Kumulos | Musings about all things mobile

Blog of interesting ideas and suggestions on what to do to make more money out of mobile app development

[kumulosbob]

AFTER PARSE – THE SILVER LINING PART 1

The Parse Announcement  by Facebook to close down the Parse Cloud Service, you can approach life after Parse like it’s one huge pain in the butt or look at it an opportunity and find that silver lining.

Approach things right and something that at first looks bad can turn out for the good. Life after Parse is just that.

In the first in our Series of  – Life After Parse –  blogs we’ll show you how to take the positive out of the Parse closure. Turn a bad situation into something that gives your clients a better app. An opportunity to build monthly retainer services to manage and optimize your client’s apps, earning good recurring revenue for your app business.

With the hard deadline on Facebook pulling the shutters down on Parse, one way or another you’re going to have to have “that conversation” with your clients. You’ll need to explain to them that some rework is needed because the platform you chose for them is closing and money needs spent.

This can go one of two ways.

“Er, we have some bad news, it’s going to cost you money, sorry, it’s not our fault”

Or

“We need to change the way we do your app. It will mean we work a bit differently in the future, but the benefit is you’ll have us working for you, helping you make your app better, now and tomorrow.”

I certainly know the conversation I’d rather have. And the thing is, your clients need to give you a hearing on this, because if they don’t, their app will break and break pretty soon.

After Parse. A chance to change the way you work with clients

At Kumulos we did some research a couple of month back looking at how mobile app agencies charge for their services. It showed the huge opportunity for them to build-out follow on services and convert one off project income from mobile app project into monthly recurring revenue. Up to 50% of the initial app build can be made EACH YEAR on follow on services. That’s huge.

So why aren’t we all doing this on all of our app projects. Well probably because relationships with clients get set. Once  set, it’s pretty difficult to go back and discuss how it should change. It’s easier to put new customers on a new model, but tougher to get existing customers to change.

Parse could be the thing that gives you the “external disruption” point that lets you discuss a new way of working. If you aren’t charging for hosting (because the app was on the Parse free tier), then that’s going to have to change. Your customers will now have to pay monthly for their app hosting. And of course, you’ll wrap that up in a service, where you pass on the cost of the mBaaS with a value add service on top, of course. Right now you’re not going to get a better chance to redefine how you work with clients.

It sounds like a lot of hassle for little in return, I hear you say.

Well this is why.

Adding a strong underpin to your cash flow from selling monthly recurring services takes risk, and stress out of your business. Stress and sleepless nights around meeting payroll anxiety around project timings and when builds become billable. Unpredictable and a challenge when you have a highly predictable metronome-like cost structure.

The more stable the cash flow is for your business, the more confidently you can plan and scale your business.

Lets look at the numbers.

Here’s the Math.

To set the ground work, let’s take a typical web development project as a reference point.

The average website built is around $30,000 today.

The average follow on services from a digital agency is around 12% of the build costs, so $3,600 a year or $300 a month, for hosting, basic monitoring, CMS etc.

You can get closer to $6,000 a year if you add SEO, site flow optimization and AB testing and the like. So about 20% of the project build cost can become follow on retained services. This is pretty standard practise for web development businesses.

Now let’s look at Mobile App Projects.

For this example, take the average build for enterprise mobile app as $120,000.

If you’re not offering structured follow on services, you could be leaving between $14,000 and $36,000 a year, on the table for each end every app you build. Add to that a further $24,000 from follow on project work that will directly spin out  from your monthly services. All in that’s $60,000 a year, from each mobile app project. 10x that for every 10 apps you’ve launched for clients and that’s a healthy sum.

Now, even a % of that $600,000 a year makes this worth doing. Right?

So here’s how it works.

BaseLine Services

Let’s say you have 15 Apps build for clients over the last few years.

Average build cost $120,000 for each app.

Average services (that’s the straight forward services you’d offer if you were building a website, so a similar rate of 12%  cost for each app, per year that’s  $14,400 yearly income from each app.

Total $216,000 per year or an additional $18,000 each month, every month, for doing very little.

Higher value retained services

It’s best to start customers off on BaseLine services, but have a plan to move them onto higher value services over time. Growing your monthly income is good, but what’s better is delivering more valued services, like App Store Optimization, services that will bind your customers more tightly to you, than if you just continue to offer “commodity” services.

Here’s the workings

15 Apps

Average cost $120,000

Average monthly service charge 30%

Equals $540,000 a year.

$45,000 each and every month, whether you sell another new client app project or not. Now that would make a decent hole in your monthly running costs, of any mobile app business.

Services creates projects

Now factoring in the follow on project work that will come from feature rework and OS upgrades. Modestly that’s another 15-20% of the initial build. In this example a further $360,000 a year.

