Mobile is revolutionizing

the way business is done.

The app development industry is growing

rapidly with total mobile app revenue increasing

from $45.37 billion in 2015 to $76.53 billion

in 2017. (Gartner)

Businesses are no longer debating wheter

or not to build a mobile app. They already

recognize the benefits that businesses stand

to gain by adopting mobile in a holistic, well

crafted approach. They have witnessed the

appeal of mobility in helping break away

from historical processes.

68% of companies have integrated mobile

marketing into their overall marketing

strategy. (Salesforce)

Boardrooms across the globe are

investing an astounding amount of time in

strategizing the best way to get started and

to maximize ROI from a mobile first

approach.

Business mobility is going mainstream.

Mobile devices & apps are drastically

upping the game for enterprises especially.

We are starting to see increased productivity,

reduced costs and profit margins that

enterprises are getting used to pretty fast.

But, a mobile strategy is more than just

purchasing devices and building apps.

Developing a mobile strategy for your

employee or customer will require

that you are able to align the physical, digital,

and emotional interactions that a user has with

your brand. It will require you to look beyond

mere mobile and see how a confluence of

mobile, social, cloud, Internet of Things (IOT),

and analytics will simplify processes, improve

efficiency and delight users.

Apps account for 89% of mobile media time, with the

other 11% spent on websites. (Smart Insights)

Today’s consumer is spoilt for choice. They

have learned to abhor confusing websites,

expect on-demand services at the click of a

button, and are incredibly intrigued by products

that seamlessly integrate technology into their

daily lives. There is an ongoing effort by app

developers to create intuitive experiences that

users will love immediately. It is no longer

sufficient to simply provide a “user friendly”

experience. Apps that can have any chance

at success are the ones that users can find

reasons to absolutely love and keep coming

back to often.

The number of smartphone users globally will reach

4.61 billion by the end of the year 2016 and it is predict-

ed to grow 4.77 billion users in 2017. (Statista)

These figures indicate tremendous

potential that mobile holds for businesses.

You will definitely want to leverage it for your

organization.

That’s why, we’ve put together this ebook

containing all the tools you will require in your

arsenal in order to build a winning mobile

strategy.

ContentsChapter 1: Top mobile trends

Chapter 2: How to design your mobile strategy

for long-term success

Chapter 3: How to put a rockstar

development team together

Chapter 4: Critical mistakes to avoid when

building an app

Chapter 5: Let’s get you started!

The all pervading nature of the digital in our

lives is so obvious, it needs no statistic to

support the argument. Even more obvious

is the ever changing nature of this industry.

In an interview at the Gartner Conference

on mobile application development, Gene

Phifer said,

In 2016 the emphasis was on Enterprise

applications, IoT, smart machines, VR and

wearables among others. Some of these

trends will continue in 2017 and there will be

a shift in focus for some others.

Here are 8 mobile application development

trends to look out for in the upcoming year

“Get comfortable with change. As

digital business develops, technologies,

priorities and business needs will shift

quickly. Get used to running a heteroge-

neous environment and connecting and

integrating with assets beyond your con-

trol. Embrace diversity and complexity as

facts of digital business architectures.”.

Chapter 1

A closer look at hot mobile trends that you should

really get to know.

1. Focus on security

Gartner predicts that by 2017, 75% of

mobile security breaches will be because of

app misconfiguration. While technology is

moving at breakneck speed, there is always

the ground reality that the average user is

not that clever. According to a survey

conducted by TransUnion’s Cyber Security,

more than 75 million smartphone users

admit that while they are afraid of cyber

attacks, they have not set a password for

their smartphones. Such a simple and basic

security check is ignored. Instead of

continuing to be surprised by results like

this, app developers will see a lot of

benefit from looking for ways to meet the

increased need for security through their

apps. Companies will need to carefully

identify security risks and define a

comprehensive approach to managing

and avoiding breaches.

2. Artificial intelligence

By 2020, 85% of customer interactions will

be managed without a human. (Gartner)

80% of executives believe artificial

intelligence improves worker performance

and creates jobs. (Narrative Science)

We have officially entered the age of AI. We

are already seeing it being used to automate

tasks and predict outcomes.

1

Experts universally agree that AI has

tremendous potential to simplify lives and

radically increase business productivity.

