As per a report by Markets and Markets, the global market for blockchain in insurance is expected to reach USD 1,393.8 million by 2025 from USD 64.50 million in 2018, at a CAGR of 84.9%. 

Blockchain technology is helping the insurance sector radically transform operations by providing a myriad of benefits in the form of reduced costs, enhanced customer experiences, improved productivity, increased transparency, and more. 

The use of blockchain in the insurance sector is expected to grow dramatically in the years ahead. According to Gartner, blockchain is estimated to be more heavily adopted by organizations by 2023 and lead to $3.1 trillion in new business value by 2030.

Therefore, it’s the perfect time for organizations to unlock the potential of blockchain, understand how to apply the technology effectively, and grow businesses. 

Keep reading the article to know the benefits of blockchain for the insurance sector and the various real-life use cases. 

Let’s dive in!

How can Blockchain benefit the insurance industry?

Blockchain technology can bring about significant efficiency gains, transparency, faster payouts, cost savings, and fraud prevention while allowing for real-time data sharing between several parties in a trusted manner. Blockchain can also enable new insurance practices to build better products and markets.

So, on that note, here are a few key benefits of Blockchain in the insurance industry: 

1. Blocks false claims: One of the biggest pain points of the insurance industry is fraud. According to the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud, Americans suffer $80 billion worth of damage every year due to insurance fraud. 

Though insurance companies use smart analytics and other methodologies to deal with false claims, fraudsters continue to develop more sophisticated ways to dupe companies.

Blockchain’s innate feature of capturing time-stamped transactions with complete audit trials makes it extremely difficult for fraudsters to commit fraud. 

For instance, a blockchain-powered ledger can be used to track data around high-value items like jewelry. This ledger can replace authenticity certificates in order to avoid duplicate claims, fake replacements, and fake insurance claims. 

2.  Enhances customer experience: Continued loyalty to one service provider is no more a given. Customers look forward to providers who offer lower premiums. Intense competition from new players operating innovative models such as on-demand insurance coverage has added to traditional insurers’ woes. 

In such situations, winning customers’ trust without compromising heavily on price margins has become crucial. 

One way to address this is to use blockchain to enable automated processing using smart contracts. Business agreements are built into the blockchain in this model, and payments are auto-triggered when certain conditions are fulfilled.  

3.  Improves trustworthiness: One of the significant advantages of using blockchain in insurance is to create trust between different entities. The inherent feature of consensus algorithms built into blockchain allows immutability and auditability. 

These algorithms make it easier to create smart contracts on the blockchain, benefiting the insurance industry. Moreover, as blockchain is an immutable ledger, smart contracts enable timely, transparent, and trustworthy transactions. 

When the industry uses a shared claims ledger for inspection with no per-transaction charge, it can reduce fraud. Regulators can monitor all insurance variables in real-time on the ledger, making auditing more seamless. 

4.  Empowers more automation: Smart contracts streamline the insurance process and enable transparent transactions. The entire insurance claims process works smoothly as the blockchain executes on the smart contract terms. 

What makes it more exciting is that blockchain does it automatically, which makes automation a massive benefit for insurance companies. As a result, blockchain saves time, effort, and money by lowering administrative costs for insurance companies. 

5.  Helps collect and store useful data: Insurance companies thrive on data. Blockchain can collect a wide range of usable data using technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT). 

Data collected by IoT is stored on the blockchain and then read by AI, helping your company make informed decisions on insurance premiums. 

IoT devices can also help monitor a vehicle to qualify insureds for safe driver discounts and give your insurance company more data on vehicle performance and driver habits to work with.

With such exceptional benefits, the insurance industry can look forward to leveraging the new technology for positive change and growth. 

In case you want to know more about IoT and how it works, read, What is IoT and How it Works. 

Top use cases of Blockchain in the insurance industry

Now that you have seen the benefits of blockchain for the insurance sector, let’s take a look at some top use cases to see how it can actually help organizations.

1. Smart contracts: The insurance industry has relied on trusted intermediaries such as underwriting agents and insurance brokers to distribute and arrange contracts of insurance. However, smart contracts eliminate the need for human intervention. 

Smart Contracts are basically self-executing contracts that are executed automatically via underlying blockchains to ensure that the terms of agreements are met/unmet. In the context of insurance, the terms of agreements between policyholders and insurers are written into the code upon which smart contracts are built.

As all transactions related to smart contracts are recorded on a blockchain, there is a high level of transparency. This is because each transaction is publicly viewable on the blockchain.

Moreover, as there is no human interference, the risks of unauthorized manipulation and errors in contracts are significantly reduced. Also, claims investigation, coverage analysis, and processing are dramatically quicker as the need for manual assessment is removed. This increases the efficiency of the insurance sector and builds consumer trust and confidence in the industry.

2.  On-demand insurance: It is a flexible insurance model, where policyholders can turn on and off their insurance policies with just a click. The more interactions of all stakeholders with the policy documents, the greater the hassle of managing the records. 

For example, on-demand insurance requires underwriting, buyer’s records, policy documents, risk, claims, and so on much more. 

But, thanks to blockchain technology, maintaining ledgers has become simpler. On-demand insurance players can leverage blockchain for efficient record-keeping from the inception of the policy until its disposal. 

[Also Read: How much does on-demand insurance app development costs?]

3. Fraud and abuse prevention: Fraud costs the insurance industry a monstrous amount of money, mostly because it’s impossible to detect fraudulent activities with regular methods. As per a report by the FBI, the total cost of insurance fraud (non-health insurance) is estimated to be more than $40 billion per year. 

With blockchain, insurers can eliminate such common types of insurance fraud. When you move insurance claims onto a blockchain-based ledger, all the executed transactions are time-stamped and permanent. This means no one can modify the data due to the immutability feature of the blockchain. Thus, it can eventually reduce fraud. 

Moreover, blockchain makes coordination easier among insurers. When all the insurance companies access the same shared blockchain ledger, they know if the specific claim has been paid or not. They can easily identify suspicious behavior by using the same historical claims information.

4.  Reinsurance: Reinsurers offer insurance to insurance companies to protect them in the event of major disasters like hurricanes or wildfires.

The current reinsurance process is extremely complex, lengthy, and inefficient. Insurers typically engage multiple reinsurers, which means that various parties have to exchange data to settle claims.

When insurers and reinsurers share a blockchain ledger, detailed transactions around premiums and losses can be updated on an insurer and reinsurer’s computer systems at the same time. This can save time as well as money, and reinsurers can also automate settlement and claims processing. A report by PwC estimates that blockchain can help the reinsurance industry save up to $10 billion by improving operational efficiency.

5.  Microinsurance: Microinsurance provides security against specific perils for regular premium payments. It delivers profits only when distributed in large volumes. However, microinsurance policies don’t get the deserved traction because of high distribution costs and low-profit margins. 

With blockchain, claims handling and underwriting can be automated based on defined rules in microinsurance schemes. 

6.  Health insurance: Blockchain in health insurance enables fast, secure, and accurate sharing of medical data among insurers and healthcare providers. 

Sharing patient data between health insurance providers and hospitals can make the process of health insurance claims expensive and time-consuming.

When encrypted patient records are recorded on a blockchain, insurers and healthcare providers can access patients’ medical data without compromising confidentiality.

 The synchronized data of all patients in one place can save the industry a large sum of money annually. Moreover, changing patients’ medical records stored on the blockchain would be impossible without creating an audit trail.

7.  Auto insurance: This is another area where blockchain and insurance can bring payouts to the next level. Let’s understand this with an example. If a car accident takes place, both the insurer and client can get the requisite information with blockchain. 

While the client can expect to get an immediate payout, the insurer can see getting the car repaired by a licensed service provider.

8.  Life insurance: The death claim process today is a tedious and time-consuming process. It can take anywhere from a few weeks to over two months.

Blockchain could help automate and simplify the manual claims registration process when filing a life insurance claim. This technology also allows for greater trust among both insurers and insured by increasing transparency. 

Real-life examples of blockchain in the insurance industry

Now that we have seen blockchain in insurance use cases, let’s get into real-life examples of companies that have used blockchain for its transformative benefits. 

1.  Lemonade: Lemonade uses both AI and blockchain to offer insurance at low prices to homeowners and renters. They take a fixed fee from each monthly payment done by policyholders and allocate the rest towards future claims. When a claim is made, the smart contracts insurance in blockchain verifies the loss immediately so that the customer gets paid quickly.

2.  Ryskex: Ryskex is a blockchain insurance startup that helps insurers an easier way to assess and handle risks accurately through its blockchain-based platform.

3.  B3i: Incorporated in 2018, B3i helps the insurance market with top-notch solutions for consumers through faster access to insurance and reduced administrative costs.

4.  ClaimShare: It is an app that uses blockchain technology to deal with double-dipping. It is a practice wherein one claimant fraudulently receives a payout from multiple insurers on the same incident. ClaimShare aims to help prevent these payouts by allowing multiple insurers to share data related to claims filed.

Limitations of using Blockchain in insurance

The adoption of blockchain in insurance isn’t without challenges. Here are some snags of using blockchain: 

Complex to understand: Blockchain and its complexities make it hard for users to understand and comprehend its benefits. Before diving into this revolutionary technology, one needs to understand the principles of encryption and distributed ledger. 

It’s advisable to hire blockchain development services. The experts will not only help you understand the immense benefits of this innovative technology but will also help you adopt a robust solution as per your business needs.

Nascent technology: As the technology is still in nascent stages, coping up with issues such as data limits, transaction speed, and verification process will be critical in making Blockchain widely applicable.

Uncertain regulatory status: Insurance regulations are dynamic, uncertain, and need to be updated frequently. As the landscape is unsettled, blockchain struggles in extensive adoption by insurance carriers.

Costs: Blockchain offers massive savings in transaction costs and time. However, the initial costs are high, which act as a deterrent. Know how much it costs to develop a blockchain app. 

How Appinventiv can help overcome these challenges?

Blockchain in insurance can be a game-changer. It can reshape the way physical assets are tracked, managed, and insured digitally. At Appinventiv, our highly-experienced team of professionals not only helps you step into the world of decentralized solutions, but also helps you deal with complex situations in your journey. 

We offer a wide range of blockchain and crypto insurance development services that add scalability, transparency, and security to your business. We are also helping insurers across the globe to determine how blockchain can transform the way they do business. Our team of blockchain developers will help you understand the principles of distributed ledger and encryption and make sure to create winning solutions for your organization.

So, in case you want to build robust and scalable solutions in blockchain for your insurance business or want to know what blockchain insurance is, get in touch with us. 

Final thoughts

While blockchain technology is still in its infancy, there are already a number of use cases and applications for it across the insurance industry. The technology offers accuracy, efficiency, privacy, and more to the insurance industry. However, it’s important to understand that insurance companies that adopt blockchain services must agree to operate under ethical standards. 

Standards and processes must be aligned so that blockchain can provide insurers with better tools for sharing data, collaborating, and making insurance processes less cumbersome for users. 

Plus, insurance companies must provide regulation frameworks to safely use blockchain technology. Once these needs are met, blockchain technology can transform the insurance industry for both insurers and customers. 

FAQs

Q. How will blockchain change the insurance industry?

Ans. Blockchain technology collects and stores data more securely for the insurance industry. The use of blockchain in insurance can also lead to increased automation. Blockchain-based smart contracts can also increase customer satisfaction and reduce costs. 

Q. What is smart contracts insurance on a blockchain?

Ans. Smart contracts are programs stored on a blockchain that run when predetermined conditions are met. They are used for automating the execution of an agreement so that all participants can be certain of the outcome. 

