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Mobile app deep linking is a great way to improve the user experience & also offer the very best user experience, but make sure that the customer’s links connects direct to WebPages where there are no logins required. Mobile app deep linking is the practice of using a URI link to specific pages or locations within a mobile app. It may be utilized in a variety of ways via notifications, email, SMS, social networking, etc. Website to App, App to App, Social Media to App, Search Result to App (using app indexing), Mobile Phone Search to App, Ad to App, E-mail to App and SMS to App etc. Deep linking indirectly increase user engagement. If you want, to be directed on a particular page or company’s Facebook Profile page.

by Ashish Goyal

Traditional Deep Links

Conventional Deep Links directs allow the users to displays app with the help of the app URL. It can be embedded in various channels such as emails, WebPages, social media articles, etc. and save a lot of time of the consumers by directing to specific and relevant content. The best benefit of mobile app deep linking is that it serves with relevant information without making them browse through different screens. They can access the content, simply by clicking on the hyperlink. For instance, when you’ve connected to something on your app from a website or a social media post, the users will be immediately directed to that specific location rather than the home screen of your app.

Improve Customer Engagement, Usage and Retention

By using the concept of deep linking, we can enhance customer participation and utilization. Additionally, it helps in re-engaging clients who’ve installed the app but haven’t visited it for quite a long moment. The users are approached through push notifications, which take them straight to the pages offering a range of interesting services and products, enabling users to re-engage together with the app.

Fetch a Higher Installation Rate

Now, if you link your app with the search results, your app will appear on the Google search results page. Clicking on the link will direct the users into the app store and they’ll download it before assessing the particular page on the app.

Establish a Link between Two apps

With heavy linking, you may set a connection between two apps easily. For instance, if you’ve got two gaming apps and one is a sequel to another, you can easily create a profound connection for directing people who have finished the first to the second app. This will allow your customers to conserve their time on searching for the sequel in the app shop and then downloading it.

Strengthen Your Marketing Campaign

It is possible to use the process of mobile app deep linking to drive higher earnings and earnings for your business. You may make a marketing campaign in which you’re providing a special discount of 20% on merchandise to a select group of users and send them along with deep links which direct them to the particular pages from where they are able to instantly purchase it.

Give Insight to Campaign Usefulness

The fact that deep links can pass data can basically assist you in knowing the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns launched by you personally. It is simple to learn about the resources, i.e. ads, social media articles, SMS, emails, etc.

Types of portable deep linking

Standard deep linking

Users direct connect to a particular part of your app with URI. The shortcoming with them is that they’ll only work if the user has the app installed on their apparatus. Otherwise, they will show the error page to the user.

Contextual deep linking

These can serve the functions of the above two kinds of deep linking, but also allow for more precise tracking and much better relevancy to customers. It’s more helpful for both developers and users; these links pass information to app through setup and allow not just better attribution but also personalized on boarding.

How Mobile Deep Linking Matters

Businesses now realize the worth of mobile deep linking to user experience, forcing engagement, improving the consumer on boarding process, promoting their apps, and much better tracking advertising campaigns.

Enhance the User Experience

Users are able to more easily access page through deep links, with essentially no navigation. They also function to specific screens to your app instead of the home screen; thus, if you are linking to something in your app from social media, a cell website, etc. users can navigate effortlessly to that content.

Re-Engage Users

When a user has your app installed but has been inactive for a period of time, you may use deep linking to guide them to particular content to promote usage, rather than the generic home screen. By way of instance, you might re-engage an individual by sending them a push notification that connects to an exclusive arrangement, a new attribute, or something different that will incentivize them to participate with the program again. Based upon your monetization strategy, deep linking can help to drive revenue and increase sales.

Boost App Discoverability

Google indexes mobile app deep hyperlinks, meaning that app content can show up in search engine results pages as a website. This raises the odds of users finding your app through hunt. Deep linking must think about the data hierarchy, structure, and logic of the app.

To make the experience easy, you want to ensure that deep links take users straight to the content with no logins needed. If you fail to define your architecture of the app, it is going to result in a poor user experience. Deep linking has become a vital part of good mobile app. The capability to improve the user experience, improve apps discoverability, increase downloads and retention, and even drive earnings make mobile deep linking valuable from both app developer and user standpoint.

Ashish Goyal is a Digital Marketing Specialist at Xtreem Solution, a leading mobile app development company. You can hire app developer form our dedicated professional team or developers. He loves to pen down his understanding and knowledge in a simplified and engaging manner. He is an early adopter, likes to stay up to date with the latest trends in the mobile and web industry, and add value to the organization. Besides this, He is fond of reading books, writing short stories, EDM music and football lover.

 

 

 

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Millions of mobile applications are available to download on the App Store. But, only a few are successful and the rest of them are going through a cut-throat competition to increase app download and drive potential business opportunities. Undoubtedly, user experience is the key to boost app installs. Do you agree? And, it is a widely accepted fact that engaging user experience can be delivered through the native iOS app development.

Moreover, while considering iOS, one cannot ignore the significance of Android platform. Hence, it is important to pick the right technology that delivers a native-like experience on iOS platform and perform effectively on Android too.

This compatibility can be achieved through a cross-platform technology. Flutter is the best choice for iOS developers to build an app that delivers a delightful experience to the users.

Let’s have detailed insights on what Flutter is all about and how it helps in developing robust iOS applications.

Flutter – All You Need to Know about the Technology

It is an open-source and multi-platform mobile app SDK developed by Google. Flutter allows developers to build iOS and Android apps using similar codebase. These days, React Native technology is gaining immense popularity amongst developers.

Flutter can also be used as React Native at the initial. It will support all React Native features in the near future. Due to this reason, large scale companies like Alibaba have started developing mobile applications using this technology.

It is a powerful cross-platform technology that allows for building highly customized mobile applications without compromising on the quality.

Are you eager to explore the impacts of Flutter on iOS app development? Here we go to explore why developers should give prominence to the technology.

Why iOS Developers Should Select Flutter over Native iOS App Development?

#1. Technical Architecture

Flutter and native iOS development are completely different from each other when it comes to technical architecture, as they belong from two entirely unique platforms. Native iOS development tools were developed by Apple while Flutter is openly developed by Google.

Programming Language

The only exception to this is Swift programming language and some other libraries available in Apple’s Github. Flutter allows for iOS app development using the Dart programming language while native iOS uses Swift or Objective-C.

Native iOS applications are developed using Swift that is why they provide fast and slick performance. Whereas the dart technology has a few awesome features such as a rich library, powerful typing, async and generics to build an application.

Dart records the required code of an application using the tree shaking compiler. Moreover, Dart framework does not need to communicate with the native modules. The technology enables you with a rich library to choose and use widgets from.        

Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

Flutter and native iOS are using different IDEs too. To build native iOS applications, iOS developers use Xcode. On the other hand, Flutter uses IntelliJ Idea, Android Studio, or a text editor like Sublime Text or Atom to develop an app.

#2.UI Design Elements

The user interface design of iOS application takes a lot of time. To create native iOS applications, the platform offers a UIKit that provides complete support for printing, animation, drawing, and documentation. Moreover, it contains event-driven interfaces with a variety of gesture support.

UI elements of Flutter are quite different from native iOS tools. Flutter apps run in its framework and rendering engine. iOS developers can accelerate app development cycle using the widgets offered by Flutter. It allows to create tricky UI/UX using any of the widgets. Moreover, widgets and layouts designed using the Flutter are pixel perfect.

In short, Flutter UI is a tree of stateless or stateful widgets that allows to design complex UIs and supports both Cupertino for iOS and Material Components for Andoird.

#3. Accelerated Development

Flutter is not a web technology but it helps developers to build the iOS application faster. Instead of using traditional compilers, it allows you to use the dynamic scripting language to leverage experience of a great performance of compiled languages.

While adopting Flutter, you can access compile mode and interpreted mode of Dart programming language. The compile mode allows iOS developers to compile an app down to native machine code before they plan the application launch. Awesome features of Dart technology ensure the next-generation mobile app development with amazing experiences.

#4. Boost Productivity of iOS Developers

To develop a native iOS application, developers need to use Xcode and other native frameworks offered by Apple. Whenever they make changes on the app and update the code, they have to re-build the app or 3rd party dependencies in some cases to view the changes in the devices or simulator. It is a very time-consuming process for developers.

Flutter, being an open source platform, allows developers to build the app faster and increase their productivity. Google’s Hot Reload feature makes Flutter different from other platforms by allowing programmers to make small significant changes in the app, in a very fast and easy way. It connects designers and developers in order to improve collaboration between them and speed up the development cycle.

#5. CI/CD Assistance

Due to continuous integration and delivery practices, developers can complete the iOS applications quickly. Apple offers Xcode server for CI/CD of iOS applications. It is not scalable for the larger team.

To deliver scalable services, Apple can use BuddyBuild but in the near future they will need the support of native CI/CD. Currently, iOS developers are using Fastlane and Jenkins to perform their in-house tasks or they outsource this activity to cloud service providers.

Flutter has tied up Nevercode and developed Codemagic, one of the best CI/CD solutions. Codemagic can build, detect, test and package the Flutter apps without any configuration.

And The Winner Is Flutter…

Flutter is a relatively new technology and allows iOS developers to build an app within a short time period and a limited budget. It allows to build iOS apps with great UI and unique customizable features. Faster app development also results in cost reduction and improved time to market of the app.

When it comes to choosing from Flutter and native iOS development, it is hard to make the right decision. Though Flutter has some amazing features, it is not a perfect platform. A lot of improvements are expected from the technology in the near future. But, Flutter allows for building an app that looks native and slick. Thus, if you are an iOS developer, you can’t ignore this platform. Also, businesses should consider it as the first choice to develop their iOS applications.

Sagar holds the position of Chief Technology Officer at Credencys Solutions Inc., a mobile app development company. He is responsible for all the technical operations, as well as leading the company’s revolutionary offerings. He is helping companies navigate the Digital journey in an Agile environment. Share your app idea at sagar@credencys.com.
 
Sagar has two main areas of focus – Technology and Processes.  He has worked in leadership positions in various Fortune 500 companies and has been instrumental in driving success through digital transformation. He is also an enthusiastic Agile Coach. 

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An explosion of new consumer finance brands is transforming how people save, spend, and manage their money. Ninety-two million millennials will soon be in what Goldman Sachs calls their “prime spending years.” In aggregate, they command $1.3 trillion in annual spending. They have a deep antipathy to traditional financial institutions.

by Liz Rustia

A host of startups have emerged to capitalize on this trend. These companies are making it easier to make a budget, invest, and buy stocks, as well as to get loans and credit cards.

The leading apps in personal finance

Robinhood – buy and sell stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) without paying a commission. With the use of white space and referral program, Robinhood got million users in days.

Level Money – aims to track your “spendable” money—i.e. the amount that’s left over after you’ve paid all fixed expenses and set aside some money for savings. Effortless personal financial control and new models for financial services. Instead of categorizing transactions and tracking bank balances, Level empowers members to easily understand cash flow by automatically detecting income and fixed expenses from linked financial accounts.

Credit Karma – online personal-finance platform that lets you monitor your credit reports and scores for free and offers other tools and services based on your profile. Credit Karma provides free weekly updated credit reports and scores as well.

Stash – The Stash Invest app allows investors to start investing with as little as $5. Not only that, but Stash makes choosing investments extremely simple. They also have low fees at only $1 per month if your account has less than $5,000 or 0.25% per year if your account holds more than $5,000. 

Acorns – Painless saving by investing your spare change. The service is free and pricing starts at just $1 per month for pretty much everyone else. You can set up your Acorn app to automatically invest your savings without your even knowing about it.

Qapital – Qapital adds the option to automatically transfer money, based on rules you choose, to an FDIC-insured Wells Fargo account. The app also enables you to share your goals with your family, friends or teammates, to help you stay on track with those goals. So you can use peer pressure to continue your savings plan.

Mint and Mint Bills (formerly Check and before that Pageonce) – lets users link all of their financial accounts in one place and pay bills directly from the app. Allows users to track bank, credit card, investment, and loan balances and transactions through a single user interface, as well as create budgets and set financial goals.

Understanding the dynamics of user acquisition and growth

To build a successful personal finance management tool, it’s important to understand the dynamics of user acquisition and growth.

Building a product that people want is hard. It’s even harder when your target market would rather never think about what you’re trying to sell them — retirement, for example. (Bankrate found 83% of millennials don’t think they’ll ever retire: they simply “don’t think they’ll have the money” to do so.)

The result of getting your product right, however, can be exponential growth so fast it’s hard to wrap your mind around. Below are some examples on what they did to achieve their massive results.

