How to Launch Your Own App Idea and Make Bank Off iTunes (21)
Hey guys, first thread here. Wanted to share some wisdom on creating your own apps. I have done app development for 2 years, had a couple apps break into the top charts. Looking to contribute to the forum and spread the knowledge around.
Even before you pick your app idea one thing you should definitely consider is whether you want a non-server app or a server app.
A non server app is pretty self explanatory, it’s an app that can operate on its own without the need of a server to provide it content, data, etc. An example of this would be like a calculator app, it doesn’t need any servers to run. These apps are great because you can go from 100 downloads to 10 million downloads without any additional costs.
Whereas with apps like Instagram or Snapchat they are considered server apps. They require server space for every user and their data. When these types of apps take off you need to be able to manage the traffic. This can get costly fast, especially if the app takes off unexpectedly.
I recommend if your trying this for the first time start with a non server app.
Alright lets get to it!
Finding an App Idea to Launch:
This is how I do it and its worked for me several times.
I go to Twitters advanced search and type in things like “wish there was an app for” and other similar phrases. I will also punch the same phrase into Google and check the top couple results. I find the best app ideas are usually derived from solving a problem for users on their phones. Often users take to Twitter and other social platforms to voice their frustrations, it’s a great place to mine for app ideas.
Here are some Twitter results from today:
So just from these couple results there could be potential for a couple different app ideas. This is my thought process on how I would eliminate these app ideas down to one that I could launch.
a) Bird Call Shazam – Creating a Shazam like algorithm = expensive, the demographic for this is too small, and the cost / time to map every bird noise is going to be crazy. Yeah, It's safe to say this idea was dead out of the gate.
b) Airport Outlet App – Interesting idea, but couple considerations. Appealing to people who are only in airports drastically narrows this apps appeal. It could take a while to get users to help you curate all the outlet locations. Do all airports even offer free Wi-Fi? because I doubt anyone would download this app on roaming rates.
c) Outfits App – As I am not a girl, this idea doesn’t really appeal to me, but I can definitely see the appeal for girls. The biggest thing this idea has going for it is the mass appeal. A basic mvp version of this app could be built for around $2k. I also saw a couple other girls suggesting a similar type of app so I gave this idea a little more weight.
Just based on the above ideas, I would run with the girls outfit creator app.
Doing Competitive Research:
Jump on the App Store on your iPhone and search the appropriate keywords to see what kind of apps already exist. Search “Outfits, outfit creator, etc”
See what the results yield. On your iPhone it will usually say “1 of 235 results”. If the results are larger than 500 I would reconsider. It may be very hard to rank for good keywords.
The next consideration is how many reviews does the first five apps have. If they have less than 20-30 reviews, you may have a shot of taking their spot. If they have 300+ reviews, you may be shit out of luck lol
Also consider that main keywords like “outfits” is going to have insane competition because of the shopping verticals. Get more granular, get down to the keywords that are most relevant to your app and see if you can compete on those phrases. If I was creating this app I would try and rank for keywords like “Outfit Creator, Outfit Picker, etc”
Write down the top few results then take them over to XYO.net and App Annie. Figure out what the downloads are like for these apps. Do they have more than 50k downloads? Are the downloads rates showing growth or declining?
The key at this step is to validate demand for your app idea. By checking your competitions download numbers and trends you can justify if there is a demand for this type of app.
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Hey guys its 1 am here in Canada and I am going to pack it in. If you enjoyed this post so far be sure to like the post below. I'll try and write the next parts in the coming days.
What I hope to cover in the next couple parts:
- How to find a good dev & negotiate a solid deal
- Protecting your intellectual property during the build
- Prototyping Tips
- Marketing and Selling Your App
- Tips and Tricks to getting more downloads
That's a great post, has quite a few actionable ideas.
Looking forward to the next parts.
Excellent first post!
There are quite a few folks on STM that have successfully branched out into app development. Welcome!
Nice idea with twitter, waiting for your next posts and welcome 
Great first post! This is a topic I'm interested in.
Some nice ideas !!!
Great post.
With product generation, finding a good initial market is half the battle. Your Twitter search idea is ace - and you can apply that to other fields too.
In fact, I'm just about to go over there after reading this and do some searching on "I wish there was a movie about..."