So from the 15 Apps you’ve built, approaching this right, you should be generating around $900,000 every single year in recurring revenue from these customers. Or 50% a year, each year from that initial app build project budget.

More than enough to smooth out that wild project income you’re trying to run your business on.

And if you’re a business owner looking to exit in coming years every recurring revenue dollar is worth 6-8 times a dollar earned on a one off project.

Clients will pay

“But my clients will never pay that”… I hear you say.

They will, for sure,  if you approach this right.

It’s about understanding what they need from their app and structuring the services to deliver that for them. It’s about setting objectives and targets that in time, depending on the services you offer, you share responsibility to delivering against.

We are talking to mobile app businesses right now doing just this.

Contact us and sign up for our App Optimization Program if you want to find out more.

[kumulosbob]

App Store Optimization as-a-Service - here’s how

App store optimization is one of the best ways to grow services revenue and build a strong recurring revenue platform to help your mobile app agency grow. Here we define the key steps of app store optimization and how to offer this as a service to complement your mobile app development business.

Why is building Monthly Recurring Revenue is important.

So you build mobile apps for a living. Like most your income is tightly linked to project delivery. Billings are lumpy, and real hard to know where your cash position will be more than a few months down the road.

You’re no different from thousands of mobile app development businesses out there. But things are changing. More and more businesses just like yours have worked out there is another way. A way to build highly valuable recurring revenue services. A way to secure a retainer from your mobile app build customers, by offering complementary follow on services to sit alongside your core app build business.

One of the best (and easiest) recurring revenue service to offer is a service that helps app owners get more app downloads. With more than 60% of apps being downloaded following in store searches, offering an app store optimization service that drives downloads for your customers apps is a true Win/Win.

You win by making money on retainer monthly, offering services that help tie your app customers to you and position you for any follow on work. Your customers win by tapping into your mobile expertise to help them build a strong and growing user base for their mobile app.

One thing to say at this point is, ASO is only part of the bigger App Optimization Services that you should be offering. You shouldn't ignore the 40% of downloads that don't come from app store search, if you are going to maximise mobile app downloads.  But lets leave the broader topic for now and accept its good that you’re building download volume.

So let’s look at App Store Optimization as a Service in a bit more detail.

The 4-R’s of your ASO-as-a-Service offering

Think of it (and explain it to your clients) in 4 key phases.

Ready (or Audit if this isn’t parallel with you building the app)

Run

Review

Refine

The Get Ready

If you can, this is best costed as part of the build phase. If you want help to fully scope out all phases of the build, you could use this free scoping tool. It will act as a check list to make sure all phases, including post live, are covered and will show any doubting clients that it’s normal to include this in the project.

There are 8 key elements in the this get ready step. All need to be done before you’re ready to submit your app to the store.

App Title – Make sure it describes what the app does. Make it as concise as you can, just a few lines. (255 characters to be exact in the App Store). The app name in Google play is limited to just 30 Characters. This is the most important piece of ASO. If it doesn’t clearly say what it does, potential downloaders will just scroll by.

App Key words – 100 characters limit is all you can work with here. So pick the key words that best fit with the app and the audience. For this you’ll need to get your customer to be very very exact about the target market for the app, who the competitors are and what their likely search phrases will be.  The key skill here is to avoid the highly searched key terms, they will be very competitive so ranking top 3 is going to be tough. Make the effort to find the highly specific and under used key words that fit well with the app. It’s better to be top on 30 searches for a highly specific key word than 10th for 3,000 searches for a more generic key word.

App Description – Nailing the app description to make it clear to the audience for the app how it solves their problems. Clear concise wording that covers the key points of the app features, functions and benefits in as short and concise a way as possible is something that needs planned and though through so your listing is powerful and compelling. You get up to 4,000 characters with Android, but considerably less with Apple. It’s tempting to load the description with loads of key words. But its best not to. If it doesn’t flow and read well it will just turn downloaders off and defeat the whole purpose.

App Category – Picking the right primary and secondary category for your app is a critical decision to optimize this for search. So make sure your customer thinks this through carefully and you help them choose wisely. Getting it right will immediately serve up the app in search to highly relevant potential downloaders.

App Ratings – An app with a 4-5 star rating (as well as a high number of ratings 20+) will have a huge impact on download volumes the app will get. The social proof of this is huge. Having active users saying good things about the app, especially if you’re asking them to pay to download, is a massive endorsement. But more than that it has a big impact on your search rank. Again it’s not a one off task but a constant task that you need to be on top of. Offering a proactive rating service to your clients where you go and find fans of the app to post a review, monitor the star ratings of the reviews the app is getting and reporting this regularly to your clients, is going to be an integral part of your mobile app optimization as a service offering.

