What to do if you have a mobile app idea: a beginner's guide.

Step 1. Assess your capabilities

Before you dive into the mobile app development process, it's a good idea to assess your capabilities and resources. The easiest way to do this is to answer the following questions:

1. How much time are you willing to devote to mobile app development?

2. Should this app be your life's work or do you need passive income?

3. How much are you willing to pay developers?

4. Is the idea worth the time and money?

Step 2. Study the market

If you have a mobile app idea, you should first of all carefully study the market. In fact, this is the most important part of the process, because it determines all the subsequent ones. A great app idea without proper market research, development strategy, and promotion is almost certainly doomed to failure.

But where do you start? If you have a mobile app idea and have already evaluated your resources and capabilities, a good idea is to start analyzing your competitors. Scroll down to find out how.

Conduct a competitor analysis

Analyze existing mobile apps. Someone has probably already launched a similar project — you can take into account their mistakes or borrow successful solutions to make a flawless application. Do not forget that the mobile app market is overcrowded — the analysis will help you understand what exactly you will have to deal with before you dive into the process.

A little tip: choose and carefully study the top 5 apps that are most similar to yours.

You can apply the SWOT analysis method (identify the strengths and weaknesses of competitors, opportunities and threats to the business) or follow the plan below:

• USP (Unique Selling Proposition): Identify which unique selling propositions competitors are using.
• UI/UX design: evaluate the visual appeal and convenience of the user interface, pay attention to original graphic elements and technologies.
• Disadvantages: Identify the negative aspects of your competitors' apps – their bad decisions, bugs, and inconveniences can give you a clue on what to improve your app.
• User acquisition channels: identify the target audience of each mobile app, study traffic sources and marketing campaigns.
• Sources of income: it is worth thinking about ways to monetize. This is necessary, even if the application is based on an altruistic idea to make the world a better place. You'll need money to at least provide technical support for the app. Therefore, try to determine the monetization model of your competitors, free and paid features.
• Reviews and ratings: Look at user reviews to help you make your app popular. Various ratings of mobile apps also do not hurt to study.

Step 3. Develop a business concept

You've just finished your market analysis. Now it's time to create your own business concept to make the app idea attractive to investors. Below you will find a plan on how to do this.

Target audience

To begin with, it is worth describing the portrait of your target user: determine his age, where the user lives, works, what hobbies he has, what your target user wants from the application.

Please note that your target user may be different from your target paying user. It depends on the concept of your app. Target users may love your app, leave tons of comments and likes, but won't buy anything. Target paying users are exactly the ones who generate revenue for you.

For example, if you are making a gaming app for 8-10-year-olds, children will be your target audience. But in fact, parents pay for them, they will be the target paying audience. Try to describe both categories of target users.

App functionality

Next, you should highlight the features of the app: list them and divide them into the main ones (which you will need to develop first) and additional ones (which you can add later).

You can use the MoSCoW method to prioritize functions. With its help, you can divide all functions into 4 categories:

• Must is the necessary functions without which there is no point in making an application.
• Should – This category includes important features without which the app can exist.
• Could are features that you would like to have, but the app can be successful without them.
• Won't are additional features that aren't important at the moment, but it would be nice to have them in the future.

Unique selling proposition (USP)

Why Should Your Target User Choose Your App From A Variety Of Others? What makes your app different from the rest? The answer to these questions will be your unique selling proposition (USP). It will help you determine your marketing strategy in the future and encourage users to take targeted actions within the app.

Monetization model

You already know how your competitors are making money from their apps. Now it's your turn to think about ways to monetize. This is an important point, especially if you want to attract investors to the project. Here are a few ways to monetize a mobile app:

• Payment for downloads. This model is best suited for premium apps.
• Third-party advertising. Earn revenue from third-party ad impressions, ad clicks, or each download of a third-party app.
• Freemium. Make some of your app's functionality free and add additional features that are activated after payment.
• Subscription. If you have interesting, updated content, you can offer users various subscription options.

You can combine these models or use them separately.

Step 4. Find an investor

Mobile app development is expensive. Therefore, there is often a situation when the person who came up with the idea of the application does not have enough money to launch it. If your personal savings don't cover the expenses, don't worry – you're not alone. There are many opportunities for startups to get funds to launch an application:

• Accelerators. You can participate in a startup competition or other event for startups. Investors often hold them. It is very likely that you will get the money you need if you have a promising mobile app idea.
• Crowdfunding platforms. The idea behind crowdfunding platforms like Planeta or Boomstarter is that you can interact with users and ask them to fund your future app. If they like your idea, you will raise the necessary amount. Your backers — the ones who give you money — should be rewarded. For example, the ability to download the app before others, access to online courses, books, T-shirts, or your personal help.
• Business angels. Sometimes rich people help with start-up capital in exchange for a share in the project if they like your idea. They can even fund the entire project if you prove that you have a well-thought-out business plan and can actually bring your idea to life.
• Venture Capital Companies. It's arguably one of the fastest ways to get your app up and running. Venture capital firms give money in exchange for ownership shares in a project. That is why they try to make a profit on their investment as soon as possible.
• Private companies. Large mobile app development companies sometimes buy promising apps if they want to establish a presence in this niche.
• Bank loan. If you have a well-thought-out business plan for an Android or iOS app, there is a chance that the bank will give you the necessary amount of money on credit.

