I Have An Idea For An App, Now What? What Next? Where Do I Start?

Do you want to get an answer to your question – I have an idea for an app now what? Where do I start? Then, you are at the right place.

The first time when you came up with a thought to make an application on your idea, it must have excited you that your application will be downloaded by thousands of people.

But before we dive into the startup app idea, you should know the market scenario of mobile app development. There is a crucial point where you need to take extra care. As per the report of Statista, every month, 88.5 thousand apps are getting released in the market. Can you imagine the competition? Very high. Right?

Don’t worry! We are here to guide you step by step on how to turn an idea into an app. We would recommend you go through each action to gain in-depth knowledge of how perfectly you can execute your mobile app ideas to market.

By the end of this guide, you will clear your doubts on your query “I have an app idea where do I start”. Let’s get started.

10 Steps To Take After You Have An App Idea

While Googling “I have an idea for an app where do I start”, you are looking for valuable information, which can help you get started with app development. Read the following 10 steps to know how to make an app idea a reality.

  1. Market Research On Your Mobile App Idea

    Do you know why market research is so critical before making an app?

    When you go for an outing to any new place, you wonder and surf the internet to find the best place to live, eat, and roam in that city. The same ideology we use to make purchases, and here we are talking about making an application.

    Market research allows you to know the competitors, what’s working right for them and what’s wrong.

    Market Research On Your App Idea

    Are you wondering what could be the essential things to cover while doing market research?

    Here’s the list of questions for performing market research on your mobile app idea.

    • Who is your target audience? What will be their expectations with your app idea?
    • Who are the industry’s top players? What types of features do they offer in their apps?
    • Which age group of people are going to use your application?
    • What is the number of audiences you are targeting in the initial stage?
    • How will you make a feature-rich app?
    • What are the pros and cons of your app idea?
    • Are you able to put your pros ahead of your cons?
    • Will you be able to monetize your app? What are the ways to monetize your app?

    Clarifying the above questions will make your vision clear on your app idea. It will assist you to make a proper strategy to make a successful app.

    Now, you covered all the aspects of market research, and the next move is to convert your app into a business concept. Check our guide on the simple step process to validate your app idea, it will give you in-depth insight to improve your idea for an app.

  2. Prepare a Business Concept of App

    Let’s make a monetization strategy for your app idea. Based on business model research, the information you found on your app. Utilize that data to build a robust business plan.

    Note down every point, so you don’t miss a single thing. It helps you to introduce a fail-safe case study for your business.

    Now, we will discuss your business project’s crucial blocks that should be your part of the plan.

    • Make a strategy to attract the attention of your user base
    • Make a list of all the features you will include in your application
    • Catch the buyer persona what they are looking to have in their existing apps
    • Look for ways to monetize your app
    • Build a low-cost marketing strategy to promote your app
    • Create a concept to hold new customers for a longer duration
    • Offer value to your audiences by providing them top-notch support

    You need to be creative enough in your app to make some difference in human lives. You will be the one provider who is doing great for the customers and ahead of the competitors.

    Following the above suggestion will make your app idea rich in contrast to the initial stage where you were. You decided to make any good app idea a reality and promptly completed two stages, and now what’s next?

    It’s time to find an experienced app development company that adds wings to your app idea and turns your app idea into reality.

  3. Find an Experienced App Development Company

    Well, you’ve accomplished the two initial stages, now let’s jump to the execution!

    Find an experienced app development company

    Before you pick any development company for your project, you have to choose the platform to make the app. There are three platforms on which you can make an app, as mentioned below.

    • Cross-platform App Development
    • Native App Development
    • Hybrid App Development

    Let’s dive into the first category.

    • Cross-platform App Development

      The cross-platform apps are specifically built in a way that they run on various operating systems, such as iOS and Android. Here, developers aren’t required to code the same functionality for the different operating systems.

      One disadvantage of cross-platform is UX design as they need to create compatible designs that can work ideally on both devices.

    • Native App Development

      Native applications are specifically built for a single operating system, such as Android or iOS. Here, you are creating an application particularly for one specific platform with keeping the performance of the application as the primary concern.

