So, you have an amazing app idea and you believe that you have finally struck gold? Well, this is what every app developer initially feels, but many are those whose ideas have never seen the light of day. As of January 2107, there were over 2.2 million iOS apps on the App Store and Android apps on Google Play are now over 3 million. Amazon AppStore has over 600k mobile apps and these numbers should give a reality check on what to expect in the mobile app landscape.
How then do you know that your app idea is worth the time and money? How do you avoid building an app that no one will come looking for in the app stores? While most developers will just go ahead and start building an app in the hope that the idea will work, this is not the best idea. For your app idea to work, it needs to be planned and well executed for it to reflect your organization’s vision.
Initial Steps to Validate Your App
Before jumping into the more complex validation processes for your app, why not start with the basics? Take a look:
1. Market research:
Check for other similar apps in app stores by using target keywords on search engines. Check the popularity of such apps’ potential competitors, performance of similar apps, and their marketing approaches. Google Trends and Mobile Action are good tools for your app research.
2. Simple pitch strategy:
Talk to family, friends and work colleagues and ask if they can use such an app. Confirm if they have a similar app already and the reasons they don’t like your app idea if any.
3. Landing page:
This should be built even before the development of the app starts. Test how willing target customers are to buy your app. Email subscription form is a must at this stage as subscriptions, will give an idea of the interest your app can generate.
4. Ad campaign:
Run a Google Adwords campaign and Facebook marketing campaign to send traffic to your landing page.
5. Track results:
This will again give an idea of the potential popularity of your app.
Concrete Strategies to Validate Your App
To validate your app, consider the following strategies that are used in other business processes:
1. Proof of concept (POC):
This is an idea best used if you have a team of developers working on the app. It is an internal app validation technique where usability is not a major consideration, but instead sharing of internal knowledge, leveraging emerging technologies and provides proof that the app can work. This can be built with expert mobile app developers and Its recommended to find a full stack developer.
2. Prototype:
This is a validation step of the app where the team now shows practically what can be done. This is an end-to end working and interactive simple model app with process management, defined technology usage and data flow. There are many errors, but identification of such weaknesses is at the core of this validation process.
3. Minimum Viable Product (MVP):
An MVP works together with a prototype for a successful end product. This is a minimal form of your app and closely resembles what will be launched. The iterative process in the MVP validation stage helps identify user’s problems, product viability, usability and market demand for the app. Since MVP plays a major role in building your app, you should partner with an experienced app development company. They can able to plan, design, develop and deploy your app idea.
These validation processes are faster and provide invaluable information that goes into refining the final app to be tested and launched in the market.