Despite the justified popularity of smart-

phones, they aren’t always helpful at getting

information based on what you’re already

doing. What AI can do is take an already

“smart” smartphone and make it even more

intuitive than ever.

3. Smart homes and smart cities

Several smart city projects are well under-

way around the world. On September 26th,

USPS unveiled 5 smart city projects in the

US. Some of the smart city projects include

ideas like detecting cracks in the road before

they become potholes. Now, some of these

projects are being worked upon in collabora-

tion with Carnegie Mellon, but this points to

a larger trend that is afoot. Smart homes and

smart cities are the way of the future. Apple,

by launching its smart home app in its latest

IOS update is attempting to integrate all the

smart objects in your home through one app.

update is attempting to integrate all the

smart objects in your home through one app.

You could ask Siri to shut down all the lights

in the living room or check on the safety of

your home from half-way around the world

with these developments. App developers

are just starting to discover what is possible

with this kind of technology and the road is

wide open for innovation and new ideas.

4. Enterprise apps

Research in 2016 pointed to a phenomenal

increase in Enterprise spending on mobile

apps. But a Gartner report from earlier this

year suggests that the actual spending for

such initiatives, in fact, has remained

low – a statistic that is confirmed by many

other studies in the area. There is a gap

between the demand and supply.

“We’re seeing demand for mobile apps

outstrip available development capacity,

making quick creation of apps even more

challenging. Mobile strategists must use

tools and techniques that match the

increase in mobile app needs within their

organizations.“ (Adrian Leow, Gartner)

A good example of enterprise apps is a CRM

mobile app that can pull up the relevant

customer information quickly and at the

same time keeps senior management

updated about the stage at which the sales

process is. While the need for such apps is

high, companies are lagging in their

investment in this area, a trend that is likely

to change this year.

2

5. IoT and mobile apps

The potential of IoT and mobile apps is

tremendous and is here to stay. We have

just begun to scratch the surface of what

is possible. The applications extend from

smart healthcare to the energy sector,

transportation systems, security, the list

is endless. Integration of IoT with apps is

taking what is possible to the next level.

IoT is exploding and it is made of billions of

devices. It is predicted that we will go from 2

billion objects to a projected 200 billion by

2020.

6. Cross platform app development

This is a no brainer. With the proliferation of

devices, the average user wants to be able to

use an application irrespective of the device

she/he started using it on. The typical user

uses two devices at a time and it will become

a basic requirement very soon that users can

move between mobile, desktop, tablet and

wearables without any barrier. Performance,

features, capabilities from any app are going

to be device agnostic.

You could start searching for a route on your

mobile and have the GPS in your car show

you the directions without any effort and the

app developers of 2017 will only continue to

push the boundaries in this area.

7. Marriage of bots and apps

In 2016, bots were the rage. Some

people even seem to think that bots might

completely replace apps. But bots and

apps intrinsically serve different purposes

and could in fact complement each other.

The app is created for primarily a visual

experience while bots are more conversa-

tional. Say for example you want to book a

vacation, a bot could easily look at your past

history, check when you typically go for your

vacations and then through a typical app,

complete that reservation for you.

8. Emphasis on UX is going strong

The importance of UI and UX design is not

going to lose any importance for the

foreseeable future. With decreasing

attention spans and tougher competition,

UI/UX can make all the difference between

winning and losing. High focus on

efficiency with applications that fit into the

apple watch as easily and seamlessly as they

would on the desktop only makes the

challenge harder.

3

Is mobile a core element of your overall experience strategy?

Today, mobile technology is the heart of

every business strategy - fueling innovation,

driving profits and new efficiency gains, and

increasing customer satisfaction. A compre-

hensive

strategy offers numerous advantages

such as:

Focusing on user-centricity to improve

adoption rates.

Leveraging your existing enterprise

technology like CRM, ERP, etc., and

integrating the existing IT infrastructure

to derive maximum results.

Creating sustainable and lucid policies

for better mobile governance.

Boosting brand perception by making the

organization more responsive and agile to

customer requirements.

Enabling enterprise-wide adoption—

connecting people, processes, and products.

Speeding up responsiveness to process

and employee needs, thereby maximizing

productivity.

Widening the scope and coverage of mobility

solutions, by maximizing results and returns

from investments.

But, where do you begin?