Q. How much does it cost to build a blockchain app for insurance?

Ans. The average cost of developing a blockchain application for insurance can be somewhere between $30,000 to $90,000. However, this is a very rough estimate. There are a number of factors such as the complexity of the project and the type of platforms you use that can increase or lower the final price.

The post How Blockchain Technology is Transforming the Insurance Industry appeared first on Appinventiv.

Now when we talk about technologies changing the healthcare domain for the good, we often talk in terms of blockchain, AI, IoT, etc, but the one that acts as a backbone for all these next-gen technological innovations is cloud computing – one of the all-time technological trends of the healthcare domain.

Cloud computing in healthcare has brought a huge shift in the creation, consumption, storage, and sharing of the medical data. Right from a time where there used to be conventional storage to now through the complete digitalization of healthcare data, the industry has come a long way when it comes to optimizing the data management approaches.

In this article, we are going to look into the different facets of cloud computing in healthcare and how it is revolutionizing the domain. 

What is Cloud Computing in Healthcare?

Cloud computing for the healthcare industry describes the approach of implementing remote server access via the internet to store, manage, and process healthcare data. This process, which is stark opposite to the one where on-site data centers are established for hosting data on personal computers, provides a flexible solution for healthcare stakeholders to remotely access servers where the data is hosted.

According to a BCC report, the worldwide healthcare cloud computing market is poised to hit $35 billion by the year 2022, with an annual growth rate of 11.6%.

Shifting to the cloud comes with two-fold benefits for both patients and providers. On the business side, cloud computing has proved to be beneficial for lowering the operational spend while enabling healthcare providers to deliver high-quality and personalized care.

The patients, on the other hand, are getting accustomed with instant delivery of the healthcare services. Moreover, healthcare cloud computing increases patient engagement by giving them access to their healthcare data, which ultimately results in better patient outcomes.

The remote accessibility of healthcare added with the democratization of data free the providers and patients while breaking down the location barriers to healthcare access.

What are the Benefits of Cloud Computing in the Healthcare Industry?

Cloud in Healthcare answers to almost every point that a US adult looks at when engaging with a healthcare service provider – 

Lowered healthcare cost 

The primary premise of healthcare cloud services is real time availability of computer resources such as data storage and computing power. Both healthcare providers and hospitals get freed from the need to buy data storage hardware and software. Moreover, there are no upfront charges linked with the cloud for healthcare, they will only have to pay for the resource they actually use.

Applications of cloud computing in healthcare provides an optimum environment for scaling without burning a hole in the pocket. With the patient’s data flowing in from not only EMRs but also through healthcare apps and wearables, a cloud environment makes it possible to scale the storage while keeping the costs low.

Easy interoperability 

Interoperability focuses on establishing data integrations through the entire healthcare system, irrespective of the origin or where the data is stored. Interoperability powered by healthcare cloud solutions, makes patients’ data available for easy distribution and for getting insights to aid healthcare delivery. 

Healthcare cloud computing enables healthcare providers to gain access to patient data gathered from multiple sources, share it with key stakeholders and deliver timely protocols.

Ownership of data by patients

The combination of cloud computing and healthcare democratize data and give the patients control over their health. It grows patient participation in decisions related to their health, working as a tool to better patient engagement and education.

The importance of cloud computing in the industry can also be witnessed by the fact that the medical data can be archived and then retrieved easily when the data is stored on the cloud. With an increase in the system uptime, the data redundancy reduces by a huge extent, while the data recovery also becomes easier.

Improved collaboration   

The implementation of cloud for healthcare plays a major role in boosting collaboration. By saving the Electronic Medical Records in the cloud, patients are no more dependent on carrying their medical records to every doctor visit. The doctors can easily view the information, see the outcome of previous interactions, and even share information with one another in real-time. This, in turn, enables them to provide more accurate treatment.   

Enhanced patient experience

With the help of cloud for healthcare, doctors get the power to better patient engagement by giving them real-time access to medical data, test results, and even doctors’ notes. This gives the patients control over their health as they become more educated about their health.    

Moreover, cloud computing in healthcare provides a check for the patients from being overprescribed or dragged into unnecessary testing – the details of both of which can be found in the medical records. 

Now that we have looked into the benefits attached with the incorporation of cloud computing in healthcare, the next step would be to know the different types of cloud computing in healthcare. 

Types of Cloud Computing in Healthcare

Cloud computing for the healthcare industry works in two models: Deployment and Distribution.

By deployment 

Private – Only one healthcare firm/ chain can use the cloud facility

Community – A group of healthcare bodies can access the cloud 

Public – The cloud is open for all the stakeholders to access

Hybrid – The model combines some elements of the above mentioned deployment models

By distribution

Software as a Service (SaaS) – The provider offers IT infrastructure where the client deploys their application.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) – The provider gives an IT infrastructure, operating system where the client deploys their applications.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) – The provider gives an IT infrastructure, an operating system, applications, and every other component in a ready-to-use platform.

YouCOMM – A Working Example of the Benefits of Cloud Computing in Healthcare

Being renowned cloud healthcare providers, at Appinventiv, we understand the ins and outs of the industry and the technological impact of cloud computing. 

We recently transitioned this knowledge into an application aimed at bettering in-hospital patient communication. The fully customizable patient messaging system enables patients to notify the staff of their needs through the mode of manual selection of options, voice commands, and the use of head gestures. Through the software, we aimed at breaking down the events of late responses in the in-hospital setup which leads to fatal consequences. 

The result? 5+ Hospital chain in the US run on YouCOMM solution today, while 60%

growth has been witnessed in nurses’ real-time response time. Moreover, 3+

hospitals received high CMS reimbursement. 

Now while we have been talking about the benefits of cloud healthcare solutions, in order to truly understand the role the technology plays in the industry, it is important to know the risks too.

Risks Associated With Cloud Computing in Healthcare

Limited specialists

In the healthcare software domain, it can be difficult to find skilled developers who carry the specialization to integrate new technologies in the industry. On the same note, it is difficult to find cloud specialists in the health domain. 

Limited ecosystem 

The adoption of cloud computing in healthcare alone cannot make the industry efficient. For health organizations to truly take advantage of the technology, they will have to connect it with the internet of things, artificial intelligence, and data management technologies. 

Difficulty in adoption

Switching from the legacy system to cloud systems requires changing the complete process of handling tasks. It is important that the healthcare organizations bring everyone up to speed with how it would translate into their everyday job. 

Security risks

Storing medical data in the cloud is at the center of the technology’s adoption. This, however, puts it at a risk of attack. It happens because in a typical cloud setup, one organization’s data shares the server with other healthcare organizations, and the isolation mechanisms that are put in place to separate them may fail. 

This situation is leading to a situation where organizations are on a fence about the technology’s adoption. 

At Appinventiv, we build solutions around the common risks associated with 80% of the healthcare cloud projects – compliance check, security, and chances of downtime. The fact that we merge the features and challenges of mHealth app development so seamlessly makes us the true healthcare solution partners for hospitals across the globe.

Also Read: mHealth app development guide 2021-22

The post The Role of Cloud Computing in Transforming the Healthcare Industry appeared first on Appinventiv.

As the finance sector operates on tons of personal data and billions of critical transactions every second, it becomes especially vulnerable to fraudulent activities. Scammers are always seeking to crack the servers to get valuable data for blackmailing. 

According to PwC’s Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey 2020, respondents reported losses of a whopping $42 billion over the past 24 months due to fraudulent activities. Banks and financial institutions have no choice but to tighten their defences by adopting innovative technologies such as machine learning. 

Machine learning is providing the financial services sector with the means to protect their businesses and defeat cybercriminals. According to a report by Markets and Markets, the global fraud detection and prevention (FDP) market is expected to grow to USD 38.2 billion from USD 20.9 by 2025, at a CAGR of 12.8%.

Fraud detection and prevention areas include money laundering, insurance claims, electronic payments, and bank transactions. 

In this article, we will discover the main ways machine learning in finance can be used for fraud detection. Read on!

Major areas of financial fraud in the Finance sector

Before we dive into the details of machine learning in financial industry, let’s get to the different areas where financial fraud detection software can assist enterprises. 

1. Email phishing: This is a type of cybercrime wherein attackers send fake messages and website links to users via email. These emails are seemingly legit and authentic that anyone can misjudge them and enter the vulnerable data that puts them at risk. 

To avoid such situations, you can use automated methods for detecting phishing using machine learning. These methods are based on classical Machine Learning algorithms for classification and regression.

2. Credit card fraud: In an increasingly digital world, credit card fraud has become quite common. This type of financial fraud involves stealing debit cards or credit card numbers through unsecured internet connections. 

Machine learning algorithms help identify which actions are authentic and which ones are illegal. If someone tries to cheat the system, an ML model can alert the bank and take measures to negate the activity. 

3. Mobile fraud: Machine learning integration in anti-fraud systems is particularly crucial when payment methods extend beyond physical cards and into the realm of mobile phones. 

Smartphones now feature NFC chips, enabling users to pay for products just with their phones. This means your smartphone is prone to hacking and cyber threats. Machine learning in Finance is an effective tool to detect abnormal activities for each user, thus minimizing mobile fraud risks.

4. Identity theft: Information such as user’s name, bank details, passwords, login credentials, and other extremely sensitive information is under great threat if a cybercriminal comes into play. Identity theft puts both individuals and enterprises at risk. 

Machine learning in Finance helps examine and check identity documents such as passports or driving licenses against secure databases in real-time to ensure all fraud cases are detected. Besides, ML can be also used for fighting fake IDs by enabling biometric scanning and face recognition.

5. Insurance claims: Insurance fraud typically includes fake claims of car damage, property, and even unemployment. To reduce such frauds, insurance companies spend an extensive amount of time and resources to validate each claim. However, this process is expensive as well as prone to hacking. 

Machine learning due to its superior pattern recognition capabilities helps resolve insurance claims with utmost accuracy and find fake claims. 

[Also Read: 5 Ways Fintech Industry is Using AI to Woo Millennials]

Why should you use machine learning for fraud prevention?

As evident from the ML uses in different financial fraud areas mentioned above, the finance and banking industry considers machine learning to be extremely helpful in financial fraud detection. The high volume of transactional and consumer data makes it ideal for the application of complex machine learning algorithms. ML helps banks and financial institutions to identify and flag fraudulent activity in real-time.

The increased accuracy of machine learning algorithms provides financial firms with a significant reduction in the number of false positives (where transactions are incorrectly flagged as declined and fraudulent) and false negatives (where genuine instances of fraud are missed). This is the reason why ML has taken the prime spot in the finance sector. 

If still in doubt on how machine learning can help in detecting frauds for your financial services business, go through the pool of benefits mentioned below.

1. Faster data collection: As the velocity of commerce is increasing, it’s important to have quicker solutions like machine learning to detect fraud. Machine learning algorithms can evaluate enormous amounts of data in a very short amount of time. They have the ability to continuously collect and analyze data in real-time and detect frauds in no time.

2. Effortless scaling: Machine learning models and algorithms become more effective with increasing data sets. Machine’s learning improves with more data because the ML model can pick out the similarities and differences between multiple behaviors. 

Once genuine and fraudulent transactions are found, the system can work through them and begin to pick out those that fit the bucket. 

3. Increased efficiency: Contrary to humans, machines can perform repetitive tasks and detect changes across large volumes of data. This is critical for fraud detection in a much shorter amount of time.

Algorithms can accurately analyze hundreds of thousands of payments per second. This reduces costs as well as time taken to analyze transactions, thus making the process more efficient. 

