Customer’s expectations of what their mobile apps can do are high as they are looking for consistent quality of services and streamlined experience. Therefore, developing a custom mobile application that can retain users is not an easy thing. Being a key factor that determines the success of an application, retaining users is one of the most crucial metrics in the process of mobile app development.
By keeping a check on the current and future mobile app development trends, businesses can gain a competitive advantage that can help them attain significant growth.
First, ask yourself the following questions:
The mobile landscape is rapidly evolving and to survive in the market, leveraging lean thinking would be the ideal option. It has characteristics such as small development teams, high environmental volatility, and short development cycles.
The lean canvas is incredibly useful throughout the custom mobile application development process. It is an ideal method for app development to incorporate customer validation and maximize customer value. It helps one to figure out what customers actually want.
Following are the reasons for applying the lean methodology to mobile app development:
Lean Canvas is a fast, concise, and effective adaptation of business model canvas which was designed by Alexander Osterwalder. It focuses on problems, solutions, competitive advantages, and key metrics. The idea behind lean canvas is to make it easier for entrepreneurs to map out important key points so that they can get a clear and precise picture of their business idea.
Following are the 9 segments of the lean business model canvas:
In this section, you write a brief description of at least 3 top problems that a customer segment is facing. Identify pain points and understand their needs and challenges. To get a better understanding of the problem, you can conduct:
There are competitors of your future business and it’s important to identify them. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
Both the problem and customer segments section are viewed as intrinsically connected. In this section, you have to determine your user base.
Identifying early adopters is crucial as your first version of mobile app will revolve around their needs.
Talk to your customer segments to find their expectations. Define the features your mobile application offers to solve the problems of your customer. This will help you to get started with the solution process.
Defining UVP sets out the value that your mobile app will provide. It must give a clear statement to your customers; why your app is different and worth buying? By reading your UVP, the customer must understand that he found exactly what he needs or looking for.
A good UVP should be:
To find and connect with your customer segment is the most difficult thing. While there are a plethora of channels, some may be inapplicable to your mobile application. To find relevant ones, ask yourself the following questions:
Different stages to improve engagement over mobile:
Before Purchase
During Purchase
After Purchase
Important Channels to Consider
Blogging, social media, push messaging, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, cold calling, word of mouth, trade shows, and customer interviews.
Your pricing model is an important part of your lean canvas as it will help you answer questions such as:
Top 5 revenue streams: Usage Fees, subscription fees, asset sales, delivery or installation fees, and advertising.
What you charge is the most crucial thing to get right as it determines your positioning. Here are a few important questions to consider:
It is a marketing tactic to fill your pipeline with potential prospects. Get users to try your service for free and then up-sell them into the right premium plan after some time.
Key metrics help you to track and evaluate the success of your mobile app. Fill in the sections with key metrics that are most important i.e. metrics that track consumer engagement and usage of your mobile application.
Important questions to consider:
You have to mention the special and unique qualities of your mobile app that cannot be repeated by your competitors.
Following are some examples of unfair advantage:
There are dozens of metrics but what’s difficult is to determine which matters the most. One Metric That Matters (OMTM) is a single metric that you should be taking care of at a given point in time.
Following are some of the metrics that are important for scaling and measuring the success of your mobile app. You can choose the one according to your own business requirements:
Lean Methodology isn’t perfect. It requires excellent documentation and a highly skilled team. There are chances of getting off-track as the outcomes are not clear. Also, excessive flexibility sometimes leads the developer to lose focus. When lean thinking is specifically applied to build mobile apps, the following types of challenges emerge:
High Design Bar: In lean methodology, a developer is trying to validate an initial concept with a series of experiments. However, the poor design can lead to negative feedback which tends the developer to give a more polish design in order to test out the hypothesis. In the case of a lean startup, the developer is often found stuck between a poorly-designed prototype (which may interface with testing) and an over-polished app (which is both costly and time-consuming).
Apple’s App Store Submission Cycle: Apple’s app store review process causes major delays between the time an app iteration is ready for release and the time it actually goes live. Because of this, it’s difficult to run an agile cycle with a required velocity and rhythm through a loop with the customers.
Day-by-day, we are entering into an era where interaction points are going to be early and across devices of all types. Mobile apps should be designed in such a way that they leverage all those interaction points in a manner that are contextually relevant to the user. Leveraging a lean canvas for custom mobile app development is the right way to achieve success online and offline.
All innovation starts with an idea to solve real-world problems. At FATbit Technologies we are passionate about driving digital transformation to prepare businesses for a digital-first tomorrow. Let’s discuss your BIG idea NOW.
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