Software development industry with its rapid pace and high cash flow is a truly welcoming environment for new ideas and changes. However, this doesn’t mean tech startups never struggle on their way to recognition. Lack of finance, low technical expertise, team shortage, and of course lack of understanding and faith in the product you’re trying to create — even one of these things is a bit of a challenge to handle.

App-Based Startup: Steps To Follow

#1. Validate your idea

Any startup regardless of the area comes out of an idea. Before signing a contract with a software development company or hiring a full-time team to build the project, stop for a second and think whether your app is worth building at all.

2. Choose the platform

If the choice between web and mobile is rather obvious, software owners oftentimes can’t decide on iOS or Android as the platform for their future launch. Well, this mostly depends on your target region. For now, Android is the most popular mobile operating system worldwide, but iOS is more spread in English-speaking countries like the US, Canada, and the UK.

Before taking your final decision, compare these two operating systems in terms of tech stack, security, flexibility, and costs. For example, Android is an open-sourced platform with SDKs and tools being free and accessible for literally everyone, unlike iOS. However, this transparency comes at a price of higher exposure to cyber attacks, and iOS is thought to be far more secure than Android.

3. Write down the project scope.

If you aren’t new to a business of any area, not necessary the IT itself, you might already know the importance of a detailed business plan to be written down. Such aspects as app functionality, funding, needed human resources, ways of monetization, scheduled app updates, and many others have to be firmly fixed on the paper and discussed with everyone involved in the development from the early stages. Don’t try to hold all this information in your head, at the end of the day that would only stress you out and result in collapse.

#4. Consult on the timeframes, budget, technology stack, etc.

At this step, you have to switch from theory to practice and actually discuss your project scope (deliverable from step # 4) with a project manager, software engineers, UI / UX designer, business analysts, digital marketing managers, QA engineers, and anyone else involved in the app launch. Find out if there are any aspects that might require extra attention and expertise, like patents, intellectual property issues, etc.

#five. Find a company that’s good at app development for startups

We sincerely believe that IT outsourcing is the best possible way to go for startups. Why? Simply because the startup owners have to do what they are good at, in particular, to market as much as possible out of the idea they came up with.

A decision to outsource software development leads to several important questions like where to find software development services for startups and how much would these cost. In short, we recommend you to ask your colleagues or friends for recommendations (if they have a corresponding experience), search for a company at specialty websites like Clutch, and read the reviews online. Also, stick to the companies of a narrow market segment, meaning those who want to build another CRM system should hire a company whose portfolio is full of enterprise software solutions. Same is with mobile applications, look for companies that distribute software development for startups specifically, like GoodCore Software (See: https://www.goodcore.co.uk/services/), rather than ones claiming to be good at everything.

6. Sign a contract and dive into the development process

After you’ve chosen the company, the legal arrangement phase begins. Prior to signing any contracts, you have to reach for professional lawyers (if you aren’t one yourself, of course) to conduct the due diligence investigation about the outsourcing vendor of your choice.

No matter how much experience and tech skills startup owners have at the beginning of their app launch journey, we always encourage them to actively take part in the development process. The fact that you are no good at coding shouldn’t decrease your value for the project.

7. Together with the team, come up with an MVP version for the first phase of the launch

Starting with MVP (minimum viable product) is the smartest option for startups. First of all, it allows you to save some funds since you will work on a minimum version of your app that takes less working hours for development and most likely fewer amount of people. Also, public reaction to your MVP will give you the directions of where to go and what features to add. Trust us, these aren’t always the same as initially planned.

Content Source: https://idapgroup.com/blog/custom-app-development-for-startups/