How to Translate Your App Ideas into a Brilliant Product?

Hilal Ahmad
6 min readDec 10, 2021

While it is impossible to imagine this world without smartphones and other devices, it is only ten years since Google Play Store and iPhone App Store were launched. Mobile app downloads have grown by 45% since 2017, reaching $258 billion. With the prevalent use of mobile apps, this industry will generate more than $156 billion only in consumer app expenditure by 2022.

It is easy to be tempted because of this tremendous opportunity for app development. Knowing the truth of the app industry and the potential it holds, what if some brilliant idea strikes you? While there is no harm with a sprouting idea, you should aim to give it a form and create a product. The process of turning your mobile app idea into reality is the key.

Let us dive deep and understand how to do it in the following steps:

1: Define Your App Idea and Features

A brilliant idea sparks the beginning of a brilliant app. However, you have to define your vision to form that idea and convert it into a product. Precisely, put your idea on paper, or write it down on your computer.

The first step is to prepare the document for Product Requirements. If you plan to develop a new product, you should also know how much it is in demand without believing in common apps myths.

Essentially, the document is a written script that clearly defines the app’s purpose, vision, features, or specifications. It would also include various elements of your project, such as the business requirement, objective of the app, user personas, and several other relevant factors. You may even choose the top-rated mobile app development company to work with your idea.

An essential way of defining the app idea is to come up with its feature list. The success of an app depends mainly on the features and how it gels together and delivers an excellent user experience.

Now, the feature list could vary from one product to another, depending on your app’s objectives. However, some features are a must-have for every app, including a search function, social media interaction, offline usability, compatibility with multiple platforms, responsive design to support various screen sizes, and user feedback.

With your feature list, the app idea becomes more workable and tangible for your technical team.

2: Market Trend Research

Usually, the first set of features require minor tweaks and changes. The target here is maximum customer satisfaction. It is impossible to ensure 100% customer satisfaction without understanding the evolving market trends.

Market research is a broad term involving data-based responses to questions that can shape the market success of your app. The research should also apply data-based findings and answers to relevant questions that can shape the market success of the app. A few of these questions include:

  • Does the market need this app? If so, who is your target audience?
  • Who is the competitor (s)? Can you learn something from them?
  • How would you market the app and monetize it effectively?

Often, market research starts with the definition of the app’s target audience. The research looks into the category of the app, its objectives, user demographics, geographical location, type of device, etc. You can also study the present consumer trends to ensure that you get accurate results.

Studying different categories can help you recognize your customers better and serve them well.

In 2022, 119.5 billion social apps are predicted to be downloaded in China alone — Just one country! The statistics and projected growth in other countries are also very promising. This makes it imperative to integrate relevant social structures into the app to attract and engage customers.

An up-to-date list of features based on thorough market research boosts the chances of the mobile app to perform well in this market.

3: Identify your Target Audience

To meet your users’ expectations and achieve maximum customer satisfaction, develop a deeper understanding of your consumers.

Your target audience can be categorized according to demographics like age, location, language, gender, education, occupation, etc. To achieve the best result, in-depth consumer research is necessary.

For thorough research, you can follow these steps:

  • Establish the target market of your app and choose whether you have individual customers (B2B) or corporate customers (B2C)
  • Define the user persona of your customers
  • Identify some of the significant hurdles facing the target audience. Document the ways your app could assist
  • Determine incentives to attract potential customers
  • Create a transparent plan as to how the app can leverage research results

To ensure the accuracy of results, you may choose the field study method or a journaling approach. Collaborate with a top-rated mobile app development company for better insight.

4: Choose Your Platform

The top mobile app development company divided the space of app development into two markets — Android and iOS. However, looking at the global market share of OS in sales, you would realize that the focus is on these two leaders.

Once again, the choice between iOS and Android depends on the target audience. Here, geographical location plays an important role.

iOS users are more in number in the USA, Canada, Australia, Western Europe, and Japan. Likewise, Android users are prevalent in South and Central America, China, India, Africa, Russia, European countries, and the Middle East. This distribution can give you an insight into the platform’s priority depending on the location of potential customers.

Beyond that, there are more influential variables like app features, user behaviors, device support, budget, and monetization. Each factor influences the choice of a platform in many ways. For instance, in 2020, there were over 24,000 Android distinctive devices supporting smartphones, tablets, etc. Contrarily, iOS is more of a closed platform, supporting lesser iPod, iPhone, and iPads.

5: Determine your Monetization Strategy

Time to turn all technical functions into revenue. After all, income can only keep the app afloat.

In this highly competitive market, an established monetization strategy is essential. Your strategy should include the following:

- In-app advertisements: Though users heavily criticize this strategy, it is a proven method. Banner ads, native ads, affiliate ads, interstitials, rewards ads are all good ideas.
- In-app purchase: The gaming industry banks on this strategy. Users can buy special features of the app and some virtual goods.
- Freemium and Subscriptions: Some apps give you access to the content only after subscribing, even if it’s a free trial. Likewise, freemium restricts some premium features that users cannot access on the free trial version.
- Network/affiliate/transaction models: Companies like Uber, Upwork, Airbnb, and Escrow use the same approach. They charge some commission to facilitate services, goods, and transactions.

6: Prepare the Wireframe

The wireframe is very important because it gives a visual concept of the app. It explores different possibilities to design a page.

Because it does not focus on transition much, it remains static. Wireframe includes minute details about placing text, images, buttons, etc., on the page.

With a planned wireframe, you can understand how your product can help the audience. It also becomes a more apparent reviewable blueprint of the app and prevents mistakes during development. As a consequence, it saves time and resources.

However, don’t spend much time developing a wireframe.

7: Create Your Brand Identity

With so many iOS and Android apps, you have to be brilliant to stand out.

Yes, functionality is vital to set up an app, but it is not enough.

Branding is critical.

If you want the product, your app, to succeed, you have to create a relatable image and communicate to your users.

In this age of digital marketing, an impeccable branding strategy involves personalization. Branding should concentrate on delivering a relatable and attractive experience to the target audience.

Your objective here is to create and sustain brand awareness, consistency, and loyalty. To achieve these, pay attention to user experience with branding as the perspective.

Conclusion

While the steps mentioned above are important for any brand to consider, there is more to it. An app idea can only become a reality when you find the top-rated mobile app development company to partner with and estimate costs. Once that is done, you have to test the app’s beta version, launch it, and spread the word. As the app hits the market, you will receive positive and negative reviews. Use these reviews to make any improvement to the app.

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Hilal Ahmad

A Software Engineer with 3 years of experience in Software development. Visit me at https://about.me/hilalahmad