I have an mobile APP idea that i need to validate, how do i go about it?
I work for a travel based company in india and we have come up with a mobile app idea. Now there will be significant investment that will go into it, and before that I want to go about validating the Idea, how do i do it?
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Jan 7, 2016
Having a “cool app idea” isn’t enough. If you want to succeed in the app business then one thing you really need to do is market research before you launch into any app that you’re doing. Taking the time to really check that people will actually want your app will save you wasted time and money. Let’s examine that aims of market research in relation to app development.
Targeting a broad niche vs. a micro-niche
First of all you need to target and identify a certain group and audience, what people would call a “niche”. Within this niche you need to identify a need, or a “pain point” that they have. Your app will ultimately be designed to fill this pain point.
Targeting a micro-niche market
If we look at targeting a micro-niche market, this can still be highly profitable. Although you’re not likely to get much traffic, the fact that the traffic is highly targeted to meet a particular need can lead to a high conversion rate and a high price tag. In this case you’re looking for a very well defined market with a very well defined need. This might be an app that caters for professional doctors, dentists or perhaps lawyers, for example. An advantage of having such a well-defined audience is that you can actually pre-validate your idea quite well.
Another way to go about pre-validation is to come up with the concept yourself first. Early on in the process, reach out to opinion leaders and bloggers in the niche and ask them “hey, what do you think about this app idea, would you be interested to test it out?” Using this method, you’ll have people from within the niche who are able to help refine and optimize the idea so that it meets their needs. Beyond that, by reaching out to the opinion leaders within a particular niche, you already have a direct marketing avenue to your potential end users once the app is launched.
So the advantage of targeting a micro-niche market is that you can relatively easily involve your end user in the creation process and have laser-focussed marketing channels.
Targeting a broad niche market
If you’re targeting a broader market then you’re going to be looking more at the overall app ecosystem. People like Chad Mureta are masters of this method of finding market segments that are popular and trending within the App Store. Let’s see more details about this in the following section.
Identify Hot Trends Within The App Store
How do you find out what’s popular on the App Store?
Your first port of call is the App Charts, which you should be glued to in order to see what’s going on. There are two main ways to do this.
You can browse the Charts on your own device or on iTunes. If you use these methods, you should just be aware that both the App Store on your device and in iTunes is locked on to a particular country App Store. Each country’s App Store show different patterns. For example, if your device is associated with the Australian App Store, you will see what apps are popular in Australia, which might be very different to the apps that are popular in France, Germany or South Korea.
The Top Paid Charts is also important to look at because this indicates what types of apps people are willing to pay for outright. The Top Free Charts, while not necessarily indicating anything related to monetization, do indicate which apps are getting the most downloads, since free apps get normally at least 10 times the downloads of paid apps.
Identify Worldwide Trends To Import Into The App Store
A third way to do market research is to identify popular topics and trends in general, outside of the App Store. There are a couple of really good tools for this. One is Google Trends, where you can see what are the most popular search terms overall and also the rising search terms. There is often a good correlation between what is popular on Google and the App Store.
Validate Demand
Once you’ve identified a potential topic, you still want to validate whether there is demands for it on the App Store. A nice place to start is TopAppCharts.com. For example, if you found that “blue widgets” is a popular and trending topic, you can type this into TopAppCharts.com. It will spit out a list of all the apps containing “blue widgets” in the app name and it will rank them according to where they are ranked within the US App Store.
Predict The Future
An alternate method of doing market research is to plan your apps ahead of time in relation to topics that are likely to become popular on the App Store. We know that world-wide trends are definitely reflected in the App Store.
Take leverage of seasonal trends
You might try to take advantage of these seasonal trends. For example, around Black Friday you might put out a shopping related app and around Halloween you might put out a horror-related app. Other avenues to look at include planning apps around upcoming sporting events and movies. Just imagine that you would have put out an Olympic themed app prior to the Summer Games – this could have generated massive downloads, as some savvy app developers experienced.
Apr 26, 2014
do following
1. try to make a prototype and ask for feedback from real customer .
2. interview ur real customer and know the actual need .
3. see the play market and check the similar app idea and it's demand .
4. Make ur app adapt to other requirement as well , so that it can cover broad range of user base .
5. integrate ur prototype with analytic tool to get user perspective to ur app .
Apr 11, 2014
Hi Pradeep,
I agree with Kevin. You can go ahead with crowd funding websites like Indiegogo and crowd rise to validate and collect funds at the same time.
Mar 5, 2014
Build a low cost prototype. Get customer feedback. Keep improving. Put investment into a product that the end user will want to use.
