How to accelerate mobile app development and create products your users want

Entrepreneurs continue to release new digital products on a daily basis even though Apple’s App Store and Google Play already feature millions of applications. Considering that after ninety days the average mobile retention rate goes below 30 percent, this means that the majority of users stop launching an app or uninstall it completely. And once they’re gone, they’re gone.

If you want to tap into the mobile business, better be quick at ensuring your app serves a real market need. And accelerating your development can surely help to improve your odds of success.

From manufacturing to retail and transport, mobile apps can simplify processes, streamline operations and create quality customer communication. Having a mobile app is no longer a matter of keeping up with your competitors, but also a channel which helps you to better connect with your clients and which provides them with convenient access to your services.

Although the apps we use every day may often seem to follow a simple, almost foolproof logic, but building a functional product takes time. The answer how much will vary significantly from one project to another, but according to ADTMag, it takes approximately 18 weeks to develop a native mobile app, with ten weeks needed for back–end, and eight weeks for the front–end coding.

That’s a lot, especially, if you’re not 100 percent sure your business idea gains traction. Luckily, there are ways to shorten this timeline to just eight weeks.

Successful applications aren’t the ones that get created because your business has a channel to fill. Instead, they are a result of an opportunity identified correctly to optimize an already existing process or provide your clients with a faster, more efficient way to achieve a given goal.

This can resonate with the lean startup methodology, as every mobile app should be treated like any other new business idea. The critical thing here is to test your product roadmap assumptions as soon as possible and continue doing so at all project stages.

So instead of splashing out cash on creating a full-blown mobile app with fancy features, which takes months to develop and release, you start small. Build v1 with core features only, validate the idea with your customers, use their feedback to tweak your product, add new features and improve the existing ones. Rinse and repeat.

This approach not only shortens TTM from an average of 18 to just around eight weeks. It also allows the users to start interacting with your application, increasing the chances that the new mobile channel starts generating revenue so that further app development can become more self-financing.

As a result, after 18 weeks you have a functioning, market-validated mobile product that starts bringing in money. Of course, you’ll surely need to further invest in its development but you’ll have proof that your business idea is solid.

Sounds much better than just spending loads on an app that may not satisfy any real market need at all, right?

The most efficient mobile development teams and product managers indeed follow the ABV method – Always Be Validating. Driven by customer engagement and feedback, they rely on Agile to deliver value faster and more efficiently, continuing the build-measure-learn cycle and getting closer to a successful product and a working business model.

According to research cited by Inc., as much as 95 percent of new products fail every year. Don’t create a mobile app nobody is going to use  – validate your ideas as soon as possible to ensure the best market fit. Find a reliable mobile app development team that can help you to implement this process and start creating products users really want. Get in touch and let’s get the ball rolling!

Stay tuned if you’re wondering how to reduce your mobile app development costs – I will be sharing some of our team’s proven methods in my next entry.