      The benefits of native apps are reliability, faster, security, offline access, and better UI experience. The only disadvantage is you need to make two applications, particularly for Android and iOS.

    • h3>Hybrid App Development

      The hybrid app is more like web apps with a combination of native mobile apps. These types of applications are built with elements of web apps, such as HTML, Javascript and CSS.

      The user interface has a responsive design, fast performance, functionality is accessible offline. The disadvantage is speed which can’t match with native mobile apps.

    From above, you got to know all three types of app development. Decide which platform you would like to choose to convert your app ideas into reality.

    If you are looking to build your app idea into an actual product. Here, at Space-o Canada, we work precisely to meet the standard and vision of our customers to provide them with an excellent finished product.

    Are you planning to convert your app idea into reality?

    Tap the below button!

    Cta Image

    The next move is to develop an application. Let’s move ahead further.

  4. Develop The Mobile App

    Are you excited to build your first app?

    The app development process is feasible if created structurally. Precisely gain the information for developing an app. It makes it easy for app developers to go in an accurate direction.

    Develop the mobile app

    To answer your question about how to turn an idea into an app, here’s the six steps process that we follow to develop an app.

    The app development steps are followed by Space-O Canada.

    1. We work on three stages for better distribution of applications to know ‘What’ ‘Where’, and ‘When’ this helps us in understanding the interests of our customers and their priorities.

    2. We assist the customer by gathering data on the customer journey, product map, and scale.

    3. We focus on design as it’s a crucial part and should look attractive and easy to navigate between different features.

      After development, we provide proper assistance and maintenance support for three months.

    4. Deployment is a necessary action, and we take care of every single thing that is designed to work perfectly well.

    5. At last, we will show you the demo of your application.

    If you still have any questions regarding building the mobile application, you can reach us at any time. You can also check out the detailed guide on how much an app development cost.

    Awesome! You accomplished building an app. The following approach is to make a proper marketing strategy.

    How can you create a marketing plan?

    That attracts your target audience. It helps you to establish your brand name.

  5. Create a Mobile App Marketing Plan

    Create a Mobile App Marketing Plan

    • Pre-launch Marketing Plan

      Before launching your mobile app, create a pre-launch strategy to attract them to your application. The benefit of pre-launch app marketing encourages awareness of audiences and builds their interest.

      You can use different media channels to form awareness of your application. It will gradually help you to prepare the value proposition.

    • Branding of Your App

      Developing an app shouldn’t be your primary concern. First, you need to create your brand in the mobile app market. Every day numerous apps are increasing in app stores. It’s not easy for newcomers to sustain themselves in the high-end market.

      Branding is the set of practices on marketing and techniques used to promote products or services. It includes raising recognition about your product in the market to know what people think about it.

      Simultaneously, creating a landing page is also a beneficial factor.

    • Landing Page for Your App
      The landing page for the application is the route for audiences to reach you and interact. Include a lead generation form that will help you build the subscribers list. The page consists of unique features, screenshots of the application.

      Design your product page in a way that creates the perfect way for your audiences to gain all the information in one place. Use the demographics, behavioural targeting marketing techniques on the page.

      It’s time to upload your application to the app store.

    • Creating ASO (App Store Optimization)
      Let’s see. What is ASO?

      The ASO stands for App Store Optimization. It’s a process to increase your app visibility within the app store. Thus, your number of downloads get increases.

      The ASO cycle works like higher the visibility, higher number of downloads. The process to do the correct ASO is to find the right keywords, create an attractive description, design the application, and put a clear screenshot of the apps.

      What are the benefits?

      Through ASO, you can rank your app in the category. It helps you provide the best results in the app store. It has a direct ratio of several downloads, and as a result, you will gain more money as per your monetization strategy.

      Gain ranking in the app store is a classic thing. You can attract a maximum number of audiences to download your app.

      Here, description plays a vital role because you convey to the audience by showing their requirements will be achieved as soon they download your app.