App Logo – It may sound like a small thing, but a high impact, professional looking thumbnail for the app, that communicates what the app does, will help catch the eye of the downloader browsing the app store. It may be that the icon needs to faithfully stay true to the corporate identity of the company you build the app for, but there may still be some room to be creative and make the icon jump off the screen.  There's only seconds to get noticed, so make sure it right.

App Screenshots – It's criminal just how little thought is given to what screenshots are used on the download page. Remember it’s not an installation guide, it’s an advert for what the app does. So make sure you use the biggest wow screens. Even better if those wow screens communicate the value of the app. This is your app shop window, so make it look cool, real cool with some great screenshots that are good quality, not pixelated and well cropped.

App Publisher – This could be you, to help you promote the great apps you build for clients, or if your client as a range of apps it’s important that these are all described consistently so they can be searched and other apps from the same clients business can be easily found.

Last and most important is targets. What does the app owner need to achieve. Sure they want to be top on all their most important key words. But actually that’s not what they really need. Its best to be highly ranked for a few highly relevant key words (get them to select 1 or 2 at outset) than to try to boil the ocean at the get go.

Run Phase

So you now have all the key elements in place, you’ve carefully selected your primary and secondary categories, you have an awesome description, your app thumbnail jumps off the screen. You’re set to go.

You have all the benchmark targets agreed, the analytics set up and the report formats all branded up in your livery.

Review Phase

When you review (how soon after launch) and how often you review (probably monthly) depends on a few things, but mainly volume. If you are getting good numbers of downloads, then its important to review more frequently. If volumes are falling short, way short, then its good to get ahead of the problem and figure out what needs to change.

It’s important (and to your advantage) to know that this isn’t a one off task, it’s a constant cycle of measure, analyze and change. So something that needs to be worked on constantly, and you need to be paid to do of course. This is one of the reasons why it’s a great service to offer on retainer and build that highly valuable recurring revenue from mobile app projects.

Here you need to provide your app owner client with an easy to read, and action based, probably monthly report. Make sure it’s in your brand, so it’s your name they see and not that of any tools you may be using.

Most importantly agree actions and changes and if necessary reset any targets and expectations. No matter how good you were at estimating download volumes you’re almost certainly going to be , the mark in the first few months. What’s important there is you are proactive and showing your clients that you are on top of any remedial action that’s needed. But don’t be overly optimistic, remember that ASO can be slow burn. It’ll take a few weeks to make the changes and resubmit to the store to change any listing information.

Here are a few of key things to include in your monthly review

Downloads and updates – so not just the new downloads, but also those that are updating the app each time a new version is pushed through the store. Regular updates have a huge impact on how you rank so regular updates are important.

Search Rankings - show this both for the primary key words the app needs to rank for and against the apps key competitors. This is best shown in line graph format so you can see the search rank positions change over time. You'll of course show this for each store the app is in.

Reviews and ratings – have you had any, are you rating 4* plus. Again big impact on how you rank in search so tracking the star rank and numbers of ratings is important. Recommend a push campaign to gather more ratings regularly, look to see if ratings are improving or worsening with different app versions or different platforms.

Demographic profiles – What platforms and stores are performing best. If you have apps both Apple and Google store you can compare and contrast the performance of both.  What’s the download growth profile like for each platform? What are the install rates and updates rates like per platform, geography, country etc.

The precise mix of services you include here will depend largely on the success criteria set for the app at outset.

Refine Phase

To continually improve the performance of your download programs you need to continually optimize how they are performing against the pre-defined targets agreed with your clients. Having a clear and reasonable view of what “good” looks like is essential so you can set the agenda for what needs improved.

And then the monthly cycle resets and your mobile app store optimization as a service offering repeats Run, Review, Refine in perpetuity.  You get to regularly meet with your client, review the performance of the app, discuss and plan the changes you need to make and be in the best position possible to up-sell to the full stack of app optimization services and any follow on app builds.

Still not convinced, well…

Its a great way to add additional high value services along side your mobile app build project. What's more, you can of course easily offer it to mobile apps you didn't build. So it’s an awesome customer acquisition tool to help you win new customers from other app developers.

Further, that blade cuts both ways. The real question is, can you afford not to offer it.  If you don’t offer it to your app clients and another app developer does then you risk losing the client.  So in short, you can't afford not to offer this, if you're serious about building a growing app agency.

Convinced you need to do this, but don’t know how. No problem.

