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[mevvyappdiscovery]

I am a law enforcement officer with the New Jersey SPCA Humane Police. We fight animal cruelty. We were kicking around the idea of having an app, (we have a website and Face Book page so why not an app??) but none of us have a clue what it should do, where to begin, how much it cost, and if we can make any money with it. Any guidance or words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated. Steve

Hi Steve! Thanks for reaching out! Your question is a valid one; lots of people have great app ideas and do not know where to start. It would be difficult to give you a complete and detailed roadmap, but I'll try to point out a few resources for you to evaluate the option of having an app for your division.

1. You have to determine WHAT purpose your app is going to have. You have to be very clear about what it tasks it has to handle for you -- be it connecting your officers, engaging a community, raising money, sharing information (about your events, etc) or any other task.

2. Next, convert your concept into a concrete model: I wrote an article last year titled "12-Step Guide To Building Your First Mobile App". Essentially, you have to go through steps 1-4 to get a clear picture of what your app should do and look like. Read the rest of the article so you know what's coming!

3. Now that you have your sketch ready, it's time to find someone to help you build it. There are two ways to go about this -- you can outsource it, or you can bring (at least one) developer onboard your team. Of course, one person won't possibly be able to do all the job; it all depends on how many platforms you target, and how many features you want to implement. Here's an example: an app available on iOS and Android (built on native guidelines) with an average amount of features will require at least one iOS developer, one Android developer and a designer. That's the bare minimum, you are better off with 5 guys on the team. It takes them ~12 weeks to do the job. Given the rates in the US, you will end up spending probably around ~USD 100,000 on the app - and that is for the development, not counting any ongoing maintenance, which you won't get around of. Technology is dynamic, and you'll constantly need to update your code. Don't take my word for it, try this app development cost calculator. 

- Don't try to save and go to India, you won't get the same result. You'll deal with time zone difference, language barriers and cheap (sorry!) work for cheap money.- Don't build it on HTML5, it breaks easily and doesn't function as well. Native is the way to go.- If your app is very basic, try an app builder (like AppsBuilder, Como and others). Those are good if you want to keep things simple. If you wish to add custom functionality, the road above is the only one to success.

I hope I was able to help and give some sort of outlook on the work ahead. Building an app sounds a lot simpler than it is; if you want to pursue, I wish you the best of luck :)

[mevvyappdiscovery]

YourTradeBase is best described as a complete management hub for your small business. It includes all vital elements one needs to run the show - the option to create estimates/quotes, add contacts, manage jobs/projects, coordinate calendars, add tasks and create invoices.  The suite is easy to navigate, and all steps are very clear - in short - perfect for anyone who wants to focus on his business and keep the paperwork as simple as possible.

What I liked about YourTradeBase the most is the logical layout and order of things. The work flow makes perfect sense, and allows you to easily add all your projects to your dashboard. The dashboard itself provides a solid overview of everything that's going on around you, and the mobile site ensures that you still have the complete picture of your business even on the go.

YourTradeBase is the perfect solution for small business owners. Don't wait! Sign up today for YourTradeBase and take advantage of the 30-day free trial. 

[mevvyappdiscovery]

Freshmail is your new favorite email marketing companion. 

Freshmail allows you to create beautiful email campaigns. It's so simple: sign up for an account, get registered, and create your first campaign. The walk-through takes you from step to step, making sure you don't miss out on any essential details. Import email lists, choose from a wide variety of email layout templates and test your email campaigns before you send them out. One of the features we love the most is the A/B testing option: you can create two versions of your email campaign, and determine which approach gets better results. How? Because Freshmail includes a full report and analytics tool as well. Track your campaigns and see how your readers like your mail. 

We liked Freshmail because of the simplicity of its service. You can create a beautiful email campaign without having any design or coding skills. The editor helps you put it all together --- and the templates already make up for half the work :) They are some of the best we've seen around!! 

