by Anahit Ghazaryan | Feb 23, 2022 | Advice, App Development, Guest Post, Money, product management, Release Management, User Experience
A minimum viable product or MVP is a concept to denote testing of a product with minimum resources spent. The testable product includes enough features to attract early adopters, and the aim is to collect feedback from these customers in order to improve the final product.
The MVP development includes the following steps:
- Produce the basic version of the product.
- Release the product in the market.
- Collect information from early adopters.
- Improve the product based on feedback.
- Roll out a new version with improvements suggested.
Overall, launching an MVP is less risky and costly than scaling up without initial testing. Such an approach has lots of benefits, such as a better understanding of customer needs and development with minimum risks. You may even be able to sell your app idea without launching the product.
At this point you might wonder, isn’t an MVP a waste of resources? Research shows that it is not. According to Go-Globe, more than half of startups fail due to premature scaling. Isn’t that scary? Failure happens in part because developers don’t do the groundwork before releasing their final product.
And so, whether you want to or not, you need to do market research before you release your final product. Here is where MVP comes in handy.
How do you build a minimum viable product in 2022? In this article, you will get an answer to this question with a clear vision of what to do. Your curiosity on “how much does it cost to build an MVP” will also be satisfied, so go ahead and see why and how to build one.
Building a minimum viable product requires market research, feedback from early users, and the ability to adapt when creating the final product. Let’s dive in to see exactly how the process works.
Main Benefits of Building an MVP
As we saw, any kind of investment in developing an MVP, in time or money, is definitely worth it. Let’s see its multiple benefits in more detail.
Clear Vision
You need to have a clear vision of the basic functionalities of your product or service. To have a clear understanding of what you really want to do takes a lot of research and teamwork.
Make a checklist and share that with the team. You need to go through each item and try to bring a new say to the market with less cost and higher efficiency. After you are clear about the basic functionalities, you may develop the prototype.
A Better Understanding of Customer Needs
What can be more beneficial for you than understanding your customer needs (a great resource to help you in this effort is The Lean Product Playbook)? And what can yield more profit to you than customer feedback at the early stages of development?
Understanding your customer needs is the apple core of any development process. After you build a prototype and release that in the market, you are ready to collect valuable feedback. Make sure to leave channels of feedback open for a later analysis process.
Quick Release
Because you focus on key functionalities and not all features, the release is quicker. This allows you to concentrate on the main features and see how they work in the real world.
Development With Minimum Cost or Risk
Scaling up without initial testing is the cause of the failure of many startups. They just spend too much money without knowing whether it will work or not. With small-scale development and release, companies don’t risk high-dollar or time. They do everything with minimum risk involved.
Improved Final Product
An MVP allows you to collect valuable feedback from early adopters. This information is later thoroughly analyzed with the aim to strengthen the strong points and eliminate the weak points. Feedback plus analysis is at the core of an MVP. The final product is tested in the real world and is adapted to customer needs and wants.
How Do You Create an MVP?
Here are the six steps you need to take in order to create an MVP.
1. Research the Idea
You have a great idea but it needs to be put under the scrutiny of market research. According to CBI reports, the failure of around 42% of startups accounted for no market need for the product.
So, how to do research? First, you can study similar experiences of your competitors:
- What do they do right?
- What do they do wrong?
- Why are some successful and some not?
These are questions you need to answer. The internet is a valuable resource for doing market analysis, but you may also want to do individual studies, like surveys. Yes, it costs money, but you cannot risk the whole business just by ignoring something that may not be so obvious.
2. Define Market Demand
You need to answer these questions:
- Why would customers want my product?
- What value does it add to the existing brands?
- How is my product different, and what does it mean for a potential client?
- What problem am I solving?
Once you are clear about these questions, you will have a clearer idea about your own product or service.
3. Define Must-Have Features
Your app or product may have lots of features, but at this stage, you need to prioritize only must-have features. Why? Simply because you don’t want to spend lots of money and time on MVP development only. Besides, if there is a market demand for basic features, some nice-to-have features will only add a flavor to your product.
4. Build and Launch
You need a qualified team to build your prototype, even at the stage of the MVP. The product released during the stage of the MVP should meet all the requirements of a quality product, i.e., a product that the customer wants and needs.
To find an experienced team that will not let you down is not easy, either. It also takes research and analysis. One way is to consider reviews about the software development agencies that you will find on rating agencies like GoodFirms. Another option is to search on LinkedIn.
5. Collect Feedback
The primary goal of an MVP is to collect feedback from early adopters. Make sure to have channels of feedback open. For example, you may get feedback on social media, from your friends, or by contacting customers for their reviews. If you choose the latter option, you somehow need to keep in touch with those who use your product. One way is to leave your contact details and ask for feedback.
Alternatively, you can collect the contact information of early adopters at the sale points, saying that you would like to do a survey on product satisfaction. Here are some of the questions you may want to ask during the survey:
- Has our product met your expectations? If not, why?
- Is there anything that concerns you?
- What changed after you first started using our product?
- Are you happy with the cost/value ratio?
- What can we improve to make you happier with our product?
- WIll you recommend our product to your friends?
- Has our product helped you solve a specific problem you wanted to solve? If yes, how? If not, why?
6. Analyze Feedback
Now that you have all the information about your product or service, it’s time to analyze it. Every opinion counts, as the reviews you get will determine the success or failure of your business. Make sure to think over every idea that you get and try to find the golden medium between your budget and what customers want.
