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10

ACTIONABLE
LESSONS

we learned from building


10.000 mobile apps
Introduction

Building apps requires skill, dedication, and experience. However, that


experience comes at the price of making some very costly mistakes and
then learning very important lessons.

We’ve built more than 10,000 mobile apps for every kind of company in
every kind of industry, and after working with so many we’ve seen certain
lessons keep coming up again and again.

Now we want to pass those lessons on to you. Every lesson that we pro-
vide here will save you time and money, but only if you learn them before
you make the mistakes others made.

Let’s start with the most important one.

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Lesson 1:
An Idea is Not a Plan.
You Need a Plan.

The first lesson we learned from Ideas, well, are just ideas. They ar-
the very beginning was the most en’t useful until you put them into
important one: have a plan and action.
stick to it. In fact, it’s so important
that it might as well be rule one Plus if you’re working with a pur-
and two. pose and towards a goal, you won’t
be distracted by things that WILL
What you should also learn is that come up during development, like
AN IDEA IS NOT A PLAN. Lots of meeting schedules and deadlines
people have ideas for apps. Good and conflict.
ideas, bad ideas. Very few app
ideas actually to turn into reality.

Why? Having ideas is easy. Making


plans is hard.

Plans incorporate budgets and


functional outlines and develop-
ment milestones and promotional
opportunities, tangible components
that lead to complete a goal.

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How you can learn from this:

Make a plan and stick to it. Don’t Aside from aggravating your tech-
be tempted to change things when nical team, there are financial rea-
they don’t need to be changed. sons to consider. Every last minute
minor change and tiny tweak takes
Everything you want to build in time and costs money.
an app needs to be mapped out
during the planning phase, so Also if you’re racing competitors
when it’s getting developed, there to market, and are trying to reduce
shouldn’t be any unnecessary last prices for your consumers, con-
minute changes after. stant changes will delay your app
and cause you to miss your oppor-
Then once you have a scope of
tunity.
work defined and outlined, do not
change it.

Unless you absolutely have to. do not change it


otherwise your team will
Do not say “oh, but could we just hate you forever
add one more thing?” when your
app is halfway built. Do that be-
forehand. Changing a prototype or
a wireframe is a lot less expensive
than changing code.

Otherwise, your developers, de-


signers, project managers and
everyone involved with the pro-
duction of your app will hate you
forever.

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Lesson 2:
Apps Need to Do One Thing,
and do it Well

Now think of a steak knife. It is


Being a jack of all trades means
perfectly sharp, balanced, well pro-
that you’re master of none. This
portioned and does its job of cut-
is true in life, and is true for your ting and slicing with ease. However,
app. it you probably wouldn’t want to
take it on a hiking trip.
Whether you’re building an app
for internal communications or for Your app needs to take the same
promoting a product, or whether approach. For your app to be tru-
the app IS the product, you need ly effective, focus it on what it is
to make sure that your app does supposed to do, how users will use
what it does well. it, and then do that.

Think of a Swiss Army Knife. It Plus, adding on functions and op-


has a blade, a corkscrew, nail file, tions to a simple app increases
tweezers, and so on. But it trades development time, which increases
usability for portability, and as costs and decreases your profits or
such it doesn’t do any one thing ROI.
very well.

You wouldn’t want to use one to


cut an expensive steak, but that’s
ok, because it’s not what it’s de-
signed to do. It CAN do it, but it
doesn’t do it well.
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How you can learn from this:

Determine the most important The point of this exercise is that if


thing that your app is going to do, you can’t find a way to accurately
and focus your efforts on building sum up your app in a short, con-
that. cise, descriptive way, it’s either too
complicated or you need to work
Here’s a quick and easy way to de- on your concept.
termine if your app is overly com-
plicated: If you can communicate your app’s
value proposition to a stranger,
Ask yourself while keeping it short and sweet,
chances are you can keep yourself
“ on track during development.
Can I explain my app in the number
of characters of a Tweet?

(The 140 character classic Tweet,
not the jumbo industrial-sized 280
ones.)

