October 13, 2022
By: TucsonBizz Staff Writer
TucsonBizz is a division of Sofvue, LLC.
Printed with permission of Data Titan, Sofvue LLC
Mobile app development isn’t new… it’s been around since 2009 when Apple began releasing mobile apps into the marketplace. Google joined the fray two years later and the rest is history.
Today’s small business community is continually searching for new ways to gain a competitive edge. This has made the prospect of developing a mobile app a viable reality, but with that prospect comes questions such as what it costs to develop a mobile app, whether it can or should trying to compete with other apps, whether you should launch on single or joint platforms (Apple & Google), as well as how ROI will be measured.
Let’s take a few minutes to put a spotlight on these and other questions that small business owners often ask us. Let’s get started!
Sourcing your Mobile App Development Project: Expectations vs. Reality
If you are looking for a mobile application development company to develop a mobile app for your business, you must clearly understand a few very common misconceptions. Let’s look at a few of them.
1. Expectation: Fixed Cost
This is where most projects fail. Here’s what happens. Every time we get a call from a perspective company saying they want a “fixed” cost bid, or response is the same it’s been for almost 20 years, “Sure, send your project scope document or MSD, and we’ll be happy to give you a bid”. To further complicate things, many small businesses believe that a spec document, whether it’s 10 pages or 50, believe this is sufficient to obtain a bid, which creates two additional problems well beyond the scope of this article.
2. Reality: Cost Depends on Scope
The reality is that the cost of mobile app development varies based on hundreds and sometimes thousands of factors. Let me explain. Let’s say you are a general contractor specializing in new custom home construction. Now assume I come to you and say “I want you to build me a custom home. I want it to have 10 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, two stories and 10,000 square feet -- how much will it cost?” A really good general contractor will, after laughing for a few minutes, ask you for the architects blueprints. Then and only then can the GC begin to understand what it is that you are asking them to build. Conversely, a really bad general contractor will throw a number out low enough that you’ll take the bait and bite, knowing full well that there will be a thousand “cost overruns” and end up costing you 10 times the original estimate.
Mobile app development, or any software development has many questions to consider, and like the general contractor who needs a good set of blueprints, we need a Master Scope Document, a process that must be completed before we’ll even think about giving you a price estimate.
Expectation: The App Will be Developed In a Few Days or Weeks
We get calls every week asking if we can develop an app in a week or a month, and our answer is the same every single time -- NO. If you talk to any company who tells you a mobile app can be built in a couple of weeks, there are two problems. First, if the development company is correct and they know your mobile app can be built in a few weeks, your app will fail because it does not have enough functionality to be viable in the marketplace. Second, if the development company is wrong and tells you they can build your app in a couple of weeks, it will fail because the time estimates are completely wrong.
Reality: It Takes Months to Develop a Good App
Viable mobile app development takes months, if not longer, and requires a great deal of time and effort from all parties involved: the developers, project managers, team leads, managers, company employees, stakeholders, and even the product owner (you).
The development process is complex and involves many steps. The first step for most companies is to develop an idea for their mobile app. This requires in depth discussions, and in some cases, user story testing of multiple ideas by teams at different levels throughout the company to determine which concepts will serve the project the best, and for whom.
Once the concept has been iterated and has passed the storyboarding phase, it can take several more weeks or longer, depending on how big and complex your app will be, before wireframing can begin. Then the next big questions are whether you develop, prototype, MVP or hybrid a combination of the three.
Expectation: App Development Is Simple
You may be wondering if mobile app development is a simple process. You may think, “I’m going to design my own app and send it to someone else to code it for me.” Here’s a stat that should scare you straight, and I encourage you to do your own research on this subject. About 83% of all software projects never launch. Let that sink in a moment. So, even though there are millions of apps on the Apple Store, and millions more on Google Play, the numbers that are never discussed are the number of projects that never make it to their launch window.
Reality: The App Development Process Requires Massive Cooperation
There’s a saying our business that’s well understood among the industry, “Simple is hard.” App development requires time, creativity, design, patience, attention to details and innovation from everyone involved in the project—you, your team, stakeholders, project owners, project managers, programmers, testers, everyone.
This cooperation process helps flush out what features your app will include, how they should be implemented, and what type of design would be best suited for your audience.
Expectation: Your App Will Be Accepted by App Stores the First Time
When you're developing your mobile app, you want to ensure that it gets accepted by an app store. However, this can be a long, arduous process and may take several tries before you're successful. We’ve had new apps approved in a day… while others take weeks. During the 2020-2021 pandemic, we even had some apps take over a month to receive their approval.
Reality: Your App Might Take Multiple Times to Get Accepted
When submitting your app to both the Apple and Google play stores, it can take a few days or a few weeks before you receive approval. This is normal. We’ve never not had a mobile app receive approval, but like all development firms, we’ve sometimes had to go through some pain points to complete the approval process.
Conclusion
I’ve only scratched the surface with this article, and there a hundred more topics I could talk about.
My goal in this article is not to frighten you from the possibility of developing a mobile app for your company. Rather, it’s to inform and help you understand that thinking about developing a mobile app versus designing it, funding it, building it and launching it are two very different processes. As I’ve said a thousand times before, “Talking about a mobile app and building a mobile app are not the same thing”. That said, the good news is that you are not alone. I founded Tucson Bizz because I recognized that the small business sector was not being properly represented in trying to solve and grow their businesses. Small business is the cornerstone of America… and we do our best every day to ensure that our clients and customers are well represented in meeting their growing needs, with an effective ROI.
TucsonBizz, a division of Sofvue, LLC, has been designing and developing mobile and web-based application systems since 2004. We’ve began developing mobile app solutions in 2011, just two short years after the launch of the Apple Store, then in 2012 for the Google Play Store, and to date, we have designed and developed over $22MM in solutions for companies coast-to-coast, and across numerous business segments. Give us a call to learn more about our recently completed projects, read recent letters of recommendation, and to discuss how we can serve both your project and your company.
Read More:
◾ Is A Mobile Application In Your Company’s Future?