During the analysis, you can consider both qualitative and quantitative data. While quantitative data gives you a good hint on how successful your product may be in numbers, it is the qualitative data that answers the questions “how,” “why,” and “when.” Therefore, give your customers a chance to explain what they mean, and make sure to have enough qualitative data at hand.
How Much Does an MVP Cost?
Now we come to the core question. Your budget is of course not unlimited, and you want to spend as little as possible. However, restraints may cause the failure of the whole business. Therefore, find a qualified team to outsource your app or product prototype.
OK, then, let’s get to numbers. To be honest, there is no single answer to the question “how much does it cost to build an MVP?” However, if you want to have a rough idea of what to expect money-wise, here is what to consider.
If you hire a freelancer, you may end up paying something like $5,000 to $15,000.
Outsourcing to a development team may, on average, cost $30 per hour in Eastern Europe, for example. If you hire four people, you will end up paying $120 per hour. The final sum will of course depend on the complexity of your product. Outsourcing to a development team may cost from $15,000 to $30,000.
Here is the list of average hourly rates for different regions:
- North America – $100-$180
- South America – $30-$50
- Western Europe – $110-$200
- Eastern Europe – $25-$50
- Africa – $20-$40
- Australia – $100-$180
- Asia – $15-$40
However, these were the cheapest options that we found.
Look at the chart below, and you will understand that companies that have become giant businesses today, like Facebook or Uber, have invested some good money in developing MVPs alone.
Think of the billions of dollars that Facebook makes today. No wonder they invested half a million in MVP to test their idea. This figure only illustrates that it’s worth investing in product development. If not half a million, then at least 10% of the total business cost should go to the idea testing.
Now You’re Ready To Build a Great MVP
The benefits of an MVP are far reaching. No wonder so many successful companies have invested good money in MVP development. You will have a clear vision of what you want to do and will have a better understanding of customer needs.
At the same time, the release of the product will be much faster and the development will be with minimum cost or risk. Finally, you will be able to enter the market with an improved product, better than what was released at the MVP stage.
But as you can see, an MVP is not just building the prototype. It takes a lot of research before and after the product launch, and it’s certainly not about just building a prototype and validating it.
Now you are ready to build an MVP! If you found this article helpful, consider sharing it to help others find and read it.
by Aaron Glazer | Dec 24, 2021 | App Development, Code Reviews, Deployment, Guest Post, IoT, Mobile, Programming, Release Management, Source Control, Testing, Validation
Feature flags are being called one of the next big things in development, and for good reason. Not only are they a key to a true continuous delivery cycle, they can remove the anxiety from a high-stakes release, enable developers to ship new features with confidence and allow for the incremental release of features to test their impact. It’s no wonder, then, that a Forrester survey found 31% of teams said feature management is critical to their software development initiatives. What’s more, the latest report from Google’s DORA team shows elite performers–those using trunk-based development, including feature flags–deploy 973 times more frequently.
In the world of feature management, release feature flags—also known as feature toggles—are one of the most predominantly used. Release feature flags separate a new feature release from deployment and ensure continuous delivery of code. They can be used to ship incomplete code, control the rollout of releases, merge incomplete code into your main branch without interfering with your test or release process, and release whenever you’re ready.
Here’s how release feature flags can be applied in three different scenarios:
- Shipping Incomplete Code To Production
Release feature flags allow you to ship incomplete, untested, or otherwise unready code to production without needing to turn them on. Because of this, feature flags are an effective way to reduce the number of times you need to deploy new code to production.
When you are looking to make continuous updates, you want a strategy rooted in continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD). Feature flags can be used to continuously validate your changes on a subset of users. This use-case allows you to release features faster and more confidently, while minimizing risk.
You get faster releases, higher-quality features and minimize the risk of bugs. With feature flags, you can deploy new versions through CI/CD. As you’re ready, you can turn on the new features without pushing an update to production, making it easier for you to roll out changes such as bug fixes or new features.
- Control Feature Release and Rollouts
Feature flags bring great efficiency to the release of new features, enabling features to be released both rapidly and safely. Implementing release flags is a best practice that allows product managers to control the release and rollout of a feature on their own schedules. It also allows software development teams or other stakeholders, such as product and marketing teams, to set up a release schedule ahead of time.
Once your feature is ready, you can directly test it in production. You can target your feature to be visible to only internal users, the users who use it the most, QA testers, or beta customers. It’s also possible to target a feature to internal teams, by location, or any custom attribute.
A critical developer habit is to get feedback from your customers before releasing a new feature to your entire user base, as well as to control whether a subset of users can use the feature. You can then assess performance based on the chosen KPIs, while avoiding any risk of damage from a buggy feature being shown to all your users.
With a percentage rollout, you release a new feature to only a portion of the user base and then gradually roll it out to more users. You can then decide how large a percentage of your entire customer base you want to release the new feature to. You can also decide what percentage of those users will receive it at first, and then roll it out to others over time.
- Speed up How You Merge Into Your Main Branch
Release feature flags make it possible to merge incomplete code into main branches without interfering with testing or a continuous release process. This methodology is an integral part of trunk-based development, a development style where several developers work in isolation on small batches of code and then merge their work into the trunk once or even several times a day. In trunk-based development, code is pushed directly to the trunk, which enables greater version control and helps teams avoid the “merge hell” that’s more common with the Gitflow (AKA feature branch development) model.