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Lesson 3:
Speed is Everything
(Execute Fast)

This is a universal truth that just


Building an app ALWAYS takes about everyone knows, but it’s still
longer than you think it will. an important lesson we’ve learned
Always. after building thousands of apps,
so it bears repeating.

What’s worse is that the longer you take developing and building your
app means less money in your pocket. That’s for a couple of reasons:

• It decreases the return on your investment, whether that’s because


of an increased cost per user acquisition or failure to timely deliver
proposed operational cost reductions.

• Opportunity cost is also a cost of your app and you have to factor
that into building it. You can miss out on a chance to make money
because you missed an opportunity.

• If you’re paying developers or designers, the longer you employ them


the more you will have to pay them.

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How you can learn from this:

When you have a chance to speed


up the development of your app,
take it. Keep moving and keep fo-
cused.

This helps you build quickly, and


keep your momentum moving so
you don’t miss out on chances to
capitalize on opportunities, and
paying people you don’t need to.

Learn the 80/20 principle. That Minimum Viable


means that 80% of the things you Product
want your app to do is accom- (MVP),
plished by only 20% of the technol-
ogy. 20%

The 20% is called the Minimum


Viable Product (MVP), and it’s the
basis for everything that will come
in the future. Define your MVP early
as part of your plan.

Because there comes a time where


budget will run out, time will run
out, or some other resource will
run out. Then you’ll have to decide
what to stop developing, and what
to focus on.

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When that time comes, having an BuildFire’s core philosophy incor-
MVP will help you determine which porates this 80/20 approach to
feature or function can be sacri- rapidly accelerate app develop-
ficed without compromising the ment.
entire project.
After building 10k+ apps we learned
Without an MVP to clarify between almost all of them share 80% of
Nice to Have and Need to Have, de- functionality. We use our develop-
velopment will bottleneck as argu- ment platform to quickly and easily
ments and conflicts over what can replicate those features at no fur-
go will halt production. ther expense to you.

When you use this lesson, you will With the basics out of the way we
discover that it will speed up your can focus more of our energy (and
production as you eliminate all the your budget) on the features you
extra things in your app and re- really want.
move bottlenecks that delay your
launch.

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Lesson 4:
KISS
(Keep It Stupid Simple)

Also, when building an app, re-


This is a really simple lesson.
member your MVP, and then think
About simplicity.
of additional features that will EN-
HANCE the user experience, not
The best things in life are simple. complicate it.
Mobile apps are no different. Over-
complicating and overthinking are Far, far too many people develop-
so easy to do in app development. ing their app think that the more
things that an app can do, the
Don’t confuse “simple” with “easy”, more it will appeal to users, and
though. It takes time and skill to the more users using their app will
make something as complicated make them more money.
as the user experience on a mobile
app look “simple”. However, too many features and
the app becomes useless because
Here’s a super secret lesson that it drifts too far from its original
only the most successful app intent, and too complicated for
builders know: someone to use effectively.

The best mobile apps require the Simple procedures and operations
user to perform the fewest amount will always create a better user
of taps in order to perform or reach experience, and happy users are
the task or function they want to engaged users. Engaged and hap-
do. py users talk to their friends about
your app. Make sense?
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How you can learn from this:

The best way to test how easy your


app is to use is to create a click-
able wireframe prototype. Invision-
app is a good program to use, and
it’s free.

Build a prototype, and let a friend


use it. Don’t tell them anything
about how to operate it, or its fea-
tures. Just give them a goal, turn it
over to them, and take some notes.

If they can understand and oper-


ate it right away, you’re on the right
path. If not, you have some work to
do.

Keep testing and keep cutting


down. You’ll have a great app in no
time.

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Lesson 5:
Know Exactly Who You Are Building
Your Apps For

There are seven billion people So, generally speaking, if you start
on the planet. Half of them have out by trying to be everything for
smartphones. Half of those buy everyone, you end up being nothing
apps. That’s almost 2 billion peo- for everyone.
ple.
Trying to tap into such a huge mar-
Since people all have the same ket right away is almost impossible
basic desires, if something appeals because competition, economies of
to everyone, then that is sure to scale, and market research gener-
be a hit, right? Go for the biggest ally do not favor smaller develop-
amount of users, right off the bat. ers.