We know it’s one thing knowing you need to offer something new, it’s another thing making it happen when you’re crazy busy just with the day to day. So we try that bit harder to make it easy for you. You can join our classes and learn from others, you can even ask us to do it for a while until you’ve got the time and have the skills to run it yourself. It’s your call.

Check out our Mobile App Store Optimization Services for more information or contact us today to ask to see how we can help.

[kumulosbob]

Complete guide on how to maximize mobile app downloads.

Offering an AppGrow service, where you maximize mobile app downloads for your mobile app customers, is one of the easiest ways to grow your monthly recurring revenue and get retainer income from your mobile app build projects.

There are 20 things you need to know about the app before you start to build, but one of the most important is “How are users going to find your app?”

It’s all too easy to adopt the “Build it and they will come” mind-set and just expect the pure awesomeness of the app to promote itself. But reality will be different. It will take good old fashioned effort to get the app known and ignite the viral co-efficient for that hockey stick growth curve.

The first yards are always the hardest. But you have a Win/Win here. Customers understand the problem, how to get more app downloads. You’re in a great position to help. By offering an AppGrow offering you can make it much, much more likely that the app you build will be a success. Your clients get more users and you earn month on month income from the app build giving you cash to cover business running costs. What’s more you become an integrated and indispensable part of your clients business, perfectly positioned to win more mobile app build projects.

Secrets how to maximize mobile app downloads

The most common mistake that App owners make it to assume it’s just about app store optimization. Get that right and all will be right.

Right?

Well in fact it’s probably wrong.  Sure this is a big part of it. 63% of apps are discovered through in store searches, but that still leaves 37% that come from other sources. And of the 63% a good number will hear about the app before they go search in store.  Also, downloads themselves are only part of the equation it’s about building a large and growing user base for your app. Downloads for downloads sake won’t bring success if all other areas of the App on-boarding process isn’t optimized.

In fact the question you should be asking your client is “What does success for your app look like?” That way you can have a detailed understanding on the promotional mix you need to put in place for your clients to drive the outcome they want from the investment they are making to build the new app. You’d be surprised how many app owner clients just haven’t thought this through.  The answer you get will be very very revealing.

So let’s start first with the main pillars to maximizing mobile app downloads.

Pre-Launch Exposure

App Reviews

PR

Video Demo

Promotional website/Landing pages

App Store optimization

 1 Pre-Launch Exposure

Get thinking about how the app will roll out far ahead of the app being ready to go live in the Appstore / GooglePlay. The more buzz you can create ahead of launch the better. Getting a clear idea of who the audience is for the app and finding the influencers of that community will help you build up anticipation for the app and pre-registrations. So when your app goes live you already have a tribe of advocates ready to broadcast your new app to their followers.

You’re best to do that as part of a concept/beta program, where you invite them to test the app prototype and give you feedback on critical functionality, pricing, user interface design etc. If they feel they have contributed then you can be sure they will want to make sure their good input makes an app success.

This stage is very often overlooked, but it’s critical. The more you can do to pre-load the launch and iron out the crinkles in your app downloading, on-boarding and in App interface the better. You only get one shot at a new app user. If the first touch isn’t awesome and smooth, within seconds they are gone, won’t return and quite possibly will broadcast this bad experience to their followers, killing the app before its even got going.

2. App Reviews

There are hundreds of app review sites out there that have millions of followers. Some are generalists covering pretty much any app out there. Increasingly highly specialist review sites are appearing. Getting listed on the right review site, the one that covers the exact audience for your app, will be a huge endorsement to your app and will bring highly relevant app users to download the app.

3 PR

So launching an app is no different from any other product. You need to get as much relevant media coverage as possible. App reviews in specialist sites (point 2 above) is all part of it, but you also need to make sure you get as much exposure as you can, so when stories are getting written about apps covering the space your client’s app is in, it gets included.  And remember it’s not about being listed in “the Horse and Hound”, unless your app plays to that audience. Relevance is king here.

4 Video Overviews

Bring your app to life and show, in a short snappy show real, how awesome your app is at solving the audiences’ problem. Having impactful screenshots is important, but bringing them to life will make it much much easier to get the benefits of the app across. But keep it short – 60 seconds maximum, 30 seconds is ideal. Get the video right and not only will it be a huge asset in traditional Google style search and traditional SEO, but it will also be great for PR and those highly important industry specific app review sites you’re going to be listed in.

5 Promotional Websites and Landing pages

Remember, target users for your app won’t necessarily automatically assume that a mobile app will solve their problem. So you need to make sure that the mobile app is supported by a website, or at the very least a well optimized html landing page, with a link to your download page in GooglePlay and App Store.  The good thing about this is it means your search reach isn’t limited to the App Stores. Giving your client a web strategy along site the app store search means they have broadest possible reach, helping cover the 27% of downloads that don’t come from in app store searches.