With Gitflow, there are more branches and larger commits. Every developer gets their own branch and they merge it into the main trunk when they’re done. Not only is it more difficult to merge these long-lived branches together, there’s inevitably conflict because teams are blind to the changes that others are making and could affect them.
Release feature flags, particularly when used with trunk-based development, vastly increase the speed and safety of developing and releasing new features and lends well to continuous delivery. Because feature flags can be turned on and off at any second, code can be pushed safely to production, even if it’s not complete, which greatly speeds cycle time. These types of feature flags also allow for gradual releases, so code can be tested with partial groups of users to gauge its impact before it’s executed to everyone.
With the ability of release feature flags to help you ship more and worry less, they are becoming an integral part of every developer’s toolkit, and the key to a safe and successful continuous delivery cycle. Expect release feature flags to continue to change the face of software development and delivery in the coming years.
by Andrej Kovačević | Dec 22, 2021 | App Development, Code Reviews, Cybersecurity, Debugging, Deployment, Guest Post, Mobile, Programming, Release Management, Security, Validation
In the summer of 2021, Microsoft issued a security advisory letting users know of a critical vulnerability in the Windows Print Spooler service. The flaw made it possible for attackers to run arbitrary code on just about any affected Windows machine if they could trick a user into installing a compromised printer driver. From there, they could gain near-total control of the machine and access to anything connected to it.
But if you read the details of the bulletin, you’d have noticed a critical piece of information: that the vulnerability revolved around the users’ ability to install unsigned printer drivers. Signed drivers weren’t a problem—because it’s all but impossible for attackers to alter them to include the malicious bits they needed to launch an attack.
And within that distinction lies a lesson for software developers around the world: Code signing is important and something we all need to do when publishing software meant for public consumption. That said, there seem to be plenty of developers out there that don’t bother with code signing or don’t understand its significance.
Make no mistake, though: Code signing is just as important to protect your customers as it is to protect yourself as a software developer. Imagine, for example, that a hacker or other bad actor decides to inject malicious code into one of your pieces of software. When that code does the damage it’s designed to do, who do you think your customers are going to blame?
Two points if you guessed it’ll be you.
Code signing isn’t all that difficult to do. To help you understand how it works, here’s a complete guide to code signing. We’ll cover what it is, how it works, and why you should be doing it. Let’s get started, shall we?
What Is Code Signing?
To get started, let’s first take a look at what code signing is—it’s very simple, really. Code signing is the process of issuing a trusted digital certificate attesting to who you are and guaranteeing that a piece of software contains only the code you wrote and that you can vouch for.
In other words, it’s a bit like a certificate of authenticity you might get if you buy a signed piece of movie memorabilia. Except in the case of code signing, you’re not just guaranteeing authenticity, you’re guaranteeing providence and security.
It’s based on the same kind of logic that web browsers use to open SSL-encrypted connections to remote servers. The use of trusted certification authorities makes it possible for computers—and users—that don’t know you personally to be reasonably certain that software they’re going to execute hasn’t been tampered with in any way.
If you’ve ever downloaded a program from the internet and tried to run it anytime in the last twenty years, you’ve likely seen code signing in action. Modern operating systems check downloaded software for a valid signature and use that information to alert you as to who is asking to alter your computer.
Software that isn’t signed will generate a colorful and dire-looking warning letting you know that an unknown entity wishes to make changes to your PC. But signed software results in a benign-looking alert listing the software developer’s name and asking for permission to proceed.
There’s an excellent chapter on the subject in the book Web Security, Privacy and Commerce that discusses code signing—and numerous other web security topics developers should know about. It’s also a great handbook that I believe every developer should have on their shelf as a reference on myriad online security topics.
How Does Code Signing Work?
The process of signing your code isn’t all that different from the way you’d obtain an SSL certificate for a website. It involves the use of a public and private encryption key pair to have a trusted certification authority issue a valid code signing certificate to you to use when you publish software.
To get a code signing certificate, you have to prove your identity to a certification authority, so they’ll know you are who you say you are. But how you do that depends on the kind of certificate you’re trying to obtain. There are two main types:
- Organization Validated Code Signing Certificate – Often called a standard code signing certificate, they’re the easier of the two types of certificates to obtain. To get one, you’ll have to identify yourself to a certification authority and go through a simple verification process. Obtaining one isn’t much more difficult than obtaining a standard SSL certificate.
- Extended Validation Code Signing Certificate – An Extended Validation (EV) code signing certificate is much harder to obtain. To get one, you have to go through a lengthy vetting process with a certification authority. The catch? EV certificates are only issued to organizations, not individuals. They’re meant for higher-volume software publishers and come with a private encryption key stored on a physical hardware key to prevent misuse.
The main difference between standard and EV code signing certificates is what they’ll allow your software to do. Standard certificates make it possible for operating systems to compare your software’s hash at the time of signing to its hash at runtime. It also identifies you, the developer, as the person behind a particular piece of software.
On the other hand, EV certificates come with some additional benefits. The first is that you can use an EV certificate to sign Microsoft Windows drivers, whereas you can’t use a standard certificate for that purpose. Remember the security advisory mentioned in the introduction? It was EV certificate signed drivers that were safe from the vulnerability.
The other main added benefit of an EV certificate has to do with SmartScreen, which is Microsoft’s built-in website and download checking system. When you sign your software with an EV certificate, SmartScreen will instantly trust your software. That greatly improves the odds that Windows users will be able to download your software without any scary security warnings popping up on their screens.
