Expert Tips For Building Mobile Apps From Startup Founders

If you’re a startup dreaming about building the next big app, you’re amongst the masses in today’s competitive landscape. But in spite of this competition, countless startups are successful in building their apps into well-known brands that make big bucks.

With nearly 8 million apps in the Google Play store alone, how does a company stand out? The reality is that even though we’re all downloading apps like crazy, we only use 9 of them on a daily basis. Over the course of the month, the average person will use 30 different apps.

How does a company make the cut? How can you be better, faster, and give people what they need and want in their daily lives?

For this question, we’re going straight to the source. Here are the best tips for building mobile apps that have come straight from the mouths of founders from thriving startups. This is how they all went from nothing to growing app businesses.

Start with a plan

Don’t just dive in without doing your research and understanding the core components that will take your project from start to finish. You need to start with a plan, and here is how you do it.

Do your market research

Don’t make assumptions. Take the time to research the market, the competition, and the current trends and landscape. In addition to this, you need to test your app idea. This is a great time to develop your MVP, so your ideal client base can experience your app, and provide invaluable feedback on features and design before you build the final product.

Pick a target group

This will come from your market research. Decide who your ideal customers are, so you can tailor your features, marketing, and messaging accordingly.

Pre-plan the app’s design:

Get everything you need to happen on paper so that any random person looking at the design specs could understand what you want. Define what you want the app to do and outline the flow you’re expecting to see. Clarify what people or firms will handle each of the steps throughout the entire process.

Prioritize the user experience

Start with your user experience designer first to create a prototype, before you have a developer building the end product. Allow users to test your app for user experience, to ensure you’ve nailed that first and foremost. If you don’t give people a good user experience, your app will never survive.

Don’t skip the MVP process

It’s already been mentioned, but this is an important step that should not be skipped. Start with the minimum viable product that gives people something to test, and build out from there. Get feedback on user experience, features, and design long before anything is finalized.

Be prepared for continued investment

Once your app is done, or even throughout the MVP stages, you’ll continue to invest money for updates and tweaks. This is a never-ending process, so be prepared for the continual investment if you want your app to perform optimally as time goes on.

Don’t forget about your marketing strategy

Developing and building your app is one piece of the pie, but this thing isn’t going to sell itself. Think about your short-term and long-term marketing strategy, and don’t wait until your product is finalized to start. You can start on a pre-launch as soon as the idea is conceptualized with a basic landing page and waiting list.

These tips for building mobile apps have been coined by those who have already done this process successfully. If you want to become an expert, the best place to start is learning from those who have already traveled your path.

Happy building!

Post originally appeared on gojilabs.com.