How to create a mobile app for your Entrepreneurial Venture: Quick and Easy
1. Sketch your Big IDEA
Quick facts, there are 2.2 million apps in the IOS app store and 2.8 million apps in Android. This number is not to scare you but to make you think differently with you big Idea. 95% of apps that are in these online stores are not successful. Some of them they do it for fun, some do it for a project and some do it to entertain themselves when you have an idea but very less number of them succeed in making it a viral app that it actually generates revenue. Sketching your big idea need not take time but one thing you must aware is what are things that you need to have and nice to have. Once you know this, it is almost half of your work is done. I will focus this article on mainly on how you can generate revenue on this big idea. Think of this, you go to a coffee shop, there Is only two things that can happen. Firstly, you know what you want, secondly you try something new which is in the menu. Or the fact that you heard your friends telling you about this app that is cool. This for you is gold to understand what you are building. Why is your coffee different from others? Is it the regular coffee or can you customize a blend of coffee that is unique? Most of app ideas are mostly there in the store, sorry to disappoint but this is 96% true. Soon we will get into the technical aspects on how you can build an App.
I am assuming that you have an idea if you're reading this.
2. Do your Market Research
Quick questions to ask on your research:
What are the alternatives and competitors in this space? What do your potential customers want. How do I charge my customer for the app or how are they going to come again to your app? When I was building my first start up, fashion app that can recognize clothing when you upload a picture and give you recommendations on what the system see’s in the picture. I literally went on the streets to ask them whether there is a need for my app, there is a excellent article on how can you articulate your questions without pitching my idea to know if there was a problem, if there are what’s the level of difficulty a problem it is. Incredible list to start your research from this questions: https://www.virginstartup.org/how-to/16-questions-ask-your-target-audience-starting-business. Then it does not stop here, but after the initial research you need to dig much deeper on, which I call the market research pending. Once you analyze what the problems are, they do have and do not have, half of your questions fade away. This is the time sometimes, you get to know that an app already exists, or you get a ‘AHA Moment’ out of this. Starting your own business is not about the brilliant idea you have, and let’s go build this but to work on first principle thinking whether the problem is big enough that people are actually willing to buy or download the app to engage the app in their daily life. This is what the million articles you get when you search how to start your business on Google. This is the hardest to find and once you find this now lets go the more fun part of building your app. Half the companies get this wrong and they let themselves build this unnecessary app that they think is cool. Someone once told me ‘Finding a Technology a home is a wrong way to start off but finding a big enough problem and solving it with the existing technology is a great way to look at your start up’.
3. Mockups – AKA how you think your app should look like:
Let’s talk tools now: Balsamiq, Mockups are free apps for a brief period, lets to get started in the game. Points to remember when you start building mock ups. Quick Bullets: A wireframe is really meant to be a structural representation of your site. A mockup fleshes out the static visual look of the site (e.g. with more of the image and color details as well). A prototype is specifically meant to show the user's interactions with this design (so it's no longer really static anymore). One of the this you need to keep in mind is to think like a customer. Questions to ask, how would your customer want to see this app. What information do you think he wants to see? In the initial stage of the wireframes and implementation what is the one trigger that got you the download. Women and men think differently, do mental mapping from age to profession, favorite colors to fonts, introvert or extrovert, working professional to students to unemployment. These are called use cases to get to think from the customer mind. Then come to the graphic part of it. These are few templates you can start off from. Learning sketch (tool: IOS) is a goof resource and for you to learn the art of graphic design. NOW, TETHR and DO by InVision, iOS iPhone GUI from Facebook, Stark UI kit by Baianat, Stitch by Lina Seleznyova, Phoenix by Adrian Chiran, Apply Pixels by Michael Flarup. The end result (or “deliverable”) you aim for, is a set of images and assets you can import into Xcode. You use the graphics files as the basis for your work in Interface Builder or with SwiftUI . You can’t import a Sketch or Photoshop design directly, so you’ll have to recreate it in Interface Builder and/or Xcode to build your app. You lay out views in Interface Builder, import image assets, and set up Auto Layout constraints, to bring the UI of your app to life. More guidelines from the IOS world for developers. If your already familiar of Human Computer Principles do ignore this part or link. https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/ios/overview/themes/
4. Now you’re ready to make an app in XCode and SWIFT- This is time you put on your Coding Cap:
It is hard but it is not impossible. Steve Jobs once said, Programming languages enable you to teach you to think like a computer. Sounds fun or not you need to do this. They are some apps that lets you do it without having to learn coding, but if you have the resources, please go for it but if you are a start up and have no one to code, this is your way to learn something new today! It usually takes 2-3 weeks to do this. But it is an incredible journey and a challenge that you can be proud off after you have seen what you build. You’ve created mockups, your app’s design, and taken the first steps in marketing your app with a website(optional). Way to go!
