
The tech world is compounding advancements and 2023 is going to see more startups than ever. One of the major contributors to this startup ecosystem is the app development domain. This technical area is witnessing exponential growth with diverse trends like Flutter and cross-platform development, cloud-native solutions, and the Internet of Things.
If you, too, are an aspiring appreneur and plan to take a plunge in the market, here is a 7-step blueprint on starting and running an app business. Furthermore, if you’re planning to hire an expert custom software development company to assist you with your business needs, you can hire app developers in New York, too.
1. Pick an app development niche
Your niche and category are two main factors that decide if you are going to hit the market big because some niches are highly saturated, and it is difficult to stand out, for instance, Flutter, while others have a huge gap to be capitalized on despite competition.
Needless to say, Flutter is quite in-demand due to exceptional reasons, and it has a lot of potential these days in the markets. If you too also want to invest in flutter app development services, you can connect with any reliable android app development company in New York.
App development ideas for 2023
- Blockchain app: NFT games, cryptocurrency exchanges, and smart contract-based real estate apps
- Healthcare apps: mood trackers, habit trackers, disease management programs, stress and anxiety management apps, meditation and sleep improvement apps
- Game application: arcade, horror, racing, role-playing, real-time strategy, and 3D games
- SaaS application: videoconferencing tools, AI-based content creation tools, business development, and lead gen tools
- AR and VR apps: AR-based healthcare and location apps, tracking apps, VR-based training apps
Once you have the idea and an app story, it’s time to move to your next step, where you go with features and functions in depth.
2. Create a business plan
Write down the budget you have allocated for your app development business. This budget should be divided into MVP development, maintenance, marketing, and testing – designing, too, if you are choosing to launch a gaming application. We suggest you hire android application developer as they will help in optimizing the overall app development costs.
In your business plan, also write down the features you initially want in your MVP and secondary features that you may add in the future.
Then write the methods you are choosing for monetization. For example, you can choose to monetize through a free, ad-based model or launch a freemium app with free and paid features. Or, you can go for a complete subscription-based app.
Then predict the number of downloads for the first five years and how you plan to market.
3. Hire an app developer
Once your planning phases are done, it’s time to complete technical development. For that, the first step is to hire an app development team.
When hiring a mobile app developer in Miami, make sure to strike the right balance between quality of dev services, technical expertise, portfolio, and pricing.
4. Complete technical milestones
Once you have made a contract with an app development team, start working on your development milestones. The main stages include UI and UX design, front-end development, back-end development, and API integration.
The back end is the server side of an app that fetches data and returns app responses to users.
Front-end is the client side of an app that interacts directly with the user.
APIs are small code snippets that help with adding specific features. They are getting trendier because they reduce development time and effort. Popular APIs include Google Maps, PayPal, Stripe, Square, Facebook login, and so on.
5. Test the app
Testing an app and each of its features is as important as building it. You don’t want a perfectly built app that goes into the users’ hands and provides excellent features but crashes in the middle of a function.
Testers use different techniques when assessing an app before launch. These techniques include unit testing, device testing, functional testing, and penetration assessment.
Penetration assessment is also called ethical hacking, which tests whether an app would be able to counter and defend against a hacking attempt from an online intruder.
Unit testing breaks down an app into smaller components, then tests each component for performance.
Functional testing is major user experience testing that assesses the loading time and speed, app crashes, bugs, and viruses.
Device testing assesses the performance of an app on different operating systems and their versions.
6. Launch the app
App store and Google Play store are the leading stores where you can launch your app. Make sure to follow their code of conduct when submitting your app for approval. Write detailed descriptions and provide clear screenshots. App Store and Google Play both take between 3 weeks to 3 months to approve an app.
Once approved, you can follow either of the two launching strategies: soft launch and hard launch.
A hard launch is great if you have no competitors and you have a launching budget.
A soft launch is ideal if you are introducing an MVP and plan on adding more features after testing and research.
7. Market the app
For marketing, you can choose between pure organic, paid, or a mix of different strategies.
In organic marketing, you can go for search engine marketing, social media and influencer marketing, and video marketing. Hire website development services in the USA and get a catchy landing page that attracts search engine traffic and directs it to your store listing.
Later, if you plan to scale and switch to paid marketing, you can use the same landing page to run Google Ads campaign. The same goes for social media. You can run ads on Facebook and Instagram.
Another trending digital marketing platform is Quora. Look for relevant questions and answer them by providing a link to your app.
If you want to build slowly and steadily, start creating pins on Pinterest. It works like a visual search engine, and businesses market everything from physical products to digital downloads on the platform.