  1. How to use pre-launch marketing to build trust and hype
    • How blog posts helped Mint get 20,000+ customers pre-launch
    • How Robinhood used an ingenious referral program to build a 1M+ customer waitlist
  2. How to show value during the first-run experience
    • The free tools Credit Karma uses to drive a sticky experience and bring 5M+ users from Google every month
    • How Mint returns 100+ lost hours to its users’ lives right away
    • The 3 questions Level Money asks users the first time they use the app
  3. How to design for the specific user you want
    • Robinhood’s clutter-free user interface design is flypaper for millennial audiences
    • How narrowing its feature roadmap helped Check get acquired for $360M
    • How the color green helped Mint convert more potential users
    • How Level Money designed a millennial-friendly, mobile-first experience
  4. How to monetize your users’ financial betterment
    • The $2B opportunity Mint found in preferred pricing
    • How Credit Karma built a $500M business by helping people
    • Why Qapital is building an all-in-one PFM suite
    • How Robinhood launched crypto and got a million new users in days
  5. How to productize personal responsibility
    • How recurring micro-transactions let Acorns do 17x the trading volume of Fidelity
    • Stash’s strategy around choice and how it helps them add 25,000 users a week
    • The behavioral science behind Qapital’s trigger-based investing
  6. How to turn sharing into self-improvement
    • The addictive referral program driving Robinhood’s continued growth
    • Stash teaches its users how to invest
    • Acorns’ rock-bottom customer acquisition costs as driven by non-viral referral

With patience, continuous user engagement and maximizing the tactics above ensure regular traffic to any apps. Still want to read more of how these companies strategized their success? Click here.

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As different technologies continue to mount, Progressive Web Apps are set to signal technical progress and innovation in the mobile app development space. More importantly, unlike responsive web designs, these apps are seen seamlessly uniting desktop, mobile and app experiences.

by Serena Cooper

In simple words, PWAs are a rare combination of experiences that combine the best of the web as well as apps. Users who visit a browser tab for the very first time, without any additional installation required. Have you wondered why? Because it becomes more and more powerful as a user progressively builds a relationship with the app over time. Everything happens to load quickly, even on flaky networks, you can send relevant push notifications, also have an impressive icon on the home screen, and basically loads as a top-level, full-screen experience.

Core Aspects of PWA

  • Progressiveness- Works for every user
  • Responsive- To fit any form factor
  • App-like- Easy navigations
  • Independent connectivity- Users can work offline
  • Fresh- Transparency and always up-to-date
  • Safe- Served via TLS to avoid snooping
  • Easily discovered- Can be identified easily
  • Linkable- They’re zero-friction, zero-install, and easy to share.  

A site must fulfill three baseline criteria to qualify as a PWA on the web:

  • You need to be running on HTTPS
  • Need a Web App Manifest
  • You need a Service Worker

How Progressive Web apps came into existence?

Several years ago, tech giant Google came up with a rare comparison between top 1000 mobile apps vs. top 1000 mobile app properties (web). They basically wanted to study reach and user engagement. And the comparison showed a great disparity in user behavior. Mobile web reach seems to be remarkably higher than native app reach. While on the other hand, user engagement stats show that users tend to spend more time on mobile apps instead of the mobile web. PWA came into play where professionals can easily provide a native app like engaging experience to users on the mobile web.

Its benefits include

  1. Responsiveness: Unlike mobile apps, progressive web apps are highly responsive. In simple words, they auto adjust the layout depending on the device. So whether you are using a mobile or a laptop, desktop, PWA’s are capable of fitting any and every device.
  2. Security: Unlike traditional web apps, PWA’s are more secured. Being always served via HTTPs, one can believe that the app can is tamper proof and cannot be vandalized.
  3. Reliable network: It may quite interest you to know that Progressive Web Apps are the ones to rely on even when the network is shoddy as they can work offline. For instance, Konga, a leading e-commerce website in Nigeria managed to reduce 92% of the user data usage due to its Progressive Web App.
  4. Look and Feel– Being a normal user you won’t be able to spot any difference between PWA and the native app as they both exactly look and feels like a native app. In addition to this, PWA even provides similar features like push notification, integration with the system, display icon on the home screen and app drawer, etc.
  5. Easy Update– One of the most amazing aspects here is Progressive Web Apps are extremely easy to update. And since no app store works as a mediator, your users can enjoy the updated app as soon as you have updated it from your side.

Today PWAs are fully functional and installable on:

  • Android with most browsers, with Chrome offering the best experience
  • iOS with Safari
  • Chromebooks
  • Windows 10 from the Microsoft Store
  • Feature phones with KaiOS – a fork from Firefox OS – currently available for millions of users mainly in India

Some of the best examples of Progressive Web Apps

  1. AliExpress– I am sure you all must be well aware regarding the famous e-commerce site owned by the Alibaba Group. But what you may not know is that over a few years ago they converted their mobile site to a Progressive Web App. The primary objective was to turn non-app users into app users with the help of a mobile site. Unfortunately, things didn’t work as expected. Hence, they decided to invest in a cross-browser Progressive Web App, and the decision significantly enhanced the user experience and overall performance of the site. As a result,
    • 104% increase in conversions for new users
    • 2x more pages visited per session
    • 74% increase in time spent per session
  1. Flipkart– Another largest e-commerce site that recently updated to a Progressive Web App called Flipkart Lite. The app delivers fast and streamlined experiences to mobile users like never before. It may quite interest you to know that back in 2015, Flipkart temporarily shut down its mobile website and embraced an app-only strategy. Because they found difficulty to deliver an engaging web experience, mainly because more than half of their users were browsing through flaky or 2G networks. Times have changed now! With Flipkart Lite: we found
  • 70% increase in conversions
  • 40% higher re-engagement
  • 3x more time spent on site
  • 3x lower data usage
  1. BookMyShow– Who doesn’t know about one of the leading ticketing company in India. They developed a Progressive Web App in 2017 to replace their mobile site. The change broadened its customer base and increased conversions. Although, before PWA came into existence, 85% of transactions were carried out on mobile. After this, the firm was capable of offering a seamless ticket-booking experience to mobile users, without becoming a burden on their device’s storage and memory capabilities.
  2. Forbes– A top U.S. business magazine website that provides articles on finance, marketing, investment, and industry topics recently got converted into PWA. This led to an increase in load times and doubled engagement rates through the use of push notifications and an option to add the Progressive Web App to home screens.
  3. OLX- Being one of the largest online classified ads directory in both India as well as Pakistan, OLX required focusing on its mobile user experience. What they did was, they came up with PWAs featuring push notifications — just like a native app — and offered users an immersive, app-like experience on their mobile site. What happened next?
  • 250% increase in re-engagement
  • 80% decrease in bounce rates
  • 146% increase in CTR on Ads
  • 23% decrease in time taken for a page to be interactive

Author Bio

Serena Cooper a successful Technology Observer with 5 years of experience, also she has expertise in Website Design, Development, Online branding. Currently she is working with a Mobile app development company eTatvaSoft. She’s person with high spirit and fond of social activities.

 

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The world today, the fast-paced, technology-driven, smartphone savvy world, it is expanding every second. Even as we speak right now. It expands by leaps and bounds. Mobile app development, as a result, is becoming more and more competitive with each passing day. As a rising organization, you need to stay ahead of your competition, which is why you need the best approach towards your app based startup.

by James Grills

Creating a successful mobile app needs not just a systematic approach but also financial management. With a little bit of caution and a meticulous approach, your app based startup cost can lower down.