5. XCode runs on Mac IOS, so you should need a macbook or your friend’s or libraries to build:
Here’s a quick pick of my favorite tools for building iOS apps: Xcode, Interface Builder, Swift and SwiftUI for iOS development, Balsamiq Mockups and Sketch for graphic design and UI/UX, CocoaPods and libraries like Alamofire, SwiftyJSON and MBProgressHUD, Firebase, Parse Platform, Realm and Core Data for storage and databases, Fastlane automates your app publishing workflow (among other things), PaintCode turns your visually designed UI elements into working Swift code, Apple Developer Documentation has super helpful articles, tutorials and documentation on pretty much every iOS component, TestFlight is the default platform to beta test your app (see below), and with it you can distribute your app to up to 10.000 devices.
To learn coding: https://learnappmaking.com/ios-development-course/ to do this free of cost. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulp1Kimblg0 another one for Youtube learners. Super helpful.
This to read before you get to the development part: Two things to keep in mind front end and back end. Front-end is the part of the app you can see. It includes layout, navigation, graphics, user interaction, animation and data processing. Back-end is the part of the app you can’t see includes databases, networking, data storage, and user management. No need to panic but I will explain to you and we will get through this together. The back-end of your app mostly stores data. Many apps these days make use of cloud-based back-ends, like Firebase or Parse Server. When the data is created in the app, user information and when he buys something from your app, or pictures that you load, this data is uploaded to the cloud and stored in a database. The app keeps local copies of that data, and updates them whenever new data comes in. You integrate both of font and back. For example, if your building a fashion app, pictures play a major part, they are stored in the cloud aka backend. You don’t have to code everything on your own. Thanks to an engaged open source community and the rise of commercial development tools, you have an armada of tools, libraries and frameworks to choose from( See above). Motivation: If you can get this, you might have saved around $20K which you would spend on building this app.
5. XCode runs on Mac IOS, so you should need a macbook or your friend’s or libraries to build:
Here’s a quick pick of my favorite tools for building iOS apps: Xcode, Interface Builder, Swift and SwiftUI for iOS development, Balsamiq Mockups and Sketch for graphic design and UI/UX, CocoaPods and libraries like Alamofire, SwiftyJSON and MBProgressHUD, Firebase, Parse Platform, Realm and Core Data for storage and databases, Fastlane automates your app publishing workflow (among other things), PaintCode turns your visually designed UI elements into working Swift code, Apple Developer Documentation has super helpful articles, tutorials and documentation on pretty much every iOS component, TestFlight is the default platform to beta test your app (see below), and with it you can distribute your app to up to 10.000 devices.
To learn coding: https://learnappmaking.com/ios-development-course/ to do this free of cost. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulp1Kimblg0 another one for Youtube learners. Super helpful.
