3 Tricks to Cut the Costs on Mobile Apps for Your Startup

3 Tricks to Cut the Costs on Mobile Apps for Your Startup

1st Trick Is Answering On the Right Questions

I know that you will tell me that there is no time for questions, but believe me and my experience of CEO of mobile app development company: the right questions are 80% of successfully-saved project’s budget. You are full of ideas which are represented in the form of sketches, mind maps, wireframes or general project description, and you want developers to start your project immediately. Better is to think this way: spending time on answering the right questions brings better outcomes in the final, and eventually saves money on mobile app development. I do not want to waste your time, so I will write only important questions that you MUST ANSWER before you request your first proposal. If you want to know how to order quality mobile apps for your startup then click here.

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Spending time on answering the right questions brings better outcomes in the final, and eventually saves money on mobile app development.

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These questions are fundamental if you want to cut the costs on mobile app development:

OVERALL PROJECT VISION

1. What is your vision for this project?

Briefly describe your app idea and how do you want it to work.

For instance, you can do it this way: “We believe that our app will help our customers to buy our products and services on-the-go, and track delivery progress without calling our customer support representatives every time they want to know if an order is already delivered to a store. We think that it will let our customer support department to concentrate on more complex issues of our clients.”

2. What defines success for this project? (Which KPIs do you want to improve?)

For e.g. Decrease a daily number of phone calls to customer support department.

3. What platform should be your app on —  iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Phone?

4. What type of interface (design) do you want your app to have? Will it have custom design or standard one?

5. Do you want to add new content on the regular basis or your app should be static (it will have built-in content)? Content means set of images, texts, videos etc.

6. Do you want to create accounts in your app or just log in forms should be added? Will your users have their own profiles?

7. Do you want to allow social media sharing in your app? Will your app users share information from your app through their Facebook and Twitter accounts?

8. Will your users rate or review things?

9. Will your app use in-app payments? Are you going to accept credit cards in your app?

10. Does it need to connect to back-end database? Will your app need to be integrated with your website?

11. Will your app need to sync data across devices?

12. What cell phone's features (hardware) will it use? Camera, GPS, accelerometer, NFC, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or other features? Maybe, you have your own equipment and want it to work with a smartphone.

13. Does your app require 3D graphics?

14. At what state is your project at? Is it an idea, a prototype or you app is already in development process?

15. What is the budget for your app?

2^nd Trick Is to Start from MVP

MVP or Minimum Viable Project is all about to start small and develop your custom mobile app in the form of quick iterations which are based on user feedback. In other words you will spend your investments wisely and 90% effectively. I guarantee that you and your angel investors will be more than happy if you will go this way.

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MVP or Minimum Viable Project is all about to start small and develop your custom mobile app in the form of quick iterations which are based on user feedback. In other words you will spend your investments wisely and 90% effectively.

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In many cases MVPs are represented in the form of limited functionality of your application, but it doesn’t mean that you won’t give your users what they want. It means that you won’t give your users what they will, probably, never use. If you do not spend money on development of additional & unneeded functions for your app then you will save money for the functions that your users really need. It’s obvious, but people still make this mistake over and over.

WHAT IS MVP FOR MOBILE APPLICATIONS

In the case with mobile apps for business, MVP is a mobile app that solves one core problem which influences on a certain KPI or metric. Sometimes you can solve a few problems but do not overcomplicate your app in the beginning. Remember to start small, learn from user feedback and improve your app. That’s it!

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Do not overcomplicate your app in the beginning. Remember to start small, learn from user feedback and improve your app. That’s it!

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HOW TO START WITH MVP

Pick a core problem you want to solve and hire a mobile app development company (with UX onboard) or a UX designer if your plan is to hire a freelancer to code your application afterwards. Never mix visual design with UX.

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In the case with mobile apps for business, MVP is a mobile app that solves one core problem which influences on a certain KPI or metric.

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3^rd Trick Is to Develop a Cross Platform Mobile App

The only way to cut the costs on mobile app development is to develop a cross platform. The cross platform development suits the best for mediocre apps. You can test your idea and see what platform your users prefer the most, and develop a native app afterwards. Native apps are apps which were developed with software development kit (SDK) that is provided by manufacturer. E.g. iOS 7 SDK and Xcode 5 or Android SDK.

Unfortunately, I don’t know any successful cross platform apps or services except Zipcar, but design of it is just awful. You should remember that even Facebook had started with cross-platform-HTML mobile app, but eventually they choose native mobile apps.

Tools like Appcelerator shows big and awesome portfolio, but if you will dig deeper you will find that eBay do not use them anymore, and other popular brands too. Reason is very simple: they had used it only in the beginning in order to try if their company really was needed for a business mobile app. I must say that Appcelerator is quite good cross platform tool which compiles native code, but you do not have any direct access to it. That is why you will never be allowed to access the code that is running on the smartphone, so it will be harder to detect and improve errors as well as general app performance.

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eBay had used cross platform apps only in the beginning in order to try if their company really was needed for a business mobile app.

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Adobe offers even two cross platform tools, namely — Adobe Air (Flash and Flex technologies, and ActionScript onboard) and PhoneGap (HTML, JavaScript and CSS).

Phone Gap transforms your mobile app into a web browser that runs a HTML website. It is very slow and very unnatural. But it can be used to build a simple weather app or an interactive marketing brochure.

Adobe AIR installs the run-time engine with your mobile app and runs your app as a Flash-based application. It is also slow, but you can build even a Desktop application with this tool. It’s a big advantage. Some of successful desktop & web professional UX tools were built with Adobe Air, but I cannot say the same thing about mobile apps.

A few more popular cross platforms: Xamarin (Appcelerator’s competitor), Qt. Xamarin is very expensive one for developers, Qt a bit cheaper, meanwhile Apple’s native tools are almost free $99 per year for single developer or $399 for enterprise. Android SDK is mostly free.

Pros

You develop one app and run it on every device from Android, iOS to Web and Desktop.

You save a lot of money, because there is no need to develop separately for iPhone and Android, and other platforms.

Cons

YOU WILL NEED TO CREATE A NATIVE APP FROM THE GROUND UP IF YOUR USERS SHOW AN INTEREST IN YOUR CROSS PLATFORM APPLICATION.

Cross platform apps may work with a smartphone’s hardware incorrectly. For instance, it may cause some troubles if your app would need to use GPS, Camera etc.

You will never reach true performance of a native application as well as native’s user experience.

CONCLUSION: You may use it to develop simple apps (weather apps, info apps, marketing brochures etc.). You are welcome to use it in order to test your idea about developing native apps for all available platforms.

In the end, I want to say this: “Don’t look for the shortcuts and go smart”.

Thank you for attention and let your entrepreneurial mind guides toward truly money-making solutions. If you have questions or problems then feel free to contact me. All the contact stuff you will find below.

Leave your comments, email me or catch me on Twitter at @ivanzaichuk 

by Ivan Zaichuk, Founder & CEO of IvZ Solutions