4. Reduced security breach cases: With the implementation of machine learning systems, financial institutions can combat frauds and provide the highest level of security to their customers. It works by comparing every new transaction with the previous (personal information, data, IP address, location, etc) one and detecting suspicious cases. As a result, financial units can prevent fraud related to payment or credit cards.

Now that we have seen the benefits of using machine learning, let’s dive into the machine learning models used for fraud detection.

Machine learning models and algorithms for fraud detection

Here are the types of machine learning models and algorithms used for detecting financial fraud in the finance industry. So, let’s understand them one by one. 

1. Supervised learning: Supervised learning works for cases like fraud detection in deep learning environments in FinTech. In this model, all information has to be labeled as good or bad. And it is based on predictive data analysis. 

2. Unsupervised learning: An unsupervised learning model detects anomalous behavior in cases where there is no such data or little transaction data available. It continuously analyzes and processes new data and updates its models based on the findings. It learns the patterns over time and decides whether they’re legitimate or fraudulent operations.

3. Semi-supervised learning: It works for cases where labeling information is either impossible or too expensive and requires human intervention. 

4. Reinforcement learning: This model allows machines to detect ideal behavior automatically within a specified context. It helps machines to learn from the environment and find actions that minimize risks.

How does an ML system work for fraud detection?

The fraud detection process starts with gathering and segmenting the data using machine learning systems. Then the machine learning model is fed with training algorithms to predict the probability of fraud.

Below are the steps that show how an ML system works for fraud detection:

1. Input data: To detect fraud, the machine learning system first needs to collect data. The more data an ML model gets, the better it can learn and polish its fraud detection skills.

2. Extract features: The next step is feature extraction. At this stage, features describing both good and fraudulent customer behaviors are added. These features usually include:

• Identity: It comprises the fraud rate of customers’ IP addresses, age of their account, number of devices they were seen on, etc.
• Order: This feature shows the number of orders customers made, average order value, number of failed transactions, and more.
• Location: This feature helps to find out if the shipping address matches the billing address, shipping country matches the country of the customer’s IP address, and fraud rate at the customer’s location. 
• Payment methods: It helps to identify the fraud rates in credit/debit cards issuing banks, the similarity between customer name and billing name, etc. 
• Network: It includes the number of emails, phone numbers, or payment methods shared within a network.

3. Train algorithm: An algorithm is a set of rules that needs to be followed by an ML model to decide whether an operation is fraudulent or legitimate. The more data your business can provide for a training set, the better the ML model will be.

4. Create a model: When the training is over, your company will receive a machine learning model for fraud detection. This model can detect fraud in no time with high accuracy. But to be effective in fraud detection, a machine learning model needs to be constantly improved and updated.

Financial fraud detection using machine learning – Use cases

Using ML-powered modern fraud protection systems, financial institutions greatly reduce the risks of missing suspicious transactions, human errors, and cases of security breaches. Machine learning algorithms can process huge volumes of data and protect it from fraud. 

Compliance.ai is a startup that uses adaptive machine learning models in FinTech to automate research and track financial regulatory content and regulatory updates in a single platform.

Companies like PayPal are also using machine learning to enhance their fraud detection and risk management capabilities. Through a combination of linear, neural networks, and deep learning techniques, PayPal’s risk management engines can determine the risk levels associated with a customer within milliseconds.

Machine learning helped such large corporations to prevent issues such as fake accounts, payment frauds, and suspicious transactions. ML takes care of all the dirty work of predictive analytics and data analysis and allows companies to grow safe from fraud. 

Final thoughts

Enterprises all over the world have started using machine learning to prevent financial fraud. It is the most innovative tool that can help prevent fraudulent operations that lead to greater losses every year. 

Machine learning allows creating more complex algorithms for analyzing various transactions and suspicious financial behavior, thus minimizing the risks of financial loss. 

That’s why hiring machine learning development services has become the topmost priority for the financial services  industry. At Appinventiv, our experts empower different companies with various innovative solutions and approaches to improve their productivity and reduce financial risk. 

If you want to implement ML systems or financial fraud detection software into your business, feel free to contact us. We will help you understand the immense benefits of this innovative technology and help you scale your business while reducing overall costs. 

The post How Machine Learning Helps in Financial Fraud Detection in the FinTech Industry appeared first on Appinventiv.

But what happens once your app becomes available for its users? Does the story end there? No, it doesn’t! A robust app needs long-term maintenance to help fix bugs, deliver a better experience for users, and minimize uninstalls. You as an entrepreneur also need to continue to improve and scale your app to gain more followers and retain the existing ones.

If you’re not investing in app maintenance and scalability, then it could be a reason for your app’s failure and the dreaded app uninstalls.

When talking about the investment in app maintenance and scalability, the most common question that comes to mind is about the cost involved in the process . The expenses include keeping the app not only up-and-running but also secured and appealing to its users. 

In the following article, we will discuss the estimated cost of maintaining an app and the factors that affect the app maintenance budget.

But before we get into that, let’s see how app maintenance is the key to your mobile app’s success. 

Why is app maintenance so important?

Investing in app maintenance saves your application from becoming obsolete. In 2016, Apple removed 50,000 apps from the App Store because of the same reason.

With the technologies advancing at an unprecedented pace and changes in user habits and preferences over time, it is imperative for your app to keep up with the changes. Else, the chances are your app will crash and burn over time. 

If you are still thinking why app maintenance should be a priority for your business, check out the reasons below. 

1. Minimizes uninstalls: Apps that have annoying bugs or crashes often drive users away. Similarly, if an app stops offering updated information and functionalities to users after a while, they will see no reason to use it and may even uninstall it. According to a report by Statista, over 70% of users remove the application from their smartphones after 90 days of installation. An application with flaws or inconveniences pushes users to click the ‘Uninstall’ button.

App maintenance and scalability help to keep your application in good shape by fixing bugs, introducing new functionalities, and solving emerging problems. This, in turn, significantly increases your app’s retention rate. Remember, your active users are the most important asset, and retaining them should be your number one priority.

2. Delivers better user experiences: You don’t just want people to download your app. You want them to have the best experience while using it. Why? 

Because developing long-term relationships with users is the key to your app’s success and growth. And to develop such relationships, you need to offer a unique user experience to them.
Monitoring your app over time helps you understand how your users feel about your app. Also, keeping track of the market trends helps you stay updated with changing customer habits, preferences, and even problems. 

Constantly updating your app on the basis of this data helps you deliver better user experiences. Happier users stay for long, enjoy your app, and leave positive feedback about your app.

3.  Helps stay ahead of the competition: There are millions of apps out there competing to gain users’ attention. And it’s next to impossible for consumers to download and use all of them. To beat your competition and stand out from the crowd, you need to maintain and scale your app constantly. Or else, users will start looking for a better option. Your competitors will definitely take advantage of this situation, and you’ll be left behind. So, maintaining your app ensures you stay at par with or ahead of the competition.

4.  Ensures safety from cyber attacks: With the growth in the number of mobile apps, there’s also an increase in cyberattacks. Therefore, it’s important to ensure the security of your app in order to safeguard the confidential data of your app users. 

With hackers continually searching for loopholes and finding new ways to steal your data and personal information, you can look into app maintenance and update your app with the latest security protocols. 

5.  Increases ROI in the long run: Updating and maintaining your app on a regular basis offers room for maximizing ROI in the long run and decreases the cost of acquiring new users. Once your app goes live, you’ll probably face bugs at regular intervals. Monitoring your app fans out the costs of fixing those bugs over a longer period of time. 

If you don’t keep a check, you might end up facing a technical issue that costs you a lot more. You can also save a huge amount by monitoring how people are using your app over time. For instance, you can eliminate a few unnecessary features that users are not engaging with.

Steps to ensure effective & long-term maintenance of your app

By following the best app maintenance practices, you can ensure that your users continue to have seamless and engaging app experiences. Here’s what you should consider for maximizing the benefits from app maintenance: 

1.  Build your app well from the start: When creating an app, make sure to keep app maintenance in mind from the very start. This means using a functional platform that is easy to scale. Make sure the platform uses reliable and latest technologies that won’t become obsolete as soon as you finish development.

Moreover, you need to invest in testing, including security, performance, and other types of testing. Testing documentation can help you with app maintenance and support later. 

Also, don’t forget to add features in your application that are practically convenient for the users. You can avoid adding unnecessary features to your application that can drive the users away. During the planning stage, your choice for iOS, Android or cross-platform app development will help you determine what features will deliver an amazing experience for your users.

[Also Read: How much does Android app development cost? ]

2.  Take care of scalability: Your app’s structure and architecture should be robust enough to handle any number of users. In order to serve thousands or millions of users at the same time, you may also need to upgrade the features and functionalities of your app. Otherwise, you may quickly lose your new users as well as the money you invested in marketing.

3.  Stick to your development team: If you are working with an app development team, make sure to stick with them. If you hire new developers every time, they’ll need time to get acquainted with your project and learn about the technologies used. 

When your app is maintained by the same team who created it, the process is rather painless and quick. Your developers know exactly what needs to be changed once a new operating system version is out or a new feature is planned.

4.  Make use of analytics tools: Once your app is live, use analytic tools to find out how users are interacting with your app. It will give you useful insights into what features they like the most, and which ones seem unnecessary.  

Adding new features to your app based on user feedback retains them and keeps them interested. Therefore, analytics will help your team to make changes and make improvements where they’re needed the most.

5.  Fix bugs timely: If you don’t keep a check on your app and fix bugs on time, you’ll drive the users away. In fact, accumulated bugs will lead to your app crashing and also multiply your expenses. 

Always keep an eye out for technical issues and bugs and fix them immediately. Keep track of feedback and reviews from users to address any issues or complaints efficiently.

6. Schedule system maintenance: Scheduling regular system maintenance is a perfect solution to avoid missing out on issues or bugs. It also ensures the smooth functioning of your app.  

Also, informing users about the scheduled maintenance beforehand helps them stay prepared for such situations. So when you unexpectedly hit your users with a “System down for maintenance” message, they’ll not get frustrated.

Types of app maintenance services

Application maintenance is a continuous process of updating and re-evaluating existing applications to scale your business and maximize profitability. If you want your business to stay ahead of the competition, you must constantly improve your application, and this is possible via app maintenance services.

A reliable app development company offers different types of services that include fixing bugs, adding new features based on the user feedback and development plan, and much more. Some such app maintenance services are mentioned below. 

1.  Emergency maintenance: As the name implies, this type of maintenance service is required during an emergency – the issues or errors would be sudden and unexpected. You would need to address the issues immediately, offering a seamless user experience.

2.  Adaptive maintenance: This type of service and support aims to constantly track changes in the application to keep the product up-to-date. Many factors can change an application’s environment, including software, hardware, and security threats. So apps that don’t receive regular adaptive maintenance quickly become outdated.

3.  Preventive maintenance: Preventive maintenance services offer a regular app updating process in which developers eliminate the occurrence of errors. The focus is on reducing app complexity and improving the maintainability factor through code optimization, code restructuring, and updation of documents.

4. Corrective maintenance: The main idea of this approach is to take care of the faults, defects, and repairs in the application. The maintenance also includes errors related to coding, design, and application logic.

5.  Perfective maintenance: This approach aims to meet the ever-changing needs of users through maintenance. It takes user feedback into account and takes care of functional modifications in the source code, offering a great user experience.

[Also Read: How much does it cost to build an iOS app? ]

How much does it cost to maintain an app?

