Did you just land in a pile of cash while your unique app idea just got successful? Awesome. First thing’s first – WAKE UP. You’re still dreaming. It may have been a bummer, but if you were lucky enough to remember the epiphany that made you a fortune in that dream, then hold that thought, and brace yourself for what’s about to come your way. We’re going to talk about how to get started from where you are, to where you need to be.
Before you let your idea slip, thinking it’s insignificant, let’s give you a perspective. Mobile apps take up to 90% of the time spent on mobile by an average user. Your mobile app could be one of them. The most popular apps you know about right now were once just an idea like yours, even apps like Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat and Uber. These apps didn’t just appear out of thin air. The founders of these companies had an end goal, which they reverse engineered to the point of inception, which is exactly where you are right now. Here’s a recent stat about number of mobile apps across different platforms to motivate you.
There is no conventional way to go about it really, but we have objectively broken down the course of action into a structure that will guide you towards building your way up to it!
Define Your End Goal(s)
I personally prefer penning them down on a piece of paper rather than typing it on my phone. Whatever suits you, make sure that you ask yourself the following questions and be very specific while answering them:-
– What is the purpose of the app?
– What problem will it solve/ What convenience will it create?
– How will it appeal to the users?
Draft a Design
You don’t have to be a professional sketch artist to come up with something useful, because that’s all it has to be – useful. You have no idea about how having a layout for your mobile app will open up so many possibilities for your app. This mental mapping exercise will enable you to think about more information or functions you can fit in, to make your app more useful and interactive.
Research
This is the most important step in the journey of app building. It’s where you gather all your resources and go down the road of fact-finding. Following are the purposes of doing market research:-
– To know whether any other apps are delivering the same value.
– To come up with a graphic design based on the layouts of the competitors’ app.
– To enumerate the technical requirements to make it happen.
– To find out the ways in which you can market your product.
Ascertain Your Approach
You need to know that there are three ways you can get your app up and running. Based on different factors like time, UI interactivity, and budget, you may go for either of the approaches listed below:-
– Native: With this, you can deliver the best user experience to your target audience, but it would incur huge costs, require significant time and since these apps are platform-specific, skilled resources are a prerequisite
– Web: They are cheaper, faster, and can run on any platform. They can be developed by HTML5, Javascript, and CSS code. Keep in mind that Native apps would never be as interactive and powerful as native apps.
– Hybrid: It’s a relatively newer approach to designing an application. It brings together the prebuilt native containers with on-the-fly web coding to have the best of both worlds. The developer can use native language to improve web code and accesses native APIs, not yet available through JavaScript.
Concluding the Flow and Features
Putting every little detail in one document is the right chore to do away with, by this time. Creating a flowchart of how navigating to a particular icon will perform a dedicated function or open a specific window. This will help you to collect your thoughts and find any missing elements that previously may not have crossed your mind. Moreover, when you present it to the developer, it will be easier for them to understand you a lot more clearly as well.
Hire a Developer
Now is when you finally hire a developer for app building. However, finding and hiring a proficient developer is altogether a different story. Practically, people don’t own offices nowadays to hire developers to work at their offices. Instead, they just go on google and find a remote developer that works from his own workstation at his own convenience. In case you’re going for that, you may want to check out the forum talking about things to consider before hiring a remote developer.
These were the steps involved in building the application. After the application is built and you’re all set to go live, then following is the list of actions that has to be sequentially fulfilled!
Creating Developers Accounts
You have to get yourself registered in the app stores, in order to sell your app via their platform. Apple and Google currently charge $99 and $25 respectively, per annum.
Integrating Analytics
This will help you keep a track of users’ engagement, downloads, and retention of your app. Tools like Flurry and Localystics will help you have a detailed analysis of the same
Receive Feedbacks, Improvise, and Market Accordingly
Apart from the analytics, you will have people rating your apps and leaving feedbacks. Use them to improve the user experience and develop a marketing strategy, as you now have sufficient information. Talking about marketing of your app, creating online visibility for your app has become mandatory in today’s digital landscape.
You need a team of digital marketing experts who can help you get in good books of Google (other search engines too), leverage the power of social media, branding, app store optimization, and much more! Resourcifi is recognized as one of best digital marketing agencies for small businesses. Contact us today to know more about our digital marketing services!
Now you see what all goes into building an app and how some of the most successful people, who came from a common man lifestyle, are now some of the most popular names in the industry. If a part of you sparks up while reading this, I’d suggest you to not hold back or second guess. Let your brilliance reach out to the world and hire a developer for your own mobile application.
