The Problems with Developing Everything at the Same Time

Below are the risks involved if you try to develop all the features of your app at once instead of building Minimum Viable Product.

Budget Risk

Due to budget constraints, the initial ask won’t be possible. The initial ask is usually huge because of all the assumptions being made. This puts the budget for app development at risk due to the unpredictable expenses. Your budget for creating iOS or Android app would also need to get stretched in order to pay for all the various features of the app. Also, it’s possible that you will want to extra two or three new features into your startup app, due to new trends. The worst part is that your main business goal of your app may not even be getting considered here. If you build MVP mobile app you can prevent this from happening so that you will likely stay within budget. You would want that, right?

Value

The purpose of your mobile app should be to give your users and company some additional value, even if it’s an mCommerce app. You need to figure out the problem that you want a solution for. Surprisingly, a lot of app businesses do not even consider this. Your team may consider your company’s problems to be important, but your customers won’t care. If all app features are developed at the same time, then you stop focusing on the objective of your app. Instead, you have to spend extra money and time trying to validate assumptions and get feedback for your business or startup app from users. That way, you can develop the app that users are truly demanding.

Recommended Reading: The rise of mCommerce

Time-to-Market Risk

When developing a business or startup mobile application, you will usually have flexible timelines. Sometimes, however, there is a particular app launch date for the app which must be respected. Perhaps there is some special event on a set date and you need your app developed specifically for that event. In this case, there would not be a flexible timeline. Anytime there are big events which app products need to be ready for, to have a successful app launch, your time-to-market will not be flexible. In other cases, your stakeholders or business leaders may decide on a certain date which suits their needs. This might pertain to releasing hardware which is compatible with the app or running ad sales.

Budgeting and Time Risks

If you try to develop everything at the same time then budget for your app and time-to-market can be in jeopardy. Once again, you will be investing extra money and time toward developing the app. This is especially true if your assumptions are invalidated or your business objectives are not focused on enough. The chances of these things can be reduced if you build MVP mobile app and smaller and more frequent app releases.

Assumptions

You will be making several assumptions in each iOS or Android app you create. For this reason, you must establish an iterative app development process where there is not just one delivery made. There will be numerous deliveries made on a continuing basis. Meanwhile, you can test out your assumptions and confirm them by analyzing the performance carefully and having users of your business or startup app give you honest feedback. This is how your mobile application will be enhanced. On the other hand, if you avoid building MVP mobile app first, and decide to implement all the features in the first version of your app, there will be too many assumptions made. Then you would have to spend a lot more money and time figuring out which assumptions are valid.

How to build MVP right

People hate the idea of eliminating some of their original desires for their app. You don’t have to make a bad app, though. MVP app is simply a product that becomes a bit different, but still very powerful and unique. Just don’t forget about the core value of your app idea and your business goal. This is a path for creating a successful and popular app. Uber, Airbnb, Instagram and other app titans started with creating the MVP app first.

The Business Objective

When you conduct smart scoping to build MVP the biggest priority of your app can be focused on. This priority should be accomplishing your business app objective. Either that or it is to focus on the criticisms of the users (or both). If you are working on the first version of your mobile app and you work to improve one main problem or feature, then you will create a better version for the next release.

Recommended Reading: 8 App Monetization Models For Your Mobile Application

Learnings Will Enhance a Product

The scope of your mobile app should be your main focus in order to quickly get your final product to the consumer market. Then you can get feedback from users and see which assumptions of yours can be validated. This will help you enhance subsequent versions of the app. You can learn a lot from your users’ activities by tracking things like analytics, user feedback, and usage behavior. Based on this information, you can make improvements to your app and release new updates which will make your users happier and raise your revenue.

Test Your Assumptions Affordably

Your assumptions can be tested from real information and user feedback. This allows you to keep the overall app development costs of a smaller project considerably low. But if you are trying to build a huge iOS or Android mobile application for the first launch of the app, the app development costs, and risks associated with this version will be huge. You’ll want to lower your scope, and build MVP so that a better app can be developed with less risk and for a lower amount of money.

Should I Lower My Scope?

You won’t always be making an app smaller if you cut down the scope. You can still keep the features that you want in the long run. First, you will need to give your mobile app some good direction by studying the learnings that we talked about before. Do not consider reducing your scope and building MVP mobile app a bad thing, because it’s absolutely opposite. Here are some situations that prove it:

The Idea is not tested – There will always be more risk if your idea is not too established in the market. If you then develop a big app and test it in an unknown market, it is even riskier.

Timeline Risk – If there is a strict deadline set, you will need to reduce the number of desired features in your app. That is the only way that you can meet the deadline.

Budget Risk – Do not just choose any technology or programming partner in order to get all the features that you want for your desired price range. Otherwise, you could end up with a lower quality app with many bugs and that will constantly crash. If you think too cheaply, you will usually get lower quality features in your startup app. So, always consider the quality of the features before the quantity.

Mobile App Scoping

At the end of the day, you’ll want a high-quality app delivered to users which satisfies their needs and your own business objectives. These would be objectives of giving your users a lot of value with an app while staying within your timeline and budget. If you go for MVP development, you can make this happen. Although it is easy to understand the thought of wanting to develop all the features at once, you also must consider how much riskier this would be. You don’t want to have a bad app released, do you? You can stay within your budget if you scope properly and then satisfy your timeline too. Soon you will find it less expensive to test out your assumptions and to gather feedback from users. You may have a list of apps that you wish to build in the immediate future. However, you may want to reconsider this list realistically.

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