Figuring out the exact app maintenance cost can be tricky as it is dependent on several factors that can increase or lower the final price. However, if we talk about the average app maintenance costs, during the first year after launch, your costs of maintaining an app can be 50% of the initial app development cost. 

This may happen due to the numerous improvements you might want to introduce in response to your users’ feedback. Later on, your yearly budget for app maintenance can be somewhere between 15% to 20% of the initial cost. Keep in mind that your app will need maintenance as long as it exists. 

It’s advisable to consult an app development company to get a rough estimate of app maintenance costs and plan your budget accordingly. 

What factors affect the cost of app maintenance?

The final cost of app maintenance is dependent on several factors such as bug fixing and updates, the location of the app development team, and hosting. On that note, here are some factors that you need to keep in mind when taking the cost of app maintenance into account: 

1. Bug fixing and updates: Updating your app regularly can help quickly fix bugs and enhance the UX. The cost of the updates varies depending on several factors such as the complexity of the app and changes in functionalities. Consider your app has a bug that requires a quick fix, then the estimated cost would be around $50.

In case you need to update a functional aspect, it can take a couple of weeks to fix it, and the costs could range from $1,000 to $2,000. As an app owner, you need to consider the maintenance of such facets. You can even consult a professional app development company. The experts can keep a regular check on your app and update it as and when needed at nominal charges.

2.  Hosting maintenance: The app hosting prices and the server costs for apps is another important factor determining the final cost of maintaining an app. You need to consider the kind of server you want for your app and then calculate the costs of app hosting. 

The hosting server costs for apps can range from $70 to $320 per month. This is a rough estimate as it depends on several factors, such as the content, the number of active users, and projected growth.

3.  Analytics: Mobile app bugs, crashes, and other glitches need to be monitored and analyzed, and for this, you need analytics tools like Google Analytics that provide insights to help you make better decisions. You will find plenty of free tools and some advanced tools that may cost to provide critical insights. Using such tools can help you check your users’ preferences and expectations so that you can make quick decisions. 

4.  Customer support: Your app must help users to provide a platform where they can voice their concerns and get their problems addressed. For this, you may consider investing in customer support, which will be an ongoing cost but can have benefits such as valuable feedback from users. The cost of customer support would vary depending on the nature of services provided and measures employed.

5.  Third-party services: While developing your app, you may choose to use licensed technology at a fee. Several apps like Uber and Zomato leverage Gmail account services for seamless feature integration in the app. So if you are using third-party services for your app, you’ll need to pay on a monthly basis. 

6.  App marketing aspect: If you want your app to succeed,  investing in marketing strategies is essential. Implementing communication and marketing tools such as social media engagement, push notifications, community development, etc., are the best strategies to market your app updates adequately.

The marketing strategies and tools used in the process have their individual costs, which are added to the final amount. However, these techniques can prove to be beneficial in terms of the app’s success.

7.  Development team location: The location of your app development team also impacts the cost required to maintain the app. The app maintenance costs vary around the globe. For instance, the cost of hiring an app development team in California is different from app development companies in Texas. It is due to the fact that services around the world vary significantly in terms of quality as well as cost.

Now that we have seen how much app maintenance costs, let’s get into the steps to lower the cost of running an app.

How to lower app maintenance costs?

Costs of developing and maintaining apps are based on different factors. However, developers can use the below tricks to cut down the expenses:

1.  Invest in the right app development platform: While choosing the platform for app development, you have two options. You can either select a native or hybrid app development platform. 

Native apps are platform-specific. This means you will have to develop multiple native apps for different operating systems like Android, iOS, or Windows. However, native apps are generally faster and use less space once installed. These apps also offer better features as developers focus on making these apps for one type of operating system. 

Talking about Hybrid apps, they’re cross-platform. This means you only need to create one app for different platforms. It saves time as well as costs.

2.  Focus on building MVP first: The minimum viable product (MVP) refers to an app with only basic features. Offering unnecessary features can increase the loading time as well as crash chances of the app . So, it is advised to develop an MVP first with necessary and logical features for your users.

Once you receive valuable feedback from users, you can add more features accordingly. Or, you can observe your competitors or trends and upgrade your app accordingly.

For a successful MVP development, you can hire a product development agency that can help bring your product to life. 

3.  Discuss strategy with app development partner: A reliable app development company can offer high-quality app maintenance services whenever needed. You can discuss all the expenses related to app maintenance and development with the experts.  They will also help you to plan your budget and make informed decisions.

How can Appinventiv help ?

Your work is never done after you’ve launched the app. You don’t want your app to go outdated within a few months, especially after all the hard work, time, and money you spent building it.

This is where we come in. At Appinventiv, we not just create innovative apps, but also help in maintaining and scaling them. Our highly-experienced team of professionals keeps a check on your app’s performance, user habits, market trends and latest technology to offer regular and relevant updates, leading to  profitability of your application in the long term.

So, in case, you want mobile app maintenance services or wish to scale your app to the next level, feel free to contact us. Our experts will offer the best maintenance services and help improve your product without any worries!

The post What is the cost of maintaining an app in 2022? appeared first on Appinventiv.

 A report by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America shows that 40 million adults in the US suffer from anxiety disorders. And nearly 75% of people with mental disorders go untreated in developing countries.

All this considered, it’s no surprise that the demand for mental health apps is growing every year. Between 2014 and 2018, the demand for mental health apps in the UK increased 566%. According to a recent study by Acumen Research and Consulting, the global mental health app market is expected to reach $3.7 billion by 2027. 

Mental health apps have become a real lifesaver, both for patients and healthcare professionals. Apps like Calm and Headspace help users to cultivate positive thinking and relax and relieve stress. A few other mental health apps also add the element of gamification to attract users and divert them from self-destructive thoughts. 

As per the latest stats, there are up to 20,000 apps for mental health in the market, and many of the most popular apps have millions of users. Moreover, as per Statista, the leading mental wellness apps were installed 215 thousand times in the United States from November 3 to November 5, 2020.

The stats above prove that the demand for mental health apps is continuously rising because of the exceptional benefits and functionalities they offer. 

In this article, we are listing the different mental health app ideas you can take inspiration from for your startup. 

However, before we get to the interesting app ideas, let’s look into the major reasons for developing a mental health app. 

Reasons to build a mental health app

Mental healthcare apps provide benefits to both patients and healthcare professionals. While patients get timely care even in remote areas, doctors and therapists can reach more patients in less time. Moreover, mobile apps make it easier to obtain data, speed up decision making and allow doctors to reach more patients in less time. 

On that note, we have listed a few benefits of developing a mental health app.

1. Immediate access to mental healthcare: Gone are the days when one had to make physical visits to clinics or offices to meet a therapist or medical counselor. Mental healthcare apps have replaced physical visits with digital visits. Patients can now easily search for therapists and schedule video or audio calls at their convenience. Therapists can also accept or reschedule the appointments as per their schedule.

2. Reduce stress for employees: Mental health apps that target stress, anxiety, or depression are essential for working professionals. As per a report by Lyra Health, one-quarter of employees in the US say their mental health has deteriorated during Covid-19, and 40% are dealing with mental conditions like stress or anxiety.
To help reduce stress for employees, many companies are turning to mental health apps and contributing to the overall mental health well-being of their employees.

3. Help in treatment: Mental health apps are useful for data recording and monitoring. Sometimes even doctors and psychotherapists advise the patients to use such applications. Later, the medical personnel can analyze the data and take correct treatment measures.

4. Timely care at even remote locations: By scheduling video calls with a therapist, the majority of people at faraway locations get timely care without having to travel to clinics or hospitals. Moreover, users can get important tips and precautions related to mental health through push notifications.

5. Effective promotional tool: Mental health apps can be used as an effective promotional tool. By integrating the push-notification system, you can inform the patients about their appointments, reports, as well as share special offers, news, and promotions. This way, you can convert a one-time user into a loyal user. 

6. Immediate feedback from users: With the help of a mental health app, a patient can provide feedback digitally according to the rendered service. Once the feedback is received, healthcare providers can get started with what can be done to improve services and create a better user experience.

Types of mental health apps

The mental health app industry is quite diverse. There is a gamut of apps that target different people with various issues and disorders. In this section, we’ll cover the most widespread types of mental health apps. So, let’s begin! 

1. Anxiety, stress, and mood control apps: Anxiety, depression, and mood swings are some of the most common health issues of an individual. A report published by Single Care states 62 percent of people in the US suffer from anxiety. Another report by WHO says approximately 280 million people in the world have depression.

Mental health apps can help patients cope with such mental issues. These types of apps include self-assessment features like questionnaires and journaling. This helps users understand their mental state and take immediate measures. These apps also come with video and audio call features to connect patients and therapists. These apps sometimes also feature emergency lines for consultancy and ambulances.

For instance, Dare is a popular mental health app that helps deal with panic attacks and offers recovery challenges.

2. Mental disorder apps: These types of apps can help people deal with mental disorders like bipolar, OCD, schizophrenia, and others. While a few apps are built on the principle of exchanging messages or calls with doctors, others offer self-guided mood training programs and elements of gamification.

These apps generally offer 24*7 specialized support by healthcare professionals, thereby bringing maximum benefit to users. Such apps also provide a platform for people to connect and share feelings with those going through the same experience. 

3. Self-improvement apps: Self-improvement apps are created for users who want to monitor their mood swings, cultivate positive thinking, and break bad habits. Meditation is often the heart of such apps. For example, Calm uses meditation techniques as its core features since many people find them effective for eliminating negative thoughts and reducing stress.

A few apps also offer a list of psychologists and counselors for those who want to take professional help for self-improvement. 

Moving forward, we will see a few trending mental health app ideas for your startup.

Trending mental health app ideas for startups

Now that we have seen the types of mental health apps, it’s time to take a look at a few trending app ideas addressing mental health issues.

1. App for women’s well-being: If you’re concerned about women’s health and well-being, then this mental health startup idea is just perfect for your startup. You can develop an app to track mood swings and menstrual cycles of women. The app can also provide lists of therapists, doctors, and so on. You can also include text and video chat, where women can get consultations about any mental health issue. You can also offer guided meditation to help them relax and reduce mental stress.

2. Sleep app: These apps are perfect for people who have deep trouble having a good night’s sleep. Sleep apps help ease your stress and anxiety so that you can finally rest and wake up feeling refreshed. Users can select some relaxing music and audio to get a peaceful sleep.

For instance, Headspace offers guided meditation programs to help you drift off into a deep sleep.

3. Virtual therapy app: With the online therapy app, treatment is accessible to everyone. People suffering from anxiety, stress, or other mental health disorders can easily discuss their issues with a therapist from the comfort of their homes.

Such business ideas for mental health can also eliminate the patients’ hesitation to talk in person about their health matters. Patients can communicate with health experts using messaging or video call features. With the help of such apps, health professionals can also connect with other health experts and reach more customers. 

For instance, Talk Space is a popular virtual therapy app that connects you to a wide network of mental health professionals. Instead of going to an office and waiting around to be seen, Talk Space allows you to send texts, audio messages, or video calls at your convenience.

4. Emotional wellness apps: These apps can help users weather the ups and downs of feelings and thoughts and stress less. These apps can offer tools to users to manage anxiety and identify triggers so they won’t trip them up in the future. Emotional wellness apps can offer relaxing mindfulness exercises and music to keep users grounded, centered, and in touch with their emotional well-being.

5. Meditation and mindfulness apps: Meditation and mindfulness apps have gained huge popularity, especially after the outbreak of the pandemic. Millions of people had to stay at home and look for new ways to overcome stress and anxiety. During this time, meditation apps turned out to be the perfect solution. These apps help people meditate to reduce stress, get grounded, remove negativity, and understand their feelings better. So, taking into account the current pandemic situation, this is the perfect app idea for mental health tech startups.

