The global pandemic has made it clear to most business stakeholders that their company needs a mobile app. How would you go about ordering one? It feels intuitive and straightforward at first, but once you start formalizing and structuring your plan of actions, you may end up failing to tie all the pieces of the puzzle together effectively. We hope this article provides a roadmap and clear mobile application business plan that will guide you along the way.
Stakeholders
Once a decision-maker realizes the burning need or desire to develop a mobile app, they have to consider all parties potentially involved in the process and make sure everybody’s expectations are at least met, but preferable exceeded. Let’s look at the parties that play a pivotal role in the execution of a successful app:
- Investors – if you cannot raise a sufficient amount of money yourself, you may find investors and get funding in exchange for a share in your company. Investors care about return on investment (ROI), as this is how they are getting their money back. An alternative to investors will be a bank giving you a loan. In this case, you will have to ensure timely payments, which means your company has to do well.
- Customers – they are the desired target audience right so it is mission-critical to make them happy. Give them what they want in a more convenient way with higher quality on demand. The Requirements part of your plan ensures you have the right product for the right customer.
- Your company – is the tip of the spear and the maestro. Make sure you have a designated team to manage the project. Yes, you are hiring app developers, but you still have to take care of marketing, sales, legal issues, infrastructure, etc. Please take mobile app development seriously as its success is due to the hard work of an enthusiastic team that makes an app rock.
- Development team – most of the time, the development of a mobile app is a one-time occasion, which makes having a development team in-house inefficient. Be sure to hire a dedicated development team to avoid the risk of having your tasks postponed, or done negligently when overridden by higher priority clients. Be deliberate when selecting a team to build your app: pay attention to their process, communication process and accessibility, portfolio of completed projects and fit.
Requirements
The requirement for mobile application development is one of the key stages that greatly determine the effectiveness and productivity of the entire development process. Here are a few ideas to consider:
- Please ask stupid questions – you never know what is going on in the developer’s mind, so develop a habit of asking questions that leave no room for ambiguities or mistranslation
- Answer stupid questions – same idea as the previous point but in the opposite direction. What’s clear for you may not make sense to the person in front of you. Being on the same page is crucial.
- Ask potential customers – never think you know better. Double-check. Conduct surveys, analyze competitors and talk to visionaries.
- Cover different aspects of your app – every little bit of the app matters, so discuss everything that you feel necessary: interface, functionality, design, languages, pricing, compatibility, etc.
- Leave some wiggle room – make sure you talk through the process of requirements change in detail. You should be able to adapt your app to market trends, economic conditions, or legal restrictions.
Prototype
Once the development team has the requirements, it should come up with the prototype of your app – a responsive “draft” enabling you to check the flow, review concepts, and provide feedback before any serious coding is done. Having an interactive prototype is a cheap and quick way to pin-point shortcomings that ensures the requirements will turn into the right product.
Design
These days you can distinguish your app by its design alone. You will get the taste of how designers perceive the look of your app on the prototype stage, but it is definitely subject to changes. Once again, be sure real people give you some feedback about the level of excitement experienced during the use of your app. Polish until excited!
API
This section is a little techy but may save you from unnecessary worries and expenses. Even if you are aiming at the iOS market right now, but might consider expanding to Android, Windows, etc., you will benefit a lot from having our mobile app developed using the API-first approach. This allows the creation of an app on various platforms on top of the same basement. In addition, you will be able to build, deploy, and manage the entire app lifecycle from one source. And as mentioned above it saves time and money once the need for rapid scaling emerges.
Integration
Apps rarely operate in a vacuum so it is absolutely critical to ensure seamless interaction with all and any apps and services your app can be tied with, e.g. payment gateways, social media apps, etc.
The mobile app development process is successful when structured and sequenced properly. The above guidelines should help you to put together a comprehensive and detailed plan of your app creation. For more tips or strategies pertaining to your Mobile Application Development, please visit https://midlanddigitalsolutions.com/custom-software-development-services/ or contact us by sending an email to info@midlanddigitalsolutions.co
This article was written by Malcolm Ilogu; Co-founder/Chief Digital Strategist at Midland Digital Solutions.