This to read before you get to the development part: Two things to keep in mind front end and back end. Front-end is the part of the app you can see. It includes layout, navigation, graphics, user interaction, animation and data processing. Back-end is the part of the app you can’t see includes databases, networking, data storage, and user management. No need to panic but I will explain to you and we will get through this together. The back-end of your app mostly stores data. Many apps these days make use of cloud-based back-ends, like Firebase or Parse Server. When the data is created in the app, user information and when he buys something from your app, or pictures that you load, this data is uploaded to the cloud and stored in a database. The app keeps local copies of that data, and updates them whenever new data comes in. You integrate both of font and back. For example, if your building a fashion app, pictures play a major part, they are stored in the cloud aka backend. You don’t have to code everything on your own. Thanks to an engaged open source community and the rise of commercial development tools, you have an armada of tools, libraries and frameworks to choose from( See above). Motivation: If you can get this, you might have saved around $20K which you would spend on building this app.
6. Launch Time – Game Time Baby!
Prepare your app’s title and meta data with App Store Connect, Upload your latest app build to the App Store with Xcode, Apple reviews your app, following the App Store Review Guidelines, When your app is approved, it’s published live in the App Store, DONE! People can now download and install your app. It is that easy to launch, thanks to apple they made the process very easy for someone who wants to get to the app in the market.
7. Ideas to promote your App
Here’s some ideas and stick with it. I really mean it, it is better to be good at one but master of none. Strictly applicable in this context! Start a blog and use content marketing to tell people about your app, submit your app to curated platforms, like Product Hunt and Friends, get local publicity and build a connection with influencers in your field, create an onboarding campaign for new app users,optimize the keywords of your app with App Store Optimization, focus first on getting 1 user, then 10, then 1000, then 10.000 – don’t try to make an impact on thousands of people from the start, Use the network effect to build a product that gets better when more people use it, and help people share your app with others, set up an App Install campaign on Facebook, or use the Search Ads in the App Store, use SKStoreReviewController to ask app users for a review (which subsequently boosts your App Store ranking) or pay them to review it, works(Why is when there are more reviews the app store shoots your appl listing to the front, more reviews more chance to be on the first time and please learn from the reviews or try to contact them and know what’s the problem or know what’s is that thing they like the most! And shoot them an email aka email marketing for feedback!), and lastly improve your app metadata and screenshots, and tell people about the benefits of using your app (instead of just listing features). Finally when where the user is not satisfied or they want something related to it but little different from the feature you build, take it seriously and do the market research again. Ask these questions What problem does your app solve? Who is your app for? How can you reach those people?
Connect: Reach me on neelapu.m@husky.neu.edu and you can also follow me on https://mohnishreddy.blogspot.com
Prepare your app’s title and meta data with App Store Connect, Upload your latest app build to the App Store with Xcode, Apple reviews your app, following the App Store Review Guidelines, When your app is approved, it’s published live in the App Store, DONE! People can now download and install your app. It is that easy to launch, thanks to apple they made the process very easy for someone who wants to get to the app in the market.
7. Ideas to promote your App
Here’s some ideas and stick with it. I really mean it, it is better to be good at one but master of none. Strictly applicable in this context! Start a blog and use content marketing to tell people about your app, submit your app to curated platforms, like Product Hunt and Friends, get local publicity and build a connection with influencers in your field, create an onboarding campaign for new app users,optimize the keywords of your app with App Store Optimization, focus first on getting 1 user, then 10, then 1000, then 10.000 – don’t try to make an impact on thousands of people from the start, Use the network effect to build a product that gets better when more people use it, and help people share your app with others, set up an App Install campaign on Facebook, or use the Search Ads in the App Store, use SKStoreReviewController to ask app users for a review (which subsequently boosts your App Store ranking) or pay them to review it, works(Why is when there are more reviews the app store shoots your appl listing to the front, more reviews more chance to be on the first time and please learn from the reviews or try to contact them and know what’s the problem or know what’s is that thing they like the most! And shoot them an email aka email marketing for feedback!), and lastly improve your app metadata and screenshots, and tell people about the benefits of using your app (instead of just listing features). Finally when where the user is not satisfied or they want something related to it but little different from the feature you build, take it seriously and do the market research again. Ask these questions What problem does your app solve? Who is your app for? How can you reach those people?
Connect: Reach me on neelapu.m@husky.neu.edu and you can also follow me on https://mohnishreddy.blogspot.com
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