Design 13 Sep, 2024.
The app marketplace is brimming with innovative ideas and fierce competition. You may have the next groundbreaking concept brewing in your mind, but will that idea work for you or not? There’s one way to find out.
There are approximately 8.93 million apps available globally across various platforms. Standing out in such diverse competition for even the most innovative app ideas will take a lot of effort.
A successful app is a result of a deep understanding of your target audience, a keen eye for market trends, and an accurate assessment of the technical feasibility of your concept. If any of these elements are overlooked, the outcome may be unfavorable.
Our CEO, Mr. Salman Lakhani, has, time and again, stressed on an important factor behind the success of Cubix’s 1,300+ victorious app projects;
“The foundation of any successful app is its ability to solve a real problem or pain point for users.”
Considering all this, your first step for app development should be to have a product idea that resonates with your target audience.
In this write-up, we will guide you through the leading factors that will determine whether your app idea has the potential for prolonged success.
Identify a Genuine Problem to Solve
What drives an app idea’s success is its ability to overcome real problems or pain points for users. Before devoting time and resources to building an app, you need to ensure there is a genuine need that your idea can address.
According to Zipia, the success ratio for apps is around 0.5%. This means that if 1 million apps had been developed to date, only 5000 of them would have achieved the expected results. That huge failure ratio is due to the fact that these apps were not competent enough to solve the users’ problems.
Start with deep research concerning your intended users. Who are the actual users? What challenges do they have that the app will solve? In this regard, surveys and competitor analyses can determine the issues that must be resolved.
PeeSpots is a relevant example of how Cubix solved an everyday problem through an innovative app solution. The app aimed to find clean and accessible public restrooms, especially in a busy city like New York.
We conducted a complete user research and market analysis to make restroom discovery easy and stress-free for users. With features like location-based searches, user ratings, and filters for specific preferences, it shows how a simple idea, backed by technology, can solve practical problems and improve daily life issues.
Do the Competitor Analysis
Even though you have found a real issue for which you promised a real solution, it is not enough. It’s likely that existing apps and solutions in the market address those needs. What you are supposed to do is look at their features, user reviews, and pricing models. Find out what they are good at.
When evaluating your competition, consider:
- How many similar apps already exist in the market?
- What features and functionalities do these competitor apps offer?
- What are the key strengths and weaknesses of the existing solutions?
- How can my app offer a more meaningful or unique experience for users?
These questions can aid you in determining key points that help you offer a better or more effective feature set. This is particularly helpful if the market is highly saturated with app solutions similar to your desired app.
Validate Your App Concept
Don’t rely solely on your assumptions about app ideas. Go one step further. Look for opportunities to innovate and provide a distinctly better value proposition.
Reach out to potential customers, present your app idea, and gather insights. You can build an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to gauge their interest and willingness to use your app. Welcome their responses, pain points, and feedback wholeheartedly.
When validating your app idea, consider the following:
- Do potential users express a clear need and interest in your app concept?
- What features or aspects of your app do they find most appealing or valuable?
- What concerns do they raise about using your app?
- Are they willing to pay for your app or a related subscription/in-app purchase model?
Collecting such direct user feedback will further refine your app idea, identify potential roadblocks, and make more informed decisions.
Create Proto Personas
A proto persona is paramount to validating an app idea’s success. These simplified user profiles represent the app’s ideal users. Their creation process starts with comprehensive user research.
You can picture your potential users through demographics, user goals and motivations, and identifying common challenges. Such information will allow you to develop proto-personas that accurately reflect your target audience.
If the app concept closely matches the needs and preferences outlined in the proto personas, it suggests a substantial likelihood of success. Conversely, if significant gaps exist between the app’s offerings and the proto personas’ requirements, it may indicate the need for a redesign or a pivot in the app’s focus.
Conduct an Effective Design Sprint
A Design Sprint is a structured, collaborative process that allows developers to build and test different ideas iteratively and rapidly. An ideal design sprint will equip you with insights concerning potential roadblocks and refine your idea before committing to full-scale development.
This process will authenticate the viability of your concept and ensure that you develop an app that your intended audience finds useful and valuable.
During design sprints, follow these steps:
1. Understand the Problem
Review your proto personas and the problem your app aims to solve. See if there are similar apps, what solutions they offer, and whether you can offer something unique and valuable.
2. Ideate Solutions
Brainstorm and generate numerous ideas for features and functionalities that can address the problem. Verify if those solutions are actionable and pragmatic.
3. Decide on a Solution
Evaluate different ideas and select the most promising and achievable one to focus on. A questionnaire or a survey from the target audience could help filter the potential solutions.
4. MVP
Create a realistic, functional MVP of your app concept, including key features and user interactions. Make sure it solves the problem it was meant to solve.
5. Test with Users
Invite potential users to interact with your MVP and provide feedback. Then, improve and scale your MVP accordingly.
Evaluate the Market Opportunity
To check the long-term impact of your app idea, it is crucial to evaluate the size and scope of the market you’re targeting. This process focuses on analyzing factors like the total number of users, their purchasing power, and market growth rate.
For instance, Statista revealed that the overall mobile app market’s value two years ago was around $437.80 billion. It accelerated at a rate of 7.84% to hit a target of $781.70 billion by 2029, making it worth investing in for individuals and organizations.
We recommend exploring trending cases, demographics, and market forecasts to capture opportunities. If the market size feels too small or the growth potential is limited, you might not be targeting and building your app for the right market.
Did You Nail It? Not Yet? We Can Help
We hope these tips will prove insightful and helpful in your app idea assessment. Each aspect, such as market analysis, user perception, and market opportunities, serves as a basis for deciding whether or not to move forward with your app concept.
After carefully implementing all these tips, the odds of creating an app that resonates with your target audience will increase. But if you are not fond of going through the nitty-gritty of the pre-development phase, we can do that hard part for you.
At Cubix, we’re passionate about turning bold ideas into groundbreaking apps. Our team of 350+ expert developers and problem solvers excel in transforming concepts into validated successes through strategic research, MVPs, and real-world feedback.
Why navigate your app development project alone when you have a world-class, dedicated partner to help you throughout your journey? Contact our experts at Cubix and let us help you create an app that doesn’t just meet the mark but sets new standards.
Daniyal Ali
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