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.

After seeing the success and demand for the in-built messaging feature, the founders chose to launch it as a brand new application, while bidding adieu to Glitch. 

This route which they took was an example of a lean methodology concept that we call startup pivot. Let’s get you some perspective into what is a pivot in a business model, why should startups consider it, and the best growth hacking strategies for startups to go about pivot business model. 

Table Of Content

1. What Is A Pivot in Business?
2. Know When Should You Pivot In Startup
3. What are the Different Types of Pivots?
4. How To Startup Pivoting: The best strategies
5. Successful Tech Pivot in Business Stories
6. Pivot Startup Pyramid: How We Help Founders Make Changes In Different Business Areas
7. What are the Alternatives to Business Pivot

What Is A Pivot in Business?

A pivot is primarily a shift in the business strategy which is applied for testing out a new approach related to the startup business model after receiving feedback. It is one of the core concepts of the lean startup method – a reason why it is also known as pivot lean startup. When we align lean principles in our software development process, we always consider making a scope for app pivot.

Many times, companies only have one question to address and need only one aspect to be changed (details in our pivot business pyramid below). To delve on it further, here are some examples of pivoting which you would have not considered a “pivot”

• Turn one product feature into a new product itself 
• Turn one product into a feature of a bigger product
• Change a platform from app to web app or vice versa
• Focus on a different customer set 
• Use different technology to build a product

Know When Should You Pivot

With a number of hot-shot tech giants like Instagram, Facebook, and Slack, having popularized pivot success, the new-age founders have grown to believe that pivot can be a great success formula for them too. But the truth is that pivoting must only be considered when you have exhausted all the other options. Here are the factors that can help you decide when to absolutely pivot in the business model. 

1. Your company is always trying and failing to overrule competition 
2. There is only one aspect of your business/product that is getting the most attention 
3. There is no response for your offering in the market 
4. Your business objective and expectation has changed. 

What are the Different Types of Pivots?

1.  Pivot In Your Existing Market 

It is the most common pivot in business model. Businesses tend to change the direction in the market they are already in without offering any new market information or creating a new consumer segment. It is also the one of the pivoting business strategies that is most likely to fail. Since, businesses remain in their market in place of finding new areas to expand in. 

2.  Reposition Your Product 

At times, an element of your product might show greater adoption potential compared to your entire application. This is what led to the creation of Slack. What makes it difficult for businesses in this situation is whether or not to let go of their legacy business. There are two approaches to handle the situation when you are looking for pivot in business strategy: 

• Launch a new branded service or product, keeping the legacy business intact
• Launch a new business altogether and shut down the old business. 

The choice of it depends on the cash flow situation. If your legacy business is profitable and seeing a constant inflow of customers, you can think of keeping it intact. 

[Read: How to Create a Convincing Business Plan for Your Mobile Apps]

3.  Do Something Entirely New

This is the last type of pivot business model and the most extreme. In this case, you let go of your idea to explore something new altogether. But if you are married to the idea of bottoms-up start, it would be worth considering shutting the present company and using the money for funding the new business. 

How To Pivot Your Startup: The Best Strategies

1.  Develop a prototype before you pivot

If you are thinking about pivoting startup, develop a prototype first and see if people would use it, find it valuable and give feedback. Feedback at the beginning stages is important for determining where the impact of the product would be the greatest. The prototype would also enable you to identify whether the product is a good fit for the brand. 

2.  Pick goals which align with your business vision

As an entrepreneur it’s important to know how your vision statement is changing. Gone is the time when there used to be one mission and vision statement. With the changing market, the statements are also frequently changing. It is important to reevaluate what needs to be done and then draw a business model pivot to meet the new objective. 

3.  Ensure your pivot give out growth opportunities 

Pivoting is a useful next step when you have encountered roadblocks. But if you pivot in a completely new direction without giving much attention to the plan, you would fail again. To ensure you don’t hit another roadblock, we would recommend two things – A. not expanding in the current market, since you have already explored it and B. perform an extensive market research. In case you find the market to be too small, the customer base too diverse, and a lot of competition, it won’t be beneficial to pivot. One way to go about this that we recommend is hosting a product discovery workshop. 

4.  Consider alternative technology 

The technology world is not what it used to be a decade ago, even 2 years ago. For a startup to pivot, it is extremely important to be on top of the technology trends. Only when your business is able to incorporate the latest technologies you would be able to pivot with the probability to succeed. 

5.  Keep the investors in loop

At every pivot stage and when you are taking the decision, make sure the investors are kept in the loop. In case you think the company’s mission and objective is going to change, start talking about it with your internal stakeholders including investors in advance at least six to eight months in advance. Any drastic change without any discussion with the investors can harm the relationship and make pivoting unachievable.  

6. Analyze what your competitors are doing:

Before pivoting, analyze what your direct competitors are doing and how you can do better. If you’re planning to offer the same services or products as your competitors, you might not be able to see significant results. At the same time, look at how big your competitors are and if your startup can compete with them.

7. Understand your target market and problems:

In case you are not able to sell your products and you can’t find any problem with them, you might just be selling it to the wrong target audience. In such a case, pivoting your business to sell the product directly to B2B companies can help you improve your sales and traction. In this case, you wouldn’t have to change your product at all. You can just pivot your marketing strategy.

[Read: How to Raise Money for Mobile App Startup]

Successful Tech Pivot in Business Stories 

Instagram 

Instagram is one of the most famous pivot software startup stories. 

Instagram is today one of the biggest social media platforms. Owned by Facebook, it is estimated to be over $100 Billion. But before becoming a social media behemoth, Instagram was a prototype known as Burbn that was made with check-in features, photo post options, and the capability to gain points, in addition to other capabilities. 

The founders, Mike Krieger and Systrom soon realized that the UI was too cluttered and thus they pivoted. They limited their Instagram startup software development to posting, commenting, and liking features – making it one of the most simplistic visual platforms in the market. 

[Read: How much does it Cost to Develop Instagram like App]

Twitter 

Twitter was launched as Odeo back in 2005. It used to be a platform for finding and subscribing podcasts. But with iTunes making it a concentrated space, Odeo chose to pivot. 

Jack Dorsey, the future co-founder of Twitter then came up with the idea of a microblogging platform wherein the contacts could share and read each other’s updates in the real time. 

Today, Twitter has become a more than 355 million users’ brand that is being used to not just share updates but also for citizen journalism, social activism, and live tweets. 

YouTube

YouTube as a brand needs zero introductions. With over 2 million users coming on the platform every month, the brand is the ruler of the video sharing platform market. 

However, YouTube did not start as your homely video sharing platform where you go to watch DIYs or follow A-listers. It was a dating website which enabled singles to upload their videos – sharing who they were and what they were looking for in a partner. 

The founders soon pivoted and allowed people to upload videos of all kinds – something that makes YouTube what it is today.  

Slack 

Stewart Butterfield’s company Tiny Speck started creating a game known as Glitch. The idea after a brief launch was announced unviable. Its internal communication tool, however, developed to establish communication between Canada and US offices emerged as a real opportunity. 

The messaging platform, named as Slack, was founded in 2014 and went on to become a unicorn in the first year itself. 

Pivot Startup Pyramid: How We Help Founders Make Changes In Different Business Areas

Over the course of our establishment as a startup app development company, we have held a number of pivot business consulting sessions with our clients looking to make a difference in how they have been conducting business or in their value set. 

We make use of a Pivot Pyramid to help our partnered founders evaluate which business area to change in order to drive maximum growth. This is the same pyramid that investors use when measuring up your business.

Layer 5: Customers 

The customers are the base of any startup. Everything – from the issue you solve, product you develop, and the technology it is built on, depends on who the customers are. You can change and pivot the customers, but doing this will make you re-evaluate the entire pyramid. 

Shopify started out by selling snowboards online before realizing that the tools to develop modern day ecommerce platforms are not enough – thus giving birth to the modern day Shopify that has helped more than 100,000 SMBs sell online.

Layer 4: Problem 

There can be instances where the customers’ choice is right but the problem that you are looking to solve does not matter much or is not existing. If you pivot here, you would have to relook at the solution, tech, and growth plan. 

Criteo began as a recommendation engine for the online retailers. They then went on to become a successful brand which helped online retailers perform retargeting campaigns. 

Layer 3: Solution 

If you have identified the problems which your customers are facing, the next step is to develop a product which would resonate with the customers than the ones in the market. The changes made at this stage, like in case of other elements of the pyramid, should be growth focused. 

Meerkat achieved growth through this route when they began live streaming videos on Twitter. 

Layer 2: Technology 

The technology choice is the key to develop your solution – one that we focus heavily on when performing app development for startup. Even if the products relate with the customers the technology choice should be hindering your retention and growth. 

An example of how technology setbacks can affect a business growth in the Friendster failure. The brand failed to become a mainstream social network because they were not able to keep their servers up with the demand. 

Facebook pivoted this way when they let go of the Python language.

Layer 1: Growth 

Every change in the pivot pyramid should be growth driven. But a great number of experiments does not call for any change in the technology or product. This is why marketers tend to experiment with the startup growth strategies to avoid the growth channels from becoming saturated or overly expensive.

Airbnb took the growth route for pivoting by posting their listings on Criaglist. This, in turn, boosted visibility and led to higher demand. 

What are the Alternatives to Business Pivot

Value Iteration

Sometimes all a business needs is a tweaked product or offering iteration. While Mac and  MacBook are one of the hottest commodities now, remember the time when analysts predicted Apple’s demise because of a stale hardware set in the ‘80s and ‘90s? Apple then added newer product lines like iPhone and personal computers.

In instances where you don’t have a product or it matches the market trend, you can think of revisiting your brand message – ensuring that it is aligned with your brand’s value. 

Develop a spinoff brand 

A spinoff company, by definition, is a division created by a parent company, which even though being an extension of the original brand is treated like an individual entity. 