Go on - get a free account with up to 500 subscribers and up to 2000 emails a month. Or choose a custom plan, starting at as low as $17/month, as you need it! 

Freshmail is definitely a top app to have for any marketing strategist - two thumbs up!

[mevvyappdiscovery]

#Drinkle - Your All-Round Business Management Web Application The guys from Drinkle submitted an app review request to Mevvy and we gladly gave a look to their online tool. At the first look, Drinkle offers a nice overview that allows you to easily navigate through all their features:

- Activities, which is a newsfeed of events

- Projects, which holds all projects you are working on

- Leads, which helps your sales team manage potential client enquiries

- Stocks, which you can use as your inventory log

- Notes, for any notes you need to take

- Sheets, to create spreadsheets

- Contacts, to manage your contact database

Because Drinkle is so simplistic, it makes it a pleasure to update information and use this suite as a central management point for all major tasks in your business.  The option of adding additional users makes it a true teamwork heaven, where you and your team can work alongside and follow each other’s progress, provide feedback and assign tasks.

We gave Drinkle a good test drive and we think it’s a great tool for any business that needs a central management point, without needing to learn complicated software and manual updates. It’s the perfect inbetween solution!

[mevvyappdiscovery]

Metrilo helps you understand your eCommerce customers by analyzing your data and providing you with valuable insights. Awesome support. One-click integration. First month is on us!

[mevvyappdiscovery]

Tackk is a publishing platform that empowers users to publish one off pages instead of building entire websites. The target focus is for the teenage demographic, who have plenty of social sharing tools at their disposal but no go-to publishing utility for their needs (in the classroom and beyond).

[mevvyappdiscovery]

Twoodo is a team collaboration tool that lets you create workflows from conversations. We’ve built the fastest and easiest combination of team communication and task management. No, this is not just “another project management tool”. Our secret ingredient? #hashtags and @mentions as ways to create workflows from discussions.. Why? Because we’re from a generation that hates filling out forms, going through menus and creating lists of tasks like robots. Signing up is the best way to experience Twoodo. But here’s a basic explanation. Twoodo offers team messaging, private messages, powerful tagging, a task manager, a smart calendar, a file manager, actionable discussions, email integration, robust search and a unique user experience. It’s also extremely easy to adopt and use so your whole team can easily jump in.

#Collaboration

#Twoodo

#Web

[mevvyappdiscovery]

Sourceguru is an online marketplace to buy and sell professional services. It allows customers to outsource jobs to a global pool of talent so that they can focus precious resources on more critical developments.

[mevvyappdiscovery]

Mailmalade is a web-app for anyone who just wants to spend a few minutes in building inbox-friendly HTML emails, using their own design files and without the need for coding knowledge. "HTML emails" is the technical name for the eNewsletters, the emails commonly used to announce events, advertise products or maintain customer engagement. These emails are called "HTML" due to the HTML attributes they have, such as the HTML links on the email that can be clicked by the recipient. The Mailmalade app is based on an easy 3-step process. Start with uploading your own design as an image. Multiple image formats are accepted and more formats will be incorporated shortly. Then, crop and define the uploaded design, adding the HTML attributes you want. Finally, choose from either exporting the email directly to an email marketing service provider such as Campaign Monitor or MailChimp by syncing your accounts with Mailmalade, or simply downloading your newly created email in *.zip format ready for a later use. With Mailmalade, tedious programming, long hours, visualisation errors, incompatibilities, misaligned images, severe testing… are finally gone. Mailmalade is integrated by a team of young multi-disciplinary people, with passion for new technologies and enthusiasm for improving our lives. The team is dually based in London and Barcelona, two of the top smartest cities in Europe, both with an incredibly buzzing start-up atmosphere.

[mevvyappdiscovery]

LinkTexting is an SMS form generator.  It helps our users get more downloads from their desktop landing page of their mobile app.  Once a user generates html, they simply copy and paste the code on to their landing page. This will allow their users to download the app directly from the desktop site.  Their users don’t have to look around in the app store. The users simply click on the app store link and download the app.

