Nothing stands still for long in the world of mobile applications. No sooner had you thought of your idea, a quick search on Google or in one of the online stores will probably show that your idea is not original. It is at this point which most would be apprepreneurs, as we like to call them, become disheartened. But is that the right reaction?
We often speak to those apprepreneurs (our customers) about competition within their market sector and it is generally accepted that competition is a good thing and actually validates the market for them. Hey, we don’t want to just produce another me-too product do we? No, we need to produce something different, we need to produce something better, we need to give the user a better experience – we are looking for the point of differentiation. Use whichever analogy you like; we don’t want to reinvent the wheel but we want better tires, we want to design the better mousetrap...
This is all incredibly relevant to mobile app development because, for example, with over 900,000 apps currently vying for a slice of the action in just Apple’s App Store alone, your product, yes we mean product, needs to stand out from the crowd.
So, how do you achieve this? OK, firstly as I have just intimated, let’s not just think of it as an app, let’s think of it as a product. Any self-respecting entrepreneur or business would never take a new product to market without researching, without designing and without investing. This is the exact approach those who are looking for success in the mobile app market need to take. Statistics and experience show time and time again that if you overlook the research, if you overlook design and if you over look the investing side of developing your app product you will head for failure very quickly.
We want our apprepreneurs (remember, that’s our customers) to be successful; but that is not something we can help them achieve by ourselves. We need them to be well versed in research, to have thought significantly about the design elements of the app and to be prepared to invest sufficient and appropriate time & money in the development process.
There are no secret shortcuts to success in the world of apps but by ensuring you are watertight in these three key areas (research, design, investment) you stand a chance of success.
We absolutely love hearing about these new ideas and I can’t tell you about the sense of excitement when we hear of an app product which we believe is destined for success.