Here are 15 simple steps to a winning mobile

strategy:

Clearly Define Your Business/Mobile Strategy Goals Within Your Organization

If you set up goals for your organizations, it

is easier for everyone in the organization to

work towards a common objective. Clearly

state the purpose of enabling mobility in your

enterprise.

What are your high-priority business

objectives?

What type of apps will help you achieve those

objectives?

Is your primary aim to boost customer

loyalty or to provide buyers with a research

tool which will help them in the purchasing

process?

Are you adding a channel to obtain more

sales?

Chapter 2

Kickstart your Mobile Strategy

4

What will the size of your audience be--

do you want to attract sophisticated

smartphone power users, or are you going

to offer a one-size-fits-all solution to reach a

broader audience?

There’s no ultimate solution or a right

answer. Instead of molding your objectives

to what’s available and in-trend today, you

need to build your mobile strategy around

what is right for your business in the long

term. Identify the departments that will help

you achieve your targeted goals and

determine how mobile strategy will help you

win at your mission. Assign hierarchical

processes to recognize the key mobility

initiative which will drive the app’s design

and development process.

Implement User Workflow Analysis

It is a given that any mobility solution will

replace an existing workflow process.

Therefore, it is crucial to comprehensively

analyze the existing process before it is

mobilized. Along with improving the existing

process, it will also help you measure the

impact of mobilizing a particular process

and justify the expenses.

Design a Mobile Layout

After setting up business objectives that you

wish to achieve through mobility, the next

step is to find the desired mobile apps and

devices that will help you achieve those

objectives. For each mobile solution,

you need to build a case summary that lists

key benefits, target users, functions, target

beneficiaries, etc. Prioritizing these mobile

solutions based on your set business

objectives will grow and mature into a

mobility roadmap.

Devise a Technology Roadmap

Designing and developing a technology

blueprint has several aspects. It includes

deciding an OS, mobile platform, device

selection, device procurement strategy—

company sponsored or BYOD— mobile

app development strategy, core mobility

architecture. It is also important to

incorporate security policy, app and

device management strategy, and wireless

connectivity requirements, etc.

Select the Right Mobile Environment

Once you’ve defined your objectives, you

need to have an understanding of where

and how your target audience is interacting

with the mobile channel. There are two main

mobile environment options to choose from:

websites and applications. Both have their

own benefits, so you will need to align

support according to your audience’s

preferences and the goals of your strategy.

5

So what does this mean? Should you

develop a mobile app or a mobile website?

Traffic to retail mobile apps have increased

over few years and so have the retails for

mobile web use. Both options are likely to

prove valuable to your long-term mobile

strategy. Bearing this in mind, you may want

to invest in both settings to ensure proper

coverage.

Determine Best Research Approaches

Most organizations often struggle with the

technology decision. Will investing in a

robust infrastructure cost too much up front?

Will an outsourced and low-cost solution be

able to support long-term growth? Always

determine the best approach to support your

current needs along with future growth.

Prioritize Devices: Drive Platform Support by Studying Usage Patterns

Once you’ve narrowed down on the

environment(s) you want to develop, you

need to focus on which devices you wish

to support. To begin with, determine which

platform(s) your target audience mostly

uses. Now, reconcile that with the behaviors

of the larger customer vista to determine

which device will bring the greatest

outcomes.

An iOS app has become the ‘must have’

entry point for mobile applications. Now that

you’ve chosen your platform, the immediate

step is to determine how you want to engage

your customers. Start with basic research

and carefully conclude where and how your

target audience is engaging. Figure this out

and you can ensure higher adoption rates.

Don’t worry if your budget doesn’t allow

you to build out a series of device-specific

applications. Choose one or two of the

best-fit devices to support. This will enable

other users to gain access to your mobile

storefront via a mobile-optimized Website.

Strategize your Mobility Budget

One of the most common mistakes many

organizations make is the mistake of

merging a mobile budget with IT, which

often results in confusion. It also pushes

mobile investments down the priority list. It

is ideal to create a separate budget for your

mobility efforts. How much are you planning

to invest today, in the next 6 months, and in

the next few years? Break up the budget for

processes, departments, etc., which will help

you build an accurate ROI model.

2016 has witnessed a growing popularity of

hybrid mobile applications, even as iOS and

Android continue to vie for their place in the

app market.