    • Paid Marketing
      Paid marketing refers to run ads on different platforms against paying some amount. It’s a process of renting some advertising space on the web, and marketers use that to make familiar audiences with their product.

      Paid advertising is beneficial for bringing your app in front of your target audience, so they can easily download it from app stores.

      It requires an investment, though if you design a campaign strategically, your efforts will provide reliable results.

      Here’s the Tip: For effective results in paid advertising, right from the beginning, decide your budget and goals.

      The following platform to build awareness about the application is social media marketing.

    • Social Media Marketing
      Social Media is the golden approach to tap your right audience. It is the most suitable platform to perform promotions and run marketing campaigns. As per the report of Statista, 3.78 billion users are actively using social media. By knowing this fact assume the capability of these platforms.

      Running an ad campaign is a different thing. However, preparing proper tactics to convey the audience is the right approach. Build interesting things to trick their mind and drive their interest to get more information about the product.

    Now, what?

    Essential Tactics for App Promotion on Social Media

    1. Content plays an influential role, it educates, entertains, and offers knowledge to them. It is a solid way to approach your audience.
    2. Create the visuals in an informational way that will increase their attention span on the post.
    3. Plan to run the contest and offer giveaways for your product launch, to create excitement in your target audience. They will feel valued.
    4. Influencer Marketing is another way to establish the faith of the audience in our application.
  6. Minimum Viable Product

    Minimum Viable Product is the first approach before launching an actual product in the market. It’s built with core features, and beta versions are released to gain the response of the audience. Startups usually create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) version of the idea to know whether it’s worth enough for higher investment.

    Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Approach for App

    MVP is a five-step simple process

    Our expert app developers team has successfully built a blueprint that transforms your vision into a fully functional world-class application.

    • Discovery of Idea: Define the research in the market for generating the ideas and know the requirements of your project.

    • Visuals and Designs: Choose the right design that drives perfection to your app idea.

    • User Experience: Find the latest trends of the UX and practice in your product development.

    • Quality Testing: Perform the different tests in your product to get the guaranteed results.

    • Development: Make a product scalable with the latest technology. So it becomes more reliable.

    MVP is the strategic concept to make the product with the minimum cost. It solves the different problems and risks, such as loss of big investment, failure of an idea, getting low engagement, production failure.

    After building the MVP of your product, quality testing is a necessary action to ensure it’s ready to use until its launch.

  7. If you are looking to build the MVP for your app idea? What are you waiting for?

  8. Quality Analysis of the Developed App

    Testing is the process to rectify that all the functionality of the application is performing well. The application is tested from several phases such as installation, compatibility, usability, condition, and compliance.

    Every part of the application is parallelly tested to recognize if any new bugs are reported.

    Quality Analysis of the Developed App

    While performing testing, you will encounter several bugs that can be major bugs, minor bugs, critical bugs, or blocker bugs. QA performs several tests and prepares the list of errors that occurred, and accordingly, the application is fixed.

    Quality analysis is a critical factor that helps you to deliver the application entirely reliable for ready to use for your target audience.

    Your application will be your identity in front of your audience if you fail to put the first impression good. Hence, without skipping any lack, deliver the optimized application.

    Let’s launch the beta version of your application.

  9. Launch the App

    At the initial stage, you have to choose the app store in which you would like to launch your application. Remember, the application can’t be perfect today or ever.

    You’ll need to bring improvement in the app as the needs of customers will change. Hence, the evolution of your application is part of development.

    Launch The App

    After the successful launch of your app in the app store. You shall notify your user’s email list audiences. Create a campaign on social media and announce it in different relevant forums to gain the attention of your target audience.

    Great! Sit back and relax. You and your team did an excellent job! Await for the responses. Feedback is essential for progress.

    The next move, Measure the performance of your app.

  10. Measure the Success of the App

    In this step, you will have to look for improvements in the application. Gain opinions and begin the process of development. Monitor the performance of your app to know the flow of the audience.

    Measure the Success of The App

    User Engagement: Recognizing the user engagement gives you valuable insight into how the audience interacts with your application. Constant monitoring of the user activity gives you direction to improve specifically to make a better version.