Factors affecting application development costs

Mobile apps for startups are a crucial element and they come in a variety of sizes and types. Added with the functionalities and the UX they provide, their costs can waver up and down. There are a lot of intricacies determining the actual cost of a mobile app.

The following are some of the most significant factors that affect application development costs:

  • Your business model
  • The audiences and platforms you serve
  • The functionality your app offers
  • The UX and design
  • The development team

Of course, the costs are not restricted to just these factors, they are also dependent on certain hidden costs, but we will talk about them later.

  • Your business model

You, of course, want to get started with your application ASAP, but you should step back and think about the implications of hurrying. Once you have a definite idea about what you are trying to do and what steps are you supposed to take to achieve the same, only then should you be proceeding with your application development.

The business model here plays a major role in the same. Having a platform business model here is what you should be focussing on, similar to the lines of Airbnb, Snapchat, Uber, YouTube, etc.

Once you are done with this, you should now be focussing on detailing your application functionalities and how is it going to be interacting with your consumers in the end. Having a detailed idea about this is always going to be beneficial for you. If Uber would not have thought about this, it would not be a successful global cab service today. Uber thought it through and managed to connect all the riders to prospective drivers almost seamlessly. Focussing on the initials, therefore, is your best bet.

You can always go ahead and add more features in the later stages but having a basic efficient idea about your application is what is going to help you lower your mobile app development costs down.

Therefore, to sum this point up: Focus on the areas that form the basic premise of your application. Focus on the resources that are going to develop that basic premise from a mere idea to a real thing.

  • Audiences and platform

Creation of a successful mobile app also depends on the kind of audience and the kind of platform you are serving. Both of these combined do happen to add up to your app development costs.

Having a clear vision about your target audiences if going to define not jut the success ratio of your mobile app, but also its actual development cost. Before you go into the development procedure, sample a group out and look for people who would actually be interesting in buying your app, or anything in it. Creating a group of people to test your app on or just the basic idea is going to leave you with a brief idea about the people who fit your vision. If the vision looks great and successful, you should, of course, go ahead with the actual development process.

The same goes for the platform.

The platform you serve must also be kept in mind before you go ahead and determine the costs. This also entails hardware, battery, peripherals, network connectivity, device support, overall device performance, etc.

The concern about the platform further gets divided into two segments: Native and Hybrid.

While native applications are developed for a particular device, for example, an application specifically coded in the Swift language and caters only to iOS devices, Hybrid applications are cross-platform applications. Hybrid applications, thus, in turn, are less expensive as they can be built for multiple devices and platforms in one go.  

A brief summary of the point: Audiences and the kind of platform you choose play a heavy role in your app development costs. If the platform you choose does not support the application or the audiences you choose are not willing to invest in your app, your application is doomed, to begin with.

  • Application features and functionality

The kind of features and functionality your application offers to its users is another significant factor that determines app development costs. A simple application can be improved and bettered for the ultimate users by adding additional features and functions. However, this definitely leads to a rise in costs.

Most mobile apps that are willing to offer more functionalities, as a result of its coding process, tend to be highly placed in development cost graphs. Gaming apps are a great example the same. Gaming applications that provide users with multiple levels and simulations are higher on the price charts. The same goes for applications that have multiple sharing interfaces. 

The functionality of an app, however, is not restricted to the above-mentioned facts. It goes beyond them in certain cases. This includes: the capacity to have in-app purchases, integrating social media, launch costs, server backups, introducing new technology, user customizations, etc.

To sum it up: the number of functions and features your applications hosts, the more is its cost going to be in the end!

  • Design and UX

If it does not appeal to the eyes, it is not going to appeal at all! This is very true in cases. Designing a great app takes a lot of innovation, creativity, enthusiasm, and energy. A breathtaking design is what people need when they are looking forward to using an application. Visually pleasing applications, though a budget breaker is what everyone favors. Ultimately, a well-designed application is what users are most likely to use and refrain from keeping their smartphones away!

For a great design, an application requires the following basics:

An app icon, a good screen ratio, interface elements and buttons, and other engaging user features.

However, it is not just the design alone that takes away your app development budget. Added to the design the UX also plays a key role in the same. Both emerge out as clear winners when budgeting for an application.

Of course, a $0.99 app is not going to be anything like a $100 app!

UX forms a structural pillar of your application. How the users are interacting with your app is what determines its viability in the market.

Given the price range and your budget constraints, you can achieve brilliance with teamwork and passion. Compelling designs can work in your application’s favor at any cost. All it takes is the people who are looking to throw in their expertise.

To brief the point up: Having a competitive design works wonders for your application. Added to it its UX, your application can stand out; provided you shell out a few extra bucks for each step here.

  • Development team

The people who are ultimately developing your mobile app determine the cost of your application development process as well. For a startup, you would, of course, want to keep the cost as low as possible because of fundings and other issues. However, your costs can vary depending on the kind of work you are seeking.

The development team costs are as imperative as the cost of designing and functionality.

The one thing everyone should keep in mind before choosing an app development team is that cheap development teams might have proven good for some, might not be great every single time.

The process of hiring people who can develop your application adds up to your overhead costs as well, if you yourself cannot build the application.

There are three ways development teams are formed though.

  • There are offshore teams
  • There are freelance app developers, and
  • There are established app development companies.

All these routes include hiring people.

  • As far as offshore app development teams are concerned, they are working for you on a part-time basis, which is why they are cheap. You could hire anyone anywhere in the world, as remote as possible and you could get your work done. It is as simple as that.

However, this could result in the demeaning quality of work. You are not actually supervising the team at every step, which could lead to a conflict of interests.

Though million-dollar applications are not built this way, this sure is a great way for a startup or any workplace to outsource their app development process.

  • Freelancers, like an offshore app development team, are also great options for app development. They are cheap if they are not experts. Of course, expert freelance application developers will always come at a cost. However, anyone who is still trying to establish their name and image in the industry and is great at what they have done in the past might suit your budget as well. You never know!
  • A full-service mobile app development company, though expensive, is always a great option for anyone and everyone looking to expand into the market with a mobile app!

Certain mobile app development companies are innovative and experts at what they do, and apart from offering you with servicers rendering the application development process, might as well offer you services related to its designing, promotion and other app development and marketing prospects. Experienced teams are somewhat hard to find, but not impossible. A great app development company will have the resources to serve you with. They will have the potential to meet your desires. The costs sure are high as compared to the above two options, but the option is not really bad.