Take an example from Shelter Insurance. It was established in the 1940s – a time when the insurance market used to be extremely relationship-driven. But with the advent of the internet, the consumers could now interact with the insurance companies. However, if Shelter Insurance abandoned the model, it would have lost a massive number of their customers.

What Shelter did is that they created their spinoff company – Say Insurance – for delivering an online-first experience. Both of the brands provide auto insurance, but Say Insurance is completely focused on the Gen Z and Millennial user base. 

Their strategy worked quite perfectly. The parent company continued to grow in the established market, while the spinoff brand tapped into the new digital market. 

Relook at your mission plan 

Trying to grow too fast almost always ends up bad for any startup. It can be a better option to relook at your mission strategy and see where you deviated. Following that, realign your present efforts with your planned stage. 

But doing this can get difficult. 

To realign with its mission of “the only short haul, low fare, high frequency, point-to-point carrier in America,” Southwest Airlines went on to cut down a number of their routes. The decision was taken to free up the planes for the routes that were in greater demand.

Final Note

We hope this blog was helpful in understanding what is pivot in business and how to pivot startup. Pivoting your startup isn’t a decision to take lightly. No matter what you choose to do, it’s going to take considerable effort on your end. You can take help from a leading startup app development company and hire app developers for startups. Software developers for startups will help you in guiding through the entire process and offer top-notch software development services for startups.

The post An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Successfully Pivot Your Startup appeared first on Appinventiv.

Whether you are new to software development or you have been working in a custom software development company for years, you must have come across the term ‘Sprint Retrospective’. Agile development teams have made retrospective meetings quite popular. 

Regardless of how good a Scrum team is, there is always some room for improvement. Since the focus of agile development is continuous improvement, a good project team sets aside a brief period at the end of each Sprint to reflect how they are doing and seeks out new ways to improve. This is called a Sprint Retrospective. 

What is a Sprint Retrospective?

The term retrospective implies looking back or dealing with past events and situations. 

According to the Scrum Guide, developed and sustained by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland “ the Sprint Retrospective is an opportunity for the Scrum Team to inspect itself and create a plan for improvements to be enacted during the next Sprint.” 

Well, if you do not know what a Sprint is, a Sprint essentially is a time-boxed period during which a set amount of work is to be completed by the Scrum team. It is at the very heart of Scrum and agile methodologies. 

The purpose of a Sprint Retrospective is to identify potential pitfalls and mistakes, evaluate the past working cycle and define actions that may improve things.

A Sprint Retrospective is like a safe space for people to share honest feedback. It is an opportunity to focus on inspection and adaptation. ‘Inspect’ and ‘adapt are the twin mottos of a retrospective and they play a crucial role in making the next Sprint more productive. 

Sprint retrospective plays a fundamental role in the scrum framework in agile development. During the sprint retrospective, a team discusses, what went well in the Sprint, what all can be improved and what actions shall be undertaken to improve the next Sprint.

The Value of a Sprint Retrospective 

Everything that has an effect on how the Scrum team builds a product such as the practices, processes, tools and communication are open to survey and the retrospective is attended by the product owner, scrum master, development team, and optionally the stakeholders.

Based on the discussions in a retrospective, the team members execute changes and then proceed to the coming sprint with an incrementally improved process. 

The best thing about a retrospective is that it happens at the very last when the sprint ends. This way fresh ideas are churned out and teased out by the whole team in the next Sprint.

Afterall, the real purpose of the Sprint Retrospective is to bring about a positive change in the project, team, and organization.

What a project team plans to accomplish with a Sprint Retrospective is pretty much similar to what a football team plans to accomplish in its Monday morning tape review of the weekend’s game. The review is to evaluate how they could have defended better. 

Same is the case with a retrospective, it particularly isn’t about winning the game but altering the strategy and implementations to win the next game. 

Afterall, even with the best of teams, there’s always some room for improvement. 

While a sprint retrospective is essentially an optimised process for teams working in an agile environment, it can be optimised for any type of team that works on a shared project. 

During each Sprint Retrospective, the Scrum Team devises ways to improve product design & development quality by improving work processes or adapting the definition of “Done” if it is not in conflict with the product or organizational standards.

Why should you run a Sprint Retrospective?

More often than not, crucial ceremonies in agile such as the retrospective appear very mundane to project teams and as a result they do not use it to their full advantage. 

There are a raft of benefits of running an agile sprint retrospective:

• It creates a safe space for team members to share valuable insights and feedback. Retrospectives foster active participation, allow sharing of views and interests, and encourages the team to collaboratively arrive at a solution. 
• It provides a platform to document wins, celebrate success and inturn strengthens the team spirit. 
• The primary importance of a Sprint Retrospective is that it allows the team to identify potential pitfalls at an early stage and resolve conflict areas. With retrospectives, agile teams can continuously improve the processes by evaluating ‘what all can be improved’. 
• By running a retrospective, teams can easily identify small, incremental changes that can cast a huge impact on the overall product. When members share their views for improvement, they feel a sense of ownership. 
• Not only team members feel that their opinions are heard and respected, it also cuts through hierarchy and gives equal power to all team members. 
• There are many benefits of retrospectives but it is of utmost help to Project Managers. Retrospective aligns teams, keep the project on the right track and make each sprint better than the last. The end of the retrospective allows teams to commence the next sprint with a clean slate. 

Difference between a Sprint Retrospective and a Sprint Review 

Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective are often confused as the same thing. However, they are completely different. 

Sprint Review

The idea behind working in Sprints is to produce a potentially shippable product increment.

Sprint Review is a meeting where a project team demonstrates the work that they have accomplished. During a Sprint Review meeting, the Scrum Team presents the deliverables of the current Sprint to the Product Owner. The Product Owner then reviews the product increment against the Acceptance Criteria and either accepts or rejects the User Stories.

Sprint Retrospective 

In a Sprint Retrospective Meeting, the last Sprint is analysed in terms of the process followed, the tools employed, collaboration and communication mechanisms, and other aspects relevant to the subject. 

The team discusses what went well in the previous Sprint, what did not go so well, with the sole aim to make improvements in the next Sprint.

Simply put, the Sprint Review focuses on the product and maximizes the business value of the previous sprints while the Sprint Retrospective focuses on the process and continuous process improvement. 

The Sprint Retrospective takes place after the Sprint Review and before the next Sprint Planning. Mostly, it is a three-hour meeting for one-month Sprints.

The Scrum Master ensures that the event is conducted and the attendees understand its very purpose. Since it is an opportunity for the Scrum team to improve, ideally every participant should be present in a Retrospective. 

Sprint Retrospective Process 

Sprint retrospective is considered one of the most indispensable meetings in Scrum. A well done agile retrospective offers a number of benefits. Here are the five essential steps and tips to make the sprint retrospective better: 

1. The very first step is to set the stage. Setting the environment, the tone and direction for retrospective is how you start off on the right foot.
2. The next step is to gather and analyze the data of previous projects to have insights into previously performed actions. It also entails creating a shared pool of information and highlighting pertinent information and events. 
3. The third step is to identify repeated patterns and generate insights. By looking at patterns and themes, and identifying pain points and successes it becomes relatively easy to improve the process for everyone in the next Sprint. 
4. The next stage is deciding a few issues to work on and creating concrete action plans on how to address them. 
5. The retrospective ends with the acknowledgement and appreciation for the contribution of each member.   

Conclusion

The Sprint Retrospective is a critical part of our scrum agile methodology. By running a retrospective we practice the Agile “inspect and adapt” principle.

Retrospective is a great opportunity to motivate a team by providing them the opportunity to speak up, share their ideas, and be heard.

The end goal of our Sprint retrospective meetings is to continually improve a development project, sprint by sprint. It not only improves the quality of the approach, but significantly improves the quality of the product.

The post Sprint Retrospective: The What, Why and How appeared first on Appinventiv.

Today the global technology landscape is progressing towards more and more disruption but the same cannot be said about the early years of the digital shift. 

Years ago when we were navigating the wave of digitalization, the IT industry was focused on meeting the growing demands of the mobile phone market, and businesses were focused on capturing a mobile presence. 

As a result, the vital elements of mobile app development such as the app development costs, security, the quality of code, and maintainability were left on the backburner. 

The surge has finally settled down and today app development companies have taken the center stage. In this changing landscape, it has become significantly important to focus on the elements that were previously neglected and adapt new methodologies that provide quality solutions with lower costs. 

And that is exactly how DevOps comes into the picture. 

DevOps for mobile apps development is a modern approach that enables seamless application delivery from inception to production. The features of DevOps break the development-operations barrier and marks the departure from the traditional waterfall approach to agile software development.

What is DevOps? 

DevOps is a unique approach that emphasizes effective collaboration between all the stakeholders involved in creating a digital product. It includes project managers, mobile app developers, and members of the operations staff. 

While the traditional techniques and approach to software development led to additional development time, costs, and customer dissatisfaction, DevOps bridges the gap between development and operations and overcomes the challenges associated with continuous software delivery.

The idea behind DevOps for mobile app development is to foster a culture of collaboration between teams that previously worked in siloes.

DevOps is not merely an approach, it can be perceived primarily as a culture or a state of mind. It foregrounds a shift in the mindset, improves collaboration, and facilitates tighter integration. It brings together agile, continuous delivery, and automation so that development and operation teams can be more efficient and release software faster and more reliably. 

Through DevOps, it has become relatively easy to align business goals and deliver higher value to the customers. Adopting DevOps in the enterprise is highly beneficial. The same can be said for businesses as it brings positive returns on investments. 

A study confirms that organizations that implemented DevOps exhibited 63% experience improvement in the quality of their software deployments and 63% were able to release new software more frequently. (Source)

How is DevOps Different From Agile App Development?

