Where to Start If I Want to Develop a Mobile App For Business?

What is the most significant challenge if you have a mobile app idea? Is it how to develop the app or find the best solution or any other? The truth is most entrepreneurs don’t know what to ask first. In a Reddit post, an entrepreneur shared how she has an app idea but doesn’t know what to ask, whom to ask, and where to begin. 

Despite this post being five years old, you will find new startup owners and entrepreneurs still struggling to find the first base in starting their mobile app business. 

But why a mobile app?

Mobile apps are a significant revenue source for businesses today. A Statista report indicates that app spending surged to over $171 billion at the end of 2023. So, you can imagine the kind of opportunity mobile apps provide entrepreneurs. However, the problem begins when startup owners consider converting their unique ideas into a highly functional mobile app. 

This article tries to resolve every entrepreneur’s first and foremost issue- how to develop a mobile app. But before you know the entire process, understand the key questions to ask!

Starting Your Mobile App Business: What to Ask?

If you have an app idea and want to develop a mobile application, the first step is to figure out the target audience. For example, if you want to solve the problem of finding a taxi in a bustling metro, you first have to figure out who the ideal customer is. Who will book a cab using your app? Similarly, you need to figure out different aspects of your startup.

Here are some of the critical questions to ask,

• What is the problem that my app will solve?
• What is the target audience?
• How will users know about my app?
• How different is my app from others in the market?
• What value does the app offer to target customers?
• How will I develop the app?
• What will be the cost of developing a mobile app?
• Can I afford to hire an in-house development team?
• Or should I outsource the entire mobile app development?

These are just some of the questions that you need to ask. 

But to whom?

Begin by asking peers in the industry. Reach out to competitors and understand their offerings. Only some of the competitors may be so forthcoming. So, find a way to get insights into the market. One way is to follow industry experts and influencers close to your target audience across platforms. 

Begin by asking peers in the industry. Reach out to competitors and understand their offerings. So, find a way to get insights into the market. Share on X

While this can be your starting point, app development requires dedicated efforts! It involves identifying the problem, creating a solution, validating it, defining essential requirements, and designing, developing, and deploying the app.

How to Start Developing Your Mobile App: A Step-by-Step Process

Developing your first app requires the proper focus, so you must be more objective. If your app idea is not feasible and does not fit the market, rethink whether you want to build it. However, if you are confident about your idea, testing it with a minimum viable product(MVP) makes more sense. When to choose MVP and why is what you will know in the below process,

Step 1 – Test Your Idea First

Testing your idea requires an investment in money and time based on the concept you are testing. For example, the Savioke lab’s robot was built for hotels to automate specific services, like helping guests with missing razors or forgotten items. 

Before building the robot, the Savioke team needed to test whether guests would be comfortable interacting with it. So, they decided to make a prototype and test it in a hotel with a small lot of guests. 

However, the problem was a stricter timeline. The Savioke team set four days for their prototyping and testing sprint. Such a short timeline meant the team needed to work their socks out. While this could have been much more difficult had there been no experts on the team, fortunately for Savioke, there were experts throughout the prototyping process.  

Testing your idea will only sometimes require prototyping. But whether to build a prototype is a decision that needs expert advice. Other ways to validate your ideas are, 

• By conducting simulations of the app where customers can access virtual mockups
• Having one-on-one sessions with customers to understand what pain points the app can solve.
• She detailed competitor analysis to identify the gaps in existing options available in the market.
• Conducting online surveys to understand what customers expect from a solution like yours
• Doing comprehensive market research to understand the problem that your app will solve.

Once the idea is verified through different approaches, you need to define the requirements for mobile app development. 

Step 2 – Define Mobile App Development Requirements 

Now that you have the idea verified, it’s time to create a list of things you will need to build a mobile application. You need to create a requirement document for your mobile development project. 

Creating a detailed and well-defined requirement document is crucial for your business. It allows the development team, whether in-house or outsourced, to understand critical requirements. 

Here is what you must include in the requirement document, 

1. App Idea And Purpose

Right from the start of your document, define the problem statement and solution your app will offer. Next, provide the purpose of your mobile application. Identify the stakeholders and share the details of the project with them. Ensure your requirements are concise and clear so the team can understand the project’s scope.

2. Compare Your Requirements With Competition

Use competitor analysis to understand user perspective and design buyer personas. First, you need to identify direct, indirect, secondary, and substitute categories of competitors. Next, analyze their products, pricing, target audience, engaging promotions, market positioning, and user profiles.

Conduct a SWOT analysis to determine your competitor’s key strengths and weaknesses. It helps you learn the shortcomings of existing mobile apps and capitalize on them. Mainly, you get to explore different opportunities in the market with SWOT analysis. 

For example, security becomes essential to developing a mobile app for your eCommerce business. Security can become your strength and an opportunity. Keeping your eCommerce business secure can offer a competitive edge and improve user trust.

3. Prioritize the Functional Aspects of Requirement Doc

Segregate the functional and non-functional mobile app requirements. Now prioritize mobile app requirements with the following details, 

• Feature descriptions
• User sign-up, onboarding, verification, and subscription roadmap
• Button and dashboard definition 
• External and internal interface functional definition
• Admin function requirements
• Transaction adjustment, correction, and other functions. 
• Type of app you want to develop(native, hybrid and cross-platform)

You must determine which app and platform you want to target. For example, if you are developing native apps for Android and iOS, you will have to build two separate applications. However, with cross-platform applications, you can reuse the same code for both platforms.

Once the requirements document is ready, you must find a team to execute the mobile app development process. There are two popular approaches,

1. Either you build an in-house team.
2. Or you hire one 

Step 3 – Find A Mobile App Development Team For Your Mobile App

Building an in-house team offers better control, but there are downsides, too. First of all, you will end up paying more because, factoring in the cost of hiring teams, salaries, insurance, and training expenses, it’s costly. 

At the same time, finding a mobile app development company that offers a dedicated team works best for your project. Most mobile app development services are customizable, allowing you to build teams within your budget. Plus, you get the flexibility of adding or reducing developers as and when you need. Hiring or laying off employees from your in-house team can take time and effort. 

So, how do you find an exemplary mobile app development service for your projects?

Here are a few tips,

• Compare the portfolio of mobile development companies to understand their experience.
• Analyze mobile development approaches and methods
• Check for secure mobile development practices and code quality
• Learn what type of support the company offers before you choose one
• If you are a niche-based business, check if the mobile app development service provider has specific niche experience. 

Once you finalize the mobile app development team to work on your project, it’s time to start building the application. 

Step 4 – Develop, Test, Deploy And Repeat

You can start small by developing an MVP and gradually build the mobile application with incremental iterations. This approach allows continuous integration of customer feedback, and you will improve the mobile app with each iteration. 

Plus, you need to integrate a cycle of developing the code, testing, deploying, and maintaining it, making this a more continuous process. An essential task in this cycle is publishing the app on platforms like Android and iOS, which have specific guidelines. 

So, you must plan deployment, ensure platform compliance, and market the mobile app. Your marketing efforts need to be rigorous and strategic. Promoting the app is a part of business marketing that should be on your list of priorities.

Building The Next Big Unicorn(Conclusion)

Developing a mobile application is beneficial in the current era, where screen time is increasing, and people use smartphones for almost everything. However, identifying the problem that you want to solve with your mobile app is crucial. You also need a reliable mobile app development team to ensure a product that can ace the market and convert your startup into a unicorn. 

As discussed above, getting answers to the questions entrepreneurs must ask and finding the right team can do wonders. Follow the step-by-step process for a mobile app development project to achieve the success your business deserves.