6

Design an Implementation Blueprint

The mobile implementation roadmap lets

you assess the current state of mobility in

the organization. Along with this, you can

also compare it against business objectives,

and set up the time frame and work process

to realize it. An implementation roadmap

requires the entry and exit criteria of each

mobile project to be well defined along with

the identification of dependencies and risks.

This can help you monitor and manage each

project effectively to achieve the overall

strategic objectives in time.

Test Deployment

Select a particular process or mobile

opportunity to test your mobility plan.

Implement it and observe the results

produced. Analyze and document the

deployment to have a better understanding

about success and failure points. Refine and

tweak your mobile strategy based on the test

deployment experiences. Now, expand it to

an organization-wide rollout.

Security Measures

Security is extremely crucial for compliance

and adoption of an app. Regrettably, it is

often overlooked. It is important to have

complete transparency and control of the

devices, apps, and users in your

organizations.

To fortify your security mechanism, it is crucial

to choose the right platform and implement

it to enable management of your apps and

devices. Furthermore, you will have to secure

your cloud deployment and back-end

integration. Implement best practices in

mobile usage and governance to protect data

from hacks, malware attacks and

unauthorized access.

Focus on Design and Gamification

In the current digital era, design and

gamification hold a crucial place in success

of any product. Most of the design and

gamification workshops are intended to

collect insights from various stakeholders,

defining buyer persona, and then developing

a highly customized design and gamification

strategy. While this strategy is meant to

encourage your users to engage with your

product and brand, it also provides you with

right solutions and services to implement

your mobility strategy and attain positive

results from your investments.

Avoid Long Product Development Cycles

Adopt lean methodology or iteration

models while creating a development plan for

enterprise softwares for mobile. Design and

develop a prototype of an app concept, get

it out to end users as soon as possible, take

feedback, and iterate.

7

This will not only speed up the development

process but also create new windows to

make adjustments which in the long run will

save time, money, and resources.

Build a Mobile Center of Excellence (MCOE)

Mobility serves as one of the most important

requirements of various stakeholders in the

system. For this purpose, you need to create

a Center of Excellence(COE) with people

from diverse domains and expertise to

centrally unify the requirements. The COE

will institutionalize best practices for mobility,

bring in consistency to the integration pro-

cess, and define policies and procedures for

use and access of mobile solutions.

This further helps in looking for opportunities

for additional adoption of mobile initiatives,

etc.

Most of the enterprises opt for a siloed

approach to their mobile adoption initiatives.

This method confines all the processes,

procedures, and policies for mobile initiatives

to a team or a function.

For enterprises who want to build ‘mobile

first’ organizations, it would be prudent to

opt for a Mobile Center of Excellence,

as it will help them gain sustainable

competitive advantage and maximize ROI.

An MCoE would help in driving innovation

across your organization.

It enables collaboration between disparate

business units and facilitates scalable and

strategic enterprise-wide mobile programs.

It can be ideal to assist you in defining

standards, policies, and protocols that will

help you implement best practices for your

mobile app strategy.

Monitor, Evaluate, and Review.

As important as it is to deploy your mobile

app strategy effectively, it’s equally

important to constantly monitor and assess

your strategy based on the feedback. This

feedback can be collected from various

sources. Make sure you correct or eradicate

any strategy or method that deviates from

your goal.

Maintain a calendar for review process of

each element of your mobile environment.

Rate the most important thing in your

strategy and adjust build-outs accordingly.

Additionally, iterate your strategy

depending upon how your customers are

engaging. Keep re-evaluating, and revisit

your roadmap every quarter.

This is a generation that has grown up with

smartphones and has a tremendous affinity

towards them.

8

So, as this age group comes of age and

becomes a force in buying power (they have

reached $200 billion already in annual

buying power!), enterprises need to rethink

how they are going to lay out their mobile

app strategy.

The key to success in enterprise mobility

is to adopt mobile apps and devices with

in a well-constructed strategy, along with

properly defined integrated processes,

products, and people to reap the benefits.

Make sure you steer clear of goals that do

not derive optimum value. Lastly, design

and develop objectives by creating a

scalable, collaborative, and secure mobile

environment. In your journey to mobilize

your enterprise, the keywords to remember

are: user-centricity, strategy, and security.