DevOps and Agile are widely used terms in mobile app development, and most companies make use of at least one of these practices. 

There are different ways in which organizations embrace both agile and DevOps for mobile app development. Some people consider Agile and DevOps to be the same. However, that is not true. There is a considerable difference between agile and DevOps.

• DevOps is a method of software development that focuses on communication, integration, and collaboration among development and operations to facilitate rapid deployment of products. It is a set of practices that automates the process, aligns teams, and increases an organization’s speed to deliver products and services. 
• Agile Methodology emphasizes continuous iteration of development and testing. The agile development process breaks down the product into smaller modules and integrates them for final testing. The agile approach is iterative and incremental in nature and can be implemented in many ways such as Scrum, Kanban, etc. 

While the agile approach entails more Scrum meetings and Retrospectives to address gaps in the customer-developer communication, DevOps for mobile app development entails more documentation and specifications to address gaps between development and operations. 

The founding principle of agile is to bring Agility to development while DevOps revolves around bringing agility to both development and operations. 

Benefits of Adopting DevOps

DevOps has successfully broken down the barrier and brought development and operations on the same page. Prior to DevOps, developers used to write the complete code first and then send it to the operations team. 

The process makes the app development lifecycle efficient. It ensures that responsibilities are distributed equally among different teams and goals are aligned so that each team has clarity about the application performance.

If you have been wondering why DevOps is ideal for mobile app development, here are the benefits it has to offer: 

1. Lowers time to release

DevOps tools for mobile app development enable near real-time collaboration across teams, especially the operations and delivery teams. This, in turn, lowers the time from a design-development perspective. The iterative cycles lead to frequent deployment of codes, testing of regressions, and a faster phase by phase release. 

2. Efficient use of resources 

New build, fast features’ delivery, and updates can be easily achieved when operations and development teams work seamlessly – something that every mobile app development company USA following DevOps promises. 

Another factor that leads to efficient usage of resources is the heavy use of automation. Right from source code management to the development platforms and testing tools, DevOps relies on automation for enabling instant and frequent releases. 

3. Eliminate inefficiencies and bottlenecks 

The intent of using DevOps is to make processes transparent, efficient, and improve communications. The alignment it offers in terms of tools, processes, and practices plays a role in eliminating several inefficiencies and bottlenecks. 

• Manual intervention
• Inconsistent development environment
• Stability and workflow maturity 
• Absence of operational practices 
• Lack of ownership.

4. Better feedback 

One of the prime benefits of DevOps is the ability to get instant reports and feedback. It also gives the stakeholders complete transparency into the development and regression testing process. The transparent offers mobile app development teams a convenient way to troubleshoot the issues speedily, and then fix, refactor and optimize the users’ experience.

In addition these, DevOps a series of other benefits like:

• Enhanced customer experience 
• Stable environment for easy deployments
• Better collaboration between teams 
• Faster release time
• Faster resolution of bugs and errors 
• More time for innovation 
• Continuous delivery of software 
• Better employee engagement 

The 6 Cs of DevOps Adoption

Adopting DevOps for mobile app development entails implementing the six essential elements that tie the whole process together and results in quality solutions. 

Continuous planning 

Continuous planning entails bringing together the entire project team- developers, project managers, business analysts, operations staff, and all other stakeholders to a common platform to define the scope of the application and identify the outcomes and the resources.

Continuous integration 

The approach to writing code should be collaborative to ensure that the code written by one team can be seamlessly integrated with that of another. Continuous Integration in DevOps focuses on frequent error-free builds that must be integrated with the last developed code. 

Continuous testing 

Testing is a crucial part of the app development lifecycle. It helps in identifying bugs and problems with the application early on and ensures that quality products are delivered to the customer. 

The primary aim of Continuous Testing is to test early and test often. The benefit of automation testing in DevOps is often talked about. It is an integral part of software development. 

Continuous monitoring 

DevOps makes it possible for developers to perform more testing and monitoring before the app is deployed to the end user. 

Continuous Monitoring helps in identifying and resolving issues. The development process remains stable regardless of the extent of change without any human interaction. This ensures that the app is stable and performs as desired. 

Continuous delivery

Continuous delivery is a practice that entails delivering the software/updates to the production environment in smaller increments in order to ensure that the software can be released at any time. 

DevOps in mobile applications make sure that the changes in code are deployed as and when the change is made. The main focus of continuous delivery is to build, test, and release to the customer faster and frequently in shorter cycles. 

Continuous deployment

Another key principle of DevOps is continuous deployment. Continuous Deployment is a strategy wherein any code that passes the automated testing phase is released to the production environment automatically.

How to Implement Mobile DevOps? 

If you have decided to use mobile DevOps, here are the three fundamental steps that you need to follow: 

Continuous integration and delivery

Developers should practice writing code in a manner that can be easily integrated with others. Mobile DevOps workflow should be such that the code written by one team can be seamlessly integrated with the code delivered by another team. The development teams must ensure that all the development assets such as text files, scripts, documents, configuration, and code, are traceable.

With continuous integration, you must ensure continuous delivery as well. This ensures that the product is quickly launched when it is complete. While there is a manual way of doing that, it is important to automate the process when the job becomes too demanding. 

Testing and monitoring

The success of a mobile app is determined by a wide range of factors. These factors include the wide range of devices an app has to run on while simultaneously taking into account the devices’ resolution, screen size, functionalities, capabilities, and so on. Testing, therefore, needs to be carried out not only on simulators and emulators but in the real environment. Using an automated testing process improves the process of handling frequent builds, bug identification, and problem-solving.

It is pretty normal for an application to perform well in the test environment but fail in the live environment. Various factors may be correlated with failures, such as network conditions, memory, power, etc.

Thus, it becomes significantly important for developers to ensure continuous performance monitoring by adding third-party SDKs such as logs, crash reports, etc. to determine the cause of failure.

Quality control 

Measuring and validating all parts of the code from start to delivery, including any changes that are applied in between, is extremely crucial. Feedback and ratings on the app store should be constantly monitored. It helps in addressing problems and paves the way for future improvements and changes. 

The ROI of Mobile DevOps 

There are certain mobile DevOps challenges and their implementation may cost you time and money, but the DevOps model benefits are manifold and so are the returns.

Enhanced customer experience 

The goal of every company is to provide its customers with better services and products. DevOps creates higher quality apps for consumers through continuous automated testing. It enhances customer experience and satisfaction.

Apps with higher ratings appear higher in app stores and are easy to discover. Testing is essential to release a quality product. Enhancing the test speed helps shorten time to market and deliver a better experience to end-users at the same time.

Increased innovation

An organization is truly innovative when it is able to release new products of the highest quality to the market quickly. With DevOps, an organization can respond quickly to both customer feedback and a rapidly changing market.

DevOps for mobile app development ensures that the dev team is able to create and deliver quality applications that have been thoroughly tested to meet the needs of users.

Better software quality

DevOps fosters faster development, more frequent releases, and also results in quality and stable software. 

When Agile is coupled with DevOps, it leads to better collaboration and problem-solving. The DevOps approach implies that everything is closely monitored, such as user experience, performance, and security. The result of this scrutiny is robust and stable software. 

Reduced risk 

Although the DevOps and Agile framework welcomes changes and the changes in the development lifecycle are more frequent, these changes or iterations are tested before releasing to the customers. This way, DevOps significantly reduces risks.

Automating the testing ensures that all bugs are identified and fixed prior to the release of the product and that the company does not use its customers as beta testers. 

Conclusion

The advantages of DevOps are widespread but the result is the same – they can make you a game changer. 

At Appinventiv, we use mobile DevOps development to help our clients minimize time-to-market new features while simultaneously capturing new market opportunities. 

Implementing DevOps is not an easy process, it entails a lot of strategic, technical, and business decisions, but if adopted successfully, it adds so much value to the organization in terms of increased efficiency and revenue. We feel pride in being the mobile app development company in California that can help you get industry-reforming digital products at the back of our DevOps expertise.

The post What is the Role of DevOps in Mobile App Development? appeared first on Appinventiv.

Mobile apps have emerged as an effective marketing solution. A mobile app not only helps automate business but also provides better customer service. With apps, brands do not have to struggle to establish themselves- they can foster a deep connection with netizens of all demographics and age groups, promote brand awareness and garner the right market visibility. 

Studies show that more than 50% of customers who regularly use a branded app are more likely to buy from the company.

It is relatively easy to target a mass audience base with other marketing channels but targeting each individual based on their unique preferences is the need of the hour, and it has become all the more possible through mobile apps. 

A branded app is a powerful approach to facilitate brand promotions in a persuasive way. By using a mobile app as a brand marketing channel, you can reap huge benefits. It keeps users engaged and you can enjoy higher conversion rates. 

Why should Brands go online?

According to a report, smartphones account for 70% of the mobile time out of which 90% of smartphone time is spent on applications. Most people today have access to their phones wherever they go, which implies that you can reach your target audience almost anytime, anywhere through a mobile app. This doesn’t necessarily apphttps://appinventiv.com/blog/mobile-app-as-brand-marketing-channel/ly to other marketing channels, some of which are limited by the restricted availability of the devices that they depend on.

Brands have realised the potential of what a mobile application can do and that goes beyond simply selling a product or service. This discovery has opened up new marketing avenues. It provides businesses the opportunity to engage with their audience in new and creative ways and turn them into loyal customers. 

Studies show that desktop internet usage is dropping and mobile internet usage is rising significantly. Although mobile websites get more visitors, visitors tend to spend more time on apps. 

Mobile app industry is flourishing. It is estimated that by 2021, there will be roughly 7 billion mobile users worldwide. (Source) With the advent of disruptive technologies such as AI, AR VR companies are finding new ways to market their products. Artificial Intelligence allows mobile apps to store user data in order to recognise and preempt their preferences, needs and choices. 