Why You Should Be Signing Your Code
There are a variety of reasons that you should be signing your code. Some of them are very obvious. Others are less so. Let’s begin with the most obvious reason of all: You want people to run your software, and if your software isn’t signed, there’s a very good chance that users will struggle to run it.
Microsoft, for its part, is really serious about stopping users from downloading and running unsigned code. Their in-OS protection systems will present a user with an array of roadblocks and warnings to stop them from doing so. And they don’t make it obvious how to bypass them.
And MacOS, the other major consumer OS, does almost the exact same thing. And newer Apple computers that contain their native processors won’t run unsigned software compiled for them at all. So if you want people to be able to use your software, you need to get in the habit of signing it.
Another reason to sign your software is that it will improve adoption among businesses. Today’s cybersecurity professionals have neither the time nor the inclination to vet unsigned software unless it’s the only option. And most major corporate networks restrict the download or installation of unsigned software—with good reason. When a single chunk of altered code can lead to a multimillion-dollar data breach, there’s no room for error.
Last but not least, you should be signing your code to protect your reputation. If you’re an independent developer that makes a living on the software you create, you can’t afford for someone to use it as an avenue for a malware attack. If that happens, affected users will make no distinction between you and the people responsible for the attack. And the reputational harm you suffer could be irreparable.
Code Signing Is Worth It for Developers
The bottom line here is that developers—including you—should be creating a process to sign all of the code they release. Doing so will help improve your reputation and increase the odds that end-users will be able to run your creations. And at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about for developers, isn’t it?
But be aware, signing your code means you’re putting your personal stamp of approval on your work. So you should also take great pains to write code that’s secure from the ground up, too. After all, an attacker doesn’t need to alter your code if you leave them an opening to use what you’ve already written.
And that’s all there is to it. Hopefully, you’ve learned why code signing is so important and why you should be doing it. Now go get to it!
by Anisha Tanveer | Nov 5, 2021 | App Development, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Mobile, Process Improvement, Release Management, Tools
Developing a great mobile app requires commitment and hard work. But building the mobile app is just half of the work. You could have a brilliant mobile app sitting in the app store with a few couple of downloads. Why? Because no one knows what the app is about and why they should download it. The solution? Social media marketing!
In the first quarter of 2021, Google Play store hosted 3.48 million apps. Given the variety of apps available, your app is just one out of millions. Without extra effort from your side, your app is not going to gather much attention, let alone create hype and break through the market. Social media marketing gets you the traffic you need and creates an audience even before the app is officially launched.
There are countless reasons why programmers should invest in a social media marketing strategy. For starters, social media is one of the fastest channels for generating awareness about your app. With numerous platforms available, you can cater to different groups of people and target audience based upon their needs.
Moreover, customer engagement is a big plus point on social media platforms. Personal interaction enables you to answer any queries people may have about the app and establish trust.
By being one of the most cost-effective marketing avenues, social media offers a great ROI. Offering the cheapest rate for ad posts, social media platforms definitely deserve a run for your money.
With no doubt that social media is a reliable marketing tool, let’s help you set things up. In this post I offer you a detailed social media guide to launching your mobile app for greater outreach and bigger download volume.
Understand Each Platform
While designing your mobile app, you must have outlined a basic customer persona. In order to market your app, it is very critical to target the right audience. To find out where your potential customers are, start by studying the different social media platforms. Let us briefly discuss the major capabilities of the main social media channels to help pick the right one or combination for the needs of your app.
Facebook
Perhaps the most popular channel, with over 2 million users, Facebook is used by countless small and medium businesses (SMBs). Facebook offers the capability to generate new leads with its vast advertising opportunities specifically catered to the target audience.
For a programmer with a new mobile app, Facebook is a suitable channel to reach and create loyal customers with the right content. Video content works quite well for Facebook and is the latest tool to gather attention.
Twitter
If your marketing plan is to create hype about the mobile app, then Twitter is the platform for you. Posts on Twitter contain mostly short bursts of content with valuable information.
The best way to drive a Twitter campaign is to develop relevant hashtags. By using those hashtags, you can start a trend and create more visibility for your followers. Be sure to make your Tweets on point for shareable content to build awareness.
Instagram
With a focus on visual content, Instagram is typically used by the younger audiences. Depending on the nature of your mobile app, Instagram can be a great way to socially influence potential customers by posting captivating videos and photos. With a heavy focus on advertising campaigns, Instagram is a great sales booster as well.
Other than these main platforms, you can even choose YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok to work with. However, while making a choice, be sure to clearly define the goal. Do you want to build an audience, increase awareness, or directly scale up downloads? A structured agenda will provide direction on how to derive the maximum return from the chosen social media platform.
Research Your Competition
When you are headed into the world of marketing, it is absolutely essential to be aware of what you are up against. An effective social media guide equips you with the necessary tools to research your competitors and develop a strategy to stand out. As you must have carried out a market analysis while developing your mobile app, now you just have to take it one step further and evaluate your competitors’ social media strategies.
Once you know who your main competitors are, take a look at their social media pages. Observe what type of content they are posting and who is their main target audience. Sweeping through the competitors’ social media pages will give you a fair idea of what works and what doesn’t. Use this valuable intel to set your own benchmarks and propose new ideas that set you apart from others.
