In brief
Prepare your app business for growth by planning for global markets, verifying users unobtrusively, supporting relevant social platforms, measuring user data and estimating lifetime value to guide long-term investment.
Mobile app development has long since evolved from a novelty into an established industry.
• Growth in usage: Mobile phone usage has increased fourfold over the past four years and accounted for 20% of media consumption last year.
• Growth in revenue: Annual revenue from mobile apps will reach 70 billion in 2017.
• Growth in investment: Investor interest in mobile apps is growing steadily. Investment totalled 10 billion over the past 12 months, doubling since the third quarter of 2013.
Once an app venture is underway, however, there are five key areas to watch:
1. Think globally
Smartphone adoption is booming in emerging countries, and India and China will play increasingly prominent roles. These markets can bring large numbers of new users to emerging apps, but they also require more carefully targeted investment—for example, greater spending on preliminary analysis to ensure product localisation, including the languages an app supports.
2. Prevent fake accounts while maintaining a good user experience
As in any fast-growing industry, a wave of spam-related activity follows, and an app can easily see large numbers of fake accounts appear in a single day. To maximise registrations while maintaining trust worldwide, an app needs unobtrusive ways to verify users, such as mobile phone verification.
3. Ensure the app supports sharing across multiple social platforms
It is essential to let users easily share app content on the social platforms they normally use. Geography often determines which social platforms should be integrated into an app, making careful planning tailored to each market necessary.
4. Prioritise data measurement and collection to improve the user experience
After launch, an application needs ongoing updates through new features and performance improvements. Data is the most effective way to understand how users use an app and whether they stop using it. Planning, collecting and measuring key user data points is therefore crucial to achieving better product performance.
5. Estimate the application's lifetime value (LTV) to forecast costs and expenditure more accurately
Many apps have excellent ideas behind them but fail because they quickly run short of funds before achieving widespread adoption. A comprehensive understanding of business revenue and profit cycles helps determine how to make effective long-term investments without being forced to sell equity to raise cash.
The First Step in Starting an App Business: Prepare for Growth