Mobile apps are a powerful marketing channel for brands. It helps companies connect with the audience, convey brand messages, keep users engaged and create customer loyalty in a crowded marketplace.

Today brands are using mobile apps to improve offline experiences for their customers and boost sales. According to a recent survey, 75 percent of customers engage more with loyalty programs that provide rewards in a mobile-friendly way. 

So, if you are still not going mobile for marketing, it’s time you consider the many benefits a branded app has to offer. 

Benefits of Mobile platforms as Marketing tools 

There are a number of ways how mobile apps help businesses. They humanise companies, lead to better interactions between brands and customers, and increase loyalty and sales. 

1. Enhancing Brand awareness and visibility

Businesses are often on the lookout for an effective platform through which they can market their brand. Apps enhance brand awareness and visibility and can strategically increase the customer base. 

Once an application gets installed on a mobile device, users will come across the brand logo frequently, thereby enhancing visibility and awareness. The more often a user interacts with a brand’s app, the sooner they tend to buy their products and avail their services. 

If you want to get users talking about your unique app, you must ensure that your app provides all the features that your target audience is looking for. 

The app should be interactive and keep users coming for more. Afterall, it all boils down to effective frequency- the more people are introduced to an app and the more they interact with it, the more chances that they will actually buy. 

2. Forming a connection with your Customers 

Engagement is extremely crucial and a mobile app helps you form a deeper connection with your customers and prospects. 

With declining attention spans, it has become significantly important to curate compelling personalised content and keep your users coming back for more. 

An effective way to engage your users is to frequently offer them fresh Personalised Content. Users are interested in content that is relatable and piques their interest. In this rapidly changing environment, user preferences keep on changing and to establish yourself in the market you need to keep up with them. 

Regardless of the type of application, a brand must invest in personalized in-app content. One way to ensure that happens is to create and study customer personas to better understand what type of content works best for your audience.

Another effective strategy is Push Notifications. Push notifications have the power to capture user attention and make them check out what’s new in your app. They encourage customers to use your app. The key with push notifications is to make them compelling. A push notification must be of some value to the end user no matter if it’s a copy, a promotion or some perk. Don’t overdo the notifications or it may irritate the users. 

3. Collecting Data about Customers

A good marketing strategy revolves around analysing customer behaviour. If your app solves a pain point for the user, they are likely to share their data with you. 

You can use mobile app as a brand marketing channel to monitor users, their personal shopping behaviors, engagement levels, browsing habits, locations, mobile app usage, favorite hours and much more.

This way you can collect valuable user insights, analyse through the data, understand the needs of the customer and improve your product quickly. 

You can collect user data in the following ways: 

• Onboarding: You can have a basic questionnaire during registration which includes pertinent information about age, preferences, habits and more. 
• By offering Bonuses:  It is an ideal approach to swap discounts, bonuses or special offers as a reward for completing small questionnaires. 
• In- app Behaviour:  Marketers can always keep track of the marketing process in a closed loop by monitoring and analysing user’s in-app behaviour. For brands it has become relatively easy to collect user data based on purchases and reviews of the product. 

This way you can evaluate the data and change your brand development strategy based on user feedback. 

The Starbucks mobile app widely uses this opportunity and monitors in-app user behaviour. As of April 2019, Starbucks claims 16.8 million active loyalty program members. It all became possible by analysing user data, looking for new avenues and rolling out strategic data-driven initiatives to target users.

It is essential to have a review/ feedback section. Allow your users to tell you what exactly they want from your app. Iterating and improving the product the way your target audience wants it reaps excellent rewards. 

4. Increasing Customer Loyalty

Rewarding frequent customers is a great marketing strategy. Getting customer loyalty has become a challenge for a number of brands. A mobile app is the right tool to increase your customer loyalty. 

When you reward frequent customers, it encourages them to buy more and they are more likely to share your brand with their fellow friends. This strategy can be easily implemented using push notifications or via in-app messages.  Loyalty rewards help in establishing a strong connection and turns users into loyal customers.

5. Scaling up your target Audience 

The Internet is not just breaking boundaries but making things that were impossible a decade ago happen in real-time. Mobile apps enhance the user base, not just in their country of origin but also across the world.

Through geo-targeted push notifications, localisation and location based brands can send specific messages to their target user audience. Location based call to action via region or location mapping feel more personalised to the user, grow the target audience and can drive more sales. 

6. Increasing Sales Ratio 

Applications enhance customer experience by making the buying process simpler, convenient and intuitive, thereby resulting in the increase in sales ratio. 

But an app doesn’t have to necessarily offer purchases to boost sales, it can do so by offering loyalty programs and additional services. 

Domino’s faced a serious sales issue back in the mid-2000s. With the wave of digitalisation, Domino’s decided to go mobile. Besides making significant improvements in the quality of their product, Domino’s created a branded mobile app that was extremely responsive and rendered a delightful experience. 

It resulted in the app’s contribution to half of the company’s online sales in 2015. 

When Domino’s started facing issues with retaining their customers and witnessed a rise in the bounce rate, they came to us. We worked on their UX, refined their UX Strategy and brought a steep rise in their conversion rate by 23% and significantly increased their session time.

7. Social Network Marketing through apps 

Mobile connectivity has become essentially important and the ability to synchronise it with social networks provides businesses a higher chance to disperse the content and make it go viral. Mobile apps allow users to easily share the brand’s content across all social networks. 

For instance, PUMA’s empowering Propah Lady campaign created a ripple effect on the social media and gained a huge amount of followers and brand customers. 

Common Mistakes to avoid when making a mobile app for Brands 

The advantages of a mobile app for business are endless. Sure, you can create a unique app and get users to download it but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that the user will return to your app. 

According to Statista, 25 percent apps downloaded by mobile app users worldwide are only accessed once after download.

So, how do you ensure that users keep coming back to your app for more?

The underlying reason why most users abandon a branded app is either poor UX or it focuses more on novelty value and lacks functionality. So, here are some common mistakes that you should avoid when creating an app and to establish it as an effective brand marketing channel. 

1. The app doesn’t provide any value to the user

Every app operates on a pain point and it is designed to solve a specific user problem. This holds true for branded apps as well. If your app is a means to place advertisements on your customers’ mobiles, you are doing it wrong. 

A branded app should solve user problems in one manner or another. It is only when you create a useful product that provides some value on an ongoing basis, that users will keep coming back to the app. The ideal approach is to know your target audience, study their needs and determine what they expect from your app. 

2. The app lacks special offers 

The idea behind a branded app is to create awareness and enhance customer loyalty. If a branded app doesn’t offer discounts, special offers and other app usage benefits, customers will most likely abandon the application. 

3. The app is difficult to use

The simplest way to identify a good app is how convenient and intuitive it is for the customers. If the app is complicated to use regardless of the functionality it offers, it won’t appeal to a mass audience.

4. The app lacks updates

It is essential to keep up with the rapid shifts in technology and implement the same into your app. If you change your marketing strategy, website design or provide better branding, you must ensure that you have enough resources to make the same updates on your app. 

5. The app doesn’t move beyond the desktop experience 

If you consider an app as a smaller version of the website with the same features, you aren’t leveraging the app as a right marketing channel. A branded app is more than a novelty value and must provide important features and information. 

6. The app doesn’t provide a personalised touch 

Today a wide variety of content is available on the Internet and with ever decreasing attention spans, it has become significantly important to provide a personalised touch with your application. 

Through a branded app you can target each individual based on their unique preferences and get closer to your customers. By sending personalised push notifications you can retain your users and turn them into loyal customers. 

How to establish a Mobile App Marketing Strategy?

Having an app marketing plan is extremely crucial when creating a branded mobile app. So, dig deep and understand what your business needs. There are many types of mobile apps but the crucial factors that come into play when creating a branded app are as follows: 

Acquisition: You must ensure that when a user onboards and shares their personal information on your app, they come across a variety of useful mobile features that add some value to their life. 

Engagement: Your app should be able to capture user attention, engage customers with the brand and keep them coming for more. 

Conversion: Besides engaging customers, your app should focus on driving users to conversion.  

Next thing that you need to figure out is the product pricing strategy. Product pricing strategy or mobile app monetization plays an instrumental role in getting your app the initial traction and visibility in the app store. The app pricing model determines the success of your product  in terms of the number of downloads and user retention in the long run. It is essential to take into account the cost and value, run a competitor audit, gauge the estimated demand and analyse the cost of user acquisition before opting for a pricing model. 

Making a branded app is one thing but you also need to understand that the mobile app ecosystem is a challenging environment. 

It is a given that regardless of how well crafted your application is, it will not get its spot under the sun until it is marketed right and there is a buzz around it much before it hits the stores and users’ devices. 

So, how to promote your brand with mobile apps? 

A Brand Marketing Channel for the world’s largest Furniture retailer IKEA

The lack of mobile app as a brand marketing channel is often felt by startups and established enterprises. 

For IKEA, we developed an impeccable solution that helps walk-in customers go through the products catalogue. With a simple and comprehensible user interface, the application displays the products straight from the inventory, eliminating the chances of disharmony between the customer demand and the product supply. 

Moreover, it offers customers access to product discounts and offers all in one place.

We solved the problem that IKEA was facing, and with our effective solution customers got a catalogue that displayed all the store offers and discounts in one place and retailers got the contact information of hundreds of store customers for sending them marketing collaterals.

Conclusion

A mobile app is considered a brand’s own marketing platform. It establishes a direct marketing channel and allows marketers to reach a wide range of users around the world. If you are still not leveraging mobile apps as your brands marketing channel, you are certainly lagging behind. It is time you explore the new marketing avenues and jump on the wagon. 

The post How To Use Mobile App As A Brand Marketing Channel appeared first on Appinventiv.

In this fast-paced world, being ahead of time comes as an added benefit. But what about when the same applies to your breakthrough idea? 