To take it up a notch, you can also use highly specialized tools available to analyze your competition. Technical data can help you conduct a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) and drum up a social media strategy to fill in the gaps for showcasing your mobile app.The SWOT analysis is a business technique mostly used to calculate a data-driven assessment of strengths and weaknesses of an organization within the industry. Apart from running technical analytics, don’t forget to evolve and differentiate. The audience loves to see a pop of new color every now and then!
Focus on Pre-Launch Hype
Social media is all about creating hype for a product even before it’s available on the market through pre-launch marketing strategies. Done mainly with the purpose of raising awareness, pre-launch strategies work extremely well in cases where the competition is high. As a rule of the social media guide, remember not to give all of it away. Reserve some star features of your mobile app for the actual launch event.
Once you have finalized the launch date, work back and estimate the time you need for your pre-launch activities. Start off by designing teaser images for all your social media channels. Teaser campaigns can also include short videos introducing the mobile app. Another great idea is to create branded hashtags for your mobile app, as a catchy hashtag quickly picks up interest and helps to spread word.
Before your mobile app actually hits the stores, you want people to be talking about it. The easiest way to do so is by encouraging engagement through your social media channels. Create a referral campaign where people who share the app signup link get an exclusive demo of the mobile app.
Alternatively, a great way to get mass followers is to engage influencers. Get people who are followed by your desired audience to talk about your mobile app. Doing so will put your app in the spotlight through someone who people already trust.
Create Sponsored Ads
Social media advertising has been steadily increasing and is currently valued at $47.9 billion. Unlike organic marketing, paid advertising provides an extra boost to your sales objective. In your case, sponsored ads have a high chance of driving up your mobile app downloads as compared to organic posts.
As part of a social media guide for launching a mobile app, sponsored ads can be used to achieve a variety of targets:
- Awareness. Especially for a new mobile app, you want to raise a buzz among the audience about what’s coming. Paid targeted ads direct traffic toward your social media pages and increase outreach.
- Engagement. As a new app on the market, you want people to interact with the posts. Sponsored ads can help you achieve more traffic, lead generation, app installs, and post views.
- Conversion. For a mobile app social media page, conversion usually means downloads and sales. A paid ad campaign can include the direct app link where people can download the app.
Creating a sponsored ad campaign can be overwhelming. However, remember you don’t need a huge budget to design a stellar ad campaign. Learning from the best sponsored ads for mobile apps, the key is to get the message across in the most precise way possible with a clear-cut Call to Action (CTA) button.
Even with a spectacular ad campaign, you need to monitor and evaluate results. Post content with a clear target in mind, and don’t forget to test ads to optimize performance. Most importantly, design your ads with the mobile view in mind. Doing so is extremely important, especially when you are advertising for a mobile app yourself! Lastly, design your ad campaign to be specifically suited for each social media channel to derive maximum ROI.
Conduct Live Demos
An exciting way for programmers to promote their mobile app on social media channels is to hold a live demo. Product demos are interactive, simple, and insightful—both for the audience and the creators. The very first live demo you hold is pivotal, as it determines how the audience is going to react to the app. In order to make the demo successful, plan, research, and invest smartly.
The main purpose of the live demo is to introduce the star features and interface of the app. Since it’s going to be a live demo, be sure to have everything planned out beforehand. As it is an app launch video, keep it brief but interesting! Think through about the value proposition, and decide the exact CTA you want to deliver. Try to make it as interactive as possible to get feedback. Having the audience’s opinion will help you shape future marketing strategies.
Make it a habit to test out livestreaming before the actual session to avoid any last minute technical errors. If you are thinking about going live on different platforms, run through each one of them. Once you have finalized the date and agenda, start promoting the app demo on all channels. A good idea would be to invite a tech celebrity to the demo. A simple interview or just a live chat will definitely fire things up with the audience!
Lastly, remember not to go off the roadmap. Unnecessarily long demos tend to get boring, and people drop off. Engage with the audience, and stick to the context. Having a supportive team stand by is a great way to cater to any technical problems that occur during the demo. Even if there are a couple of glitches the first time, stay positive; you are only just starting to build your community.
Don’t Forget the Post-Launch Stage
Your mobile app is only as successful as you try to make it. According to expert social media guides, the stages both pre- and post-launch are vital for making your product a hit. So what exactly do you do for the post-launch period? In a nutshell, it is all about user retention, and that will be the focus of this section.
First of all, evaluate and analyze your present social media data for engagement statistics. Doing so will give you an idea of how well the present campaign is being received. Incorporate feedback from your analysis, and implement whatever improvements you need to make. Customers love to see their opinions taken seriously and addressed in a timely manner.
Next, shift your focus to the app users. Selling a mobile app is all about selling an excellent user experience. In order to do this, run user-generated content (UGC) on your social media channels. UGCs can be introduced as a contest that encourages users to post entries for a prize in return. Personalized stories not only create trust within the audience but also strengthen your brand loyalty on social media.
Another great idea would be to actively ask for ratings and reviews. However, make sure to only reach out to people who have actually used the app for constructive feedback. Lastly, as a general rule: Keep the conversation going. It’s very easy for social media channels to die down post-launch. The key to running a killer social media campaign is to keep the audience engaged.
Incorporate Analytics
Being a programmer or a newbie to the world of social media, you need to understand how it all works. You may be thinking, you have an awesome app waiting to be launched in the market, you have created social media pages, but there are still no significant followers. Why? The answer is you’re missing out on an important factor: analytics.
