Everyone is aware of the phrase, “Ideas are a dime a dozen”. It has become a part of the general narrative, and everyone is all geared up for the “execution” part. Yet, figuring out the execution part or the next step to take, once you have the idea is difficult. Many of our clients ask us about the steps need to be taken for the idea conception to launch. So, I decided to write about steps that should act as a guiding map for any entrepreneur to follow.
Let’s start. The first step is to determine the idea worth and its potential.
Choose a niche
Choosing a suitable niche is the most important part of the success of your app. Go through the following checklist to determine the feasibility of your idea.
– Does your app fall in the most common three categories? (Most of the apps can be categorized in to categories of Utility, Entertainment, and Communication.)
– Do you know of a pain point? Can you provide a valuable service in return to resolve that itch?
– Is there any market failure? Can your app/idea connect two different groups and make the market efficient? Uber, Tinder, Alibaba all address market failures and connect two group of users.
– Is there any particular category of information that needs to be collected and presented to the users efficiently?
– Are you good with gaming ideas and conception? If so, there is huge category of game lovers that you can target with your new idea.
– Is the timing correct?
– Is the opportunity big enough?
Don’t just fall in love with your idea. Be true to yourself and ask hard questions.
Build Prototype, Design, Mockups
Next step, you should pursue is to make prototype versions of your idea. For this step, you will have to deal with different use cases, user flow, designs, layouts and so on. You can always use online tools like Balsamiq OR concept.ly to get this part done. Also, you can always hire an expert to get this part done.
The advantage of this step is to visualize your idea in reality. Also showcasing your concept to potential cofounders or investors becomes easy. It’s a relatively inexpensive way of giving life to your idea, but remember that any expert designer might have a very different take and idea to develop your idea and may be an excellent option to pursue. By choosing to work with experts, you can get the first look at the expert opinion.
Determine the Pricing
Now, you are ready for the app development process. The most crucial elements of this process to determine the Pricing. You need to know about the pricing mechanism used to determine the total project costs and also get the idea of pricing ranges for different categories of the app. To learn about whole of this process and get actual numbers, please follow this link. The article will also help you determine all the option available for app development and budget allocation for your initial rounds of funding. Do Read.
Build an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
Now is the time to get your first version of the app live. For this, you should build the minimum viable version of the app instead of the complete one. Building MVP will let you see your app in action and get valuable feedback. In addition, if your basic version gains any traction, you will the proof of your concept. This approach will save you a lot of money while giving you a chance of getting some organic growth.
To learn in detail, where I highlight the benefit of following this approach, please read the benefits of building MVP over complete App.
Know about the App Development Process
You should pay importance to determine the process of app development of your partners. It’s crucial to have a good knowledge of discovery process, wire-framing, system design, coding, client involvement and deployment options. Knowing all this will help you find the right partners for development. To learn more about this, please follow this link.
Raise Money
Now you app/MVP is live and has positive feedback from the use, now might be looking to raise money. There are many options available like seed funding, angel investors, Kickstarter and so on. To learn about the options and examples of startups using them, read this article.
Do keep in consideration, there are few cons of raising capital too early.
Launch
Congratulation you are all set to take your idea to the masses. Proper launch and getting traction during launch is crucial to the success of your idea. In an upcoming article, we will discuss this process in detail.
To talk to us, App2Dev.com.