[mevvyappdiscovery]

With Nouncy you can let people speak for you on social media and build a network of online brand ambassadors. Nouncy lets you ask people in and around your organization to schedule tweets and Facebook posts for you. In your Nouncy campaign you set the link and hashtags your ambassadors will use in their posts, but they write the rest of the message themselves. You decide when to publish the messages on their Twitter and Facebook timelines. Every company has people in and around them that are willing to help to get the word out. A lot of these people have well developed social networks online. Nouncy lets you harness the immense power of the combined social networks of these people.

[mevvyappdiscovery]

Blossom is a super lightweight project management tool for software developers. Managing software projects is really complicated so we’ve built Blossom in a way takes the noise out of managing software development. Blossom does all it can to get out of your way. You can even stay in your code base and update your project status from there. We’re integrating tightly with Slack, Flowdock, Hipchat and Github and we’re working on adding more services over time. Let us know if there are certain integrations you are looking forward to.

[mevvyappdiscovery]

Have you ever wanted to send an email to a potential customer, business partner, employee or investor but couldn’t find their email address? We created SellHack to solve this problem. Download our browser extension and create a free account to start finding valid emails. Click the SellHack icon next to the address bar in your browser whenever you need someone’s business email. Give us a name and a company and we’ll search millions of records while talking to the recipient’s mail server to validate an email address within seconds. Stop wasting time guessing or searching hundreds of pages for an email address that probably isn’t listed anyways. It’s free to start and we have plans tailored to your needs. Happy hacking!

#Email

#SellHack

#Web

[mevvyappdiscovery]

Nsphire - "Match and chat for your next job"   

Nsphire is a mobile app for Android and iOS that takes a different approach on jobhunting. Employers can post a job ad in the app for free, and job seekers can upload their Linkedin profiles to import their personal details. Then, the app gets to work: not only you can look for matches (each way), but the app suggests jobs/candidates to you. 

Once you've found a mutual match, the chat feature becomes active (doesn't that remind you of Tinder?) and you can talk in a simplified environment about the job details.

We downloaded the app to test it out -- and we've really liked the experience of the sign up so far. It's a very simple app with a distinct mission - cut through the chase, and help find the right jobs/candidates.

Great app :)

[mevvyappdiscovery]

It is 2014, and I can’t believe when I try to contact a company and they comeback with something like: [email protected]. This is usually indicator of the following:

Maybe the company is really young, so young the haven’t even bought a domain name…and I really worry about the services a company like this can provide.

Or, the company is from the 1950s and they do not have a domain name…and again I really worry about their services.

Every company should have business email addresses, but with this usually comes different problems:

Are they going to be: lastname.firstname@, firstname@, etc

How is going to handle the generic ones: sales@, info@, contact@

This last part is going to be a heavy load for just one person, and services like FrontApp get the clutter out of this tasks.

The process is simple: get whatever email addresses you need for you company and re direct them to FrontApp. This helps you in a lot of ways:

More than one person can answer to those, and everyone stays in the loop.

You can assign specific conversations to specific people, so there is no more that I didn’t see the message excuse.

You can comment on conversations and give your opinion about what the answer should be.

Assign tags to the conversations to know what they are about.

And as a marketeer, the most important one for me…ANALYTICS, at the end you can see how many information requests you got, how many sales emails, etc. and the average time you needed to respond. This will help you optimize your client communication flow.

Not for everyone, but for a medium-large startup this is a must have! Give it a try!

[mevvyappdiscovery]

Whether you think, play, or do - Spontivity instantly connects you with others in your area. With Spontivity, you can post, browse, and join all your favorite activities in a matter of seconds.  Always have someone. Anytime. Anywhere.  It’s go time.

[mevvyappdiscovery]

Whese is a mobile app where people let friend and family know about their day-to-day moments by simply answering the question “What are you up to?” with a photo or a video of that moment.