Best performed with a tool, social media analysis enables you to gather data from all your campaigns. It helps you understand your audience, create better content, and recognize your star social media network. Comprehensive analytics also let you monitor your competitors to see what you’re up against. Having access to such valuable data definitely increases your chances of pulling up a successful social media campaign.
The Right Plan and Attitude Can Lead to Success
You now have an idea of the essential tools and techniques to launch your mobile app with the help of social media. Prepare a game plan for the launch, and decide which social media platforms you want to advertise on.
Remember to be consistent—don’t give up on minor failures. Seek help from a mentor or expert if you feel like you need more guidance.The mobile app is something you have worked hard on, and only you can make it stand out to the audience with the right social media launch plan!
by Denis Bakhvalov | Jul 30, 2021 | Business, Entrepreneurship, Guest Post, Money, product management, Release Management, Software
Are you preparing the future product that will take over the world, and you haven’t yet decided on the pricing scheme? Then consider making it free by default!
You’re probably thinking: “Nonsense, absurd! Why would I ever want to do that?” Well, maybe this article will give you some perspectives that you haven’t thought about before.
The first free product I created was a free book released in November 2020 and has been very successful: more than 7000 readers so far. For a book in a very narrow niche, it is quite an achievement. I was able to grow my mailing list by more than 10x (5000+ people so far) and still was able to earn good money by selling the paperback version on Amazon.
I recently launched my online course with the same monetization scheme and I expect it to be as successful as the first one.
In this post, I will share my experience with you—mentioning both pros and cons—and I will show you how offering donation-based products can have significant long-term benefits.
My Experience With Creating Free Products
Frankly, the idea of making my products free didn’t come instantly to me. It was shaping in my mind for months. Like most, I wanted to go with the traditional scheme, i.e., offering my product in exchange for a fixed price. Only after I defined my actual goals and what I wanted to achieve with launching my product was I able to properly evaluate each option.
What I truly wanted was not to earn money and walk away. My primary goal was to build a personal brand, build a name for myself, and get noticed, which at that time was much more important for me than to earn a few thousand dollars, which could easily dissolve if you live in California.
Let me reiterate that it’s crucial that you define your goals clearly! If you do, the choice will be much easier to make. I aimed for long-term benefits and acted accordingly. The short-term goal here would be just to earn some quick money and go for another gig without really building relationships with the customers. If you’re still with me, I prepared a list of pros and cons for going with a free product. Let’s start with the positive sides first.
The Pros to Offering a Free Product
A free product reaches more people since, well, it’s a no-brainer. It’s free, right? People with FOMO will especially like it. More folks will get to know you and your good stuff. With my book, my primary goal was to maximize the number of readers and build relationships with them. According to various resources, the average technical book sells well below 1000 copies in its lifetime. I was clearly able to outperform the average.
If you think that everyone will buy your stuff because it is so awesome, I might disappoint you. Even the greatest products can go unnoticed if marketed poorly. Don’t expect a lot of sales from the start if you haven’t yet built a name for yourself. Targeted ads may help drive sales, but they won’t build long-term relationships with your audience.
I believe that you need to give a lot of value first to the people that later will become your customers. You’re earning your credit so that next time folks will be eager to buy your product. Every new product will sell much much easier than the one before it. I collected almost 5,000 emails from people interested in what I’m doing. Building an audience is key! You sacrifice some amount of money to reach more people and build your brand.
It’s easier to engage others to contribute to a free product. This was actually THE most important thing for me. When people know that the product is going to be free, they are willing to contribute to it since they know their work will not be silently utilized to make money. No strings attached. They follow your idea and want to be a part of it.
This fact allowed me to leverage the work of many great folks. I had 45 reviewers for my book and five other persons that made a significant contribution to my book. I doubt publishers bring that much workforce in. Bringing folks from different backgrounds and different industries makes a better quality product since it goes through the eyes of hundreds of people.
You release yourself from having angry customers. No more hateful emails from folks complaining that the product didn’t meet their expectations. The product is free, right? You don’t like it? That’s OK. But no one will send you messages requesting their money back since they didn’t pay anything. In that sense, your karma is protected.
All of the above surely sounds great, but let’s face it: The world is dominated by traditional paid products. The most frequent objection I hear against making your free products is this: “Denis if you give away everything for free, how will you make money?”
“Pay What You Want” Pricing
First of all, there are people earning thousands of dollars on donations, so this is definitely a viable option to build passive income. Donation-based products usually provide the so-called “Pay What You Want” option where the buyer determines the price of your product. Some of the most popular ways of getting donations are via Patreon, Paypal, Github Sponsors, and even cryptocurrency wallets.
When you allow your customers to choose the price tag for your work, you essentially let them pay according to the value they get out of it. The “Pay What You Want” scheme reflects the value it brings to the people.
For example, one of the donations for my free book was $100. Imagine someone paying $100 for the book that’s available for a free download! It must be very useful for this person, right? By putting a fixed $30 price tag, you limit the grace of those people who really enjoyed your work.
In addition, a flexible price makes the product more accessible for poorer countries. People from California can pay $30 for a book, no problem, but in other countries, it may not be so easy.