To sum it up: There are three major ways to meet application developers: either through offshore development teams, freelancers or full-fledged app development companies. It all depends on the kind of developer you are choosing and your meticulous eye to screen for the best. Trust your gut feeling and instincts.

Hidden costs

We will mention the hidden costs of your application development process in brief.

The factors that affect the ultimate budget of your app based startup are

  • The costs and time taken to test the application out.
  • The costs of protecting your intellectual property, including copyrights, trademarks and patents.
  • Marketing your mobile app
  • The cost that goes into launching the same
  • The cost of getting it listed on the desired app store or play store.
  • Administration and technical support costs, if any.
  • Data security costs
  • Application maintenance costs

The total cost

This brings us to the end; what exactly is going to be your cost?

The actual number and figures always vary. They depend on your needs and desires and your business model and the features you need. Depending on the kind of factors and the complexity of the factors mentioned above goes in the actual development process, the app development costs can be determined. Added to it the hidden costs, the costs no one really considers in the first estimates also end up adding up to your app.

Author Bio: James Grills is a technical writer with a passion for writing on emerging technologies in the areas of mobile application development and IoT technology. He is a marketing advisor – currently associated with Cumulations Technologies a mobile app development company in India.

 

 

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You have finished your app — everything from its codes to its features. What’s next is releasing it to the public. However, you need to make it a successful app by gathering and garnering a lot of potential and active users of your mobile application.You have finished your app — everything from its codes to its features. What’s next is releasing it to the public. However, you need to make it a successful app by gathering and garnering a lot of potential and active users of your mobile application.

by Violet Smith

You need to get a significant amount of attention to your app so that it will pique the attention of your target users and audience. However, according to Localytics, In 2016, around 23% of app users abandoned it after the first use. You need to work out on the engagement of the app to its users and retention of its users since this is very critical to your mobile application.
 
In this article, we will introduce you to ten different practices you can apply to your app to increase your engagement rate and user retention.you can apply to your app to increase your engagement rate and user retention.

1. User-Friendly App

Firstly, you need to make your app a user-friendly one. It is deemed to be the easiest way to create higher user retention. You cannot do that if you do not understand your users well. It is essential to know your users’ needs for the app and information about them. After that, you can integrate those in the app. Always put your users first in the experience of the app, always think what the best angle of a specific feature that will cater them in the best way possible is.

Another thing to make your user-friendly app is creating a simple design for it and giving it great usability. The design of the app should be straightforward, up to the point that even non-techie persons will not have difficulty in having a great experience in your application. A user-friendly app is essential, especially that you are catering a pool of mobile users. According to RedStag Fulfillment, mobile usage nowadays is responsible for over 50% of market share, more than desktop computer users and tablet users. The mobile app is the new way to boost e-commerce conversion rate and the engagement of users and customers.

2. Simple and Easy Onboarding Process

 If your app needs an account from your users before giving them a great experience, make the process very easy and simple. Make sure that the whole course of filling up forms is not very intrusive and enough to not provide their personal information to your app. Avoid asking for information that you will not really use in the whole time they are engaging with you. For example, you may not need the customer’s last names. Just ask for their usernames, email addresses, and passwords. You can also allow registration from social media sites such as Facebook and Gmail.

Lastly, it may be better if you let the user explore the app itself and the whole application should allow your user to create an account. All of these should be done in the most casual and fun way to avoid your users not signing up in your app.

3. Proper App Functionality

Another thing to consider is the application’s quality when it comes to overall functionality and performance. You can achieve this by testing your app every once in a while. Bugs are always a thing in apps after updates, so testing it will minimize the occurrence of bugs in your app before releasing it to your users and audiences. It is like a factory where you have a quality assurance officer to always look at the quality of the product if it passes the standards. Same with the application, you need to assure that it passes the standards before letting your users download it.

With this, you can have higher engagement and retention rates because there is minimal app crash, faster load times, and other features working well.

4. Smart Push Notification

Push notifications are one of the best ways to create lasting user retention; however, it should be used smartly. According to Localytics, there is a 9.3 times more engagement of people who enabled push notifications than those who do not. You should be smart with this. Just like the onboarding point, you need to show your app’s worth which can lead to your users signing up for your notifications. You can tell why notifications are essential to give the best experience to them.

Notifications should be done as relevant as possible. Also, it should always consider the timing. For instance, you do not want to annoy your users when sending notifications; you need to send it in the most optimal time according to your user’s demographics, not when they are sleeping. The frequency of the notifications should be minimized and ensuring that every notification should show value. Lastly, targeted notifications should not occur in bulk. You can do this by personalizing your notification to your users.

5. Social Media Synchronization

 With all of the different trends and increase in the usage of the younger generations, social media is the key to market your mobile app. You can not only engage with your users inside the application but also outside, specifically through social media. You can also integrate social media networks in your application, just like Spotify.

Social media for your mobile app is an innovative way to connect with different people for your app. Content sharing can be done in social media networks to make your app known to many people, especially if you are targeting the app to specific target audiences of your app. You can manage your social media by creating a social media strategy for it and plan everything on how to engage and retain your users using these networks.

6. User Surveys for App

User surveys are done to gather feedback from your application users. It is a good way to engage with them because you are talking about how you can make their experience better and make them retain in your application.

You can use in-app surveys or link from your app or social media channels to a survey that can quickly help them in answering. Never forget to acknowledge what your users are saying about your app, ensure that you will assist in creating your app a better one from the feedback.

You can start making changes by compiling first all the feedback and check if all of those are applicable for change. You can also pick whatever is the most compelling feedback that can amp up your user experience.

7. App Localization

Localizing your app boosts growth and conversion rates, which can translate to engagements and retention from your users. You should know where you should focus your app on. It is better to focus it on where your app has the most users. Research is the way here. You need to do a lot of research on how you can make your app localized in a certain country.

Another question is how you can localize your app, in Android or iOS? iOS has a specific place only where you can release your app. However, in Android, there are many choices to launch your app. Every decision from here should be the best one that will not make your process in launching your app a living nightmare. Localizing an app is an excellent way to consider the culture variation around a world, making it targeted to one culture will ensure success to your app.

8. App Benefits in App Store Listing

Your users can access your app by downloading it in their operating system’s app store. You can start selling your app there and show all the benefits your app can give to them.

You should do acknowledge their struggle in today’s technology; from there, you can insert your app and how it can easily help your users in their everyday lives. Most users are thinking about if the app you are offering is worth it or not, which is the perfect opportunity to give persuasive texts and messages to show your app’s worth even before downloading. Always persevere in app stores and continue to engage with different people into downloading your application.

9. App Update Notification

When your app updates in your user’s mobile device, you need to let them know what is covered in the new update. Show all functionalities and features that are updated in the recent version of your app. It is important to show these to show that they are benefiting in your app after updating, giving them the best experience every after the app update.