Organizations are grappling to decide

what tools and skills are required to build

successful mobile apps. Those in charge of

mobile app development projects have to

know exactly what roles and job functions

are required at every stage of the mobile app

life-cycle. This also means it is critical to

ensure proper recruitment and procurement

strategies are in place.

As mobile development is still fairly new in

some organizations, teams are created

quite randomly. And sometimes, it even

works temporarily. But for any long term

success, organizations have to carefully plan

their recruitment strategy. A well-performing

team is organized, smart and efficient.

Gartner’s report on “How to Build a

Successful Mobile App Development

Team” offers important insights.

Taking the Full Life-Cycle Approach

The same report goes on to state that all key

elements flow from the life-cycle approach. It

goes on to mention that establishing a Mobile

Center of Excellence(MCOE) is the key to

successful development. Also according

to the report, “a leader who runs the MCOE

should typically be a mobile visionary, a

business architect, or a line of business (LOB)

manager”’

Chapter 3

Putting the development team together

“Organizations are typically lacking in basic

app development life cycle skills such as user

experience (UX) design, quality assurance,

mobile-specific back-end data integration

and mobile-oriented security needs. To

reduce app development time, while main-

taining app quality, a systematic full life cycle

approach is needed to cover the mobile app

life cycle stages of discovery, design,

development and testing, deployment, and

gathering and analyzing feedback.”

9

The next step for the leader is of course to

conduct a discovery process along with a

team of IT representatives, LOBs and domain

experts . This helps collect ideas for apps,

prioritize them, and build an implementation

strategy.

After this, app and user interface design

commences. Gartner recommends

combining the testing phase with an iterative

design-and-development approach. The

team that does all the above typically

includes:

Content Strategist

Visual Designer

Interaction designer

User researcher

Experience Lead

Front-end developer

After your team is all set up, develop

your application using agile development

practices. This practice allows you to form

a cohesive and self-organizing group of

experts. The team would typically consist

of a product manager, development team,

and a ‘scrum manager’(who will be taking

up roles of a team coach and an efficient

organizer). It is important to ensure that you

club together all the skills necessary to deliver

the best results. After this, you can go ahead

with the deployment cycle which is

administered by an expert with experience

in app deployment.

Once apps are deployed, it isn’t time yet for

the team to sit back and relax. The real deal

begins now. The team will be required to

deeply analyze app usage. The feedback

received should be then put into use by

continuously improving the existing apps,

and building newer and better designs.

App Team Positions, Descriptions, and Duties

When you set out on the journey of

developing a mobile app, you should be

focussed on building a well-rounded team

with various skillsets, rather than look for a

development team (coders). When the team

has the right developmental disciplines, your

app will have a higher chance of it being a

success.

The fundamentals of hiring are the same ir-

respective of the size of the project, industry

type of project( B2B or B2C), or nature of the

project(internal or external). There are major

differences only in the operating systems(iOS

or Android OS). Most app teams require a

product

manager, designer, and a developer. Here at

Techjini, we assign at least one of these roles

to each app team.

The most important thing you should look for

while building a team, is experience with the

specific platform you’re working on (i.e. iOS or

Android). Let us look at some basic roles:

10

Product Management

One of the most notable roles is that of the

product managers. As important as a brand

manager is for any consumer product to

do well in the market, a product manager is

equally important for a mobile project. They

are in charge of the strategy for a particular

product, meaning that they should have

immense experience in the software industry.

You can almost consider a product

manager as the ‘CEO’ of the product.

His/her responsibilities are strategizing,

documenting the requirements, ensuring

the product is built to specification, and that it

succeeds in the marketplace. Being the team

leader, it is the product manager’s obligation

to drive the vision of an app into a reality. It is

also important that he/she knows every inch

of the product strategy and works towards

preventing any miscommunications and

bottlenecks.

We recommend hiring a candidate with

extensive mobile software product

management experience. Since a product

manager has to have a plethora of knowledge

regarding the development of app, he/she

will be useful in several areas like user

experience, long-term planning, customer

service, marketing, etc. If you don’t possess

this experience, make sure someone on the

team does and that you listen to them.

User Interface/User Experience Designers (UI/UX)

Apart from creating a lucid and intuitive

screen flow, it is also important to ensure that

the entire look and feel of the app is up to the

mark. And here is where a UX/UI designer’s

role fits in. A right designer will have compre-

hensive knowledge and understanding of the

importance of mobile usability. This helps in

designing exceptional app interfaces.