Is it a good thing if your great entrepreneur ideas is a decade too early?

Well, yes it is. 

We all come across bold startup business ideas. And sometimes they are way ahead of their time. I have one in mind. You must have envisioned one too. 

Sometimes it is the unavailability of the right technology that could have transitioned your innovative startup ideas into a reality, sometimes it is the determination to execute it and other times it’s the lack of funds. 

The right thing to do when you’re stuck in such a situation is to pivot your solution. 

To run any successful Startup, the ideation and discovery phase are extremely crucial. 

A decade earlier the landscape was entirely different and we have witnessed exponential advancement over the years. 

So, take a leap of faith, dig deep and understand the pain points you are trying to solve. 

Don’t just give up on an idea because it lacks the technology or is way ahead of its time. You should look for alternative and accessible ways to solve the problem and make the most out of your entrepreneur idea. 

What to do with a startup idea?

Think about it 

What really is Innovation?

Isn’t it a breakthrough idea, something that’s not been done before. Something new, challenging and meaningful. 

An Innovator envisions a future. That future may not be in touch with the underlying reality but you must be determined and passionate enough to bring that change. 

Innovation depends on a lot of things. While some factors may be completely out of your control, there are still certain things that you can control and influence. 

Which brings us to 

1. User Analysis 

It is important to know who your target audience is and what’s going on with them. Conducting an in-depth user analysis is important. The data that you generate from users and their invaluable insights can help you build a better product. 

Whether it is creating personas to identify user characteristics and behaviour, or user journey mapping that examines how a user will interact with your product, detailed analysis helps in finding the right product-market fit. 

It is only after finding your niche audience and a market fit, that you can scale your business by identifying new customers in the target market. 

2. Outthink the Competition 

Studying the competitive landscape is as important. Identifying the competition and evaluating their strategies to determine strengths and weaknesses provides a strategic context and helps in figuring out new opportunities. When you understand the competitive landscape, outthinking the competition and characterizing your unique value proposition becomes all the more easy. 

Don’t spend too much time on a business plan 

Laying out a business plan is a long process- one that involves a lot of time, effort, visualizing and strategizing on how to run and scale a successful business. 

The key is to have a vision in mind, be clear with your end goals, but do not spend too much time on a perfect business plan. Rather, just begin. 

3. Build an MVP 

How do you make sure that your brilliant idea stands a chance in the market? Developing a full-fledged product that no one seems to care about is a waste of time, money and effort. 

Validated learning is always the answer to build a successful product. Building a basic first product that focuses exclusively on ‘need to have’ features and leaves the ‘nice to have’ for later is an ideal practice. 

A Minimum Viable Product is a smart approach to building products. Your emphasis should lay on offering maximum value in minimum functionality and garnering maximum validation in minimum efforts. 

4. Validate with real users 

It is essential to have at least five customers at the very start. If your idea is brilliant and sparks user interest getting the first five customers will be a cakewalk. However, if you can’t seem to find five users that find your idea interesting, it’s time to reconsider the idea. 

Validating with real users will help you determine whether you are on the right track. Listen to what your customers have to say, observe what they do and how they interact with your product. 

Knowing what the user wants can help you build a robust and scalable product. 

5. Pivot 

According to the Startup Genome Compass of San Francisco which studies more than 13,000 Internet start-ups, “founders who change products and markets between one and three times raise more money than those who don’t.

Sometimes what you think is a great idea won’t necessarily work. Many big brands and successful businesses started with a certain idea but transitioned into something wholly different once they found their niche. 

So, if your idea doesn’t work, don’t stick to it for far too long.  Instead, explore and pivot your startup. A willingness to embrace change helps us in identifying opportunities where others see nothing but a wasteland. Recognize the potential to tweak certain parts of your business – pivot, test, and learn. 

If you see the potential for wholly new concepts or ideas, try to make the most out of those opportunities. 

There are many examples of companies that pivoted and witnessed massive success as a result

1. Twitter 

In the world of social media, the most talked-about pivot is the transformation of Odeo into Twitter. Odeo began as a network where people could browse and listen to podcasts. After iTunes began taking over the podcast market, the company decided to shift the direction. After two weeks of coming up with new ideas, they decide to make a drastic change. They ran with the idea of a status updating micro-blogging platform which today we know as Twitter. 

2. Pinterest

The famous ‘pinning’ social network Pinterest pivoted from “Tote”, a platform where people could shop and browse from their favorite retailers and were notified when the items went on sale.

Tote was losing on the shopping front since mobile app payments weren’t as easy back then. The creators tapped on a new-found opportunity, they realized Tote users were primarily interested in building ‘collections’ of their favorite items and sharing them with their friends. 

Pinterest today has more than 291 million monthly active users worldwide and this pivot has been a huge success. The Tote-to-Pinterest transformation has been described as an “iterative” one, a direct outgrowth of what’s learned from the first business, “an unmet need, and obviously a huge opportunity.”

3. Instagram 

Today Instagram is one of the most widely used Social media platforms. This image and video sharing app boasts of 1 billion users. But Instagram began as Burbn, a check-in app that included photo posting options, some gaming elements and allowed users to earn points.

Burbn was too cluttered so the creators pivoted, stripped all functionalities and focussed on just one- photo-sharing that allowed users to post, comment and like. 

Making Instagram a visual platform that is clean and simple made it stand out. 

So, what’s the big idea? 

According to a report by KPMG on the Indian Startup Ecosystem released in the second month of 2019, the number of Startups in the country grew from 7000 in 2008 to 50,000 in 2018. As per the report, this seven-fold increase has motivated people to look for innovation, especially in sectors like IT, AI,  AR/VR, IoT, Food Tech and Healthcare.

In the last decade, the Startup ecosystem witnessed massive growth and the digital landscape saw exponential advancement. New-age technologies like Blockchain, AI, AR/VR are not only disrupting the landscape, they are also changing how we interact and go about our everyday lives. 

The big idea is to START, Stay lean, build agile. Pivot Early and Iterate often. 

An idea that is 10 years too early can be a great thing. It gives you the chance to be a disruptor. 

And when you start something and things don’t really work out, leveraging other aspects, some tweaking here and there and some pivoting can take you a long way.

The post What to Do When Your Startup Idea Is Years Ahead of Its Time? appeared first on Appinventiv.

Even though the roles of each of these departments are varying in nature, their priorities and end goals must be clear and consistent. Otherwise it’s a sheer wastage of the businesses resources spent across different directions. 

Cross-functional teams foster cohesion within the company, reduce wastage of valuable resources and enable you to maximise your efforts in order to accomplish goals faster. 

More often than not, the underlying reason why companies struggle with building better digital products is how they prioritize milestones and the linear approach, where work is passed from one team to another without fully channeling the skill and expertise of each discipline. 

Building a digital product requires team effort. Each discipline has a role to play and sometimes, these roles are overlapping. A great idea can come from any person and any team. Organisations looking to grow with agility and speed need to build cross-functional teams and bring them to the center stage. When the skill of each discipline is valued, their perspective is heard and every discipline is represented at the table, it results in quality solutions. 

So, What is a Cross-functional Team, anyway?

A Cross-functional team brings people together from different functional expertise. By mutually exploring the prospects of a project and through shared expertise the team accomplishes a common goal. 

There are so many crucial roles in digital product design and development– Designers, Product Managers, Business Analysts, Engineers, Quality Analysts, Marketing Specialist, and the list goes on.

The approach behind a cross-functional team is to gather a good mix of people from various disciplines to work on a project together. It is about brainstorming ideas, uncovering different and unique perspectives, and channeling an umbrella of expertise towards achieving one common goal – how to build a unique digital solution. 

The idea behind cross-functional teams stems from agile methodology. Every discipline deserves a seat at the table regardless that their department’s primary phase is underway.

What’s the need for a Cross-functional Team?

When teams collaborate together in every phase and stage of creating a digital product, the result is impactful. In a cross-functional team, each person understands the role of other team members and views the product not only from the perspective of his/ her field but as an entire product and as a team effort. 

Having a Cross-functional team is extremely crucial because every person brings so much value to the table. When a diverse set of people come together, a problem is approached in all possible ways and we are able to uncover unique perspectives. 

For instance, when an Engineer has a seat at the table right when the project kicks off, identifying the best technology to build a product becomes easy. While others in the team may not be technically adept, an Engineer brings a different level of technical understanding to the front, especially when they have worked with cutting-edge technologies in the past. 

As a full-cycle app development company, we believe in agile development with cross-functional teams. By building cross-functional teams, we were not only able to reduce the cycle time in new product development, but our teams also demonstrated flexibility in adapting to changing market needs and were able to develop innovative solutions at a faster pace. 

While the number of Designers involved in a project will be more in the Design phase and the number of Engineers will rapidly increase in the Development phase, having representatives from each discipline throughout the app development process regardless of the phase adds a lot of value to the product. 

The approach behind a cross-functional team resonates quite well with the practices of DevOps. 

 DevOps can be seen as a cultural perspective on how teams should be engaged in working the right way. 

In today’s fast-paced world, with more advanced projects coming up, the need to move faster and be agile is ever-growing. DevOps addresses this concern – it makes development, operations, and other groups within an organization to come together, collaborate closely on shared goals and deliver software faster and more reliably. 

Just like DevOps emphasizes close collaboration between software development and operations, having a cross-functional team for the entire product-development process improves collaboration across disciplines like  Strategy, Design, Development, Testing and results in quality outcomes. 

Benefits of Cross-functional Teams in Digital Product Development

The advantages of cross-functional team in digital product development are manifold. 

When all disciplines collaborate closely and everyone is invested in maximizing their contributions towards the project, it results in the best product possible.

1.  Knowledge Sharing

The key idea behind accomplishing goals through interdisciplinary work is the exceptional variety of talent figuring out how to create something that is meaningful and brings value to end-users. 