Unexpected Opportunities
Second, I think what people are missing here is the fact that you can convert your social capital into actual money, but the opposite is not always possible. It’s like in a story with a goose delivering golden eggs: The longer you don’t kill it, the better the payday will be. At some point, you can decide: ”Ok, I’ve built enough reputation, I can now use it to make some money”.
There are many ways to earn money on your personal brand. You can do it by offering a traditional product with a price tag. Now that you have loyal customers, selling would be much easier to do. Further, you can make money from advertising something on your platform or participating in affiliate programs. Finally, you can accept a better-paying job offer since you have a good reputation.
But the real beauty of it is in unexpected opportunities coming your way. You may suddenly find packs of HR folks knocking on your LinkedIn account, invitations to podcasts, and other collaborations. You never know all the amazing opportunities the world may bring to you. So be patient and trust the process.
In his popular book “The Millionaire Fastlane,” MJ DeMarco wrote: “Impact millions, and you will make millions.” So, I think what you really should focus on is how to bring as much value to as many people as you can. Money will follow.
But OK, you definitely want to hear what are the other drawbacks of free products. Without it, we wouldn’t have a full picture.
The Cons to Offering a Free Product
Here’s why you might not want to offer your product for free.
Some people think that if a product is free, it must be a low-quality one. True, and it’s hard to counter. You really have to make a good product; there are no workarounds to it. Do your job right and have word of mouth do the rest. Also, you can differentiate your offer by providing trial and premium versions of your product. That’s how many companies market their products.
“Pay What You Want” may not work for physical products or products with a high price tag. Indeed, it won’t be profitable to sell a car, the price of which goes from $1000 to $20000, you will incur huge losses. There were experiments in the food sector that didn’t work out as well. But in such areas as info products and software, with the prices below $100, it can make perfect sense.
How To Make a Donation-Based Product More Effective
Don’t forget to ask for a payment or a donation! If you don’t ask, you certainly won’t get one. You should also make it easy for users to donate. Adding a Paypal button on your blog or sales page is one way, but also you can refer people to your Patreon and Github Sponsors page. Also, crypto donations are getting traction.
Ask people to pay after they consume your product. There is no way for your customers to know if the thing is good or not before they try it, right? But once they have, they can really assess its value. And when people find it useful, they will be much more willing to donate.
Say where the money will go. It could be covering your costs or charity; both are good justifications. People are much more likely to pay if they know how their money will be spent. Be transparent as much as possible.
Show that you have a big goal. People with ambitions and vision are like magnets—everybody wants to follow them. Remember Forrest Gump running? Just a run, nothing fancy, right? Still, everybody thought that he was on a mission pursuing something big. So people started joining him because they wanted to be a part of a bigger idea. The same here, you need to show that you’re trying to achieve something.
An Overlooked Idea With Potential
Free products are definitely not a new way of marketing, but it’s a frequently overlooked idea that can provide more long-term benefits.
By making your product free by default, you can reach more people and build your personal brand faster. Also, it will be much easier for you to engage others to contribute to your project. Moreover, you don’t have to worry about angry paying customers.
At the same time, there are certainly challenges involved: You’ll need to make sure your product is of high quality, as free often connotes mediocrity. Moreover, certain products might not be well suited to such a model, as they might lead to losses.
Generally, however, there can be unexpected opportunities in offering a free product. Merely the fact that you can reach many people and see all kinds of doors opening is definitely worth the effort. Give it a try!
by Chiraag Thomas | Jul 9, 2021 | Best Practices, Business, Communication, Guest Post, product management, Programming, Release Management, Software
In the software development industry, a risk is a potential issue that can influence the success of a given project. As a project manager, it is your job to identify and eliminate the numerous risks that are part of the development process. However, to do so, you need to develop a suitable risk management strategy that ensures efficiency in your software development process.
Risk management includes understanding the size and probability of the loss from possible risks. You can minimize the risk after a successful evaluation.
In this post I will show you the importance of risk management and offer you strategies for creating a successful risk management plan. A solid risk management plan will help you eliminate risk from your projects, putting you on the path to success.
Types of Risk in Software Development
Before we see what risk management involves and how you can devise an effective risk management strategy, we should examine the types of risk involved in software development. Generally, we can divide risk into the following categories.
New, Unproven Technologies
Many teams introduce new tools and technologies for their projects. Nonetheless, continuously changing the tools, standards, protocols, techniques, and development system will increase the technological risks because your team requires proper training and understanding of a tool before they implement it into the development process.
This problem goes beyond just employees on your team lacking experience and training. It also includes the risk of employees not knowing which technology to use in a particular situation.
User and Functional Requirements
Choosing the relevant software will define the success of your project. However, sometimes you need different functions and features to perform various tasks.
Moreover, while going through prototyping, discovery, and integrating processes, you may need modification to the users’ requirements, which can cause problems with the functional requirements of the project. Due to requirements changes, your software development plan might fail, leading to various risks such as poor quality, bad user experience, bugs and errors, slow interface, and other similar issues.
Application and System Architecture
When you choose the wrong component, platform, or architecture, the project can result in a disaster. Therefore, it is vital to include experts on your team. A professional developer can understand the technological risks and contribute to the development of a successful project. When choosing an expert in the field, make sure that they have knowledge about the important architecture and components.
