9 Things You Need to Know Before Creating a Successful App

You’ve had a great app idea, you’re excited and you really, really want to pursue it. We’ve all been there. It’s great to show enthusiasm for something you want to create, but it’s probably not as easy as you think it’s going to be. You’re wondering, “what do I need to know to make an app?”

There’s a difference between creating an app and creating a successful app and the latter is naturally going to be the harder one to do. But don’t worry, we’re here to give you a guide on what you need to know to move forward.

1. Know Your Goals

Setting yourself goals for building your app will make achieving the end result seem possible. These goals can be set for any part of the creation stage, whether it be pre-development for doing market research, designing the app or post-development for download amounts, app visits etc.

Having clear and achievable goals helps you to focus, manage your time, measure your progress and motivate you into creating a successful app.

2. Know Your Users

An essential but often overlooked part of creating an app is getting to know your target audience. At the end of the day, your users are at the heart of the creation, development and progression of the app. They need to be considered at every stage of making your app; any updates, the pricing plan, testing etc. Hence why you need to make sure you know your users very, very well – which can be done by looking at Google Analytics, social media measurement or by good old fashioned market research.

3. Know Your Competition

The mobile app competition is tough out there, which is actually great for you and your app. You can size up the competition. Determine their strengths and weaknesses and use this as a way of deciding what you should and shouldn’t do, and what they’re missing to make your app unique.

4. Know Your Budget

Save yourself some time by determing your budget and how much you’re going to spend on each aspect of creating your app. Being aware of potential spend can be a major factor in deciding who will build, design or market your app, as well as prevent you from blowing your budget elsewhere.

Discover more secrets to building the best business app with our guide.

5. Know Your Developers

Considering that you’ll be talking to the people that will be building your app A LOT, it’s important that you get to know them. Do you get along with them? Do they understand you, your app idea, and your brand? Make sure you can answer yes to these questions early on so that both you and the developer/s have confidence in your app.

6. Know the Development Process

It’s good to get an idea of the different steps that your developer will take when creating your app. You don’t need to know the nitty gritty detail – that’s their job, after all - but just having a brief idea will mean you’ll understand what your app developers are doing/should be doing and when. It will save you time asking questions, save them time explaining and means more time spent on creating the app.  

7. Know Your Platform

Note that platform is singular here. At the beginning, it’s best to focus on developing it on one platform. Each platform works in different ways so we’d advise becoming knowledgeable on one first before mastering another, saving you both time and money over getting it developed on multiple platforms.

Then, if you start to see success, you can think about building on another. 

8. Know How to Test

Testing is CRUCIAL in order for your app to succeed. Testing both the functionality and usability of your app will allow you to see what the app looks like, how it runs, how easy it is to use etc. You only get one chance at a first impression so it’s important to make it the best it can be before release.

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9. Know How to Write Your App Description

This is something that you should definitely not forget about. App descriptions play a huge role in getting those downloads. At the end of the day, you’re trying to sell, so have strong opening lines, describe how it will solve problems, highlight key features and show off why you’re different.

Now that you know what you need to know to make an app, it’s time to get straight into it! If you’ve got any questions, let us know on our Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn pages.