Although a designer is primarily responsible

for designing and crafting the app’s user

interface, he/she should also be able to help

with the branding of the app and the

company as a whole. And the list does not

end there. A designer should be able to

design the logo, website, and help with

other marketing collateral.

Developer

The developer is the one building the

backend technical architecture for the

app. He or she writes the app’s code based

on the design plan and also handles any

integrations that may be required. Once the

code is developed, a team of engineers

handle its implementation and programming.

A developer is essentially the person

responsible for converting the blueprint of

an idea into functional reality. In fact, the

developer’s contribution towards the app

may be the most important, especially to-

wards the later phases.

11

Quality Assurance (QA)

The development may have gone amazingly

well. But, the only way to ensure your app

will be able to function efficiently across all

situations is to have a thorough quality

assurance test done. The testing team will

analyze and test the code for bugs, and

ensure that the engineering team is able to

deliver a flawless product to the end users.

Release Management What the release management team does is

to ensure that your code repository is kept in

order. They also manage releasing the app to

the iTunes app store and Google Play.

How to Find the Right Candidates for Your App Team

Hiring a mobile app development team is

almost like hiring for any other team.

A recommended first step would always be

to step into your own network to find people

with experience or perhaps referrals. The

advantage of finding a person through your

connections is that you already have a

feedback about this person’s personality,

behavior, and other such factors. It’s a great

idea to also keep an eye out for local industry

groups. Sites such as Meetup.com, Dribble,

AngelList and others, can also prove

extremely useful. The idea is that you become

an active part of design and development

communities, to have a better chance at

finding like-minded professionals.

Every position requires a slightly different set

of skills. This means, your assessments and

evaluation also have to be tweaked accord-

ingly.

Our recommendation however is to always

find developers that have a fair amount of

experience in building apps. And be as

specific as you can. If you’re looking to build

an app for the iPhone, find a developer with

Objective C and Xcode knowledge. Whatever

platforms you are keen on supporting, find

experts in that area.

Judge their past work!

It is important to peruse through the

application’s portfolio to understand their

experiences and style - two elements that will

reflect strongly in your future app. You can

take an app they have designed or developed

and pick 2-3 screens and ask them what kind

of a thought process led to that particular

layout or flow. Ask what their creation process

was and if they faced any challenges, how

they overcame them and most importantly,

what they would change about it.

And finally, always try to assess their

personality as best as you can. It is easy to

get swayed away by attractive credentials

and sharp work.

12

But, you also need to figure out if this person

will be a good fit for your team, specifically.

Can they work well with the rest of your team?

Maybe they’ve only ever worked at startups

or only large organizations. Take the time out

to understand their expectations and how

your organization can be a good fit for their

career path.

It’s not always roses though

Hiring your own team requires tremendous

effort. It’s more than just hiring the right

people - you also will have the additional

burden of managing HR and various legal

issues. If you make a mistake in hiring, it can

result in delayed deadlines, low quality work,

and several other risks. Sometimes, brilliant

projects never make it to the market despite

the amount of time and money invested,

simply because of hiring mistakes.

You could consider partnering with a mobile

app development company. The advantages

of doing so are many - you can get more

experienced developers to work on your

project, and therefore better quality and

shorter development cycles. This might even

work out a whole lot cheaper, than if you

were to build the team from scratch. Because

you’re eliminating a whole lot of HR and legal

work and saving on infrastructure costs as

well, you can instead spend those resources

on growing your product and business

further.

Chapter 4

Great ideas and successes begin with

passion, but they are carried to their

succession by sheer discipline

and clear thinking.

Here are the top 5 mistakes that you must stay

away from when building for mobile:

1. Losing Focus and Doing too much too soon

Remember that first moment when you

stumbled upon the idea and you decided

that this was worth going after? Do your best

not to lose sight of that. Always keep your eye

on the ball. What was that problem you were

initially trying to solve for the customer? How

does the customer benefit? You might think

it’s obvious, but the farther you get into

development, you will be surprised how

many times you have to stop, take a breath

and ask yourself – is this what we set out to

do? Keep things clear for yourself first, maybe

create a vision statement and reiterate it over

and over again in all your meetings.