6 App Store Optimization

And lastly, of course we have App Store Optimization.  Like all the points higher up this blog this can’t be an after-thought, something you think about as your pushing your app live. It has to be baked carefully into the early stages of the build, so when you are ready to list in store you have all parts covered. It’s also important to know that it’s not a one off task, it’s a constantly moving feast and something that needs to be worked on constantly. One of the reasons why it’s a great service to offer on retainer and build that highly valuable recurring revenue from mobile app projects.

Here are the main elements that need covered to make sure your app gets found in store.

App Title – Make sure it describes what the app does in just a few lines. (255 characters to be exact in the App Store). This is the most important piece of ASO. Make sure you don’t just key word stuff the description. If it doesn’t flow and read well it turns downloaders off.

App Key words – 100 characters limit is all you can work with here. So pick the key words that best fit with the app and the audience. For this you’ll need to get your customer to be very very exact about the target market for the app, who the competitors are and what their likely search phrases will be.  The key skill here is to avoid the highly searched key terms, they will be highly competitive so ranking top 3 is going to be tough. Make the effort to find the highly specific and under used key words. It’s better to be top on 30 searches for a highly specific key word than 10th for 3,000 searches for a more generic key word.

App Description – Nailing the app description to make it clear to the audience for the app how it solves their problems. Clear concise wording that covers the key points of the app features, functions and benefits in as short and concise a way as possible is something that needs planned and though through so your listing is powerful and compelling. You get up to 4,000 characters with Android, but considerably less with Apple.

App Category – Picking the right primary and secondary category for your app is a critical decision to optimize this for search. So make sure your customer thinks this through carefully and you help them choose wisely. Getting it right will immediately serve up the app in search to highly relevant potential downloaders.

App Ratings – An app with a 4-5 star rating (as well as a high number of ratings 20+) will have a huge impact on download volumes the app will get. The social proof of this is huge. Having active users saying good things about the app, especially if you’re asking them to pay to download, is a massive endorsement. But more than that it has a big impact on your search rank. Again it’s not a one off task but a constant task that you need to be on top of. Offering a proactive rating service to your clients where you go and find fans of the app to post a review, monitor the star ratings of the reviews the app is getting and reporting this regularly to your clients, is another high value pay monthly agency service.

App Logo – It may sound like a small thing, but a high impact, professional looking logo, that communicates what the app does, will help catch the eye of the downloader browsing the app store. It may be that the icon needs to faithfully stay true to the corporate identity of the company you build the app for, but there may still be some room to be creative and make the icon jump off the screen.  You only have seconds to get noticed, so make sure you do it right.

App Screenshots – Its criminal just how little thought is given to what screenshots are used on the download page. Remember it’s not an installation guide, it’s an advert for what the app does. So make sure you use the biggest wow screens. Even better if those wow screens communicate the value of the app. This is your app shop window, so make it look cool, real cool with some great screenshots that are good quality, not pixelated and well cropped.

App Publisher – This could be you, to help you promote the great apps you build for clients, or if your client as a range of apps it’s important that these are all described consistently so they can be searched and other apps from the same clients business can be easily found.

Regular and frequent updates – Apps that are regularly updated and reposted to the app store will rank higher than apps that rarely change. Regular updates don’t need to be fundamental rebuilds of the app, but getting into the habit of regular updates will play a big part in high in store search rankings. Regular posts will not only let you make incremental feature/function updates and bug fixes to the app, but will also allow you to edit and update (as well as test) ASO updates to the app. (descriptions, key words etc.)

So if you are in the business of building apps for other businesses, you’ll understand how important it is to offer more than just a simple mobile app build service. Extending your offering to include services that help your client’s apps become more successful will make sure that you build a strong ongoing relationship with your client, will get you on a retainer and grow strong monthly recurring revenue services to help you cover your running costs, and most importantly will put in in pole position to deliver that app rebuild or next addition to your clients growing mobile app collection.

Know you need to do this, but don’t know how. No problem.

We know it’s one thing seeing the need to offer something new, it’s another ballgame making it happen when you’re crazy busy just with the day to day. So we make it easy for you. You can join our classes and learn from others, you can ask us to do it for a while until you’ve got the time and have the skills to run it yourself. It’s your call.

Check out our Mobile App Optimization Services for more information.

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[kumulosbob]

20 Answers you need before you build that mobile app

So your business builds mobile apps for a range of business clients. That's a great place to be right now. Lots of opportunities. Lots of potential projects coming your way. When we talk to busy mobile app development businesses they tell us one of their biggest challenges is getting the mobile app build project properly scoped. Too many times projects become too organic with new requirements emerging through the life of the project, sometimes too many ideas on what the app should do and they find it difficult to really define what success looks like.  What we've found is that if you can get good insight into the project by getting answers to these 20 questions right at the start of the project, its more likely to be a success, both for the client, and for the mobile app agency.