Wrong, most of the time. Plus it’s hard to build an app that
works for everyone.
Far too many people want to start
out with an app that does every- But there is a way you can put your
thing for everyone. Make sense, size and scope to work for you in
there are two billion people in the ways bigger companies and organi-
world who have smartphones, so zations cannot.
that’s a big market.

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How you can learn from this:

Start small and then grow. These are the people that become
the true fans of your app, the ones
We learned from Kevin Kelly’s 1,000
who will be hungry for your up-
True Fans that the most effective
dates and the content and func-
strategy for building a mobile app
tions it can provide. Build an app
is to structure it around a core
for that niche of people.
group of true fans who share a de-
sire or interest.
Once that niche is satisfied, look
at your app and do some analysis.
This number should be about 1,000
Why did it work? What features
people. 1,000 people is a reason-
were popular? Did it give a com-
able amount for a number of fans,
petitive advantage or appeal to a
and supporting them is a manage-
specific user base?
able figure for one person and app
to handle.
Careful analysis should reveal how
to monetize their engagement,
Focusing on this relatively small
which you can turn into Version 2
number is precisely why you will
of your app, and then expand your
succeed.
user base and increase your reve-
nue, and so on.
Because of their size, big com-
panies and organizations cannot
There’s an online company you
reach these groups, as the amount
might have heard of called Face-
they’d have to spend to engage
book that did exactly that.
them is more than they would
make from them.
Facebook started as a social web-
site for Harvard students. It was
That’s where you come in. These
exclusive to students there, but
groups are chronically underserved,
these early adopters became True
and hungry for technology or tools
Fans, and saw the potential of the
that can unite them or give them
platform.
the experience they crave.
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Once Facebook discovered its core Now it’s one of the biggest compa-
value proposition (allowing stu- nies in the world with 2.07 billion
dents to easily communicate), it active monthly users. Pretty good
expanded to allow other students for a startup founded in a college
at other schools to access the net- dropout’s dorm room.
work.
Your app can work the same way,
A few years later, after significant if you follow the 1,000 True Fans
investment in infrastructure and method like we did.
user experience, Facebook opened
its membership to everyone over
13 years old with a valid email ad-
dress.

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Lesson 6:
Eliminate the Middleman

When most people think of apps, So they just build and design with-
they just think of the little program out a plan or focus.
that lives on their phone, and does
whatever it is it is supposed to do. This is the software equivalent of
painting yourself into a corner:
What few people consider, espe- you’re trapped, and if you need to
cially the people building them, do anything important quickly, you
is who is actually going to man- have to pay someone else a lot of
age, operate, and update that app. money to do it.

Many people learn too late that you need to have a quick way to imple-
ment their app, because:

• If you have to rely on IT people or developers for quick notifications,


updated content, or non-code based changes, your app will fail.

• If it takes too long to push notifications to users about a critical


update or an offer it means your app is useless because it will delay
timely user actions.

• If you have to go to the IT department for every minor update or


thing you want to do, that reduces the efficiency of your app, and is
honestly just a big hassle for everyone.

• If you have to call up a third party developer to change something,


or send a push notification, or update a file, that gets really expen-
sive really fast, and takes forever.

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How you can learn from this:

The best way to eliminate the mid- This reduces the time needed to
dleman is to build an app with a train employees to operate it, as
user-friendly and intuitive backend well as the time it takes for them
dashboard so non-technical people to implement critical updates or
can easily make changes, updates, messages.
or messages.

Using BuildFire’s Control Panel is


a simple as point and click and
drag and drop. Our dashboard was
designed to require the fewest
amount of clicks to change a set-
ting or send a message.