Many people are signing up for automatic updates, but some are not. You need to let them sign up for this by giving notifications in other forms. Email marketing is one way where you can send the updates in their emails and make them change their mind in updating your app automatically.

10. Regular UI Update

You should always update your UI, even if it is in the best form for your customers. Look at your app as an ever-evolving entity that is better when always updated. Base your UI updates from your user surveys and feedback to your app. When you apply what they are telling you, it can raise the engagement rate and retention rate of your users since their feedback is heard and given action.

UI and UX should always be new and fresh for your users. Fresh views and experiences do not fail in getting new users and strengthen the retention rate of your current users.

Violet Smith is a marketing communications specialist who would like to share her knowledge through her blogs. She writes with the goal of spreading awareness on the topics that she writes about. Outside of writing, her other passion is shopping.

 

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For the Marketing World, there are different types of strategies for contributing to UX and even improve user retention and engagement. Advertisements are a crucial part of your marketing’s overall strategy. In the current days, the Firebase Ad monetizing is gaining popularity. Google’s Firebase is a mobile and web development platform packed with multiple services like Analytics, Cloud Messaging, Auth, Real-time database, etc. for application development. Firebase is compensated by rewarded video ads where a user earns rewards of in-app currency.

by Vikash Kumar

 

The rewarded video is a highly user-focused format. It begins by the user choosing to watch an ad and to get some rewards for impacting user engagement in multiple ways. Firebase offers similar reward video ads for the applications. Keep in mind the given few tips to enhance your user engagement.

#1 Building up your application to break down your crowd

Firebase can give a Real-time Database, Authentication, Cloud Messaging, Storage, Hosting and Crash Reporting to help you in building up your application. Disregard framework – you can concentrate on building your magnum opus and leave the tasks to Firebase. At the core, Firebase is a 100% free analytics arrangement constructed explicitly for mobile applications.

With boundless giving an account of unmistakable occasions, you can set up numerous estimations to know precisely what your clients are doing in your application, how they’re drawing in with your application, and what they adore most about your application. With this information, you can center your endeavors to penetrate down and continue the best highlights of your application, while in the meantime enhance recently surfaced zones of requirements.

 

#2 Develop your group of onlookers

After you’ve propelled your application, Firebase can enable you to develop and reconnect clients with ground-breaking development highlights. Utilizing Firebase Notifications reassure you can reconnect clients, run promoting efforts, and target messages to Audiences in Firebase Analytics.

Dynamic Links can endure the application introduce process and take clients to pertinent substance whether they’re a temporary client or a permanent client. There is likewise the Firebase Invites highlight, an out-of-the-case answer for application referrals and sharing, which lets your current clients effectively share your application, or their most loved in-application content, by means of email or SMS.

At last, Firebase can likewise follow your AdWords application introduces and report lifetime incentive to the Firebase Analytics dashboard, and Firebase Audiences can similarly be utilized in AdWords to reconnect explicit gatherings of clients. For instance, In-application occasions can be characterized as changes in AdWords, to naturally enhance your promotions, including public application battles.

 

#3 Adapt your item

With AdMob by Google, Firebase can likewise enable you to adapt your application by connecting your Firebase Analytics with adaptation. By joining these two items, you increase profound bits of knowledge into useful information, which you would then be able to use to enhance your client encounter and adapt your application.

Do your clients experience difficulty advancing past specific dimensions? Help them push with Rewarded Video. Are sure clients going through throughout the day interminably looking through your substance? Help them find other cool applications with Native Express. Do a couple of clients spend intensely on your IAPs and you need to keep their experience advertisement free? Portion them with Firebase, and prohibit them from the promotion encounter.

 

#4 Figure out your monetization strategy

You can add Data Analytics to understand what type of data to be collected along with custom Login for your application to access reward video ads. By enabling Debug mode to track raw event data logged by your app in real-time, create a segment with users for the audiences to check their activity. You can also enable custom parameter reporting to get insights into reading analytics reports and also use analytics predictions to predict user behavior. Opt for A/B testing to analyze Ad Behavior and change them according to user attention for Fine-tune Push Notification Messages.

Final Thoughts

Implementing the hacks in the right direction leads to the active user engagement for the rewarded video Ads using the Firebase. Thus, developers have started using firebase for better analytics as well to get user focus on their specific application. So, what are you waiting for? Start now!

 

Author Bio:

Vikash Kumar as a manager at Tatvasoft.com which is a software development company. Vikash loves to write in his leisure time on development topics. He is also an avid reader and blogger who has already published his bylines in major publications like Entrepreneur. You can also find him on Twitter, LinkedIn and he also blogs on Tatvasoft Blog.

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The world today is finding its life in smart devices. They live with the confidence of calling, texting, banking, investing, clicking, and many other things only through one device i.e. smartphone. The market is filled with mobile devices of various platforms. And users choose their device as per their expectation from mobile phones.

 

By Sia Carla

A major platform that rules the market today is Android and iOS. While iOS is a bit on a higher side, Android is more of a reasonable price that is affordable to most of the population of the world. Today, we will talk about how mobile app development companies incorporate added benefits in an iPhone so that customers get more value out of it.

  1. Plan the Development

No doubt, it’s the development of the app that matters. But what’s more important is the outline of the app development. Any iOS app development company or developer cannot start without chalking out the essence of the app creation. It requires good research on competition, market survey, customers’ expectations and more.

A proper and planned outline would help the developer to not miss out an important coding or adding feature that uplifts the iPhone. It could also be used for future reference for development companies to see what functionality was incorporated, what is the scope of future enhancements etc.

  1. Apple Developer Program

Any development company or developer would want to use their ability in developing the app. However, to support further, one should get the membership to enroll in Apple Development Program.  The program aids developer to reach out to audiences across the globe and gives access to multiple Apple resources that are needed in app development.

Other benefits of the Apple Developer Program are advanced app capabilities, access to app analytics, and extensive beta testing tools.

  1. Simple App Design

If you are looking forward to attracting users on your iOS app, then developers need to keep a focused approach over design. It’s a simple design of the app that catches user’s attention and engages them to be on long for all their transactions and needs.

For instance – Amazon has a very simple UI that focuses on user’s need and enhance user experience in their buying journey. A simple click on a product would open a new page and if the user wants to buy the product, they simply need to select size, color, and other specifications to add the product to the cart.

  1. Content Layout

Heavy content is a major turn off for any app. While you expect the iOS app to be with high-end users of the market, you need to be smart with the value you display on the app in content form. The content layout and display have to be unique, creative, crisp, and valuable.