Feb 27, 2014
Well possibly doing some sort of survey might be a good start. Finding out if the app is needed or wanted. An idea is great but is it wanted by your prospective clients? Have you established who the customers are likely to be?
Also importantly, have you created a business plan? this is something that any investor will want to see before they invest any funds.
Feb 27, 2014
Do you have a license agreement for it in mind, in case you need any assistance do let me know.
regards,
Anirvan
Feb 27, 2014
Pradeep
Highly successful technology firms use internet sites that allow others to participate in technological development and discussions.
Feb 27, 2014
Hi Ayyagari.
Well to validat It. I think you are speaking about if the APP will have acceptance? Right? I suggest you to find some professional that already had experience in the same product. Or if you were not capable to find them, What about you show and install the APP in some seats (like in the school or a group of friend?)
Please, let me know if the business is going well and If one day You need some help from Brazil, think about us.
Hugs.
Feb 26, 2014
Hi, Pradeep.
In our experience, investors want to see product when an app is the idea. Rapid prototyping allows you to do this with minimal investment and risk, and allows you to coherently express the idea. User testing and feedback is necessary for the rapid prototyping process, and let's you validate the idea. Plus investors love to see that you are committed to listening to the market, which you clearly understand - great question.
Feb 26, 2014
Have you surveyed any target customers as to their interest in such a solution as you are offering? It should be simple since you are already dealing with a variety of travelers who may find your APP of interest to them.
Feb 26, 2014
Hi Pradeep.
You mentioned you work for a travel based company. Do you have customers? If so perhaps you can survey them to find out if your idea would be useful. You will need to be careful on how to word the questions as not to give away your idea. You may also incentivize people for taking your survey, perhaps entering a lottery for a free trip or discount of some kind. Surveying your end users in advance can allow you to hone your idea to your customer's desires, and validate your path. It can also prove much less costly then raising capital to find there are no interested customers!
Best of luck and let us know how it turns out!
Feb 26, 2014
go to your local incubator ,lawyer ,accountant friend family and see what they think about it
Feb 26, 2014
Really depends on if the Mobile App is for Business or Personal Creativity. If your idea is for business, partner with a potential business client that would utilize the app. If it is a productivity / general use app idea, the idea needs to be trialed (simple prototype would be nice) with groups of individuals or other ideas tendered here. Remember, you risk losing the edge if someone thinks your idea is great and beats you to it. Get confidentially agreements before doing any of the above. Alternatively, if you really believe in the idea and it is in an area you are expert in, just go for it - it is riskier, but sometimes can be done right satisfying if it is a big hit on release.
Forgot one thing. Everything does hinge on the amount of "significant investment" you are about to make as per @Ray.
Feb 26, 2014
Please note: My assumption is that the app could take time to develop and will have significant development costs (To me 50K plus projects are significant).
Start by finding a qualified project manager. They will help identify user profiles, provide customer insight, implementation strategies, estimate development costs, and identify barriers to entry. Some will even help outline costs to promote the app. Building an app is one thing but without a distribution plan you won't get far.
I'm sure everyone will have their own opinion. My goal when I see people asking these questions is to limit risk. Christian Glahn's comment is a piece of what a project manager should help you identify (user types). He's on the right path.
Feb 26, 2014
Pradeep,
There is only one way to validate, build a prototype with little to no dollar investment, and get direct feedback from potential customers. One of my clients had a mobile app but were uncertain about the target market. We defined a series of questions to discover the problem that was unmet with current apps on the market. They then built a prototype that could be interacted like a real mobile app to provide the "feel" of such an app. They created multiple designs, one with more complexity than the other, and quickly learned the simplified version was most desirable. When I saw the winning prototype, my reaction was "wow, when can I download that!".
All this was done with no financial investment. The problem/solution fit was established answering the question "Do I have a problem worth solving?" The next step was to invest in a working but limited application and experiment to find the product/market fit with a target market to answer the question "Have I built something people want?". If the answer to both of these is a Yes, only then you should make the significant investment to scale the product.
Feb 26, 2014
You're wanting to validate that there's demand for the product before seeking investment is that right? If so, it would be a process similar to marketing, you have to determine who the users are, and then think about where those users are, what do they have in common - is there a type of place that those users would go to? If there's a place (physically) that you could go to - you could set up some screening type questions to ask them (without giving detail) ... if there are websites that they would use - that have a discussion, maybe you could invite users to go to your website to share information (the same type of screening questions) .. and in those questions are the answers you need to know before going forward with the idea. I could discuss more offline if you're interested.
Feb 26, 2014
Why not do both at the same time? Try a Crowd Funding platform like kickstarter.com. Make sure you have a solid business plan in place before going through the trouble of asking for money.