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats] to identify the market strategy. Basically, the startupper can evaluate current advantages to reach the wanted objective while minimizing risks and overcoming challenges on the market.

The PEST scheme complements this research by investigating the external environment (political, economic, social, and legal factors) and better assessing the risks each industry/ market possesses.

Porter’s 5 Forces model may also be applied to understand the rivalry level in the sector you plan to launch your project in.

This way, you can select your niche and define your target customer portrait. For example, you can focus on a niche audience like scuba divers, professional photographers, or pregnant women where the number of potential clients is lower. This way, you do not face high competition in contrast to a more general app concept.

2nd – if you don’t have any app ideas – conduct market research to identify a problem that currently exists, and then evaluate your direct and indirect competitors.

This way, you will understand the current state of the market – its propositions and how people cope with their problems, and finally, understand what could be your best offering.

HOW TO DEVELOP A MOBILE APP THAT ADDS VALUE

For starters, concentrate on bringing value, not money. Most of the app projects that have reached tremendous success were developed to solve an issue, which got traction from the audience, and only then could the app receive a million earnings.

Following is the list of advice that will help you to finalize your app concept:

• Start with the basics – ask people what apps they like and don’t like and how they use their connected devices (smartphones, home assistants, tablets, etc.).
• Try to use your mobile device and note your experience – you may be surprised about how many things still need to be adapted to perform personal or professional tasks easier. Search for gaps and blank spaces – check out forums, blogs of interest, and social media to study what people talk about and what pains they experience.
• Check out software development meetups and hackathons to understand the industry trends.
• Collect information about what app ideas get funded the most.
• Browse app stores – you can study existing projects; you can’t clone an existing app, but you can still offer a similar app with improved performance and new features.
• Enhance the app experience – learn the most-frequently-used functionality and think about how it can be improved or search for the ways users can utilize their mobile device in a new way (e.g., a scanner, compass, flashlight, etc.).
• Learn outside of app stores – go to the market and conduct polls and questionnaires among a selected group of people.
• Dream bigger and imagine wider – great app concepts are innovative, with a trajectory to the future. You may start simple, yet you can predict and set the grounds for the innovation for the upcoming years (e.g., AR & VR, Machine Learning, AI).
• Draw and write down all your ideas (even the most stupid ones) – keep these records and put them on the paper right away so you won’t forget them later.

To sum things up, by combining your knowledge, analysis from online research, and market analysis results, you will undoubtedly come up with a unique app idea that stands out. ‍

PLAN YOUR STRATEGY FOR MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT

Once you have defined the major problem your app will solve, the next thing to do is to summarize your digital business strategy.

Plan your app earnings

Also, it is necessary to define your monetization strategy. In the beginning, it is wise to offer your product for free, at least partly to gain the initial base of users. Then, you can decide how to earn revenue by selecting one or a few options, namely:

• Ads – showing advertisement
• Paid download – e.g., $0.99 to install the app
• In-app purchase – freemium model with an opportunity to advance app functionality, sell virtual or physical items, bonuses, ad blocking
• Subscription – weekly, monthly, or annual fee
• Merchandise & eCommerce – sale of goods via an app
• Affiliate & sponsorship – referral marketing option to assist other businesses in reaching out to the client

The Business Model Canvas tool is the best to use for this step and summarize the points mentioned earlier. The model has 9 areas you need to fill out with the strategic plans, namely:

• Key partners – people and stakeholders who assist in your app startup
• Key activities – processes to run your digital business daily
• Key resources – knowledge, means, people, money, etc. to develop a mobile app and support business activities
• Value proposition – unique selling points of an app, key solution it provides
• Customer relations – use cases and ways of first user contact with an app and create loyalty
• Customer segments – portrait(s) of a buyer persona
• Channels – ways to deliver your mobile app solution to the end-user
• Cost structure – key cost components based on key activities and resources
• Revenue streams – monetization strategy

Once you dwell on these points, you are ready to go with a real mobile app development process.

FIND & HIRE THE RIGHT VENDOR TO DEVELOP A MOBILE APP

The selection of the software development agency is another critical decision to make. Searching for a local provider, outsourcing your mobile app development activities, or hiring a freelancer is possible.

Here are a few aspects to bring up for each variant:

• Local firms – provide good-quality development services, but the hourly rates on the local market are significantly higher (e.g., in the USA)
• Offshore agency – have lower rates while sustaining good service quality (e.g., region of Asia or Eastern Europe)
• Developers on freelance – have an affordable price level on a freelance platform like UpWork or Freelancer. However, it is hard to define a good programmer and illuminate the risks of undelivered quality, information leaks, delays, and so on.

Generally speaking, IT outsourcing is the most cost-efficient way to develop a mobile app since it has minimum risks of delivering a bad-quality app