Hey guys, sorry for the hold up, I have been extremely busy haven’t had a moment to sit down to write this till now. I’m glad to see people enjoyed the last post. Lets Continue!
Part 2: Planning Out Your App
In this stage of your app venture you want to figure out the following:
1) What functionality and features is my app going to have?
2) How is it going to provide users value?
3) How am I going to monetize this app?
So for the sake of making this post easy to follow I will use the outfit app as an example.
One big mistake app developers make is they have a rough idea of what they want and then they hire a developer to start building it. This is why most apps end up being garbage. The key is you really have to dial in what functions and features the app will have before you ever even meet with a developer. Developers hate nothing more than some guy who thinks he knows what he wants but can't communicate it to the developer because truthfully he doesn't know himself lol.
Plan your app out, know the features and functions inside out.
The biggest reason I do a lot of planning before creating an app is because it gives me a birds eye view of my app idea. I can spot technical issues, figure out what functions I thought were good but really on paper are garbage, and I can really get a grasp of what the app will be when its all said and done.
Think of it as an builder laying out the blueprints before building a house. Only a moron pours the foundation concrete then plans out where to put the walls.
Figuring Out What Functions to Put in Your App:
I like to reverse engineer my functionality. Reinventing the wheel can get expensive fast, and if your an indie app developer just go MVP until you make some $$$. Steal the best ideas and make them better in your app.
I will usually download the top 25 apps that I’m in competition with and play with every single one of them. I will write down everything I like and don’t like from interface design, app flow, up-sells, load screens, etc. Everything! Leave no stone unturned if you want to really kick the shit out of your competition. This strategy is great because you can take the good ideas and put them in your app. Think of your competition as free research and development.
Pro Tip: Read all the reviews, figure out what users are complaining about or love about your competitors apps. Use this to figure out what features in your app are must haves and what features can be pushed to V2 if your app can make it past MVP. Never invest heavy upfront until you know what the traction is with your app. If it catches fire then consider that you can always improve on it through iterations.
One personal rule I have is: If I can't make an app 50% better than the #1 app for my given keywords I will stop the project. With Apples new search rules the name of the game is engagement and if you can't beat your competitor at engagement you won't be able to sustain app store rankings long. That is why if I can't provide a better experience then the top guys in the same niche I won't bother wasting my time. I keep moving until I find a niche I can dominate.
As an indie app developer you can’t compete with Rovio or Clash of Clans. So when you are doing research if you find out the top competing apps have 10 million dollar development budgets, you should probably pick another app idea. A smart entrepreneur picks his battles, you don’t want to be setting yourself up for an everest you can’t climb.
So lets knock these out:
What functionality and features is my app going to have?
Here are some rough thoughts I started with:
- Allow users to sort through photos in a multi pane interface. The user can then pick their top clothing item (tops,shirts,tanks) and a bottom-clothing item(jeans, shorts,etc). And a separate section for accessories. Swiping right or left on each pane shows another image from their gallery of clothing photos.
- Allow users to share their outfit creations to instagram /facebook / twitter
- Gamify the app by allowing other users to mix/match your outfits and curate them for you.
- A notification that tells the user to take a photo of their outfit for the day to store in the app
- A randomize button that will show you random photos from your own outfits gallery that may spark the idea of wearing an old outfit.
- Using a learning algorithm to try and figure out how the user matches their outfits and make smart recommendations based on behavior and past outfit choices.
How is this app going to provide value to the user?
Well if I build the app correctly it should provide value to the female audience by:
Helping them pick outfits faster
Help them remember old outfits or combinations to try again
Help them stroke their ego by sharing photos on social media
Help them recreate the experience of a friend or a stylist helping them pick out outfits.
How can I monetize this app?
Couple ideas off the top of my head..
- Monetize using ad networks (Think ad networks that deal with big budget H&M type campaigns). One major tip I can offer on this front is that this is no different to affiliate marketing. Try and match your app with the right traffic source partner. An ad network that serves up gaming ads probably won't moentize your app well, where as the ad network that supplies GQ, Vogue, etc with their ads might be extremely profitable.
- Charge $0.99 cents for the app
- Offer In-app Purchases $0.99-$1.99 each (Pay to unlock unlimited photo storage, Filters, Social Sharing Enabled, etc)
- Direct to brand deals (Get multiple brands to buy direct ad placements within the app).