Confronting new perspectives, learning from others and looking at things holistically impacts the quality of solution and results in a robust product. 

2.  Alignment on Goals 

In a cross-functional team, people look beyond their roles and responsibilities and are focused on accomplishing the common goal. There is total alignment on set milestones and people collaborate together to achieve it in the best way possible. 

3.  Less Handovers 

When you collaborate across disciplines and everyone is present throughout the product development lifecycle, it minimizes handovers and speeds up the processes. 

4.  Teamwork 

Working together facilitates teamwork. It brings people closer and improves communication. It is easy to talk through the issues and brainstorm on great ideas. Collaborating closely builds respect and trust in teammates. 

5.  Identifying  issues 

When a project is handled by a cross-functional team, everyone is up to date with the project’s progress. When people work simultaneously and don’t focus solely on their disciplines, it is easy to identify bugs and flag issues that may trouble the user.

6.  Iteration

As mentioned above, cross-functional teams are up to date with all the issues within a project, which implies, making changes to the design or the code becomes easy. Testing and iteration can be done simultaneously and it saves a lot of time, effort and money. 

7.  Positive customer experience 

While there are many different roles in an organisation, each of these functions exist to serve the customer. By encouraging effective communication across teams,it becomes easy to provide a meaningful tailored customer experience. 

8.  Increased Innovation 

When a group of people from different functional expertise come together to solve a common problem, it is relatively easy to generate innovative and comprehensive solutions. 

Companies that use cross-functional teams include marketing insights, sales conversations, product usage data and other relevant sources of information into keen consideration when making product decisions which results in smarter decision making. The power of cross-functional teams is to drive better decision making through business-wide learning. 

Challenges faced by Cross-functional Teams 

Effective cross-functional team collaboration is the key to tackle an organisation’s biggest problems. However, there are certain problems with cross-functional teams and sometimes they can be difficult to manage. 

• Conflicting Goals 

Each discipline comes with a set of roles and responsibilities. Often times, when functional experts from different teams come together, they tend to give less priority to the project and are more focussed on their own goals. 

In such scenarios, it is essential for leaders to identify strategic goals to make sure there is clarity of purpose and the whole team is aligned on the goals of the team or the company. 

• Too much or too little Communication

With a cross-functional team, it is crucial to decide the right measure of communication. Too many unnecessary meetings lead to loss of time and can hamper productivity while little communication regarding the project status and iterations can negatively impact a project. 

• Choosing Ideas 

In a cross-functional team, you may give up on good ideas when others don’t like it. 

While sometimes, it becomes easy to let go off complicated ideas and work more efficiently. This is where Discovery Workshop and operating in an agile manner comes into the picture. Scrum Methodology helps cross-functional teams encounter the biggest challenges and achieve great outcomes. 

• Leadership 

In a self-organising team with no clear leader, there is a possibility that the team may get lost and feel there is no clarity of purpose. It is essential to have a leader that can provide sufficient oversight so that small problems do not snowball into a bigger crisis and the team is able to collaborate efficiently. 

Conclusion 

Cross- functional teams often struggle because the organisation lacks a structured approach. Teams are affected by insufficient oversight, conflicting goals, lack of accountability and organisation’s failure to measure the impact of cross-functional collaboration. 

Corporate structures are reorganizing themselves into cross-functional teams since the advantages are manifold. It may take time to adopt the cross-functional team approach to building products but it has nearly three times the success rates and is worth the rewards. 

The post How Cross-functional Teams Help In Building Better Digital Products? appeared first on Appinventiv.

Upon confronting any developer on this matter, one would come across responses such as –  “It is highly readable”, “Building applications with Python is very easy because of the understandable code”, “It makes complex processes easy”, and so on and on. 

However, today we will discuss the validity, feasibility, and scope of Python app development from the business front, i.e., from the vantage point of startups and establish why Python is the top programming language for your startup.

What Does a Startup Need from a Language?

To effectively deduce why Python poses as an absolute option for startups to go with, we should first discuss what are the factors that are prominent for a startup business.

• High scope of scalability and the ability to add new features
• Faster development of Minimum Viable Product
• Quick yet efficacious iterations
• Integration with other technologies and software
• Time and cost-monitored development process

Now, when that is out of the way, we can positively move on to discussing whether Python actually fulfills all these needs of a startup to emerge as an exemplary choice.

Features of Python

1. Smooth integration

Unlike many programming languages out there, Python is pretty mellow when it comes to integration. You can easily integrate with other languages such as C, C++, Java, and so on.

2. Support TDD

Python is very popular for its test-driven development. It is quite easy for developers to create prototypes with it, and they can later convert them into fully-functioning applications by simply refactoring the code and testing it instantly.

3. Wide range of standard libraries

Though the list of why Python is quickly ascending the ladder of fame is tediously long, this is one of the primary reasons why. The easy availability of standard and robust libraries is what attracts developers and startups towards Python.

4. Ideal for ML and Big Data

Machine Learning and Big Data are two of the emerging technologies that have acquired eyeballs of many establishments globally. They both come blessed with tons of locked potential, something we are tapping into slowly. Among other kinds of applications written in Python, you can also develop apps integrated with these technologies, including a wide range of AI technologies as well, as they have many robust libraries to support the development.

Reasons Making Python An Ideal Choice For Startups

Let’s have a look at the reasons for why to choose Python for business and startups.

1. Remarkable choice for MVP

Being a startup, time is of the essence for you. You need to unleash your app in the market, targeting a certain niche before anyone else does it. Moreover, as a startup, you need to convince your investors that your app idea is something that is going to be a huge hit, and for that, you need to show them a working prototype of your soon-to-be-developed Python mobile app, hence an MVP.

Now, one of the best uses of Python is MVP development because of its expeditious nature. Python encourages robust and rapid development by allowing the software developers for startups to do quick iterations after getting the feedback. It is the pre-built modules and packages of Python that render it the ability to expedite the product completion process.  

In fact, it has been observed that Python in comparison to languages like Java can provide a fully functioning MVP in weeks as compared to months; it is time-efficient, something that every startup requires. 

2. Scalable

Scalability is one inevitable component that any startup cannot afford to overlook. As a business grows, its users grow too. Under such instances, it would become a priority for any business to have an application that has the scope of growth as well. This is what Python is good for. With the help of the Django framework, a series of wired-up and ready-to-go components, Python is able to provide highly scalable apps. 

The components in the Django framework are decoupled, i.e., independent from each other so they can be replaced and unplugged as per the demands of the business. Moreover, with a wide range of libraries available for Python, it is a piece of cake to add new features to a product.

3. Versatile

Versatility is another great reason that makes Python an ideal choice for startups. This means if you need a code that works phenomenally across all platforms such as Windows, macOS, or even Linux, then Python should be the language of your choice.

Additionally, if you need to integrate technologies like Machine Learning and Data Science, then you need nothing but Python as the programming language to help you achieve the app you envisioned but better. 

4. User-friendly

“Beautiful is better than ugly.

Explicit is better than implicit.

Simple is better than complex.

Complex is better than complicated.

Flat is better than nested.

Sparse is better than dense.

Readability counts.”

As you can see in the extract of Zen of Python philosophy, Python language works for of certain principles and guidelines that render it to be the most user-friendly language. This is one of the many reasons why developers love Python and have made it the second most popular language on Github beating even Java. 

5. Community support

Community support becomes prominent when the team of developers faces problems during the product development process. Hiccups are unavoidable, but what matters is how active and capable is the community to provide possible solutions to certain issues that Python may face. Thankfully, the Python community is among the best ones out there as it strives towards curing all the issues the language may possess and improve its features and functions from time to time.

6. No need for extra developers

It is always good news for the startup mobile app company whenever they can save a few bucks. In comparison to other languages, Python offers a concise and rather easy code to app developers for startups, thereby eliminating the need for big teams for the same task while delivering the product of impeccable quality. This also helps developers to provide software development services for startups without any hassle. Let’s look at the example of the code in Java and Python which cater to the same function and purpose –

7. Security

Speaking of security, Python is evidently more secure than some other prominent languages, like PHP. It is because of frameworks such as Django that come loaded with built-in security features protecting the application from many security threats lurking on the internet.

This framework is capable of hiding the site’s source code from direct viewing by dynamically producing web pages and employing templates sending data to web browsers.

{Read: PHP vs Python: Which Language Is Dominating The Market?}

8. Helps combat complexity

As Python is very simple in nature and associates simplicity with effectiveness, it is a great medium to handle complexities. It is ideal for web solutions as it can overcome complexities related to the integration of different systems, among others. Qualities such as these are what together make Python ideal for a startup app development company as it is time-efficient, fast, and easy to work with.  

9. Ubiquitous in nature

Do you know what makes sense? – Developing a solution that is based on ubiquitous technology. From Youtube to Dropbox to Reddit- all are avid users of Python language. It is something that is unprecedentedly proliferating as of now and will become a standard to which other languages will be assessed. So, if you want to develop an application that is going to perform just as remarkable as it would do in the present, then there is nothing better than Python for you.

Which Startups Use Python?

Look at the list of Python startups that opted for or are using Python as their choice and are now thriving in their particular niche. These use cases of Python are an ideal example of why Python is perfect for startups software development companies.

Ometria

Ometria is one of the perfect examples of startups using Python. This startup gives marketers the ability to create personalized experiences throughout the customer journey. They offer services such as cross-channel marketing, AI-enabled customer intelligence, and others.

Weglot

Weglot seamlessly integrates with your website, adapting to your technology, and delivering it in any language. It has solutions for e-commerce, marketing websites, and web agencies.

Paddle

It is a SaaS commerce platform for payment processing, billing, sales tax management, merchant of record. With Paddle, companies are finally able to transform their revenue delivery infrastructure into a strategic growth lever to respond faster and more precisely to every opportunity.

