A Guide to Become a Successful Appreneur

Mobile app development is a lucrative field. The tremendous success of numerous apps on the market adds to its appeal and this has led to a situation, where app entrepreneurs or appreneurs earn truckloads of money from creating and marketing their apps. This write-up traces the steps of successful appreneurs, which will help you follow suit. 

As an appreneur, your first step should be to know all that you can about your target audience. Ask yourself the following questions for this:

- Who are your target audience? Are they enterprises, teenagers, avid gamers, travel enthusiasts or simply homemakers? 

- How will they use your app? Will the app solve their problem, simplify their lives, cater to their immediate needs or entertain them?

- What are the other apps, which they like to use?

The answer to all these questions will help you get a better understanding about your target audience. So, take some time out and research about your target users before everything else. 

The mobile industry is constantly changing and at a swift pace. To keep up with this pace as an appreneur, you need to be many steps ahead of your competitors. 

With hundreds of apps being developed and launched left, right and center, you have no choice but to adapt to the situation and speed up every process from the app’s conceptualization to the development phase before someone else out there creates an app on similar idea, leaving you with no option but to start from scratch.

Also, none of your target users would want to invest their time or money in an app, whose concept, features and functionalities are obsolete. They keep scouting for the latest apps in every category, which gives them new features and functionalities to explore. 

Therefore, you not only have to think quickly, but also work at an equally fast pace to complete app development on time. You also need to take into account the time you need to spend on marketing the app and proceed accordingly. This will help you stay ahead in the game.

Another trait of successful appreneurs is that they tend to focus on one thing at a time. 

When they think about app ideas, all that they do at that time is - research the app market, take cues from the successful apps and use everything in their capacity to churn out a brilliant app idea at the end of brainstorming sessions with their team members (if any). 

All that they think about is – why would their apps work or what are the challenges that they will have to face before and after the app development, who are their competitors in the category of app, etc.

Similarly, during the app development phase, they focus on the quality of apps by working in close quarter with the development and design teams. They focus on the smallest details such as how the users are going to interact with the apps, the detailing done in the apps’ icons and work on the apps’ wireframes till they are absolutely sure that the apps are flawless.

They also make it a point to carry out testing more than once, at every stage of development to ensure that the apps are being developed with the highest degree of perfection. 

Most importantly, they aim at ‘inventing’ apps or creating apps with never-before seen features that offer highest level of satisfaction to the end-users. 

App development is a long process and consists of many stages. More often than not, it becomes necessary to incorporate a number of changes in the app. These changes can arise from various reasons like – adding or removing features to and from the app, introduction of a new tool that will be immensely useful in development, and bug fixes among others. 

There might also be other, unforeseen events, which will lead you to change your initial decisions relevant to your app. For instance, if a rival company announces an app idea that is almost the same as the one you thought about for your app, take it as a challenge and do some quick thinking. Maybe you can take some more time to think about a completely new idea or tweak the original idea. 

In a nutshell, you have to be ready to face such unexpected events with a flexible mindset and adapt to the changes. 

Think of a scenario where there are two apps having almost similar features and functionalities but one of them is offered at a price and the other, free of cost.  

Which app do you think will get the maximum downloads? 

You guessed it right. The ‘Free’ app. Unless, the features and functionalities of the other premium app really appeals to the end-users. This is something on which an appreneur has no control. Luckily, there are alternatives that can help them monetize their apps. 

Here are some of the ways through which you can monetize your app. Use them to earn maximum revenues for your app.

- Launching a basic, free app with the option of paid upgrades

- In-app advertisements

- Video advertisements

- Geo-tagged advertising

- Cross-promotion

No matter how brilliant and unique your app is, you will still need to market it to the masses. With millions of app already vying for users’ attention on the app stores and elsewhere, this is not going to be easy. 

What you need to aim for is a comprehensive marketing strategy, which can ultimately lead to more conversions. Apart from promoting your app on social media channels, launching a microsite, publishing press releases, submitting your app for third-party reviews, you also need to go for App store optimization (ASO), which helps improve your search engine rankings as well as app store rankings. 

Alternatively, you can also use the traditional marketing channels such as television commercials, print ads, hoardings etc. Basically, you need to take all the steps, which enhance the visibility of your app and lead to an increase in the conversion ratio. 

The mobile app industry is growing for sure. Join the bandwagon by becoming an appreneur and a successful one at that by following these guidelines. Have any point to add? Share your inputs with us through your comments.