We use so many different apps on our mobile phones everyday. From WhatsApp to Google, apps rule our mobile time. Mostly, that’s a good thing because apps make our lives much easier in every way.
When your mother shouts from the kitchen, asking you to bring some ingredients, you immediately pull out your phone, open a note taking app or a to-do app and start typing the shopping list on it.
Or when your brother asks you to pay the WiFi bill, you open your WiFi provider’s app and make the payment.
You are YouTubing the night away, you spot a good looking pair of shorts in a video, you open a shopping app and buy the same one for yourself right away.
Simple, isn’t it?
What After You Have an App Idea?
“I have an idea for an app.” What next? App idea validation.
Somewhere around 1000-1300 apps are added to the stores everyday. It is impossible to compete with them and become successful with a not-so-great app. Your app idea must be exceptional to become known, solve problems and grow.
That brings you to validating and assessing if your idea is good enough to become a full blown app and serve people everywhere. CB Insights revealed that 42% of startups failed because there was no market need. This is probably because these startups didn’t assess their idea before launching. Like it is said, “Guess work doesn’t work.”
What Is App Idea Validation?
App idea validation is collecting information and evidence about the idea through experimentation and research. This process assesses if your app idea will work when launched. An exact prediction of performance is not possible. But it will give you a fair idea and answer your question of if you should work on making the idea into reality or not.
In simple words, it is a process to test your app idea’s potential in the market.
Simple Ways to Validate Your App Idea
Does your app idea make lives easier?
This is the most important question you must be asking yourself.
WhatsApp makes communication easy and quick. And is a saviour for people who hate answering calls. Social media apps like Facebook and Instagram have reconnected us with long lost friends from school and college. Google answers all our questions in an instant.
You can check availability and book travel tickets/rooms with apps like Oyo and IRCTC. Expense tracking apps help you manage your expenses and save some money at the end of each month. Ola brings a car to you when you need one.
See where we’re getting? Every app that has hit off in the market has solved a specific problem and has made the solution super easy. That’s exactly what your app idea should aim to do. Make things easy or make things quick.
Consider competition
Your app idea might already be taken. There may be similar apps doing the same thing. Search Play Store and App Store. Look into their charts and analyse current trends.
If someone else out there has already used your app idea, download it and see if you can compete with it. Not paying attention to competition is a mistake you must not make. 19% of small businesses fail because of their competition.
If your competition is performing badly and has many flaws that you think you can improvise in your app, then your idea is worth giving a shot.
If your competition is catering to people in a different location, you still have a good chance. For example, a grocery delivery app in Switzerland cannot compete with your grocery delivery app in India.
If your competition is solving the same problem but you can do it differently and much easier, your app idea may still have a chance. But you may need a higher marketing capital to go out there and make yourself known. In this case, you will not only have to convince people to use your app, but you will also have to tell people you are better than your competition and explain why they should prefer you over the rest.
There’s always competition and the only way for an app idea to persuade people is by fighting competition unless your idea is extraordinarily unique and brand new.
Find out if you have a viable target market
Your app idea cannot be for every group of people. It cannot please everyone. But it can excellently solve one specific problem for one specific set of people. Zero in on your target market.
For example, if you are a grocery delivering business, your target group will majorly compromise the homemakers and homerunners. They are plenty in number in our country. Every kitchen needs groceries to run. So you have a viable target market for your app idea.
Another example, if your app idea is to make a mall navigation app, your target group is the people who visit the mall for the first time and are confused about which way to go. If your city has only one mall and it is not that huge, this idea will not be viable. But if you are looking to implement this in a city that has 100 and odd malls, your app idea has a viable target market.
Similarly, you need to assess your target market. Here is a list of questions to help you begin:
- Does a target market exist?
- If yes, how big is your target market?
- Is the industry you are targeting to enter stable and thriving?
- What is the future of the industry looking like?
This is only the beginning of the process; it is extensive but important.
Determine if your target group is interested
Having a target group is not all, figuring out if they are interested is the lock. Market research is the key. Your app idea may be great inside your head. But is it as good in your target groups’ head? Maybe or maybe not. The best way to figure it out is to ask them directly.
After identifying your target market, study them and prepare a questionnaire for them to answer.
Tell them what your app idea aims to do, how it can help make their lives better. And then ask them if they would be interested to use the app if built.
You can’t go ahead and ask them directly but you can ask them through a few different questions. Some of them are:
- What challenges do you face while doing (a specific task)?
- Do you think our app idea will help with solving (explain problem) in your daily life?
- What features would be helpful to you?
- Would you be interested in paying for this app?
- How often would you use it?
- If it solves your problem, would you recommend it to your friends?
The easiest way to ask them these questions is through a mobile first approach and 64% of people prefer this over any other method.
Build a minimum viable product
After all the research and analysis, sometimes, your app idea might still need assurance to go forward. This is when you go into experimentation. Develop a smaller version of your app and put it out to test. This is called a minimum viable product.
Your test app will not have to have all the features you want your final app to have. You can launch with just enough features for it to be usable. You can then attract the early adopters and validate your app idea in the initial stages of development. If successful, you can also include your testers in a feedback loop, iterate and improve to make your final app much much better and be tailor made for the user.
If your app idea passes all levels of validation, you are in a rock solid position.
Bonus: Create a coming soon web page
Another thing to do is to create a ‘Coming Soon’ web page and ask interested people to sign up so they can be informed when the app is ready to use. You can do this at any stage after your idea is lit up. If you get a lot of sign ups, it gives you the assurance that you have a target market and that group is very interested in what you are building.
It’s true that you have a lot of work to do before you start developing your app. Not all app ideas hit it off. Not all of them make it big in their first attempt. But also, not all of them end up being fruitless and unlucky. If you spend time researching in the early stages, you will save a lot of money and time later.
Your idea needs to be backed by patience, smart work, heavy research and a proficient app development team. Get in touch with us and let’s bring life to your idea, together.