For instance:

  • Font: It’s advisable to use medium size fonts for taglines and small size for descriptions. Too loud fonts ruin the content display and extremely small fonts are hard to read.
  • Color: Background color of the app should be in sync with the font color. You should not use too many colors in the app as the app loses its simplicity.

  1. Apple ID Code

Apple ID Code is a mark of identification for developers or app development companies which they need to create before starting with the coding of the iOS app. If you are developing the app for any client, then you need to send all required documents to the client for them to upload and create Apple id on your behalf.

This gives authentication to the developer or app Development Company that is working on the app development.  Having an Apple id helps the developer to develop and release the app quickly for audience and users.

  1. Ensure Compatibility

While the iOS app developer will create the app based on the latest version, it does not guarantee that the version is going to sustain the entire duration of Apple mobile existence. For an app to perform in ever-changing technological trends, it has to be updated on a regular basis.

Hence, the developer should keep this in mind that he/she needs to create the app that is compatible with upcoming versions of the app. This is necessary to ensure that app’s performance is top notch without hindering user’s experience.

For instance – Facebook Messenger is compatible with all versions of iOS platforms.

  1. Test before Launch

Before launching the app to the Apple smart device audience, the iOS developer or iOS app Development Company should carry out sufficient testing beforehand. In fact, it’s advisable to test phase-wise coding before moving on to development of next phase coding.

This eradicates any unwanted bugs/errors that trouble the smooth functioning of the app. For instance – A/B testing is the best way to test the iOS app. This allows the developer or development company to release two different versions of the iOS app to the different set of audience. The aim here is to find out to which version i.e. A or B, the audience had responded well.

Conclusion:

To conclude the entire blog, app development is the recent trend that is ruling the market and will continue to do so for a very long time. Be it, developers of any app development company, they are looking at ways to get more value out of an app that would upscale their position in the market and is highly accepted by the audience as well. Keeping a few things in mind, it becomes easy to make your app trendy and profitable both in no time easily.

Author

Siya Carla is Solution Consultant at Finoit Technologies, a leading custom software development company which turns ideas into reality by providing unique web design and mobile app development services. By creating intuitive, user-friendly, and interactive apps for more than 450 customers throughout the globe, we enjoy a great reputation as a customer-friendly mobile app development company in the market.

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When it comes mobile app development when of the most overlooked aspects of the process is user testing, in fact this is often an afterthought and is only considered after the design and development of an app.

by Robbie Allen, xDesign

Fear not, xDesign a leading mobile app development agency located in Edinburgh, UK are on hand with our definitive guide to App user testing.

App User testing allows us to iterate on what we learn and make sure each app appeals to users and meets their expectations before its launch. Without user testing, there’s no way to know if you’re on the right track until it’s too late…

Much like app development there is no one size fits all approach to user testing.

This Definitive Guide to App User Testing has been created using fundamentals and strategies that will help you create your own user testing plan specific to your business case.

Regardless of whether you use this user resource to create your own in-depth user testing or you reach out to an app development company like us by the time you have finished reading this article we hope you understand each of the core user testing steps, the best tools for the job, and the special considerations you need to make from time to time.

App user testing strategies - not all that dangerous, but very important!

Creating user testing goals

The first step when it comes to app user testing is setting clearly defined goals. The goals you set will define everything from the testing methods you implement to the environment you hold the testing through to the tasks and questions you ask participants.

Before you go any further take some time now to set out what your goals are.

Depending on what stage of development your app user testing goals will change. Let’s look at a couple of examples;

Pre Development User Testing Goals

If you plan on conducting user testing before your app’s development phase, your goals will be more focused on functional requirements and discovery. That is, finding out what your target users need, what similar apps/products they already use, and what pain points they need help with

During Development User Testing Goals

User testing goals during development tend to lean more towards validation and evaluating. That is, finding out if users understand and enjoy your app, and whether the features meet their needs. For this, leverage early versions of your app, prototypes, and mockups.

Post Launch User Testing Goals

our goals in the post-launch phase will focus on measurement and further validation. That is, how your app is performing, opportunities for optimization, and whether your user experience appeals to users. For this, give your participants your actual app and try A/B testing to narrow in on what resonates best with your users

Setting Objectives for each User Test

Once you establish your user testing goals, you need to go a step further and determine clear objectives for individual tests.

Try to hone in on the most important insights you want to gather rather than trying to test everything at once. Remember, you’re not looking for generic feedback, you’re looking to uncover specific problems.

Don’t Do it All

When you try to discover too much at once, you run the risk of conducting a long and unwieldy test that fatigues your testers. It’s also easier to confuse your results and next steps when you try to tackle too much.

In Person vs Remote User Testing for your App

User testing can occur either in person or remotely. For both types of testing, you will want to observe participants using your product and uncover any usability issues. Where in-person and remote testing differ is in their pros and cons.

In Person Pros

  • With in-person testing, you get the opportunity to establish a real connection with your participants and see their reactions from up close.
  • It’s much easier to read someone’s body language in person than it is over a video conference.
  • In-person testing also makes it easier to use a participant’s body language cues to gauge when to ask questions for clarification or dig for more feedback.

In Person Cons

  • These in-person interactions come with a cost, however.
  • They often take more time because they involve traveling to a location, setting up a testing environment, and being present for each participant session.
  • You may also incur a cost if you need to rent physical space for the testing.

Remote Testing Pros

  • Remote testing works well for unmoderated sessions as well as when budgets are more limited.
  • This type of testing is also ideal for tighter timeframes as there’s no need for travel or testing facilities, and because there is less pressure on test moderators.

Remote Testing Cons

  • The major downsides, however, are that you can’t interpret body language.
  • it is more difficult to follow up or do a deeper dive into your participants’ feedback.

Selecting the RIGHT Recruits

If you recruit the wrong participants, or if you don’t get enough participants, your user testing will not generate the results you need. To find the right participants for your user test, you first need to identify your app’s target audience. We often dive into recruiting participants during the discovery and user research process here at xDesign.

Behaviour over Demographics

It’s more important to recruit participants based on their behavior rather than demographics. In choosing your participants, select for behavior more than age, sex, income, location, education, or marital status. The best way to do so is by finding people who are already active in similar apps.

This doesn’t mean you should dismiss demographics altogether.

How many User Testing Recruits do you need?

The number of participants you need for your test also depends on your testing goals. You should recruit 5-7 participants to test usability problems. While the Nielsen Norman Group asserts that you only need five participants to uncover 85% of a product’s issues, we prefer to schedule seven participants per test. The two extra participants account for no-shows, which do happen!

Test your User Test

Make sure you do a dry run before your first real session. Doing so will give you the opportunity to fix any red flags or issues that come up. We find running a pilot test with a co-worker helps iron out any kinks in the test script and tasks.