    User Retention: The retention rate tells you how many users return to your app after their first interaction. It is measured in three forms such as daily, weekly, and monthly. To increase your retention rate, provide the best UI experience and make a proper flow for making things easier.

    User Activity Rates: The user activity rate page provides an in-depth analysis of the app usage and engagement to maintain monetization. In this report, you’ll find several data related to reach, active users, active usage, engagement, cohort analysis, behaviour and retention.

    It guides in all the directions for development, so you’ll provide a better version to your audience.

    Track the number of users: Daily tracking of users will connect you if your changes are worth it for users. It tells you whatever development and upgrades you are bringing to the application that are reliable for the audience. You will know the new and old number of visits to your app on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. It also helps you to know the active number of users on the application.

    Track Active users: The number of active users defines your project success ratio. Active users are the ones who are regularly engaging with your application.

    There are two categories of active users.

    • Daily Active Users
    • Monthly Active Users

    The users who have at least one session in a day are called Daily Active Users. The ones who are having at least one session in a month are called Monthly Active Users.

    Let’s know the App lifetime value proposition.

    App Lifetime Value (ALV): It indicates how much monetary value your customer brings to your app. The ALV depends on four types of factors. To calculate the app lifetime value, you need retention rate, monetization, virality, and ARPU (average revenue per user)

    Below we have shown a method to calculate it.

    LTV = average value of a conversion x average # of conversions in a time frame x average customer lifetime

    This helps you to define the app lifetime value.

    Now, let’s see how to increase the TLV of the customers.

  11. Continuous Maintain and Improve App

    Building and launching the app doesn’t make your work over. To increase your audience, you need to improve your application regularly. It takes different practices because you need to gather data from several places.

    Providing a better UI experience is the demand of today’s era. Navigation in the app is the primary concern for better engagement. Hence, proper demographics in the app benefit your customers for its excellent utilization.

    Continuous Maintain and Improve App

    Discover the new loops holes and improve them accordingly. Explore the unique finding and include the new features in the application. Ensure you are providing good customer support. The satisfaction of the customers creates a win-win situation for both.

    Planning regular maintenance improves the performance of your application. It reduces the chances of sudden outrage of the issues or bugs. For better convenience for your customer, prior informing them could be the best way to avoid frustrations.

    Do you still have any doubts about your query – I have an app idea what do I do now? Read the following section of FAQs.

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. How do you turn an idea into an app?

    It’s easy to have an app idea. However, building an app idea into reality is not easy, and you need to follow several practices. Luckily, we’ve delivered every step in detail in the above blog.

  2. How much does it cost to have someone create an app?

    The cost of app development depends on the various factors like type of app you want to develop, platform you want to develop on, features, technologies you want to integrate, and more. However, the average costs is $50K to $1000K.

  3. How to validate an app idea before development?

    The approach to validate your app idea is consists of several steps mentioned below:

    1. Finding the potential user-base
    2. Take the opinion of the audience
    3. Search for the latest trends
    4. Conduct surveys on your idea for improvements
    5. Create the MVP for launch
  4. How much is an app idea worth?

    It’s partially impossible before its execution, but you can take estimated ratios to identify all the factors that come to build the application.

Conclusion

So, by reading this blog, you got an idea of the query – “I have an app idea now what or I have an idea for an app what next”. Following all the above-mentioned steps can help you convert your app idea into a reality.

Turing your best app ideas into a business model brings the same excitement to you.

Most people are unaware of how to make it possible. Don’t be one of them!

If you have any app ideas in mind, let’s discuss it. We are here to help you, so don’t hesitate to reach us. In fact, we do have a team of technical experts to validate your app idea.

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Rakesh Patel

Written by

Rakesh Patel is the Founder and CEO of Space-O Technologies (Canada). He has 28 years of IT experience in business strategies, operations & information technology. He has expertise in various aspects of business like project planning, sales, and marketing, and has successfully defined flawless business models for the clients. A techie by mind and a writer at heart, he has authored two books – Enterprise Mobility: Strategy & Solutions and A Guide To Open311

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