So it usually starts with your new client coming to you with a great idea for a mobile app that will help revolutionize their business and reach out to existing customers and a whole new set of customers.

That’s Awesome!

A project that starts off in the right direction has more chance of ending up in the right place, so here's 20 questions you need answers to before you start that mobile app build.

Can you summarize the Mobile App to me in just a few sentences?

This isn’t to catch the customer out, it’s to really see how well they understand the “essence” of the app. The better they understand it, the more confident you can be that they will be very exact and focused about what the app needs to do, who its focused at, how they will use it etc.

Who are the target users?

What problem is your app going to solve for them? Why is a mobile app the best way to solve this? Could a mobile responsive website be just as good, or an even better way to solve the problem? What devices or platforms are they most likely to use, there are real demographic differences between android and iOS platforms that need to be thought through.

What’s the real deadline?

Is it linked to any other activity (a big product launch) or tied into a seasonal campaign? So its usually the case that the project should have started yesterday.  But at least you can work out what's possible with the time you have. Work back through AppStore submission, multi-platform testing, development, and creative, ideation to set the expectation early on what’s practical and what’s not in the time you’ve been given.

What risks are there with the mobile app build?

What are the outside dependencies that could affect the timescales? Addressing this up front will save you a lot of problems further down the track. Building a risk register as part of the project kick-off and being disciplined to keep this up to date is a good idea, even for what seems to be a simple app product. Make sure that for each risk there are actions and owners responsible for managing down the risk of this affecting your successful app delivery.

What’s the budget?

So the game usually is, we don’t have a fixed idea of a budget, we want as much as we can get for as little as we need to pay. Mobile projects are really difficult to budget estimate, but for you to scope the project you need at least to work to a range. Defining the scope of work is also really important. It not just about the physical build. Is there budget for researching the app, competitors, key functions that users will highly value that will guide you on what the MVP NEEDS to have for the app to be market ready. If it’s a new clients it could become a tricky game of poker, neither side wanting to show their hand, but unless you get to a range pretty quickly expectation management is going to be tricky. If the client can’t give you a range, that could be a red flag, it may not be a serious project but just a vague idea they are trying to flesh out.

You should also agree what the ongoing budget is going to be once the app is live. There will probably be hosting costs, ongoing optimization of the app on-boarding and in app use, discovery optimization as well as managing scaling out back-end systems as app user grows. Knowing how much ongoing work the app will require could also influence how much you charge in the initial build phase. You could decide to scale back costs on the initial  build and get the app to market quicker, then work with the app owner to continually improve the app over time. They get an awesome app that's just getting better and better. You build long term income streams for your business and long term relationships with your clients.

Who are the key Stakeholders?

Is this who you are working with, or are their others that you need to know about? Who is the budget holder? Who is the Project Owner? Your contact, or someone else. What are the decision making stages? Who need to be consulted at what stage to move from Ideation, to prototype, to build, to test, to release? Who are you going to work with post launch? Is there a formal process here (you should hope there is), or is this a more organic process, and if so its point 1 on your Risk Register, in big, bold, black ink capitals.

What does success look like at each stage of the process?

Building this into a number of smaller phases, with approval “gates” you need to go through may sound bureaucratic and feels like it could show you down, but it will, without doubt, save you time, money and a lot of anxiety through the mobile app build.

What are the business objectives for the mobile app?

Is the mobile app an internal app to increase workforce efficiency? Is it there to open the product or service up to a new profile of user? Will it increase sales from existing customers? All good, worthy reasons to build an app. Answers to this question will have a huge influence on how you build the app, what the core features and functions of the app, what platforms it needs to run on etc.

Who will the app compete with?

Has the client done a detailed evaluation of competitors in the space that you can work from? Don’t accept the response – “We don’t have any competitors here, we are the first to do this?” It’s a common response, but one that’s usually not true. There may be no direct competitors doing EXACTLY the same thing, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t other ways that people are solving the problem that they have. This shouldn’t be an App to App comparison. So ask the question “how do the future users of your app currently solve this problem?” that way you’ll probably get a more insightful answer.

What design considerations/constraints does the Mobile App have to work within?

Are there corporate guidelines that the mobile app layout and screen designs need to conform to? Will this work on a mobile format? Are there constraints on how it can appear in the app store. Will this tell you how the icons in the app store need to look? Will this limit how the app will pop-out at someone browsing the store? What scope is there to push back at the branding police to get some design latitude to let you do an awesome job?