- Charge subscription to get curated outfit recommendations from top stylists (rev share model)
Think about this for a second.... if a girl is using the app and has swiped 15 times and can’t find an outfit. Wouldn’t it be the perfect time to hit them with an upsell. “Can’t find something to wear? Zara has a new collection see it here!”
Anyways, I could go on for days about how to monetize your app but its up to the app developer to get creative. With my app projects I have found that Free apps with in app purchases has always worked best for me. I don’t necessarily like doing in app ads as they mostly pay shit CPM. I prefer to craft very enticing in-app purchases and try and bait the users into paying for it. I find the key is creating an engaging app and finding the perfect time to hit the user with an upsell.
Like this post? Hit the thanks button below and I'll pound out the rest of this guide!
Originally Posted by caurmen
With product generation, finding a good initial market is half the battle. Your Twitter search idea is ace - and you can apply that to other fields too.
In fact, I'm just about to go over there after reading this and do some searching on "I wish there was a movie about..."
@bbrock32 - Thanks bro! I can't lie I was pretty stoked to see one of the main guys behind STM liked the post
@cmdeal - Glad you liked the post, I keep hearing about your London speech, very interested in seeing it. Would love to have a short chat over PM / Skype if you ever have time!
@ deondup - Thanks bro! I follow a lot of your threads.
i'm contemplating to sign up for the forum under different nicks, just to spam you with Thanks.
very interesting..
My first app (game) will be launched soon, I'd love to learn the monetization part.
Wow awesome first few posts and superb ideas.
Thank you.
What are some of the apps you have created? Any ones I would know?
Originally Posted by cmdeal
Originally Posted by chempez
Good stuff, and welcome!
Great stuff. Subscribed.
This is GOLD! Subscribed!
Please keep them coming 
"I go to Twitters advanced search and type in things like “wish there was an app for” and other similar phrases. I will also punch the same phrase into Google and check the top couple results. I find the best app ideas are usually derived from solving a problem for users on their phones. Often users take to Twitter and other social platforms to voice their frustrations, it’s a great place to mine for app ideas."
YES! This kind of out of the boxing thinking is all win.
What to Do Before You Hire a Developer (very important, this will save you lots of $$)
You need to create a Build Guide. This is what I have called it, other people have different names like manuals, schematics, etc. Basically what it amounts to is it’s a document that lays out all the functionality of your app. It has every single detail nailed down. Like if you click this icon on the home screen it goes to this next screen and pulls this data to populate this content field. You should have every screen in your app accounted for, all the features - absolutely everything.
Another important thing to include in your build guide is a section on how you want the back end of your app to be setup. This applies more to server based apps, but what you want to do is imagine that if your app took off and got 10 million downloads what kind of back end infrastructure would you need. You want to build your app in a scalable way, for example for one of my apps we decided to use AWS to host all of our back end server setup incase the app took off my developer could easily turn on more AWS servers and manage the incoming traffic. We were built in a way that if we took off over night we could adapt and still grow our user base. When your product is going viral, every second counts, every time your service goes down the less likely your viral growth will continue.
Usually i Photoshop all the screens in my build guide, and go into great detail on each function. I usually write out a paragraph explaining to the developer what the function is, how it works for the user, how it works on the back end, etc. It’s important your developers understand the app you're building thoroughly instead of just following blind directions from you. They can provide you valuable feedback based on your build guide and more so they can code more effectively knowing how the end product is suppose to work.
Hiring a Developer:
A lot of people approach hiring developers in different ways, I have found this to be the format most successful for me. I hire local developers with 1-2 years experience.
Why? because I want full control of any app project I work on, I prefer to meet at a coffee shop and work with the developer to nail out any bugs issues in any of my apps. I find when you outsource you can often receive developers with poor english or they have a hard time understanding what you want fixed, their work hours are all over the place, etc. Some people can get outsourcing to work, i prefer to have local app developers. I’m a hands on person and with the apps that I build, I like having my developers in town, because if something major breaks in one of our apps it’s one phone call and a coffee meeting to fix it. It’s not waiting 8 hours for someone to wake up halfway across the world.
How to Find A Good Developer:
I have found the best place to find developers is by posting on college and university job boards. Just find their computer science section and offer part-time work for coders who are going through university. It works perfectly for their schedule and you can usually get a good deal because they have only starter experience.