Performance
While performing risk management tasks, your team should focus on your users’ and partners’ expectations. Ill-equipped or undertrained teams can jeopardize the success of a project. Performance could also be a significant risk factor if teams don’t have the necessary resources to complete a project. Identifying the potential shortcomings of the team and all the barriers that stand in the way could help you more accurately plan for the risk that may arise along the way,
Organizational problems have a huge influence on the project results. You need to plan the development process after considering the expectations of your customers and the needs of your team. You need to choose a well-experienced and capable team to satisfy your clients. Furthermore, you should equip them with appropriate resources.
What Risk Management in Software Development Involves
Having seen some general types of risk, the next step is to look deeper into risk management and examine what it involves.
Identify
Before managing the risk, you need to identify and evaluate it in the project. For that purpose, understand the type and intensity of the problem. However, identification of the risk is not an easy task. You need relevant data to predict the potential effects of your decisions.
Classify
Once you identify risks, it’s time to organize them. Putting risks into different categories helps you see the bigger picture. There is no single rule for classification, so you can come up with your own ideas. Here are a few tried and tested methods to make the grouping task simple.
For starters, you can arrange risks based on their magnitude or level of intensity. For instance, you can separate risks having a higher impact on your software development process from the ones having a lower impact. This will help avoid any confusion, and you can keep track of them.
Another way to organize your issues is by timescale. Timescale, in this context, indicates the time when the problem will occur. You can also classify risks by origin of the issue, nature of the impact, and affected groups or projects.
Plan
Once you categorize the risk based on the tasks, create a risk management plan. This plan will help you record and manage your risks. Including risk management in your project management plan will enable you to respond instantly and eliminate the problem. A risk management plan will include a list of threats and methods to eliminate those threats from your project.
Later in this post, I will offer you concrete tips on the steps you need to take to manage the risk.
Monitor
Monitoring your risks is essential after you create a plan. A risk management plan will help you identify the risks, and it includes ways to eliminate them. However, you need to keep track of those risks to understand the progress.
Keeping track of the risks will open new opportunities. Addressing some potential risks could make your business more capable in areas you hadn’t previously considered. This could create new opportunities and forge a path to develop specific expertise. Also, it will help you develop new upgrades. Successful risk management includes tracking for new risks, evaluating your progress with the plan, and upgrading plans and techniques to solve the problems.
Mitigate
Reducing risk factors in advance requires accurate data collection and insights. These insights will help you evaluate the tasks and the results. This data consists of quantitative metrics such as click-through rates, visitor count, or time on each page of your site.
Measuring all of these metrics will enable you to immediately respond beforehand. Furthermore, you need to design a contingency plan to handle the risk. These plans will help you monitor future risks and include suitable responses to solve those problems.
Communicate
The risk management process requires effective communication within the teams. Also, you need to be transparent with the stakeholders, clients, and developers. When your team can easily share information and generate feedback about the risk, they can increase their chances of resolving the problem.
Steps To Manage Risk
As we saw earlier, a good risk management plan involves recording and addressing risks and includes a list of threats as well as methods to eliminate them. As promised, here are some steps you should consider when you prepare your risk management plan.
Identify risk tolerance. Before starting the project, you should communicate with your team and brainstorm for potential risks. Have meetings with your developers and designers so they can identify the factors that can trigger the problems.
Decide which risks to manage. After you list the potential risks that might occur during the development process, you can categorize them, prioritize them, and identify those you can easily resolve.
Identify risk triggers. After the evaluation of the project, you should identify the triggers for the listed risks. An expert project manager can analyze the risks and understand how they will affect the project. In this phase, you will consider the complexity of the project, testing qualities, and dependencies of the project.
Create visual representations. A good risk management plan will keep you on track throughout the project and direct your team toward defined goals. To better visualize your plan, you can use tools that provide a visual representation of the condition. The tools include risk matrix, assumption grid, and roam board. Let’s take a closer look at them:
- Risk Matrix — This tool highlights risks in a diagram, enabling you to identify the intensity at a glance. You can construct a risk matrix by conducting a risk analysis and risk evaluation. Then, place the values on a coordinate system. A risk matrix can help you evaluate the efficiency of your data, not to mention, creating a risk matrix doesn’t involve any complex processes.
- Assumption Grid — An assumption grid allows you to identify risks. Consider these risks as assumptions. In this tool, you place an assumption in two axes. These are high impact and low impact. By visualizing your assumptions using an assumption grid, you prioritize your tasks, make decisions, and overcome uncertainties. You can better organize your ideas and identify risks. This tool provides a table with risk levels for better understanding.
- ROAM Board — ROAM board is a framework to highlight risks. You and your team can identify these risks in a shared space. Furthermore, the tool will set priorities with different colors. Using a ROAM board to identify problems beforehand will help you drive cost effective solutions. The ROAM framework can help you resolve and mitigate problems.
This plan may also include a table with the following columns:
- Definition of the risk
- Triggers
- Probability
- The severity of the risk
- Priority of the risk
- Strategy to eliminate the risk
- Alternate strategy
- Action plan to implement the strategy
Overall, the idea is to choose a visualization that serves your particular project and circumstances the best, highlighting areas of importance to you.
Risk Management Is Worth the Effort
For the success of your software development project, you cannot ignore the risk management process. It is essential to identify, categorize and prioritize, and create an action plan to eliminate the potential risks.
Furthermore, you should update your risk management plan as the project advances. This requires reevaluating the risks on a daily basis and communicating with your development and designing team.
Risk management might seem complex at first, but once everything is set and you have a good understanding of what’s involved, the process is simplified. The benefits from risk management are certainly worth it.
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