It sounds simple, but it can be easier said

than done. You might be falling short of

money, you could be having trouble keeping

the company afloat, you may be changing the

business model altogether,

Critical mistakes to avoid when building an app

13

you might be facing really difficult decisions

and these are all a part of the ride. And you do

have to steer your course occasionally and

change direction, but while doing that, never

ever lose focus of the goal you initially set out

to solve. In essence, lead from the heart, but

let the mind do its job and keep you in check.

2.Bad Platform Decision

The pressure on start-ups to get it right is

higher than ever before. The competition

is cutthroat and the customer is ruthless.

They’re going to tell you, in no uncertain

terms whether your app is any good pretty

quickly. You will have to make decisions to

save money, you will have to be smart about

your decisions, but not at the cost of quality

and your customer’s happiness. Too often,

start-ups, in an effort to save money and

effort end up creating mobile applications on

multiple platforms at once. Not just start-ups,

even the biggies like Facebook, Linkedin and

Southwest airlines have made the mistake of

building a cross-platform app, only to

re-develop them later.

It’s just not possible to be the jack-of all

platforms. You have to be clear about who

your target audience is and which platform

they are likely to use (Android, iOS, windows

etc). And the only way to do that is to use

data, take a good decision, check with the

analytics in your app and see if your decision

was right and if it’s not, iterate and do it

quickly.

Fail fast is the best way in the mobile app

world. It is far better to do one thing and do

it right rather than launch multiple platforms

at once. The story of Instagram and its 30

million strong user base on iOS before

launching in other platforms is a great

example of how focus helps.

3. “Hire the Right People, not the Best People” – Jack Ma

People make the company, and having the

right people working with you is what will

make you successful. You could have a

great idea and it could tank simply because

you didn’t have the right people by your

side. Countless startup post mortems talk

about how they couldn’t find the right

co-founder. Imagine you’re going on a

voyage in the open sea, now if your co-cap-

tain isn’t someone you can trust with your

life, that journey isn’t worth taking. The right

co-founder in a start-up may not save your life

as your co-captain might have to at sea, but

the involvement and the sense of success or

failure together is the same. Make sure you

have the right co-founder and a big part of

the find-the-right people job is done. The

next step is to make sure you have a team that

works well together and has complementary

skill sets. You don’t need one superstar that

doesn’t work well with others, it’s far better

to have a team that works well together.

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4. Skimping on User Experience

Most people don’t use an app after they

download it. The statistics and research

shows that more than 8 out of 10 people

don’t usually come back to open an app

again. And apps are uninstalled pretty

quickly. A focus on UX design can help

you in this area. Make sure your app is light

and minimal, you don’t want it showing up

first on the list of apps that the customer

wants to delete because of lack of space on

their phones. Another reason why many apps

face the music is because they are sending

too much data across the network. Those are

just some of the back-end

UX aspects.

Front end UX keeps your average user

feeling great about using the app for the

first time. It can be the one thing that makes

you stand apart. Make sure your design is

minimal, have a fantastic UI and make the

on boarding process simple. Users don’t like

signing up for services too soon and you

could end up losing a customer. It makes far

more sense to hold back asking for data un-

til the user is really comfortable using your

application and actually wants to make a

booking or to take things to the next level. Be

patient, let the customer come to you, don’t

push too hard. Make the process as easy,

simple and intuitive as possible. And finally,

don’t send out too many push notifications

and spoil things for yourself.

The number of users who reported uninstall-

ing an app because of unwanted push noti-

fications is alarmingly high in most surveys.

Keep the user engaged, but don’t overwhelm

them. It’s a thin line and a tightrope to walk

on. Tread carefully.

5. Not Marketing it Right

You cannot survive in any business, or even in

your own personal career without some bit of

marketing. In the middle of creating the app,

and all the hard work that goes into it, a lot of

startups forget to market the app before the

actual launch. Don’t wait for everything to

be perfect before you actually do a bit of

marketing. The pre-launch hype is important.

Engage with your customers. For the app

called the “Virtual Pet”, they encouraged

users to adopt a pet for almost a year before

the actual launch. The idea was so

interesting, it was even picked up by

Techcrunch, The Verge and even Forbes.

Ideas like this could make you stand apart in

the highly competitive app space.