Stripe

It is a well-known American technology company that offers a platform for startups and big companies to accept payments, send payouts, and manage their businesses online. They also help companies to beat fraud, send invoices and manage business spend.

Virail

It is an online platform that provides the fastest way to choose the cheapest ticket or hotel. They also help to search for all routes and choose the best one for you. The platform works with 200 transportation companies and offers you the best travel solutions across the world.

Final Thoughts

According to many startup app development companies in USA, it is no contest that Python may become the programming language of the future. Every quality, feature, and function that we have discussed above is a clear indication that Python is the best language for startups. 

In fact, besides startups, many fully grown organizations such as NASA, IBM, to name a few, are bending towards mobile app development using Python to fulfill their needs. Moreover, because of its ubiquity, it gains a little more edge over the other languages. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What is Python used for in business?

Python for startups is an amazing choice as it is great for developing MVP, it is very scalable, supports rapid development, is anti-complex, ubiquitous in nature, and so on.

Q. Which big tech companies use Python programming?

Spotify, Netflix, Uber, Instagram, and Pinterest  are Python-powered businesses that used it for development and are thriving remarkably. This is enough to get you insights into how popular Python software development is for startups and small businesses.

The post What makes Python The Ultimate Choice For Startups? appeared first on Appinventiv.

One of the biggest fundamental mistakes an entrepreneur preparing for the top spot can make is not paying attention to the mobile app promotion stages. Or treating the process less than the number of effort required for the design and development process.  

The question in the present mobile app state is not What is mobile app marketing, why is it necessary or how it works? But, what are the right app engagement methods. 

It is a given that no matter how well crafted your application is, it will not get its spot under the sun until it is marketed right and there is a buzz around it much before it hits the stores and users’ devices. 

Achieving the promotion utopia is not easy. But let us help you get there. 

Here is an app marketing guide to help you market your mobile app.

But before you get to the stage of mobile application marketing, there is some homework which is required to be done to answer how to market an app successfully.

Prerequisites for Mobile App Promotion

Identification of app objectives and target audience 

Much before you get to the stage of finalizing the right app marketing strategy and determine associated budget, you should flesh out who your target audience is. You need to explore and learn what are their pain points, what are the existing solutions available in the market, where are they lagging, and how your application can overcome them. In other words, you need to invest your efforts into product discovery, creating user personas, and much more.

Whilst this is the first step towards developing a mobility solution,it won’t hurt to revisit the findings when you are nearing the stage of mobile app marketing. 

Do the keyword research

Identifying the right set of keywords is a very important part of the app promotion process. One that you’ll find in every app marketing guide. Your application will stand a much better chance if you know what language your users will use to reach your mobile app through natural searches. 

Since this is just the homework stage, you need not pay heed to the positioning portion of the keyword as of now. 

The promotion strategies for mobile app are primarily made of two stages – Pre-Launch and Post-Launch marketing. Now, unlike the design and development part of the process, where the efforts reduce once the app is deployed, the efforts needed both before and after the app launch stages, in case of app marketing, are the same. 

Let us look into the pre and post launch mobile app marketing tips.

Pre-Launch App Marketing Strategy

This is the stage which would enable you to create awareness about your application in the market. Here are the things that will have to be covered in the pre-launch app marketing stage.

Finalize a release date 

A good starting point would be to finalize the release date of the application. Having a time frame in mind would help devise better mobile app promotion strategies. When deciding on the launch date, consider all holidays and events happening around the date, this will help ensure that the app is not getting overshadowed. 

Build A Great App Landing Page

Mobile app landing pages have become some sort of a must-have for businesses looking to generate eyeballs right once the development phase starts nearing its end. The benefits of creating a promotion landing page can be manifold. First, you can use all the information collected on the page for conversion purposes. Next, you can use the content on the page for SEO purposes – improving the app’s ranking on the search engines.

Outreach initiatives 

One of the app marketing tips that works best in favour of promoting an application is the outreach initiatives that a business takes. While it would be a lot more beneficial for a startup to start rolling out Press Releases (PRs) and Articles from the stage where the app’s beta version is out, it’d be beneficial to start creating a list of prospects to reach out, in advance.

You should have a ready list of PR professionals, bloggers, and social media influencers before you start with steps to promote an app. It’d also help your mobile app marketing strategy to keep a few pitch ready with you beforehand to then send to the agencies. 

Open social media profiles 

While assumed to start once there is a link to download the app, ideally, the stage where you create social media profiles should occur 1-2 months prior. This will help you with avoiding mistakes while promoting your app on social media channels and leverage higher benefits.

Now, when talking about the same, you should start with identifying who your target audience is and which platform they frequently visit. On the basis of that information, open social media profiles and start posting content on them to keep the users’ interest in place.

Besides these pointers, there are a few things that you will have to cover from the development front as well. Let us look into them. 

Make the app easily shareable

On the development front, it should be made easy for users to share your application to their friends and family. For this, you will have to ask your partnered mobile app development company to add native elements, which would make it possible to share the app through Message, WhatsApp, or other social media platforms. 

Implement app analytics 

When talking about app success, it is not always about higher app downloads. Various other mobile app KPIs must be taken into account. 

In relation to the same, there should be an app analytics section inside the application which would make it possible for you to keep track of how the app is performing when the time comes. Adding analytics at a later stage will be a lot more difficult compared to adding it at the development stage.

Enable push notification

The prominence of the role that push notifications play in reaping higher benefits of marketing an app is undeniable. It can be your go-to tool for ensuring the app is always on the top of users’ minds. But in order for it to perform what you expect of it, you will first have to incorporate it in your application:

• Register with the push notification service of the operating system;
• The OS service offers an API that enables the app to interact with the service;
• Add SDK to the app. 

Post-Launch App Marketing Plan

The efforts that you put in the name of pre-launch app marketing is only half of what you will have to do for post-launch marketing. Now, when we talk about post-launch app promotion techniques, we basically talk about two primary approaches: Organic and Paid. 

The idea here is to get as many downloads on your application as possible. For, the ranking of your app on the store will ultimately depend on the number of downloads it has received. But a thing to note here is that there is no list of the best ways to promote an app. It will all ultimately depend on your app type, what you are looking to achieve, and the budget you have set for the mobile app development process.

Paid Promotion Activities

App-install campaigns 

The app-install ads when driven with the right app marketing strategy and in the right place and time tend to draw massive benefit for the application on the download count front. What is difficult in this method is determining reasons behind higher app uninstallation rate and take preventive measures for the same. But the returns that can be expected from this approach are massive. 

Pay per click  

Pay per click tends to have a massive impact on mobile app promotion, if and when done on the right platform. While one approach would be to promote the app on search engine, what we recommend is promoting the application on other applications – this has shown to offer greater benefits to businesses.

Email campaigns 

Depending on the demographics of your target audience, eMails can be a great start for establishing your marketing strategy for app launch. By sending the details and values of your app to people who either subscribed to your landing page earlier or through cold emails can be a great way to get attention on your application. 

Organic Promotion Activities 

App Store Optimization

When we talk about organic Android/iPhone app marketing, the foremost strategy that strikes the mind is ASO or App Store Optimization. The idea of ASO is to work on the app’s store page in a way that it is fit to appear in the search list and enticing enough to be downloaded by the users in one go. The end goal of ASO, however, should be to ensure that the application gets featured on the Play Store. 

Apply for awards 

Awards are a sign that the product is quality focused and is bound to add great value to the app user acquisition marketing strategy for apps. In many ways, they also play a role in getting greater downloads. 

Here are some of the websites that accept awards application on the basis of its design, features, and other criterias:

Here are some of the websites that accept awards application on the basis of its design, features, and other criterias:

• Appy Awards;
• Best App Ever Awards;
• Apple Design Awards;
• Appsters Awards;
• The Webby Awards;
• Best Mobile App Awards.

Gain visibility 

There are a number of app marketing ideas you can turn to for gaining visibility on your application. Here are a few of them – 

• Submit the application on promotion websites like Rate My Startup or Launching Next. these will help you in gaining reviews from entrepreneurs and other users. 
• Publish the app on alternative app stores like Amazon etc. (Note that this can only be a part of your Android app marketing strategy) 
• Conduct contests and giveaways to push the interest that you app is getting. 
• Keep in touch with the press to continue keeping your brand in the news. 

Localize your mobile app

Though English is mostly the language that an app is drawn around, do not restrict the language as the only language. Many people in the world, even in the USA itself, do not use English as their native language – an event that affects the mobile app usage charts. 

It is important to localize your mobile app according to the relevant regions – ones where your users belong. But when doing it, do not rely on auto-translation. There are a number of app localization agencies like  ICanLocalize, Babble-on, Tethras, Localeyes, etc, which can help bring the app to a global market. 

The pre-launch app marketing strategy and post-launch app marketing plans you read above work amazingly well for getting million downloads on your app. But the hard work and effort doesn’t end there. You will still have to work around ensuring that people who install your app don’t abandon it. 

While it would help to know the reasons why people uninstall apps, what we recommend is investing your time in mobile app reputation. There are three primary ways to attain it: Setting up listening tools, setting a team to reply to users in real-time, and bring troubleshooting tips on app and the landing page. But before these three, you will have to guarantee an optimized app performance. 

FAQs About Mobile App Promotion

Q. How to prepare for mobile app marketing during the development phase?

The answer on how to promote an app is something that has to be accommodated from the app discovery and development stage itself. Here are a few things that you should do to ease the process:

• Incorporate push notification 
• Make the app easily searchable 
• Implement app analytics

Q. How do you increase the visibility of your mobile app?

There are different avenues you can head on to for gaining visibility on your app – 

• Submit the app on promotion websites 
• Publish the app on alternative app stores
• Conduct contests and giveaways for pushing the interest your app is getting. 