Another tip that I have tried is actually calling the computer science professors and asking them if they have any students who seem to be super bright or would make good coders looking for side work. A good referral goes a long way. Another sneaky thing I have done in the past is I will look up local app development companies, then look up on Linkedin who the developers are for these companies. Then I either private message them on Linkedin or Facebook asking if they are interested in doing some side jobs. With side jobs you usually get a better rate and its extra pocket money for these guys. The only downside to this is that you don’t get to command all hours of their day to your project, but if you're flexible and can afford to wait a month or so to get your app developed you can get it done at a fraction of the price.
Never Hire an Agency!
I remember I got one of my apps quoted from an in town agency and they asked for $21,000 CAD to build it. I got the same app built by a university student for $2,300. Don’t pay for someone else's fancy glass offices, herman miller chairs and expensive rent. Keep in mind these agencies would do exactly what you do, they take your idea and take it to their in house dev and tell him to build it. Except they're going to charge you 10x of what it would cost you to go find a dev yourself.
Couple More Tips:
-Never hire someone who has actually never built an app. I usually go for guys who have built one or two apps that are already on the app store. There is some stupid development stuff you need to know in order to get through the app store (certificates, xcode bull shit, etc). Its frustrating to deal with teaching newbies this stuff, just find a developer who knows this already.
-Ask them how they solve coding problems. The good developers will usually answer you by saying they will go on stack overflow and read and trouble shoot until they get it to work. These are the best types of coders, the self learners who can trouble shoot on their own without supervision.
How to Negotiate a Deal That Favors You:
I always structure my deals in the following manner:
I usually offer a small a deposit upfront $500 or a bit more. Then I work out with the developer phases of the app to be built. For every phase completed I pay another portion of the bill. This way you never have a real risk of the developer not delivering. Every time they complete a phase of the app development you pay them another portion of the contract price.
How to Save Even More Money:
-Always ask them to break down each part of the development on an hourly basis. Make them justify every hour they are charging you. This way they can’t pad in extra hours without you noticing. That way you can ask them and be like "hey why does this one screen take 6 hours to build, its straight forward there is code already out there for this, it should only take 1-2hrs max".
-Get multiple quotes from other developers and push their price down and let them know you have others vying for your app project.
-Make sure they know that you will not pay extra for bug fixes that in the contract price they must account for bug fixes themselves. They are responsible to deliver you a full woking product without glitches.
-I aim to pay roughly $20-$30 an hour for a decent developer based on their experience. For a basic app without too much crazy functionality you shouldn't be spending more than $2-3k in my experience (pending your not trying to build the next Facebook lol)
Last Pro Tips:
-When you're thinking about app user interface and ideas, try and find apps that have these interfaces in them already so you can show your developer “I want the photo gallery to work like this app, see how it tiles each photo like this”. It makes it way easier for developers to understand your vision.
-Budget to give your developer a little bonus at the end. I usually like to surprise my guys at the end of a build with a few hundred extra and a restaurant gift card as an extra little thank you. If they like you they will be willing to work with you in the future. Good devs are hard to come by, try and retain them long term.
-When you find a good dev, use them to find other good devs, get them to recommend friends who may want to work with you as well. Referrals work a lot better than headhunting yourself.
-Try and find resources for your app developer before they give you the quote. I like to browse StackOverflow (a dev site) to find tutorials and code that I know will be useful to my dev during my app build. Before I get the quote from them, i provide them these resources and the build guide. When they find out they can use some of the code that is already out there instead of building certain functionality from scratch it greatly reduces your development costs.
-Always build in an NCA/ NDA with all your developers. Make sure that in the contract it says that all code belongs to you, that all intellectual property belongs to you. Furthermore, I usually put in a clause that the app developer cannot create an app in that exact vertical or niche without prior written consent from my company.
-If I have a hunch that a coder might be lazy or cutting corners with programming, I usually tell them that I have a friend who is a CTO (which I do) who will comb through code when their done to ensure it was done correctly and cleanly. This is usually a good way to fend off coders from doing hacky jobs.
-Lastly make sure you have a clause saying the developer cannot license out your code to any other developers or open source it. Sometimes while your building an app you may build some code that could be super useful in another application. You don’t want your dev taking your code and selling it to someone else.
This method still works! Thought I'd give this a bump. See Paul's very recent FB post here:
https://www.facebook.com/pauljeyapal...61104470850467
Amy
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