6. Self-improvement apps: The self-improvement apps market is really diverse. There are apps for increasing patience, building self-confidence, overcoming fears, relieving mental stress, and more. Such apps can include mental health app features like live coaching sessions with mentors and therapists, pre-recorded courses with step-by-step video guides, and goal settings.

For instance, Happify offers science-based activities, guided meditations, and games that help reduce stress, overcome negative thoughts, and build greater resilience.  

7. Mood and symptoms tracking app: Such types of apps can help track the mood and symptoms of users. You can offer users to take assessment tests on a regular basis to understand their mood and current mental status. You can also include features like guided meditation so that users can better understand their initial feeling.

You can also allow people to jot down their thoughts or keep a detailed private journal. They can also log their activities from day to day and then track how these activities affect their mood over time. You can allow people to see their mood swings on a calendar or graph for easy tracking.

So, these were a few unique mental health startup ideas that you can choose for your next project. Now moving forward, let’s jump into how you can build a mental health app.

How to build a mental health app?

When planning to create a mental health mobile app, make sure to keep the interface user-friendly and don’t add unnecessary data and functionality. Below are the steps on how to start a mental health business. 

1. Choose the target audience and platform: The first step is to choose your target audience and mental health app platforms. You need to decide whether your app is for children, youth, senior citizens, and so on. Or you can target the general population. This will certainly help to know more about your potential users to design relevant experiences. Once you decide the target audience, choose the platform for your application. You can launch your app on Android, iOS, or even choose a cross-platform option. 

2. Conduct competitor and market research: When creating an app for mental health, it’s vital to study your competitors. Usually, it’s recommended to do in-depth research on the apps that are successful in your niche. However, you must also check out apps that failed, as they might offer valuable lessons. Competitor analysis will help define best and worst practices in your niche.

3. Hire a reliable app development company: Hire a reliable app development company with expertise in multiple domains. Choosing an app development company will ensure that the quality of service is not compromised.

A mobile app development company has a team of UI/UX designers, expert mental health app developers, and market specialists who offer competent suggestions and always take your vision into account. The company also provides access to the newest technologies and offers the latest industry expertise.

4. Build an MVP:  Minimum Viable Product or MVP is the first version of a product with minimal features. It helps determine whether the product has the potential to succeed. Moreover, MVP software development allows users to share their experience with your app, telling what functionality they would like you to add to your product. For a successful MVP development, hire a product development agency that can help bring your product to life.

5. Testing: Testing can’t be overlooked, especially when we are talking about apps for issues as sensitive as mental health. Test everything from user experience, user interface, to content. Proper testing will help identify bugs, shorten the development time and cost, and greatly improve your reputation as a service provider.

6. Release and keep updating: Once your application has been thoroughly tested, it’s ready to welcome users. Now it’s time to track its performance with the in-app analytics tools you implemented during development, address user concerns and requests, and introduce updates to keep users engaged.

Real-world examples of top Mental Health Apps

Let’s take a look at a few mental health apps that have impressed users with their innovative features and functionalities.

1. Calm: The app aims to reduce anxiety, improve sleep, and promote mindfulness. Calm provides meditation that focuses on relaxation and sleep. The app can be used by both beginners and those who already use meditation. The meditation sessions range from 3 minutes to over an hour.

2. Headspace: Headspace uses mindfulness and meditation to help people build relationships, reduce stress, and promote restful sleep. Headspace offers meditation for creativity, workplace, body positivity, and focus, among others.

3. MindDoc: MindDoc is a mood journal that asks users questions three times per day to track their emotional health. The app provides in-depth statistics on mood and symptom changes over time. MindDoc also offers meditation sessions, courses, and other resources that aim to improve a person’s emotional health.

4. Anxiety Relief Hypnosis: Anxiety Relief Hypnosis is an app that may help improve relaxation and reduce anxiety. The app allows people to loop relaxing background noises and sessions while they are sleeping.

5. Mindshift CBT: The MindShift CBT app was created to provide anxiety relief using CBT tools to adjust thinking and behaviors. The app claims to help tackle worry, panic, perfectionism, social anxiety, and phobias.

FAQs

Q1. How much does it cost to build a mental health app?

Ans. The cost of building a mental health app depends on several factors such as choice of mental health platforms, location of app developers, mental health app features, etc. However, the average cost can be somewhere between $40,000 to $80,000. 

Q2. How long does it take to build a mental healthcare app?

Ans. On average, the development of mental health apps can take anywhere between three months to one year, depending on the structure of your project and the complexity of the app.

Q3. How do you build a mental health app?

For starting a mental health business, you need to hire an experienced mobile app development company. Share your mental health business ideas with them. They can provide you with the right consultation in terms of the required technologies, features, and functionality for your app.

How can Appinventiv help in your app development journey?

As a reliable healthcare application development company, we have developed many apps for our users. We have a highly skilled team of mental health app developers who have mastered the technologies needed to develop innovative mental healthcare apps. 

So, in case you are starting a mental health business and have an amazing app idea in your mind, feel free to contact us. Our experts will offer the best healthcare mobile app development services and bring your idea to life. 

The post Top Mental Health App Ideas for Startups appeared first on Appinventiv.

Additionally, the number one reason why most users uninstall an app is the lack of usability and usefulness.

While the above statistics may not seem to connect and conclude, they imply the importance of app development and indicate how crucial it is to ensure quality of the process and results.

One smart way of doing so is choosing custom application development for your business. Wondering why not low code development? This article talks in detail about that.

Here’s a bunch of reasons why it’s smart to favor custom app development over low-code app development. But first, let us find out what actually is meant by low-code and custom app development.

What is Low-Code Development?

Low-code development is a mobile app development process that employs low-code development platforms including various tools that help build mobile apps through a drag and drop interface.

While low-code platforms help build applications in a short period of time, the ease of access comes with a variety of cons that must be considered before a project is commenced.

What is Custom App Development?

Custom application development is the process of building software for a specific set of users, functions or organizations. The idea of building custom-code applications is to develop software that closely fulfills the needs of the users and meets their expectations.

Custom applications are generally built from scratch and offer limitless customization options.

Why Choose Custom App Development Over Low-Code App Development?

1. Low-code May Encourage Inexperienced Development

Although not every low-code app developer lacks experience, it’s a route often preferred by individuals who may lack technical know-how or expertise.

Of course, a custom-code developer developing your business application from scratch may demand higher compensation compared to our low-code friend. But, this cost will bring with it the valuable experience and availability of a talented custom application development team closely looking after your business’ app development front.

2. Low-Code Lacks Freedom 0f Design and Features

As low-code applications are based upon pre-developed templates or low-code platforms, there isn’t much scope for customization.

If you have ever tried developing a low-code, template-based mobile app before, you may have an idea.

While these templates and platforms enable users to start off the app quickly, the final products often lack various features that may be essential for your business.

Apart from that, even the most minor edits, including graphic and visual updates, may require an unusual amount of extra work. This makes low-cost applications a less preferred option by companies.

3. Low-Code Approach Makes Scaling and Updation Costlier

Unlike custom-code applications, low-code apps have fewer customization options, which we just mentioned. But is this the end of the problem there?

A low-code application is often likely to pose challenges at the time of scaling or update.

For instance, the template that you used for building the application may stop future support for that particular range of products. Or, the latest template updates may not suit your purpose well. Additionally, a template-based application will put limits to your business’ creativity and productivity, keeping the app enclosed inside the same design and set of features.

4. Security and Reliability May be a Concern

In the past ten years, more than 300 data breaches have occurred, causing a global loss of over 100,000 records.

The amount of data lost and leaked may account for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, inflicting severe damage on businesses across all industries.

One primary reason why data attacks become easier is the lack of security that low-code platforms may offer. 

This majorly happens for the following reasons:

• You or your development partner has not written the code, so it can’t be trusted for its reliability.
• Low-code template developers may eliminate security features that may not hinder the normal function of the application but can leave loopholes for a cyber attack.

However, when you hire a reliable full-cycle app development service company, the team ensures delivering a product that is fully customized as per your business’ security preferences and requirements.

5. Integration Challenges

Another drawback of using low-code platforms is their lack of integrability with other existing tools and software that your business is currently using.

Most low-code platforms come with several limitations around what changes you can make to the output. Additionally, to make these changes, the developer will require the know-how of the platform in use.

This makes integration a challenge. Even if the integration of such a grade is possible and supported by a low-code platform, finding the way through may be difficult as all platforms work differently.

Speaking of custom-code development, it leaves enough room for seamless integration with your existing software.

6. Low-code Apps Can Lower Efficiency

Most low-code apps are built with several short-comings, led by the lack of customization. This means that several useful features may be missing from the application. Or design preferences may not be optimum or as required. 

These factors can greatly contribute to lowering the overall efficiency of your team.

As your business app is not performing optimally, your employees may have to step in to guide your users through, or to make amendments or to just manage the mess being created by the low-code counterpart.

Building a custom-code application in the first go will save you the hassle. Also, a custom built application will be designed and developed based on your business’ specific requirements and your target audience.

This can help your business establish a connection with its prospects.

7. User Lock-in Concerns

As a low-code platform comes ready from its developers, we do not have all the access to how the platform functions.

In case of data loss or vendor or user lock-in, your business may just be left helpless or too dependent on the platform developers. This can lead to mistrust or dissatisfaction, accompanied with panic among your users.

In a custom-code application, your team of developers or development partner will be able to make the required amendments on priority.

Also read: Top benefits of custom app development

Low-Code vs Traditional Development

In the sections above, we discussed a variety of factors that support the fact that custom code applications are a tad better than their low-code counterparts. For a better understanding, a high-code vs low-code differentiation table may be helpful:

Low-Code or Custom-Code? What’s Good For Your Business?

Businesses with firm plans of upscaling and expansion would generally consider building a versatile app that can be updated with ease and no limits. Secondly, companies might also have to update app design/features as per the user feedback. 

This can precisely be achieved in a custom code application. Although, as mentioned above, low-code applications may appear to save time, effort, and money in the first go; a few months or weeks down the line, you and your users may start discovering the long list of shortcomings.

Save yourself the trouble — consult a reliable custom app development company such as Appinventiv. With qualified resources and years of custom development experience, we create applications that keep our clients and their customers happy.

For instance, for one of our clients, JobGet, we delivered an end-to-end custom application development solution, which resulted in over $2 Million funding for the organization and reduced the job search time for blue collar workers from days to minutes.  

For another client, YouCOMM, we developed a custom multi-request format platform that helped reduce patients’ assistance wait time during emergencies and led to 60% growth in nurses’ real-time response time.

The post Low Code Vs Custom App Development – Which is the Best Bet for Your Business? appeared first on Appinventiv.

But getting fundings for your app is surely not a cakewalk. Hence, you need to find investors for your business. Well, before you pitch your business idea or app concept to investors, make sure to conduct some preliminary research. If your idea looks revolutionary to investors, they’ll surely invest. 

However, apart from the idea, if you present an MVP with minimal features, it will help investors to check and use your product in real-time. Investors will see that you are serious about your product and hence, they will be more likely to invest in it. 

In one of his essays, Paul Graham wrote: “Most app investors decide in the first few minutes whether you seem like a winner or a loser, and once their opinion is set it’s hard to change. Every startup has reasons both to invest and not to invest. If app investors think you’re a winner they focus on the former, and if not they focus on the latter.’’

Thus, the first impression is really important to convince an investor. So, moving forward, let’s discuss the steps to gain the trust of your investors and the types of investors that you may find. 