Step 5. Choose mobile app developers

When it comes to app design and development, there is a question of choosing between freelancers, an in-house development team, and outsourced specialists. Let's see in which cases which option is the best.

Freelancing is ideal for small, short-term tasks that one or two specialists can handle without any problems. For more complex development projects that one or two freelancers can't handle, it's better to assemble your own development team or outsource the team.

For long-term projects and for applications in the post-release stage, it is rational to assemble your own team of specialists. Moreover, if you already have developers on staff who can cope with this task, then why not? Entrust them with the development of your mobile app if you are confident in their competencies.

Outsourcing is worth paying attention to if

• You're just starting a business and don't have a development team on staff
• What you have in mind is too complicated for your specialists
• You are missing literally one or two developers in the team.

Step 6. Develop a marketing strategy

Think about how you will promote your app.

• Social networks. It's a good idea to make yourself known on social media before your app is actually ready. Give your future target users a chance to discuss the app. Perhaps their opinion will help you adjust your business concept.
• Landing. A landing page will help in promoting your app. To attract users, show high-quality images of your app, describe your USP, and don't forget the button with a call to download your app.
• Media, opinion leaders and bloggers. Find bloggers, influencers, and media outlets that are relevant to your app – they may be able to write a review when you publish it on app stores.
• Logotype. You'll need a clear logo that will make your app stand out from the rest.
• App store optimization (ASO). Before publishing, it is worth studying the principles of search engine optimization of the app page in app stores. This will help potential users notice your app and increase conversions. Use relevant words in the app title and description, make an eye-catching logo, icons, and screenshots to get more downloads from app store search.

Step 7. Develop an MVP

MVP (minimum viable product) is a version of your app that has only the most important things. MVP is useful in the following cases:

• to test the viability of an idea;
• Attract early adopters and get important feedback.
• give you a clear idea of your target audience;
• Reduce development time and costs
• Start generating revenue before the full app is launched.
• attract large investors.

Step 8. Publish MVP on app stores

The process of publishing to mobile app stores can seem complicated if you do it yourself. It is better to seek help from experienced developers who will relieve you of this problem. But if you still want to publish an app in app stores on your own, then here is a rough plan of action:

1. Create a developer account in each store.

2. Review each store's app guidelines and requirements and make sure your app complies with all the rules — otherwise, there's a risk that app stores won't approve your application. Please note that the requirements of the App Store and Google Play are different.

3. Test your app thoroughly before publishing. Check that everything is working as it should.

4. Publish your app. Publication on Google Play usually takes 2-3 days. Apple doesn't process the application so quickly because they check each app separately.

Step 9. Measure the success of your mobile app with metrics

You've published your app and your first users have arrived. How to evaluate the results? In the case of mobile apps, the usage scenario is usually as follows: people download the app, try it, and (if they don't like it) delete it. But if people like the app, they start using it more often and gradually come to the idea of buying a subscription or an in-app purchase.

User Engagement

User engagement can be measured by two metrics:

• Number of new users per day. This metric shows the attractiveness of your app to new users: it's the result of your mobile app store marketing strategy. In the future, you will be able to estimate how many of these people stay with you and for how long.
• Total number of users. You can track the total number of users to see if it is growing or not.

User retention

User retention is the percentage of users who return to your app after using it for the first time. It can be counted in different ways according to the time periods: 1-day hold, 7-day hold, 28-day hold. In these cases, we count users who opened the app on the first, seventh, and twenty-eighth day after installing the app.

There is a similar metric called the "retention rate." For example, a seven-day recurring retention rate means that the user has opened the app at least once from the seventh day after installation to the current point.

User Activity Metrics

Monetization metrics

The most important monetization metrics are as follows:

• Paying users: The number of unique users who made at least one transaction during the set time period.
• Average revenue per user (ARPU) is the app's revenue divided by the total number of users over a set period of time.
• Average Revenue Per Paying User (ARPPU): App revenue divided by the total number of paying users over a set time period.
• Customer lifetime value (LTV) is a composite metric that shows how much value the average user brings over the time they use the app. The metric can include ARPU.

You can choose the metrics that are most relevant to your app or track them all. Measurement results and user feedback can point you in the direction of future improvements to your app.

Conclusion

Our step-by-step guide has come to an end. We hope that now it has become clearer to you what to do with the idea of a mobile application.