In essence, keep the value you’re trying to

bring to the customer at the core of what

you’re doing and there will be no looking

back. But even with the best intentions for the

customer in your app, you still need to talk

about it. We don’t live in a world where your

work speaks for itself anymore. Talk about

your app and do the marketing right- pre and

post launch marketing is key for startups.

15

Chapter 5

Bringing it all together

Mobile is here to stay

The future of apps should be better apps

2016 was said to be the year of mobile, and

mobile ad spend is predicted to cross $100

billion in 2016. Now is the time for you to

get on board the mobile strategy train.But

if you’re wondering why mobile, well, that’s

easy.

Consider this: Earth has a population 7.1

billion people, approximately 75% of them

own a mobile phone. That is over 5.1 billion

people! Mobile phones are also the most

immediate and attention-grabbing form of

communication there is. And it is also not a

shocker that most people nowadays never

leave their homes without one thing to

engage them: their phones. In fact, according

to a study by Morgan Stanley, 91% of adults

who own a mobile phone keep it within

arm’s reach 100% of the time. That offers

unparalleled access to your customers.

The future of mobile is being defined and

redefined continuously. The smartphone

and tablet markets are nearing saturation.

Mobile growth has been moving into

software, media, advertising, and services.

Meanwhile, new devices are changing and

expanding the meaning of “mobile.”

Every business, regardless of its size, needs

a mobile strategy.

Your company’s success depends on it. More

and more of your customers (and just about

all of your prospects) are using mobile devic-

es to interact with, and discover new brands.

The basic objective of your mobile strategy

isn’t to take what you’re already doing and

scale it down to smaller screens. You need to

build on the data--how your users access your

brand and how they use mobile during the

consumer cycle--to unravel how your mobile

app experience can provide what your users

require.

And for you to begin your journey, we would

love to help you get started with your mobile

app development endeavors.

ENTERPRISE MOBILE MATURITY ASSESSMENT

Any journey of an enterprise looking to

build a ‘mobile first’ organization begins with

the first step of understanding your

organization’s mobile maturity. It is a common

faux pas where an enterprise fails to realize

the optimum RoI from their investments, as

they go about adopting mobility without first

establishing an assessment of their needs,

resources, challenges, and risks.

16

At Techjini, we provide a mobile maturity

assessment session with key stakeholders

in your company that will help you define

your organizational mobile readiness and

maturity. Our experts will also help you

identify and prioritize focus areas, and give

critical insights on business drivers, user

needs, and governance policies. This will set

the foundation for building and deploying an

enterprise mobile strategy.

TechJini is a leading application

development company operating out of

Princeton, NJ, Bengaluru, India and Tokyo,

Japan. Application development has never

been as big as it is today. Mobile application

development is in huge demand and to fulfill

this demand, we have qualified and experi-

enced app developers who build applications

as per your requirement. We work on diverse

application development projects across iOS,

Android and Windows Phone. We have ca-

tered unique solutions for rapid application

development to clients from across the world.

We have specialized application develoers

who work closely with our customers on

building effective apps as per their demand.

Explore our application development services

and give us an opportunity to be a part of

your success story.

How can we help?

Our product development specialists will

take your ideas and create a minimum viable

product following the leanest path. A product

that you can quickly alter based on your

customer feedback and finally release a

version that you’ll be really proud of.

We are able to promise so much as we

have worked with companies just like

yours, for close to a decade now! Most of our

partnerships have translated into successful

products. We take pride in the work we have

done in mobile, cloud and analytics. We are

sure you will love our liberal attitude to

tweaking. We keep your production costs

low, allowing you to take up product

refinements at later stages.

Ready to get on a call with us? Please drop a

quick email at sales@techjini.com to get the

ball rolling!

Introduction to techjini

17

UNITED STATES100 Overlook Ctr FL 2Princeton NJ 08540-7814Phone: (609) 785-1151Fax: +1-609-228-7549E-mail: sales@techjini.com

JAPAN2-56-20,Hiyoshi-honcho,Kohoku-ku,Yokohama, 223-00062Phone: +81-50-3551-8385E-mail: sales@techjini.com

INDIANo. 948, Gaayathri Chambers,J P Nagar 2nd Phase,Bangalore – 560078HR: +91-80-41507899Sales: +91-80-42103414E-mail: sales@techjini.com

www.techjini.com