Aug 19th 2022

5 Common Mistakes When Building Apps

Apps can be a great way to increase efficiency and revenue for businesses. At TechPeer, we specialize in helping businesses get to revenue quicker. We do that by using lean startup principles to build useful apps that help you serve your customers.

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Achieving revenue can be a lot simpler than most businesses realize. Over the years, we’ve noticed that there are a few common mistakes that many businesses commit. Here’s a list of some of the mistakes you should avoid as you and your team start to go down the road to app development.

1 | Trying to think like a software developer instead of thinking like a business owner.

Your job as a business owner is to build a sustainable business. This business should be focused on providing a SOLUTION. An application is only a pathway to deliver that solution. Far too often, we see clients agonizing over features without thinking about the value they’ll actually provide to the end user. Your focus should always be on providing a solution to your customer, and determining which features get you there. When keeping the solution in mind, as opposed to the specific feature, you’ll be more likely to create an application that highlights the usefulness of your product or service. You will provide more to your customers if you approach your app development from the perspective of a business owner.

2 | Defining the solution too broadly.

Answering the question, “What does your app do?,” is not as easy as it appears. A clear statement about the problem your app solves will help you better identify your target market and find the right customers.

In the beginning, especially if budget is one of your more important factors, focus on ONE specific problem that is valuable to solve for your users, then focus on providing that core functionality first. You can always build more to make your application more robust later. Trying to solve too many problems at once may spread your resources thin, and may confuse your customers if they aren’t clear on how your application can help them accomplish a need. If you want to generate revenue quickly, your application must clearly tell your users how it can make their lives easier.

3 | Not developing a solid plan for revenue

If you’re anything like most business owners, making revenue is one of the driving forces for you to execute your business. Customers paying for your solution is a clear indicator that it’s valuable and that you have the potential to grow a business around that solution.

There are so many times we see entrepreneurs who want to build huge projects and they have no idea how they’re going to attract users and generate revenue other than “ad revenue.” NEWS FLASH – most of us have limited resources to try and get this right. Which means we may not have the 3-5 year runway needed to build an audience large enough to make substantial income from advertisements.

Early on, start thinking about how you can generate revenue with your app. It doesn’t need to be a lot, but the quicker you get someone to go in their wallet and pay you, the quicker you have validated your app idea. Apps can become large endeavors that require maintenance and time. Make sure you are getting some feedback from the market that your app idea is a worthy investment.

4 | Not clearly defining metrics of success

If you don’t clearly define success, it’s going to be almost impossible to determine when you need to pivot your idea and when you need to keep going. Most entrepreneurs only define success as building the application within certain budgets or time constraints. However, what’s most important as a business owner is making sure that you are defining metrics based on user activity, revenue generation, and other commonly used User Analytics. The quickest way to fail while trying to create a business centered on an application is only defining success on the metrics of the engineering team.

5 | Building too many features at once

Building more features than absolutely necessary is a money pit. Every feature of your app should be useful and increase its appeal or user experience. Adding features can even be considered a smaller experiment. Check your competitors to see if this is a feature that is used widely. Get feedback from your current users to see if this is something that would be useful. Your ultimate goal should be to give the customer all the things that they need to solve their problem.

Finally

Like any big project, developing an application can be frustrating at times. Along the way, developers are bound to make certain mistakes that can impede the app’s success. But if you understand some of the common mistakes, you can avoid them altogether and save yourself both time and money getting to market and validating your idea faster. If you need an app developed, allow TechPeer to help you streamline the development process.

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