Building mobile apps is time-consuming, intensive, and expensive. However, the technical part of it isn’t the hard part.
Most ideas that I’ve heard for mobile apps are possible to build. Even the ideas that are pretty ambitious are still possible to build with enough skill, time, and money.
Where I see a lot of would-be mobile app entrepreneurs get into trouble is in underestimating the amount of work and the difficultly involved in planning, project management, testing, marketing, and ongoing maintenance of an app.
Here’s are 10 questions you should ask yourself and know the answer to when planning to build an app:
1. Who is your target market?
2. Who is your competition?
3. Are you “just like” a much more well known app, but for a smaller market? For example, do you describe your app as “Yelp for Dog Sitters”? This may not be the best app to build…since dog sitters and people looking for dog sitters are likely already using Yelp, and so there’s probably not a need for your app.
4. Why would someone download your app?
5. Do you have special experience that makes you uniquely qualified to develop this app?
6. Why would someone keep your app and continue to use it after they download it?
7. Do you have the money to build, run, and maintain this app, or do you know how you’re going to get it?
8. What is your marketing plan and marketing budget?
9. Have you, or can you, build a detailed prototype of how your app will work?
10. How do you define “success” for your app? Can you quantify it?
If you have a great app idea, but don’t yet know the answers to these questions or you answer any of them incorrectly, you may not yet be ready to build your app.
If this is the case, contact me today for a free consultation and we’ll help you pass this test and increase your chances of success!
-Chris