It gives you a chance to evaluate the flow of the test, add or remove any tasks, and predict any potential roadblocks. You’ll feel much more prepared and confident for your sessions if you’ve already remedied possible issues.

Think of it like usability testing your usability test!

Testing Time… Finally

  • Start your testing sessions by welcoming the participants and explaining their role (using your test script!).
  • Make sure you note that you’re testing the app and not them. This takes the pressure off your participants and may help them relax.
  • You’ll also need to remind them to think out loud throughout the session. Participants often forget to verbally express their thoughts and may resort to sighing or looking confused. Encouraging them to think out loud will help you gain those valuable insights you’re after.
  • Only one person should be moderating each session, but you can alternate moderators between sessions if necessary.
  • After each session, ask the participant follow-up questions and for any more insights or feedback they might want to offer up.

What Next?

Now it’s time to watch any recordings and take note of what you see and hear. Look at all of your observations together to try to determine why particular things happened and develop theories about the causes of any friction, frustration, and problems.

That’s a Wrap

Done well, user testing makes sure your app aligns with what your users expect, need, and want. Without it, there’s no way of gauging whether you’re on the right track throughout the design and development process.

We hope this definitive guide to app user testing  gives you a good foundation from which you can build your own successful user testing sessions.

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Do you really need funding for your app? Should you approach investors or go at it alone? These are just a few questions you may be wondering about if you are in the process of launching your app startup. Once you have a well-developed working app, the next natural step is to market it and secure investment to make sure it keeps growing.

Should you approach investors or go at it alone?

Re-posted with permission from Creative27

However, is this funding for app really worth it? Do you actually need it? This is what this article is going to focus on. Today, securing investors and funding for app startups is an ongoing trend. Everyone is doing it, so it is only natural to imagine this is the only way to go. But the question you really need to ask yourself is whether this funding is really worth it and whether you can survive or even thrive without it.

One of the biggest mistakes many startups make is that of seeking funding when they do not need it. What harm could that do, you ask? Isn’t having more money for your project actually a good thing? Well, yes, it can be a good thing. But it can also be a very bad thing. There is a certain amount of risk that comes with bringing in investors to your company at a very early stage.

Because everyone is doing it, we have lost track of the real reason behind seeking funding for app startups. We have forgotten what it really takes to move your app forward and keep your business above the red line. We think that money is readily available, and with this attitude comes the risk of spending the money we get without properly thinking through what we spend it on. The downside is that taking on an investor means giving away part of your company. You end up having more people in control of every decision. In the end, you sacrifice efficiency for growth, and you need to really think critically about whether this is what you want.

There are a few questions that need to be answered before making the decision to seek investor funding for app startups. Do you really need a full-time team from the first day or can you manage without it? Do you really need that uber-expensive marketing campaign or that flashy app design or can you implement simpler strategies? Does your product need to implement all those exciting new features at this stage or can they be staggered out and launched at later stages? Could you be biting off more than you can chew?

funding for app

The Best Direction For You To Take Might Be Bootstrapping Your App

There are many upsides that come with bootstrapping your business. With this direction, you get to reap several advantages such as learning new skills such as app development and increasing your creativity in product development and marketing. You also get to make smarter, wiser decisions about your spending, because being strapped for cash has a way of bringing out the inner creative in people. Your business might actually end up taking a different and more innovative direction thanks to this limitation.

Additionally, bootstrapping your business will open you up to more opportunities, it will stabilize your company’s foundation, and it will give you 100% control of every business decision you make. It cannot be overstated how important it is to have decision-making rights within your own company. In the end, things will admittedly move a little slower, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. By taking things slow, you take your time with every decision, reflect on and analyze your actions, making you learn more and become better at what you do with every passing stage.

Sometimes, of course, your company really does need that extra boost. You may find that you do indeed need additional funding. Think about whether your company can survive without this support. Can you do what you need to do to take your company to the next stage without sacrificing your control over the company? If not, then you do need that investor funding, and the next step is to seek it.

Securing and contacting investors funding is not easy. It is true that there is more money available today from investors than ever before. According to Pitchbook data, the average funding for startups in 2017 was between 1 million and 5 million dollars. Dropbox could only raise about 15,000 dollars in investor funding 11 years ago. However, let all this cash not fool you. There is more money than ever before, but it is harder than it ever has been to get it. Plus, the 5 million apps on Google Play means that there are probably several hundred apps out there that do what you want to do, and the competition is intense.

Before seeking out investor funding for app startups, it is a good idea to at least have a working app that has gotten some traction to present to your prospective investors. This is called a Minimum Viable Product, or MVP for short. It is what will get anyone to open up their wallets for you. All your efforts should be focused on getting your app to this stage, because a working app will secure more funding for a smaller share of the company, compared to an idea that only works on paper.

Next are the types of investors you can get. There are 5 types of investors to fund your app, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

1. Friends and Relatives

If your app is in its early stages, you should probably consider seeking funding from friends and family first before venturing to other funding sources. They will probably offer you interest-free loans and will be more understanding of your situation than many other funding sources. However, by getting into business with family, you risk irreversibly ruining those relationships if things don’t work out as you promised. Treat them as you would other investors, by making everything formal, as this might lessen the blow in case things don’t work out.

     2. Crowdfunding

Sometimes, if you get investors who hold a lot of equity, which may oust you out of your own company later on. This is a possibility most founders have to make peace with if they want to seek investors. However, there is another investment option without this risk: crowdfunding. Crowdfunding means getting a lot of people to invest in your company, such that everyone chips in a small amount that contributes towards a larger end goal amount. This spreads out risk, and no one person holds too much equity and power over your startup.

    3. Angel Investors

Angel investors are investors who chip in their own money, while at the same time guiding and advising you regarding your business.

    4. Venture Capitalists

This is the group of investors that everyone has in mind when they think about seeking funding. Venture capitalists are professional investors. Their primary concern is the return on their investment, so they will probably be asking for a huge chunk of equity. However, they also provide technical support through experienced networks of professionals that they possess. This will raise your chances of going to the next level.

    5. Incubators and Accelerators

Incubator and accelerator programs are a great way to get funding and guidance especially if your product is in its early stages. These programs nurture your idea and jumpstart it by injecting a little cash into it, facilitating growth until you can manage it on your own. They also put you in contact with other people who are going through what you are going through, as well as making available the muscle you need for such specialized tasks as advanced app development or improved app design for your product. The difference between them is that accelerators have a fixed timeline while incubators take more time with you with greater long-term benefits in mind.

In the end, it’s all about being honest with yourself. Assess your company’s wants and needs and figure out what direction you need to take. It’s nice to have an app that works, but marketing and developing it constantly is what will take your product to the next level and finally make it worth the time you have put into it.