Is there scope to have multiple releases?

This is both in terms of what native platforms you need to build on as well as functionality. Is it possible to focus on a minimum viable product (MVP) as version 1 release,  with a feature roadmap?  Does it have to be big bang with all features on all platforms day 1.  This may be desired, but is it REALLY a necessity. Even if you need to go Big Bang, its still good to work with the client to define and agree what the minimum viable product (MVP) NEEDS to be. That will help focus discussions around the budget and timescales for launch.

What is the backlog of functions for the app?

Even if you’re not using an agile software development approach to building the app, getting your clients to build a backlog of (non MVP features) is a very powerful way to get them to priorities between the essential functions of the app and those that are non-core for version 1 release. This has the other benefit of helping you plan future releases for the app, big for App Store discovery optimization and managing your future project work (and cash flow).

What are the underlying assumptions?

Is it to work across tablets and mobiles? Can this be one version that resizes or do you need a build for both?  How back compatible does it have to be , iOS8 and later, Android 5.0? Android 4.0?. Does the app need to work offline? Will it have to connect with wearables or Internet of Things devices? What languages is the app going to be built in? The answers you get to "Who are the target use of the app?"  will obviously have an influence here.

How is it going to be hosted?

Is there an existing infrastructure it needs to plug into? What are the security protocols? Are there any upstream micro-services that need (or would be good to) plug into the app? Is there going to be a website (mobile responsive of course) that will sit along-side the app and have to share user profile information etc.? Are there any other vendors that the app needs to integrate with (salesforce, SharePoint etc). How are you going to manage user generated content and what's the expected upload/download shape of that content?

What are the data points that your client will need to get from the app?

Baking the measures, metrics and benchmark objectives into the mobile app at the design stage will help make sure that the mobile app build phase delivers against the key measures of success. If you don’t define the key metrics, that underpin the tangible measures of success for the app at outset, how will you focus the decision on MVP features? Also mapping out the analytics and metrics during the build will save the agony of trying to retro-fit these late in the day, or worse be duped into judging the success of the app based on what’s easy to measure, rather than what are actually the true measures of success.  Core to this should be measures of recency, frequency, duration & lifespan.

Clients want to know

How many downloads?

On what platforms?

Ratio of push notifications activated?

How many that download are actually fully installing?

How many active users you have (is this growing)?

What features are being used the most?

Where are the dead areas of the app that need re-thought?

How frequently is the app being used?

For how long (use session length)?

How many transactions (sales) have completed?

Mapping the actual against expected, looking at the variance them working a plan to close the gap between actual and plan is what it’s all about. As long as these are defined up front of course. You’ve got a huge role to play here, and a huge opportunity to generate on going monthly recurring revenue from the initial app project to help the owner of the app optimize and improve the commercial performance of the app.

What is the monetization strategy for the app?

If it’s a B2E app, solving internal problems for a business to improve staff productivity, then there is still a money angle and a Return on Investment business case. If it’s designed to increase revenue for the business, how is it going to do that? in app purchases?, subscription model?, will features be unlocked with staged payment?, is a physical or virtual product being delivered after payment (so do you need logistic tracking)?, will there be in app advertising to monetize traffic through the app? Knowing this and building the app around the business goal will keep the client focused. Agreeing the MVP and building the Backlog of features acid testing each feature and function against the business goal will mean you’re focused on doing the important things in priority order.

How will they buy?

Different from monetization. How do they physically pay for the product or service within the app, credit card, biometric payment (ApplePay and the like). Depending on the answer, you need to be thinking about security/encryption and device compatibility the app must work on.  So testing regimes, influence that Native vs Hybrid decision, security & data encryption etc.

Are there other apps that the client likes that can be used as inspiration for how this new app should look?

This isn’t about copying or plagiarizing someone else’s design, this is about using completely unrelated apps to help get you into the head of your client and understand how they are thinking. It’s easier if your following an already predefined UI/UX design and corporate guidelines, but it’s still important to do this, if only to help you decide how essential it is to build a native app so it accesses all the rich handset functionality.

How is the app going to be found when it’s ready to go live?

If it’s a B2E app, this may not be that important, but for B2B and B2C apps getting found in GooglePlay and the AppStore is going to be important to draw users to the app. Don’t think this is an afterthought. Its not. You have to think of this at the design and development stage. Make sure it conforms to design guidelines of each store it’s listing in, if it doesn't follow the rules its going to be tricky to get it listed.  You  also have to carefully think about future releases, this has a huge influence on discovery. An App that's continually being developed will rank better in the store. Also make the icon impactful so it communicates the value and purpose of the app is really important.