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Lesson 7:
Timing is Everything

The mobile app world moves real- For example, in 2012 Instagram
ly, really fast. Consequently, lots of timed their release to correspond
opportunities are time dependent. with iPhone and iOS (their primary
platform) updates to ensure their
There may be competing apps that app still worked with the newest
could beat you to the market and camera and software.
capture your valuable user base
and make your app obsolete. If they had hesitated their app
wouldn’t have worked and compet-
Plus, your app might need to cap- ing apps might have capitalized on
italize on opportunities tied to this to establish themselves as the
seasonal events, before a product dominant photo sharing app.
launch, a new internal business ini-
tiative, or a big concert. That’s one of the reasons that In-
stagram is now the world’s larg-
In addition to marketing and pro- est photo-sharing app and one of
motional concerns, smartphone Facebook’s biggest acquisitions.
hardware and software change so
fast that smart developers struc-
ture updates around that timing
and how it affects an app.

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How you can learn from this:

Do some research, find the right If not, determine if you the costs to
time to release your app and set add additional resources to ensure
a solid deadline, then work back- your app remains compatible with
wards from there to build your MVP the new software are less than
based on available resources. what it would take to ignore it.

Also, when creating a timeline be But, in the long term, if you don’t
sure to estimate the optimal return keep pace with the updates,
on investment. chances are your competitors
will, and they are probably already
The optimal ROI includes how working to update their apps.
much it is going to cost to meet
the timing goals against what the
costs of upgrading the app is go- Plan accordingly.
ing to be versus what the upgraded
app is going to bring in.

For example, if your app relies on


a critical piece of hardware such
as GPS or camera, research what
the most popular operating system
your app is used on.

Once you know that, see if there


are any scheduled updates to the
firmware that operates those fea-
tures, and test your app to see if it
will still be compatible with those
updates.

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Lesson 8:
Manage Expectations

Here’s a hard life truth. You’re not Most people seem to think these
good at everything. You proba- skills come naturally, rather than
bly aren’t great at slam dunking, needing to be trained and prac-
or painting a picture, or rebuilding ticed with experience. They are
a car engine. Maybe you are, but wrong.
probably not.
What’s even worse, most peo-
You might not even know you’re ple aren’t aware they they AREN’T
not good at these things, so you try good at these things, and so they
anyway. Then you break your arm set out, make a bunch of mistakes,
dunking, or blow up your car driv- and their project comes crashing
ing it, or make a huge mess paint- down.
ing.
Ultimately it’s nothing to be
The same type of consequences ashamed of, but if you are one of
can apply to building an app. You the lucky few who recognize your
probably won’t break your arm, but limitations, you are already ahead
you might lose your shirt. That’s of the game when it comes to
if you’re lucky. If you’re not, you building a successful app.
might lose your mind.

That’s because a thing many peo-


ple aren’t good at is managing ex-
pectations and the project scope.
Things like deadlines, budgets, and
deliverables.

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How you can learn from this:

Whether you’re at the start of your Find someone who can help you
app building project, or halfway set realistic deadlines, realistic
through, just ask yourself, and be performance expectations, a real-
honest: istic budget, and your app develop-
ment will be on the right track.
“ Even better than using a single per-
If I had to pay someone to do the
son to plan out your timeline and
quality of job that I’m doing, would
resources is to consult with a team
I?
” of professional app developers who
understand how to build something
If the answer is “no”, then maybe
with you.
you shouldn’t be the one doing it,
be that design or project manage-
ment or coding.

Sure you might have to because of


budget or funding or operational
reasons, but if you have the choice,
perhaps it’s best to look beyond
yourself and your own capabilities.

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Lesson 9:
Don’t Forget About Maintenance
and Infrastructure!

The biggest expenses, headaches, Scalability is critical for both the


and time sinks in app develop- frontend and the backend. For ex-
ment aren’t the design, or what the ample, the more people use your
buttons do, or any other obvious app, the more space will have to
feature. It’s the stuff behind the be devoted to storing and access-
scenes. ing and organizing them.

It’s how you set up the backend for Those pathways have to be built to
everything and then keep it run- be scalable and expandable oth-
ning. No one, NO ONE first start- erwise data bottlenecks will oc-
ing out to build an app knows how cur, which drastically detract from
much time and money it costs to a user’s experience and will drive
maintain and grow one. them away.