Types of investors

The market offers a variety of ways to get funded. Depending on your app idea, the amount of funds you need, and the stage you are at, you’ll need to look for investors in different places and pitch your ideas in different ways. 

So, without further ado, let’s dive into the different types of investors you may find.

1. Family and friends: Family and friends are usually the easiest to convince that your app idea is worthy. However, in most cases, your personal connections can sponsor a startup only at the beginning. You can use that money to do market research and build a prototype to show other possible investors. To do more, you need to consider other options as well.

2. Co-founders: The second way is to invite your friends or family members to become a co-founder. When a person is convinced that your idea has enough potential, they are likely to invest in your project. You can also find people outside your connection to co-found your business if you have enough trust in them. 

3. App contests: There are several app contests that take place in different parts of the world. While extremely competitive, these app contests give entrepreneurs a chance to present their idea to investors and convince them to finance your project.

4. Crowdfunding: It is a type of fundraising where collaborative efforts are made via the internet and other networks to raise money. For a successful crowdfunding campaign, you will need to invest time, effort, and probably money in marketing. 

5. Angel investors and venture capitalists: In case you are looking for a serious infusion of money into your mobile startup, it’s angel investors and venture capitalists you should look for. These entities generally offer a large sum of money. 

While angel investors for app development are more often individuals, venture capitalists are usually companies. In order for investors to take interest in your app, you have to make a very compelling argument to prove why your idea is worth the investment. 

[Also Read: How to raise money for mobile app startup?]

Steps to gain the trust of investors for mobile app development

Having just a baseline app idea won’t help as investors want to know that you have really given this idea some thought. They want to see that you have analyzed your competitors and your product has the potential to succeed in the market. 

Below are the key steps that will help gain the trust of investors and raise funds for your creative idea: 

1. Validate your idea: Finding a good idea can be a daunting task. You need to brainstorm ideas that can make a difference and solve customers’ pain points. You can start by working on your area of interest or passion. Once you have an interesting app idea, the next step is to validate your app idea to make sure that it is promising. Investors don’t want to fund an app idea that already exists. 

So, do a thorough research of the market and figure out the competitive landscape of your app’s market. Make sure that your app idea is not just a copy of another company’s offering. You can also consult an app development agency to understand the feasibility of your idea. 

Find the right market: It’s important to understand the competitive landscape of the market. You need to do thorough research on applications in your space to find out what innovative features are they offering to users and how you can stay ahead of them. 

2. Define the market size: When studying the competitive environment, you will get an idea regarding the size of the market you can expect. You must define the target audience and the market share, so that you can present your potential mobile app stakeholders with the real figures of the probable opportunities and risks, which can be expected.

Choose a reliable app development partner: Hiring a reliable app development partner can help turn your idea into reality. Choose a company that has successfully carried out similar projects and delivered analogous products. 

A mobile app development company has a team of expert developers, UI/UX designers, and market specialists that offer competent suggestions and always take your vision into account. 

The company also provides the latest industry expertise and access to the newest technologies. It helps create an app with the latest features and functionalities that will definitely impress investors. So, joining hands with a reputed development partner is the right thing to do if you want your product to get app funding from investors.

3. Know the investment basics: To gain the trust of your potential investors and be persuasive, you should know the basics of running a startup and money-raising yourself. This will help you understand the type of capital to take and the investment stages existing.

4. Figure out revenue strategy: Apart from understanding the basics of investment, you should also work on the strategy to generate revenue. The plain and clear strategy presented to the investors will make them finance your mobile app development more wholeheartedly. So, it’s essential to study the various monetization strategies and be ready to answer the clarification questions about them. 

5. Create MVP:  Minimum Viable Product or MVP is the first version of a product with a basic set of features. It is an effective and affordable way of helping investors understand the working flow of your app. An MVP allows you to understand if your app has the potential to succeed before going to mobile app investors. 

Moreover, MVP provides your potential investors with a physical product that they can see and use in real-time. An investor loves nothing more than a business that already works and whose owners have invested time and their own money into it. 

An MVP offers enormous flexibility so you are able to continue tweaking until you receive the ideal response. For a successful MVP development, you can contact us. Our team of experts will help create an MVP that will look favorable to mobile app investors. 

We recently helped JobGet to create an application that makes the job search process easier for blue-collar workers. From understanding the client’s vision to MVP development, our team of experts helped them to raise funds for their unique application. JobGet has bagged $2.1 million funding to date and more than 1,50,000 job seekers have been placed. 

What are the stages of mobile app funding?

Now that we have seen how to get investors for an app, let’s discuss the various stages of app funding. 

1. Pre-seed: Pre-seed is the stage when your app is just a floating idea and nothing substantial has been done yet. This stage is considered an informal round because most funding comes from friends and family or it’s your own money. Funds raised in this stage are typically used to create a founding team, demos, or MVP, conduct research and collect data, and gain some early traction.

2. Seed stage: It is the second stage of funding where the focus is on the initial growth of your business. In the seed round, your mobile app startup is not yet operational, and you’re still working on improving the product. You’re looking for investments to fund further research, begin testing the product-market fit, and hire a workforce. At this stage, typically angel investors, early-stage venture capitalists, and startup incubators respond.

3. Series A: Reaching this stage of investment means you are on your way to success. At this point, you’ve established the market-product compatibility and have clearly defined the objective of your brand. You start to focus on your business and product growth. Your main focus should be on optimizing your business, marketability, and scalability of your mobile app. At this stage, venture capital firms, “super” angel investors, and family offices are the usual Series-A investors.

4. Series B,C,D, etc: Making to series B and beyond means your product has gained acceptance from users. This stage focuses on improving and adding new features to your product to attract more users. Your brand has a reputation and people are aware of your services. Now you have to take your app from a mobile app startup funding stage to a mid-size business. Funds raised at this stage are used for business acquisitions, going public, partnerships, upgrading branding levels, and engaging with new markets with constant product development and upgradation. 

Now that we have seen how to get funding for an app, let’s see how much funding one needs for an app startup. 

[Also Read: What type of mobile apps will tech investors fund in 2022?]

How much funding do you need for your app startup?

When it comes to how much funding for app startup is required, there isn’t any fixed figure to achieve. The exact number will depend on your app idea, the complexity of the app, the team, and other factors. For instance, a simple MVP with minimal features can cost anywhere from $15,000 to $50,000. A more complex cross-platform app with APIs, on the other hand, can cost anywhere between $50,000 to $200,000. 

But don’t worry, we have already discussed the options to raise money for your startup. However, before going to the app investors, work with your full-cycle app development company to figure out the estimated cost of developing your app, functionalities, and primary purpose of the app. Without any budgetary plans in place, you risk making a monetary miscalculation that can cost you your dream.

If you receive less funding, you won’t be able to even start the app development process. On the other hand, if you receive more funds than you need, you may end up giving away your owner’s share or even your company to mobile app investors.

What to do once your app gets funding?

Once you’ve received funds from investors, what’s next? Well, your work doesn’t stop here. Your app needs continuous improvement and maintenance. Once your app is launched, keep improving your app and take feedback from users and app investors as you grow. As you move through the various stages of funding, your business will receive funds that can be used to add innovative features to the app, improve the design, and scale the business. 

Plus, with the advent of new technologies and updates in OS, your app will surely need to evolve constantly. For this reason, you must hire a capable startup development app development company that can ensure the smooth functioning of your app for a long time.

The post How to get investors for your mobile app startups? appeared first on Appinventiv.

While both Android and iOS are the most preferred platforms for healthcare app development, the latter has gained more popularity in recent years due to several benefits such as high revenue, enhanced security and less development time. If we talk about the latest stats, there were 53,979 iOS healthcare apps in the Apple App Store globally in the first quarter of 2021. Talking about Android apps,  there were 53,054 healthcare apps available in the first quarter of 2021.

These stats prove that iOS apps are more in demand and a preferred choice for healthcare professionals. 

Now moving further, let’s take a look at a few healthcare startups that have impressed users with their innovative app ideas.

1. Healthe People: Using this healthcare app, users can store and monitor all their healthcare apps and devices’ data. Healthe People also allows users to find medical caregivers for their friends.

2. Soniphi: Soniphi uses vocal information to provide you with a complete well-being analysis report on your personal health.

3. Teladoc: This healthcare app allows users to connect with doctors or surgeons at their convenience. Users can book appointments and even update their medical history.

4. K Health: It’s an AI-powered healthcare app for iOS that helps to chat with a doctor. The app also offers a symptom checker for free.

These were a few healthcare app use cases that are making big in the healthcare sector with their user-friendly and innovative features. These apps are helping to connect patients with doctors and speed up treatment procedures. 

Now let’s move on to the next part of this article where we will discuss the different types of healthcare apps. 

Types of healthcare apps

Healthcare apps are generally categorized on the basis of patients and healthcare institutions. Let’s take a quick look at the most common types of mobile healthcare applications that fall under both the categories. 

Apps for Healthcare Providers 

• Patient monitoring apps
• Reference and database apps 
• Appointment and clinical assistance apps
• EHR solutions 

Apps for Patients

• Education and self-diagnosis apps 
• Health monitoring apps 
• Mental wellness apps 
• Nutrition apps 
• Women health apps
• Reminder apps

Must-Have Features in iOS App for Healthcare

When developing an app for healthcare, it’s important to decide which features to include in your app. You must make sure to include such features that make the whole experience immersive and user-friendly for the users. Below are a few common features that you must include in your healthcare mobile app.

1. Sign up/log in: This feature allows users to sign up or log in easily via email, phone number, or social media accounts like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. The sign-up process should not be too complicated as it will frustrate your users, and they might end up leaving your app. So think carefully about what information you need from them and don’t add unnecessary fields.

2. Health tracking: It is one of the most crucial features to include in a healthcare app for iOS. This functionality enables the monitoring of a patient’s health conditions such as blood pressure, sugar levels, heart rate, calories intake, etc.

3. Appointment Booking: It is one of the most basic iOS healthcare app features to find and book appointments with doctors. This functionality will help patients to easily check the doctor’s visit timing, book an appointment, and even set a reminder. It will make the booking procedure stress-free for patients. For doctors, this feature will help them to quickly see their upcoming appointments and change their availability as necessary.

For instance, Zocdoc is a popular mobile app for iOS that allows patients to find a doctor in urgency and book appointments at their convenience.

4. Doctor and patient profiles: Healthcare apps must include Doctor and user profiles. The doctor’s profile can have details like their area of specialization, location of the clinic, visitation charges, etc. This will allow patients to find appropriate doctors in their area.

The user profile, on the other hand, can include the user’s name, age, gender, and basic health data like weight, height, blood group, etc. This will help doctors to get a quick overview of patients, their conditions, or medications.

5. Siri integration: If you’ve never integrated Siri into the application, now is the time to evaluate it. Siri’s functionality now offers a better voice experience, additional customization, and more. For example, your healthcare app can allow people to search for hospitals using voice or ask Siri to remind them to take medicines on time. Integrating Siri can add significant value to your user experience. 

6. Video calls: Integration of video calls allows real-time communication between patients and doctors. With this feature, people living in suburbs or far-flung areas can get timely care without having to travel to a hospital. 

For instance, Doctor On Demand allows you to video call a doctor or therapist at your convenience. After the consultation, your prescription will be uploaded to the app itself. 

In case you want to build an app like Doctor On Demand, read here.

7. Online chat: With this feature, you can give users an option to communicate with healthcare professionals who will be available to offer valuable consultations. The chat feature is a great solution for both patients and doctors. While patients can easily send their questions or files required for consultation, doctors can address their issues and upload prescriptions.