Q. How to increase app conversions?

One of the most sure shot ways to increase mobile app conversion is two sided. On one side, you should market your app enough that people know about it. And on the other side, you should develop the app in a way that it offers real value – one which would back the marketing efforts. 

The post Effective mobile app promotion strategies that Startups Must Consider appeared first on Appinventiv.

So, what’s next?

Building the app and diving right into the market. 

Well, it sure is. 

But every great project commences with a brief.

It is a prerequisite and plays a fundamental role in deciding how your project will turn out in the end. For a mobile app development project, writing a brief is a good starting point. 

So, if you’re still confused about drafting a brief because it seems like a task, we are here to tell you why you shouldn’t skip this step. 

And if you are already set on writing one, we bring to you a step by step guide on how to draft a perfect mobile app brief.

For any collaboration or partnership to succeed, communication is the key. So, before you rush and sign off any contract, make sure you have laid down a comprehensive and lucid brief that clearly defines your goals and visions. 

Before you partner with any app development company for startup, you should be sure about what exactly you expect from the collaboration. And you must be able to convey the same to your technology partner.

What Really is a Mobile App Brief?

You may have a visual understanding of your idea, but a brief requires expressing your idea in a written format. As the name clearly suggests, a mobile app brief captures every pertinent detail about your development project in a concise manner. 

The intent behind a brief is to gather every little detail crucial to the project and convey it to the prospective technology partner. A mobile app brief is an open statement of ambition which provides clarity regarding the purpose of the project. 

Regardless of the fact that it is a top app development company or they have worked on multiple projects like yours, every partner needs to know about your brand and vision to successfully handle the project. Mobile app requirement brief sets a great foundation and does the job right. 

Why Is Writing an App Brief So Important?

A mobile app brief is a thought-starter, it acts as a springboard to refine the idea and materialize it into a robust product. When you invest the right amount of time and effort to create a comprehensive mobile app requirement brief, it lays the right foundation which meets the needs of your target audience, solves problems and helps accomplish the set objectives.

1. Written Communication > Oral Communication

You would be more at ease discussing your project in person but written communication often supersedes oral and the reason for that is pretty obvious. If you do not want to forget any key concepts that are crucial to your project, we suggest you formulate a comprehensive application development brief. 

It not only ensures that you don’t miss out on any specifications but your technology partner also gets enough time to analyze your ideas and requirements. 

2. A Structured Roadmap

A mobile app brief lists all your requirements at every step of the development process and acts as a roadmap for the mobile app developers. It helps them choose the right technology and tools for your project.

3. No scope for Conflict 

An app development brief provides clarity of purpose and is proof of what needs to be done. It eliminates ambiguity and leaves no scope for conflict at later stages of development.

4. The End Goal

The main goal behind drafting a mobile app brief is to ensure that you get the desired product. A mobile app brief template ensures you and your tech partner are on the same page at every step of your development journey.  

5. Feedback 

A good application development brief not only generates response but some critical feedback which makes room for improvement.

How Do You Write an App Brief for a Mobile App, Step by Step?

A good brief is like a snapshot of your project idea. It captures every little detail and allows the development company to understand your project. Since we do not want you to miss out on anything, we have outlined all the necessary steps on how to prepare an excellent brief for app development.

1. Begin by telling about Yourself 

Start the brief by providing details about your company and your company’s website. Give an overview regarding your inception, your goals and vision, and provide an email. 

2. Purpose of your App

Explain your technology partner the problem that you are trying to solve. To develop the best possible app for you, an app development company needs to know what you are trying to achieve. You should be able to clearly communicate the what(it solves), why and how of it all. 

When the idea is clearly expressed through mobile app documentation it helps the tech partner accomplish goals with much ease. 

To build an app that provides the users a delightful experience and excites them to take action, you must convey every little piece of information regarding your target audience.

Describe who your app caters to. Understanding the user group and the target audience and paying attention to their needs and interests helps in developing a successful app. 

Try to sum up your idea in one sentence, for instance, I want to build an app for people to buy and sell pre-owned luxury fashion. 

3. Acknowledge your Competition

It is crucial to assess the market and provide information regarding your competitors.  You should provide references of the apps that you like and convey how you want your app to stand out from others currently in the market. 

List the features that you find unique and explain what you like about them. 

4. Standing Point 

In an app development brief, you should specify where you stand in terms of the product-  Have you just outlined the app idea or are you ready with the wireframes and prototypes. 

Your technology partner needs to know the stage of development your product is presently in, in order to shape it into a cutting-edge app.  

5. App Functionality 

A  lucid app brief acts as a technical design document for mobile application. App functionality is a deciding factor on how your product will turn out so it is ideal to focus on the core functionality. Explain how the features of your app end up solving user problems. To rapidly build an MVP, include only the must-have features. 

Discuss the scope for custom features with your technology partner and finalize whether you want your app to be available in offline mode.

Convey to the development company if you have any product pricing strategies in mind. Laying out a monetization strategy in the very start helps the developers make a separate set of functionalities. 

6. User Navigation

Outlining how the user navigates through the app is a key component and documenting it gives a good insight. A good mobile app design brief lists the first few steps like user registration and onboarding and describes how the user will navigate from thereon.

Defining user stories solves a lot of problems and validates the features present in the app. How and why a user will end up at a screen and the chronology as to where the user will be directed from thereon should be defined at the very start. 

7. Content Creation

Content creation is another crucial factor to consider while writing mobile app development brief. You must ensure what all content will be available on your app and the source of the content. It could be audio, video, images, documents, etc. 

You need to decide whether the content will be generated in-house or the content curated by the users will be circulated.

8. Choice of Platform

You need not delve too deep into the technicalities of app development but deciding which platform works for you and your target audience is essential. The choice between Android or iOS is a critical one but for each platform, an app development company has a different development approach. 

Android app makers need a requirements document and in a similar fashion, drafting an iOS app requirements document puts forth all the expectations in writing. It helps in avoiding any ambiguity. 

Deciding whether to go for native or cross-platform app development is another factor to consider and your technology partner can assist you in making the optimal choice. 

For an app to have high usability and performance rate, native is the ideal choice whereas when you rapidly want to launch your product in the market with basic functionality cross-platform app development is the best choice. 

Also, specifying any mobile app technical requirements that you are privy to is a must. 

9. Visual Appeal

Deciding the look and feel of the app and how the user will engage with it is equally important. Outlining the design process and specifying how you want your ideas to come to reality is fundamental not only for the designer but also for the success of your app. 

Draft a brief that lists out all the functional requirements of the mobile application and takes into account the overall user experience. Provide references for apps that resonate with your vision while preparing a mobile app brief template.

The visual appeal of an app ticks many boxes for the users, so it is essential that all the sketches, wireframes and UI is designed keeping in mind the target audience. 

10. Budget and Timeline

An estimate of the budget and assigning a timeline to the project is the last thing you need to include in the brief. When you break down the cost of developing a mobile app, you will find that the app development cost is majorly affected by the scope of work. 

Therefore, before building a full-fledged product, your emphasis should be to find the right product-market fit. It is ideal to start with an MVP and not create a complex product. 

Outlining the funds that you can allocate for the project is a prerequisite along with specifying a timeframe to your development partner. You must ensure that they are well aware if there is any specific deadline or any particular event where you plan to launch the app. 

You should put aside enough time to test the app with real users before launch. 

11. Potential errors and crisis scenario

It’s important to consider the potential bottlenecks in your app development project. For instance, you should consider the steps you will take if you run out of resources before the mobile app is finished or what you will do if the API becomes unavailable. Write a list of problems that might arise during app development and consult your team regarding the steps to be taken during such situations. This can cap off the document and serve as a detailed reference for developers during the production cycle.

Pro Tip: Be overtly honest when drafting a brief for your mobile application. It has been observed that when people write creative briefs, they are very straightforward about what exactly they are trying to achieve. 

That’s primarily one of the reasons why it helps in accomplishing the set objectives. So have due clarity about what exactly you are trying to accomplish and communicate it clearly to your mobile application development company through your mobile app development brief. 

Mistakes to Avoid while Writing a Great Brief for Mobile App Project

Here are a few mistakes to avoid while writing a great brief for mobile app development project. These mistakes, if not taken care of, can hinder the progress of your production cycle and cause severe budgetary and timeline issues. 

1. Lack of Team Consulting: One person should not be responsible for writing a great mobile brief. As a team, everyone – be it designers, coders, and UX experts – should pitch in their ideas while writing project briefs. This will lead to early elimination of difficult/irrational development requests and much smoother production.

2. Lack of Project Lead/Client Feedback: Even though developers are more in tune with current mobile trends than their clients, the latter should still be included in writing brief for mobile app development. Not taking feedback from clients and prospects to create a project brief will most likely result in poor overall reception. So, it’s better to take their feedback and include their suggestions, if important.

3. Poor brief formatting: Proofreading, proper editing and formatting play a vital role to create a project brief that’s perfect. You can use tools to cross check the formatting and readability of your brief before presenting it. This will ensure that your brand’s professionalism and consistency remains high, as spelling or formatting mistakes can leave bad impressions quite quickly.

Conclusion

A brief involves a lot of thought but it is important to understand that it is not merely a tool to communicate. When you draft a logical product brief, you will encounter certain problem areas that you may have missed or were completely unknown to.

Drafting a brief provides you with the necessary perspective around things that are crucial while strategically planning a mobile app development process, and goes on to show how it is the first defining step towards your end goal.

A brief is a two-way street and you must talk to a reputed mobile app development company on matters you are not sure about. You should provide enough room for the developers to put forth their ideas and let them guide you towards the best mobile app development services.

In case you are a startup, contact a reputed startup app development company and take their help. App developers for startups will suggest their ideas and guide you through the entire process. 

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