Directly tied to the failure of peo- Plus, we’ve had countless people
ple to account for the additional come to us after they’ve built their
costs of backend maintenance and apps themselves or with another
infrastructure, is their failure to platform and beg us desperately
consider how their app will grow to untangle their technical messes.
and expand. Why?

In app development, we call this


“scalability”.

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Lesson 9:
Don’t Forget About Maintenance and Infrastructure!

Because they built their apps with That additional amount accounts
no regard for how they will add for what the ongoing costs of time
more features, or improve their and money it’s going to take to
users’ experience, or even how they maintain, and operate, and improve
will access it, and now need us to your app.
fix everything.
Thirty percent is also a conser-
These people learn too late that vative estimate, based on a basic
the things you can’t see are the app. Your results may vary.
things that hurt you the most.

They also learn a very expensive


lesson. A little known fact of app
development is simply take what-
ever you paid or budgeted for your
app and add 30% to it.

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How you can learn from this:

Speak with a developer right from BuildFire offers a cost calculator


the beginning of your app building for non-technical people to esti-
project. If you’re not experienced mate their app’s scale and cost,
in software development, you likely and our BuildFire Geniuses are
have no idea what you are in for. happy to consult on your custom
app development needs.
The sooner you can settle these
problems the sooner you can start
developing your app, and as we’ve
seen above, you have to develop
your app quickly if you are to be
successful.

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Lesson 10:
Don’t Recreate the Wheel

The developers came up with a


Closely tied to the mistakes that
winning concept, and then repli-
people make in setting their cated it a lot over instead of build-
MVP is trying to cram too many ing something from scratch each
features into an app that cannot time with more development and
support them. production costs.

Just don’t overdo it. You can only


This takes away from the focus of
go to the well so many times be-
the app, and makes for a poor user
fore it dries up.
experience. Reducing the number
of things you want your app to do
Reusing or recycling too much too
to improves the user experience.
often can make your app feel stale,
and also confuses users if its look
On the other hand, most people
and feel is too similar to previous
fail to consider how their app’s
versions.
features can be reused. If it works
well in one app, it might work well
Also, slapping a new coat of paint
in others.
on an old app and trying to pass it
off as new wastes your time, in-
Think about Angry Birds.There are
sults your users, and is not gener-
dozens of different versions of the
ally the best strategy.
same basic game concept, simply
with different design elements or
skins or themes.

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How you can learn from this:

Chances are an app already exists Copying a feature is only the first
that has some of the features you thing you have to do though. Once
want in. If you can find a way to you’ve found one that works, you
clone that functionality, do that so then have to integrate it into your
you won’t have to recreate it from new app.
scratch.
But, a platform that allows drag-
Find that app and modify the user and-drop plugins simplifies and
interface so that it’s what you streamlines the process lets you
want. If there’s a working model easily build your app and get it to
that makes it even easier, because market quickly.
its already been built and you can
just adjust it.

It’s just that easy, right?

Sadly, not in most cases.

There is a solution. Modern devel-


opment platforms feature a con-
trol panel that allow you to clone
a feature and plug and play it into
another app easily, and do it as
many times as you like.

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Final Thoughts...

If you learn these lessons you will quickly and cost effectively, they
have a much smoother app build- turned to our Pro-Services App Ge-
ing project. Some of them might niuses.
seem obvious, but it helps to men- These dedicated consultants work
tion them to even the most experi- with each customer on an individ-
enced app builders. ual level to truly understand their
unique situations and goals, for
Armed with this knowledge, you a truly holistic approach to app
should be ready to build a great building.
mobile app. Get started and see
what you can do, and we can’t wait Then they apply their industry ex-
to see what you’ll build. perience and technical knowledge
to create a truly unique and stun-
But if these lessons have helped ning mobile app. All much quicker
you identify some of the short- and better than using traditional
comings in your app development development strategies.
project, and you don’t know if your
tech team can fix them, BuildFire Put our experience to work for you.
can help.

At BuildFire, we’ve learned these


lessons and countless others in
building over 10,000 apps for com-
panies like PayPal, Wienerschnitzel,
LA Philharmonic, and Ohio State
University.

When people at those organiza-


tions needed to build quality apps

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