Nowadays there are several apps that are used within the hospital to connect patients with doctors or nurses. They help to provide quick care to patients and enable them to notify the staff of their needs through simple texts or voice commands. 

For instance, YouComm is a popular healthcare app for in-hospital patients developed by Appinventiv. It helps patients to send messages to nurses in case of an emergency. In this way, they receive timely care and attention. 

8. Geo-location-based search: Adding a geo-location search functionality enables patients to look for doctors and clinics in their areas. You can make use of Apple Map functionality to add the location-based search feature in your healthcare mobile application.

9. Doctor’s ratings and reviews: Doctor’s ratings and reviews will help users decide whether it’s worth contacting a particular doctor or not. For your healthcare app, you will have to ensure that you have a good lot of genuine ratings and reviews for your partnered doctors.

Patients only click on those doctors’ profiles who have a good set of ratings and reviews backing them. So, in case they find profiles with no ratings and reviews, chances are that they won’t interact with those doctors and ultimately with the app as a whole.

10. Payment gateway: Adding payment gateways to your app will allow users to easily pay for the doctor’s services and consultation. Offering payment gateways such as Stripe and Paypal make paying bills simple for users and collecting payments easy for healthcare professionals.

11. Reminders and notifications: You can add notification and reminder features to keep users up-to-date on their prescriptions and medicine intake. These notifications can be not only time-based but also location-based. 

12. Personal coaching: This feature helps you provide a personal coach for your app users to help them achieve their fitness goals. A personal coach can help you with your exercises and nutrition.

Next-gen features in iOS Health apps

Let’s now discuss a few additional features that can significantly upgrade user experiences and guarantee higher adoption rates among patients and doctors.

1. Artificial Intelligence: AI is becoming absolutely instrumental in various medical spheres. The global AI in the healthcare industry market is expected to reach USD 45.2 billion by 2026 from USD 4.9 billion in 2020. Integrating AI technology into your app can help with early disease diagnosing, identifying health trends, and analyzing massive sets of health data. If you want to learn more about how AI is transforming the healthcare sector, read here.

2. Blockchain: Blockchain presents a great way to create an innovative healthcare app for iOS. It can be used for managing EMR and EHR data, conducting research, medicine tracking, and bettering the insurance and hospital billing process.

3. AR and VR: Augmented reality and virtual reality can help patients get better through the mode of virtual simulations and practitioners bettering their procedures through a virtual environment. If you want to learn how AR/VR is transforming the healthcare industry, read here. 

For creating a healthcare app for iOS, you need to hire the best mobile app developers having a good track record of creating such kinds of applications with the latest features and functionalities.
Moving further, we will discuss the cost of developing an iOS app for the healthcare sector and the factors that contribute to the ultimate cost of developing a healthcare app. 

[Related blog: 10 Healthcare Trends That Will Redefine Industry in 2021]

How much does it cost to develop an iOS healthcare app?

The average cost of developing an iOS app for the healthcare sector might range from $40,000 to $50,000. If you are looking to add advanced features like AI, it can cost somewhere between $100,000 to $150,000. However, this is a very rough estimate. There are a number of factors such as the type of mobile app that you want to build, the location of healthcare iOS app developers, and features of your app that can increase or lower the final price. Make sure to consult reliable companies like Appinventiv that help in developing world-class iOS apps to create new milestones. 

Factors that determine the cost of iOS healthcare apps

Some of the factors that affect the cost of building a healthcare app for iOS are given below: 

1. Features and functionalities: The first important factor that decides the healthcare app development cost is features. The more features and functionalities your iOS application has, the more expense you need to bear for your app development.
So, it is advisable to concentrate only on the core features in the initial version of the app. It will help you offer a great customer experience at affordable costs. As the features advance, the cost entailed in the app development process also increases.

If you want more insights concerning features for your healthcare app, get in touch with an iOS app development company.

2. Categories of app:  There are endless types of iOS mobile apps, and the cost of each app depends on its category to a major extent. Each category comes with its own functionalities, demographics, security criteria, etc. For instance, if you are building a healthcare app, it must possess all the features to make healthcare services easily accessible to both doctors and patients.
It’s crucial for these apps to serve millions of users at once and have a robust security system. All these features add to the final estimated cost of the app and require more development time.

3. UI and UX: User interface (UI) and user experience (UI) are vital for the success of your healthcare application. It is tough to create a simple yet unique UI/UX app design and it will have certain additional costs. UI/UX components such as push notifications, icons, and customization need to be added to your application if you wish to make an impression on your users. A good design will make your users want to use your app more and not drift away from it in the long run.

4. Development hours: The total time taken by healthcare iOS app developers to build an iOS app also plays a huge role in deciding the cost to make the app. The time taken to develop an app is directly related to the number of developers. If your app is complex and you want less development hours, then your team needs more professionals to achieve the tasks quickly. And this means you need to shell out more money. 

On the other hand, if you want a basic team, you need to pay relatively less as compared to the above case. 

5. Choice of app development company: The cost of your healthcare app development will also depend on the app development company you choose. A reliable app development company has expertise in multiple domains and offers expert resources to deliver excellent services. While it will add to the development costs, the quality of service will not be compromised and it will definitely speed up the development process.

6. App maintenance: The work does not end with your app getting launched in the store. There are other additional elements that contribute to the increment in the cost of developing an iOS healthcare app, like app maintenance. Once the app is launched in the market, you need to constantly maintain and update it.

Enterprises need to revamp the app integrations and functionalities as per their users’ demands. You will also require regular technical assistance from professional developers to ensure the smooth functioning of your app. This, in turn, leads to an increase in the price of mobile app development.

7. App security: Many companies undermine app security even though it is essential. Your app must keep the data of users safe and confidential. If you compromise on security, your existing and current users will not trust your application. Thus, it is wise to invest in data security as a major security breach can break your business.

8. Location of app developers: Location plays a crucial role in deciding the iOS app development price. For e.g. the price of iOS app development for healthcare in California is different from iPhone app development companies in Texas. It is due to the fact that services around the world vary significantly in terms of quality as well as cost.

FAQs

Q. Why choose iOS app development for your health app?

iPhone app development is an ideal choice for your health app as it offers several benefits such as instant global exposure, higher ROI and revenue, robust security, and more. 

Q. What is the need for a healthcare app?

Healthcare apps have become the need of the hour because of the several benefits they offer such as enabling immediate access to care, streamlining the clinical processes, saving time, reducing diagnostic errors, and more. 

Q. What are the popular reasons for healthcare app failure?

Some of the reasons that lead to the failure of healthcare apps are:

• Lack of appeal in UI/UX design
• Lack of rigorous testing
• Choosing the wrong app development company
• Not following legacy and privacy rules

How Appinventiv can help

As a leading healthcare mobile app development company, we have developed many apps for our users. We have a highly skilled team of iOS app developers who have mastered the technologies that are needed to develop top-notch healthcare apps. 

So, in case, you also have some interesting app ideas on your mind, feel free to contact us. Our experts will offer the best healthcare mobile app development services and bring your idea to life.

The post iOS App Development for Healthcare – Advanced Features & Cost appeared first on Appinventiv.

With over 290 million smartphone users in the US alone, it won’t be wrong to say that people prefer ease of access. A neatly planned and crafted online jewelry business app can offer them the same.

In this blog, we discuss some of the key highlights to find out and consider while targeting the jewelry industry through a mobile app.

State of the US Jewelry Market from January 2017 to May 2021

A Mobile App can help trigger jewelry sales

Mobile app development has been in the buzz since it was introduced to the world. A jewelry online shopping app can help buyers browse jewelry before making a purchase. Here are a number of ways that an app can help in:

Global reach

As over 290 million people in the US use a smartphone, your business can have a great chance at getting suitable exposure, right when it’s needed.

An online jewelry business app can give your store immense reach to a wider set of audience. By publishing your mobile app on the App Store and Playstore, your potential for reaching customers will increase dramatically. More reach means more popularity, hence more sales for your business.

Brand building

A jewelry online shopping app helps establish a brand in a cost effective manner. It helps build a brand, helps sell your products, keeps customers close and the process of app development doesn’t break the bank.

Additionally, by appropriately branding your app to the target audience, you can be boosting brand awareness and might encourage some sales or even footfall to your brick and mortar store.

Product listing

A mobile app for your jewelry business can help act as a catalogue where you can list your products and promote them to the target audience. Jewelry is meant to hold a special place in the heart of its owner, thus, having to invest in the development of an app that helps you display your work with the best-handpicked designs for your customers makes the journey all the more satisfying for the customer. 

Increase in ROI

Studies suggest that nearly 90% of the mobile internet time is spent on mobile apps.

This indicates how people prefer using applications over websites on their smartphones. 

Customization of pieces can play a significant role in making customers feel satisfied with the products they buy. A jewelry store app can help generate more business, more sales and greater returns.

Featuring jewelry on a mobile app

The jewelry app development company that you choose should create an Admin panel and a User panel. If you have multiple stores at different locations, a deliverer panel may also help.

User Panel: 

A user panel should have the following features: 

Login/Registration:

Login allows users to log in to the jewelry shopping app with their credentials like email or Facebook to create a profile on your app. The profile helps users access information like order history, received products, and monetary transactions made by them. 

Add to wish list/add to cart:

Users can select the ornaments and add them to their wish list. Then, if they want to buy, they can add it to the cart and proceed to the payment process. 

Store locator:

Jewelry businesses with multiple stores can integrate a ‘locate the store’ feature to help their customers reach their store using GPS.

Customisation and communication:

Customisation feature allows users to add/delete/change/reorder the ornaments according to their requirements.

Order management:

Users can make/ cancel/ reorder/schedule their orders along with the tracking options for the same.

Ratings/Reviews and customer delight:

The customers’ feedback through ratings and reviews can help you in improving the app and the overall quality of the business.

Admin Panel

On the admin panel, include the following features: 

Create/manage jewelry catalog:

The app can have a feature to allow the admin to create catalogues for categorizing various products.

Manage alerts and notifications:

With a mobile app, business owners can promote their business within the app through advertisements. Users can get the latest product notification, delivery notifications on the go through the app. These notifications can also generate invoices or receipts and email for the customer.

Scanning bar codes to add/remove the product:

If a product has been sold, the admin can update its status in the catalog by scanning the barcode attached to every product in the store.

Shipping options:

The customer should easily be able to view different shipping options, as not having a clear idea can make you lose on potential leads and convert them into sales.

History and reports:

The admin should be able to get all the history such as orders placed/canceled/ reordered/ rescheduled, etc. on a customised dashboard to have quick insights into the data without much hassle.

Integrations:

Payment Gateway integration:

Safe and secure payment gateways help users to pay securely. Payment gateways allow multiple gateways such as credit or debit card payment, net banking, cash on delivery and more. Integrate secure payment gateways so that it can generate your international monetary transactions.

Additional jewelry app development features:

Features like AR/VR on your app can improve the buying decisions of customers. 

AR/VR is an emerging technology and can make wonders if utilized in the right direction.

Given the budget, you can use this feature for an exceptional user experience. With AR/ VR, customers can virtually view how the ornament looks on them, or fits them. They can make choices with single clicks and make a sure shot decision without wasting much time.

This feature is a boon as it ensures increased sales and revenue. 

You can also subscribe to bandwidth management software along with your server, to better control how data transfer is handled. If bandwidth isn’t and controlled, you run the risk of encountering poor network performance resulting in a loss of target leads. 

