For entrepreneurs, Business Apps are all the rage. If you have decided that an App is indeed what you need, here are the 5 essential things to consider to create a killer App and get the maximum bang for your buck (and effort).
Do you need a business plan at the start?
Yes, you need to write a sound business plan, I don’t suggest you write a 100page long plan that takes a month to write. This is more of a fact-finding mission and writing down your thoughts. You would shine light on the various opportunities and risks, and clearly define the viability of your project.
At the minimum, you need to write up the following and in that order: business description, basic market analysis, competition analysis, development plan and financial planning.
Additionally, you need to ask, Who is the target audience of your App? What is your cash flow? How are you going to fund the development of your App? When do you expect it to start giving you revenues or other expected return on investment? etc.
Along the development life-cycle of your App, you need to revisit this and improve your plan over time. If you decide to dive deeper into this, please see the links below:
Funding?
Where to get money for the App, go through all the great ways listed on various websites but obviously start with : your own cash. Don’t expect people to simply pay to be part of your idea. You have to prove that your idea works. This may mean making a working prototype, with possibly limited functionality. Here is one of the better articles I found online.
Think of your funding levels like a video-game, once you have proven your worth in the lower level, you go up one level. Similarly, if you have executed your idea, which means at least one of the following is true, then you can tap into external sources of funding.
* your app generates money
* your app has reasonably high downloads or user base
* you have a novel idea with good execution
External sources of funding may be independent or institutional investors, crowd funding, bank loans or even donations on your site.
Have you Created a team that works?
You need a team, not necessarily a full-time team, but a group of individuals who bring varied skills to the table to develop your App. You can do this all by yourself, assuming you have all these skills and willing to work a good number of solid hours.
There are many ways to do this, for example:
* Develop your own App
* Hire freelancers to develop for you
* Find a company to program your App
* Recruit a project manager,who can apply any of the above practices as per your instructions.
People with expertise in the following areas will be required, user experience, interaction design, visual design, project management and so on.
How involved do you need to be?
The short answer is, very involved. Business Apps are going to be outlet for your organization. Involvement is take make sure not only all parties are in sync but also your vision is turning into handsome reality.
Regardless of what direction you decide to take, it’s you who need to ensure that you are getting the desired outcomes and track that the project is on time and on budget. You don’t need to read the code every time something is done but you need to track the progress and make sure a quality product is delivered. If something isn’t working as desired, you need to fix these problems as you go. This mean either setting expectations within your team, bringing in someone more skilled in the required areas.
Additionally, you may need to revise your budget, features, targets and performance among numerous other things, and you cannot fix these things unless you are intimately involved in your app development.
How much does it cost to build that App?
With evildevelopers.com you expect to pay AUD 7,500 to 10,000 for a Mid-level business application. Now with blatant sales pitch out of the way, please read on to find out break-down of the average costs.
This would greatly depend on the complexity of the app, hourly cost of the programmer/developer etc.
A mid-level web based business app, with good complexity and high utility, would take around 3 months in just development work. In most projects, 25% effort is spent on Analysis(assuming you are already doing it); 50% for Design, Development and Unit Test; remaining 25% for bug fixes and add a 10% variance. Then leave additional 1 month, to suit the look and feel of the App to your choice. So this means that you can finish everything in around 4 to 5 months. Now if you can find the average cost of your programmer, which is between $15 to $40 per hour, 40 hour week, you expect to pay at a minimum of A$7500 to upwards of A$20,000
So these are the 5 Essentials to consider for your App based Business. Please get in touch if you would like us to expand on any of these topics, or if you have any feedback based on your own experience.
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