What about post launch? What’s the ongoing plan to learn & improve?

There needs to be one, right?

No matter how awesome you are as a mobile app development agency you’re just not going to get everything right first time. You’re also probably not going to be able to deliver all the features your client wants, within the budget they have to spend and the timescale you’re presented with. The clients going to be very very focused on the first delivery point, getting the mobile app live. That’s natural. But your job is to coach them to think longer term. Get them to think about the MVP, get them to build the backlog gets them in the mind-set that this is an ongoing project. The first phase is version 1 launch. This means you get them thinking early about the ongoing phases of releases as well as the promotion of the app.  Making sure that there is good data coming from the app is also critical. Using data & analytics to know how the app is performing and the recency, frequency, duration and lifespan is what your client had expected will help your client prioritize the remedial work that will be needed to get the app downloaded, used, and reused frequently.

Bonus Question - Question 21

So lastly, and consider this as a bonus question, given we are through the 20 questions promised in the title.

What dependencies are there, that we need to consider before we can get started with your new app?

Its good if you can get the client to clearly tell you what needs to happen before they sign the work order and kick the project off. Do you need to run an ideation workshop (to make sure an app is actually what they need)? Does a purchase order need to be signed off by the budget-holder? Are you both covered by a Confidentiality & Non-Disclosure agreement? In short, what are the barriers to starting this project in the next hour?

20 Questions to Ask your Clients to make your app project a success

Of course, no set of questions will be the same for every project and every client and every mobile app use case. Hopefully this gives you good coverage of the main points. Asking the questions, documenting the answers and playing these back to the client in the format of "You Told Us This... so we will therefore do that" will make sure you are both on the same page. Better this than stumbling in to bear-pits through the project.

There’s also another free, confidential mobile app project scoping tool that you could benchmark your customer app project against.

[kumulosbob]

5 Essential Steps for App Store Acceptence

You spend weeks or months working on your mobile app and you turn it over to Apple App Store to review. Feels like you are in the lap of the gods, no way of knowing how quick they will come back or whether your submission will be rejected and the full process starts again.  Want to find out how to get this right first time. Read these 5 essential steps.

https://www.kumulos.com/2015/11/12/push-notifications-5-best-ways-to-maximize-engagement/

[kumulosbob]

REVIEW ~ BEST MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM & UI TOOLS FOR MOBILE APPS

So what’s the best Mobile App Development Platform (MADP) out there for your mobile app project? The best fit for your project will depend on exactly what you want to achieve. Fashions come and go. Developers like different tools and have their favored programming languages. We have found over the years it’s best to mix and match your App Delivery Technology Stack & Toolsets. Pick the best push notification service, the best prototyping tool, the best testing tool, the best mBaaS and the best mobile app development tool. Better this than go for what may seem the easy one-stop-shop.

What you gain from an all-in-one tool-set you inevitably lose in lack of flexibility to swap out a tool that falls out of favor. Also we find that those with a complete eco-system of tools have often been assembled through acquisition. As such integration can be as thin as a brand veneer, so clunky and don’t play that nicely together.

Here’s a summary of the different mobile app development platforms and a view of what we see as the best ones around.

https://www.kumulos.com/2015/07/15/review-best-application-development-ui-tools-for-mobile-app-development/

[kumulosbob]

How Kumulos helps hard working mobile app agencies make more money from mobile app projects

[kumulosbob]

5 ways to maximise mobile app engagement

Push Notifications are the one of the most effective ways of driving recency, frequency and higher mobile app engagement.  Used well push notifications can drive up to 20% greater app engagement, reduce attrition and drive more profit from your apps.

Here are 5 way to get the most from your push notifications.

https://www.kumulos.com/2015/11/12/push-notifications-5-best-ways-to-maximize-engagement/

[kumulosbob]

What we’ve Learnt - the 3 Pillars to Mobile App Success

A while back we got really interested in what makes a mobile app success and other mobile projects flop. This got us thinking. Sure the idea could be the thing, but we’ve all seen apps ideas that should have been a run away viral success but just didn’t catch on.  This article focuses on the 3 most important elements to ensuring your app is a huge hit.

https://www.kumulos.com/2015/10/20/3-pillars-of-app-success/

[kumulosbob]

5 Essential Steps for App Store Acceptence

You spend weeks or months working on your mobile app and you turn it over to Apple App Store to review. Feels like you are in the lap of the gods, no way of knowing how quick they will come back or whether your submission will be rejected and the full process starts again.  Want to find out how to get this right first time. Read these 5 essential steps.

https://www.kumulos.com/2015/11/12/push-notifications-5-best-ways-to-maximize-engagement/