By Jaykishan Panchal
Running a successful startup comes with many challenges. There’s always more to do and never enough resources. Developing an app is another one of those tasks that has immense benefits for your startup, so much so that you cannot delay it any longer. However, it is a rather expensive undertaking that requires a significant amount of resources. When the stakes are this high, it is crucial that you plan every single detail and avoid making any mistakes that can mar the quality of the app and affect your end goals, be it revenue or user engagement.
The obvious precautions you sure will take. You will find the best development company you can and design a good app that combines beauty and functionality. But even when you are careful, there are some not-so-obvious mistakes that can damage your app. Avoiding them is vital to your startup app’s success.
Here are the often overlooked mistakes you must avoid when building an app for your startup:
Improper Budgeting
An app is no small an expense. Hiring a good app development team involves skilled developers, designers and project manager, all of whom need to be paid for all the hours they put in. No two apps are similar and the total cost you will incur entirely depends on factors unique to your app.
This is why it is exceedingly important that you get a detailed estimate from your app development company, with each item stated clearly, and also account for contingent costs. Having done that, be sure to set aside adequate budget for your app so that you don’t end up cutting corners in the end.
Premature Monetization
While monetizing your app is generally the end goal, there’s a right time for everything. Sometimes, you need to postpone your monetizing plans until you have gained a stronghold in the market. At the beginning, your goals should be acquiring as many users as possible and keeping them engaged so that they become loyal users and an active member of your community. Only once you’ve built a community should you put up a paywall on your app or exercise other monetization strategies. Diving into monetization too early could actually end up alienating your users.
Not Analyzing Your Competition Well Enough
Even before you start developing your app, you must take a good look at your competition. What services do they already offer? Do you really have a way to do better than them? what is the unique new facet you bring to the table? Why should the users choose you over the businesses that already exist? Those questions will push you to develop a truly differentiated app.
Not performing this competition analysis could lead to you offering services that aren’t unique and lose a great opportunity to stand out.
Unripe Marketing Strategy
Marketing costs money. From accumulating press mentions to hiring influencers, placing ads and promoting on social media, marketing can be expensive. Without a proper strategy, your marketing efforts could lose efficacy and not produce the results they could have if well planned. Always have a well charted marketing strategy that accounts for the next step before you take the first.
Undefined Audience
“So let’s put an app out there and see who buys” said no one ever. One of the first things you need to do is define your target audience. Know your demographics – what age group does your audience belong to, what do they have in common, what sets them apart and what grabs their interest most – are some of the questions you must answer at the research stage, so that you can develop you app as well as your marketing strategy in ways that will appeal to your audience.
Lack of Feedback Implementation
Feedback is marketing gold. It is your users directly telling you what they want. How much better can it get? If you are able to get feedback from your users, make it a point to act on it and improve in that area as soon as possible. If one person took the time to write about it, there must be a hundred others who faced that problem. Fixing it early on will help reinforce the image that you care about your users and also improve your product.
Wrapping up
Not all mistakes that hamper app development are glaring and obvious. The above are some of the rather subtle mistakes you might not realize you are committing, but they could cause significant damage to your startup. Now that you know, you can be extra careful and make sure your app achieves everything you created it for. Know your audience, understand their expectations and create a product that will solve a problem they are grappling with. And then, market it wisely and you will have a winner. Just make sure you pay attention to feedback and keep your users happy. Simple, isn’t it?
Jaykishan Panchal is a content marketing strategist at MoveoApps, a Mobile app development company.He enjoys writing about Technology,marketing & industry trends. He is tech enthusiast and love to explore new stuff. @MoveoApps
