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Validate your app idea and launch quickly

5 WAYS TO VALIDATE YOUR APP IDEA & LAUNCH QUICKLY

Aamir Qutub
Aamir Qutub
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One fine evening, you happen to discuss an app idea with a group of friends, and each one of them thinks it is nothing short of brilliant.
You immediately want to start developing the app and launch it as soon as possible. You should never make a mistake of executing an app idea in a hurry.
There is no dearth of poorly planned apps that fail because they do not go through a process of idea validation.

You need to think through clearly, before making your app idea a reality.

  • What if your app does not have enough number of potential users?
  • Will your app be of interest to your target users?
  • Would the features of your app appeal to your prospects?

Validation is a major step before you begin the app development process. It helps you figure out the interest level of your audience. If you don’t test your idea, you might end up wasting thousands of dollars. It doesn’t matter what you or your friends think about your app idea.
Your target audience should find it worthwhile to download and use the final product.

Here are some of the key ways to validate your app idea:

Do a Market Research

The first step is to understand your target audience. Know more about the goals and motivation of your audience. Create a user persona for your app. A user persona is a fictional character that represents your target audience. You can include details such as age, profession, industry, job role and current challenges in your user persona study.
Analyse whether your target user would prefer using your app, by studying these characteristics.

Another way is to look for answers on social media:

  1. You can also look for potential users on social media channels like Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter and ask them for their opinion on your app idea.
  2. Reddit is another bustling hub of startup conversations. Find a suitable subreddit and solicit feedback on your app idea there.
  3. Twitter polls are useful in helping you understand more about your app idea. You can use a paid campaign to promote your survey and reach out to a larger sample of your audience.

Create a survey for your audience. Ask questions like:

  1. Would you be interested in using an app with ‘xyz’ features?
  2. Are you comfortable in paying for using such an app?

Add more questions and see the number of positive responses your idea gets. Do research on the apps that already exist in your niche. Analyse the value addition that your app will bring for your target users.

Understand how would your target users categorise this value addition:

  1. Not Important
  2. Somewhat Important
  3. Very Important
  4. Can’t Do Without

If your target users can’t do without the core features of your app, then you know it will be a sure shot success.

Another way to get more insights about your idea is to participate in startup/business networking events. You will find many startup and business owners who will be happy to share their experience with you. You can also get valuable advice on the merits and demerits of your idea.

Build a Minimum Viable Product

A minimum viable product is an app version that has some basic features only. It is not a full-fledged app and helps you to test market your idea quickly. You don’t need to launch an app that is fully featured. A minimum viable product helps you to test your idea. It is an app that’s built using the bare minimum resources. It helps you to determine the feasibility of your business idea.

Get assistance about your startup app idea and its execution

Analyse the App Store Charts

App Store Charts reveal the current market trends. Top Paid Charts reveal which apps people are most willing to pay for. Top Free Charts indicate which free apps are getting the most number of downloads.
Check out the Top Grossing Charts to know which apps are popular and getting most of the revenue.

Top App ChartsSource
Make a list of keywords in your industry. Use these keywords to search for apps in the app store. Analyse each of the apps that show up in the results. Find out if your app is good enough to outdo these apps. You can also analyse the user reviews on the existing apps. You need to find out how your app will be an improvement over those that exist.
Similarly, you can check out the featured section of the app store to get more insights.

Understand The Size of Your Target Market

Create a list of keywords that are related to your app idea. Add these keywords to the Google keyword planner tool. The tool will give the average monthly searches that these keywords are getting locally as well as globally. The higher the number of searches, the more will be the demand for the services related to your app idea.

target-audience

Source

Check Your App’s Product-Market Fit

It is crucial to check if your app will achieve a product market fit, soon after it is launched. You need to analyse whether your potential users will prefer your app over existing ones. Create a list of all the core features that your competing apps are providing.
You can add the names of some of your key competitors and list down the particular features with the help of a table.
Also, categorise each of the apps by their monetisation model. The standard monetisation models include:

  1. Paid Downloads
  2. eCommerce
  3. Ads
  4. Affiliate

Now compare the features and the monetisation model for each of the apps with your app. You can turn this document into a survey. Share it with your employees and potential customers and ask them to rate your app vis-a-vis your competition.

To be a successful startup app business owner, you need to take the idea validation process seriously. Look around and observe the type of problems people are facing and the apps that are available to solve these problems. You need to develop an app that is unique, and that solves real-world problems for a sizeable audience. Make sure your monetisation model is good enough to fetch you enough revenue for your business.
If you wish to make your app a success, then you must have a strategy to validate your idea.

We hope these tips would help you in your startup journey. If you are looking for further assistance about your app idea or its execution, you can request a free consultation from our team of app development experts.

Aamir Qutub
Aamir Qutub
Aamir Qutub is the founder and CEO of Enterprise Monkey, has a sincere passion for innovation and startups. With an experience of around a decade, he is a proud co-founder of 4 technology startups, focusing on real-world problems and their solutions. He also loves to cook and spend time with his onlyborn.
Aamir Qutub
Aamir Qutub
Aamir Qutub is the founder and CEO of Enterprise Monkey, has a sincere passion for innovation and startups. With an experience of around a decade, he is a proud co-founder of 4 technology startups, focusing on real-world problems and their solutions. He also loves to cook and spend time with his onlyborn.

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