Additionally, opt for a feature that sets metrics and creates both pre- and post-sale reports for a deeper insight into the products and buying behaviour of the customer.

Also Read: How AI & IoT will transform your business

Choose the best jewelry shopping app development company

As the competition is tough among the mobile app development companies, business owners need to choose a company or a jewelry app developer that understands their business and their customers to make wise decisions.

Therefore, it’s advisable to go through their portfolio before you call it a deal. One crucial aspect is the quality of photos. Your jewelry app development company should display high-quality pictures in the app as your business depends on a good representation of the ornament.

Additionally, it’s crucial to find out whether the company prioritises no-code or core app development practices.

While no-code apps may pave an “easy-way-out,” they come with a vast pool of cons that may make them the poor choice for your business.

For example, a no-code mobile app will lack customisation options; the jewelry app developers can not entirely control it. Various elements may need to be purchased even after owning the template; plus, no-code applications are built using different templates and platforms that do not always follow specific development standards.

As a result, hiring suitable talent for managing your no-code application may be a challenge, as not all great development companies may be well-versed with the specific platform that your application is using.

Such challenges do not exist when a qualified development company like Appinventiv takes on your mobile app development project from scratch.

Also Read: Explained: The supremacy of custom app development

Cost for jewelry app development

A basic android app for selling jewelry with basic functions and features can cost somewhere around $50 to $70 Per Hour.

To estimate the cost to develop a jewelry app, one has to consider factors like the platform your business will be on, the e-commerce app or website’s functionality, and the technology stack to be utilised. These aspects can give a rough idea of the cost that can be increased or decreased based on other factors. 

Mobile apps generate quick sales in many cases. App functioning and profit generation are taken care of when your business has an app in place. So the success of your online jewelry business can be much more and also hassle-free.

The post Mobile App Development for Jewelry Industry – Cost & Features appeared first on Appinventiv.

If you are also planning to start your entrepreneurial journey and scale your business, it’s crucial to first understand the various startup development stages that you need to go through.

1. Brainstorming idea: The first step is to brainstorm ideas that can make a difference and solve customers’ pain points. Finding a good idea can be very challenging and requires patience. You can start with figuring out your own passion and area of interest. Next, you need to find the problems that need to be solved in your field.

2. Market research and idea validation: The next step is to test and validate your idea to make sure that it is promising. Do a thorough research of the market and competitors. Once market research is done, you can decide if your idea is worth the investment.

3. Hiring a reliable development partner: Hiring the right development partner can increase the flexibility of your operations and help turn your idea into reality. A mobile app development company has a team of expert developers, UI/UX designers, and market specialists that offer competent suggestions and always take your vision into account.

A reliable development partner makes it easier to succeed in this fast-running competitive business environment and helps save a lot on product development. The company also provides the latest industry expertise and access to the newest technologies. So, joining hands with reputed development partners is the right thing to do if you want your product to succeed in the market.

4. Prototyping: Prototyping is an important stage when it comes to your product’s development journey. It helps to develop a navigation concept, create a design concept, and list the core features of your future solution. Using a prototype for usability testing allows enough time to make changes to critical design issues. Often the prototyping process reveals new opportunities and confirms the best direction to take during development. Developing a perfect prototype is the best approach to a quality product that can be created without unnecessary additional expenses.

5. MVP development: Once you have a prototype, it’s time to move to the next stage of startup development. Minimum Viable Product or MVP is the first version of a product with a basic set of features. It determines whether or not the product has the potential to succeed. MVP enables startups to engage the first users and understand the audience’s needs. Uber, Airbnb, or Foursquare – almost every top-grossing app that is ruling the market today has undergone this phase.

Moreover, you give users an opportunity to participate in MVP software development. Users can leave comments and feedback about their experience with your app, telling what functionality they would like you to add to your product.

Also, if you present your MVP to investors with your future plan, they can see the demand for your app in the market and get interested in it.

If your MVP doesn’t find success that doesn’t mean failure. At the very start of your product development process, you have enormous flexibility, so you are able to continue tweaking until you receive the ideal response. For a successful MVP development, hire a product development agency that can help bring your product to life. 

6. Funding: It’s important to find the right investors who will support you in your entrepreneurial journey. Look for investors with diverse backgrounds and experiences that you could benefit from. Once you find the right investor, your task is to explain to potential investors that your idea is promising and will benefit the end-users.

7. Testing and launching: After the product is ready, it is necessary to make sure it is free from bugs and then launch it. At this stage, you should already have a comprehensive marketing strategy and a clear image of how to promote your app. If you hire a product development agency, the experts can provide you with effective marketing strategies to launch your app. They will also ensure that your app is bug-free and all set for the big launch. 

Now that we have seen the various stages of startup development, from brainstorming ideas to MVP development to IPO, let’s see how Appinventiv has helped its clients in their journey. 

How Appinventiv helped JobGet, a job search platform bag $2.1 million funding?

Our team of experts helped JobGet to create an application that makes the job search process easier for blue-collar workers. From understanding the client’s vision to MVP development using state-of-the-art technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), our team helped the company in every step of its product development journey.

We helped them develop an app that brings down the job search process for hourly workers from months to days. We added the facility of having in-app interviews along with the functionality of finding employers and employees on the basis of location. Since its launch in the market, JobGet has bagged $2.1 million funding and more than 1,50,000 job seekers have been placed. 

So, for companies like JobGet that have scaled their business with a top-notch product and received fundings from investors, it becomes easy to go public and acquire capital from public investors. The funds will help them to further grow their business. But does that mean this is the best step for your company as well? Let’s find out in the next section. 

Should your business take the IPO route?

If you are planning to take the IPO route, just remember that it will not happen overnight. It can take around 5-7 years along with plenty of money. So, before you decide to go public, be clear on why you’re doing it and how it’s going to help improve your product and grow your business. 

We have mentioned a few factors that will help you decide whether your business should take the IPO route or not.

1. Predictable financial growth: Accurate financial projections is the key to efficient business strategy planning. It helps analysts evaluate the company and give important indicators regarding the company’s overall financial performance. If your company’s financial growth rate is consistent and high, public investors will be willing to invest in your business. And this means that you can go public.

2. Having the best executive team: You should consider a team that has experience of being a part of a public company. In addition to a strong current team, you should estimate the need of expanding your finance and accounting staff to aid the process of going public.

Also, you must partner with the most skilled software developers that know how to digitize and prepare a private company for going public.

3. Reports are always audit-ready: Your quarterly report should consistently be released on time and always audit-ready. When your financial reports become forecastable and consistent, it shows you are in a good place to consider going public.

4. Having a strategic roadmap: A strategic roadmap is a blueprint of a company’s investment growth chart. It provides an operating strategy for growing business for providing investment returns which the prospective shareholders want from a public company.

5. Backup plan for delayed or no IPO: Business IPOs are expensive and risky. Having a backup plan for a delayed IPO—or possibly no IPO—is a must. 

Before going public, make sure to consider all the above-mentioned factors. This decision can have a huge impact on your business. So think wisely before going forward. 

Going for an IPO is not as easy as it sounds. It involves a lot of time, patience, and effort. While it is an effective means of raising additional funds, there are also some challenges that businesses might face when going public. Therefore, given below are the key advantages and disadvantages of IPO that businesses must know. 

Key benefits of IPO

1. Fundraising: One of the foremost benefits of an IPO is that it helps to raise funds. These funds can benefit a growing company in a number of ways. Companies may use it for research and development, hiring new employees, acquiring new technology, reducing debt, and more. The money raised through an IPO is beneficial for transforming the growth trajectory of a company.

2. Publicity and credibility: If a company is looking for growth and success, it will need increased exposure to potential customers who know and trust its products. An IPO can help in doing so. Companies receive a lot of attention and credibility when they decide to go public. They go through intense scrutiny to ensure what they are reporting about themselves is correct. This leads to increased credibility for a company and its products.

3. Reduced overall cost of capital: Before going public, companies often pay higher interest rates on loans. But an IPO investment reduces the difficulty of getting additional capital significantly. 

4. Stock as means of payment: Being a public company allows the use of publicly-traded stock as a means of payment. These public stocks offer the advantage of buying and selling them at a market price at any moment. This can be helpful when compensating employees and acquiring other businesses. 

Challenges of IPO

1. Expensive and time-consuming process: Scaling your startup with an IPO investment is an expensive and time-consuming process. The costs of printing, legal, accounting are significantly high, and these costs are to be paid regardless of whether an IPO is successful or not.

2. Disclosure of financial details: Since the company becomes public, it has to reveal all its business information such as finances, team, revenue, tax, accounting, etc. This, in turn, may help the competitors gain an edge over the company.

3. Potential loss of control: One of the major challenges of an IPO is founders have high chances of losing control of their company. Once a company is public, they need to make sure that the public is happy, even if other shareholders do not have voting power. Startups going public means that they receive a large sum of money from public shareholders. Since shareholders have given money for the company, they expect founders to act in their best interest.

Examples of companies that went public

1. Doordash: This leading food delivery app has a 55% market share in the US. Doordash completed its IPO in 2020 and its stock price surged 85 percent on the first day of trading. The company has developed proprietary technology for restaurants to use and make fast delivery a priority. These efforts have helped DoorDash win over big chain restaurants.

2. Airbnb: While Airbnb faced several challenges due to the pandemic’s effect on travel, the company’s IPO still hit the market in December 2020, and the stock price doubled on opening day, reaching a $100 billion market value.

How to get IPO ready? 

If you have decided that it’s now time to go public, you need to follow a few steps to get IPO ready. These steps will ensure that you don’t commit any mistakes in your journey and receive fundings without any hassle. 

Below are the steps that you must undertake to go public via an IPO process:

1. Hire the best development team: Selecting the best development team to handle your product development needs is vital for the success of your business. The success of an IPO depends entirely on the product you are selling. So, we recommend choosing the best software development agency for your product needs.

2. Select an investment bank: The banks act as mediators between the companies looking to issue an IPO and the investors. They carry out a number of processes like marketing, document preparation, issuance, filing, documentation, etc. Apart from an investment bank, you need to hire a lawyer as well. 

3. Perform due diligence: The underwriters, banks, and lawyers work together to conduct an in-depth audit of the company. Their review includes market research, legal, tax, financial, customer verification, etc. The intent is to create complete transparency in the company’s operations and presume risks.

4. Build IPO prospectus and file registration: The next step is to build an IPO prospectus using due diligence information. It will highlight the company’s strength, market share, financial investments, and products. You also need to file complete registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). SEC reviews and comments within 30 days. After this process, companies complete the initial listing application round.

5. Pre-IPO and Roadshow: Bankers and management teams hold a “roadshow”. It is a series of presentations in which they market the IPO to prospective investors. It usually takes place when they first announce the offered price range and size of the shares. The intent is to gather interested investors for driving up the initial sales price.

6. Initiate Trading: The next step is that bankers set up a price determining the initial share value. After a few days, the IPO closes, and stakeholders release their shares. After the shares have been released, investors who purchased the shares get an allocation, and the public trading officially begins.

Conclusion

So, if you are looking to start your entrepreneurial journey or grow your business, first make sure to test your product by developing an MVP. An MVP will help you get feedback from users and determine if your product would be successful or not. It also helps attract investors. After a few years of launching your product in the market, if you think you’re IPO-ready, go for it. IPO allows you to identify where your startup stands and get access to extensive capital that can be used to grow your business.

We hope this article was helpful in giving you an idea of how you can upscale your startup. In case you still have questions regarding MVP development or IPO, feel free to contact us.

The post MVP to IPO – How to scale your business? appeared first on Appinventiv.