How to create a successful and profitable application in 10 practical steps Yemenat 2023
Creating an electronic application is one of the most important means of profit from the emerging Internet in the current period. Everyone depends on applications in various areas of life, such as social communication, entertainment, money transfer, and others.
Also, the use of applications is no longer limited to technology experts only, but there are millions of people who depend on applications in their daily lives without having great or even average technical knowledge, and without the need to own expensive smartphones.
In 2020, the profits of applications reached about $ 582 billion. This, if anything, indicates that the application market is a successful and profitable market.
You may now think that entering this field is limited to large companies, and this is not true. In this article, we explain to you in detail the steps to create a smartphone application through which you can earn thousands of dollars and more.
Steps to create a mobile app
1. Determine the idea of the application
There are several methods that you can rely on in order to determine the idea of the application that you want to create, the most important of which are:
a) Determine the need
The reason for the success of the greatest applications and websites is their ability to satisfy the needs that their users desperately needed.
Mark Zuckerberg relied on the need for individuals to communicate socially on the Internet to create and develop the Facebook application, the developers of the Slack application relied on the need for individuals to communicate directly and securely during working hours, and many other applications.
In general, humanity cannot get enough of electronic applications, and we can say that there is more than one application for most human needs, yet you still have the opportunity to create an application that meets one of these needs. All you have to do is define the need you want to meet.
Like most successful app developers, you can start on your own. Ask yourself, what is the application I need in my life that I can’t find? Is it a medical application? Or an application to increase focus? You may need an app to help you do your work better, the possibilities are endless.
Find one of the most important problems that you encounter in your life on a daily or periodic basis and find a solution to it by creating an application. Do not worry about how the application works or its design. This is easy, and we will explain the easiest methods to complete it later in this article.
Also, determining the need should not be limited to you only, but can extend to the individuals around you. There are a large number of applications and even inventions that their designers have created to help their relatives and friends overcome problems they were suffering from.
Your friends and relatives will be excited to discuss the problems they encounter on a daily basis when they know that you are thinking of a solution to them, and some of them may even become one of the sources of funding that you can rely on in creating your application, as we will explain later.
Finally, you can search and see the needs and problems posted by users on social media. Human life is complex, and sometimes circumstances occur that require new applications to confront them, such as the applications that appeared in the past two years to follow the famous epidemic.
The pursuit of a specific need is one of the most important sources of ideas for creating applications for mobile phones, because it helps to reach an idea that has demand from users. The greater the demand to meet a need for individuals, the more willing they are to pay money to obtain it.
b) improvement
You may not know this; But Facebook is not considered the first social networking site (or application) on the Internet, it is just that Facebook is considered a development of social networking sites (scarce at the time) such as myspace, which disappeared after a period of the emergence of Facebook.
Optimizing software and applications (and sometimes websites) is a common technique used by many large technology companies.
Some companies make improvements to the applications they already have, and others make an improved application from a pre-existing application, whether this application is owned by them or bought from another company, as happened between Yahoo and Maktoob.
Of course, improvement goes beyond a change in design or colors. We are talking here about adding improvements that radically change this application. In fact, most of the new great applications are improved versions of other applications that existed in the past.
Most of the conversation applications on smartphones, for example, are not very different from the applications we have used in the past decade.
I am from a generation that used programs like yahoo messenger and Hotmail messenger, and I can assure you that both applications can be considered the godfathers of applications such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and others.
What I like about this method is that it enables you to create an application without searching for an idea and converting it into an application from scratch. Remember that you do not always need to come up with a new idea to build your application around, on the contrary.
You can choose an application idea that has been implemented before and present it through your application in a completely new way. There are a huge number of applications that provide solutions to major life problems, but they failed due to technical factors or due to the lack of interest of their developers and many other reasons.
You can reintroduce the ideas of these applications after improving them radically in terms of technology and design. You can also work to address the problems that led to the failure of these applications to provide their services and solutions in a way that satisfies users.
Of course, you should focus on improving the way you deliver the solution that the idea provides in general, not creating an application that provides the same solution. Note that your application must be different from any other application for two reasons. The first is to avoid getting into legal problems and the second is to stand out.
There are a large number of grocery delivery service apps. If you make an application that does the same purpose, will you be held liable or accused of theft of property rights? Of course not, this will happen only if you make an application similar in form and theme to an existing application.
To excel in providing grocery delivery, for example, you need to know the problems of other applications and how you can solve them. This will help you improve the idea of grocery delivery in general.
Thus, you will have an application for home delivery of groceries, but it is distinct and improved in terms of performance, delivery, or other things. Also, in this way, you may have improved a solution that already existed.
Note that it is easier to convince users to use an app that offers a solution they know than to rely on an app that offers a completely new solution.
Finally, as a simple exercise, pick up your mobile phone and take a look at the applications you use frequently. Now review the performance of each application. Are you fully satisfied with it? Do you have ideas to improve it or develop the service it provides? If the answer is yes, then excellent. I found your app idea.
c) merge
The merging method in creating applications is very similar to the optimization method, but only in form and not in subject matter.
The merger is one of the famous methods that can be relied upon to find an application idea. The idea is mainly based on merging two ideas into one application, provided that the merger is abstract only.
Merging abstractly is the merging of only two basic ideas, such as making videos (Idea 1) of short duration (Idea 2). TikTok combined the idea of videos on the YouTube platform with the idea of making videos short, which had existed for some time on Facebook.
Tik Tok relied on many other sub-ideas and combined them with its main ideas. Some of these sub-ideas included adding effects and filters, all of which were ideas preceded by a large number of social media programs, led by Instagram and Snapchat.
Now, if you review Idea 1 with Idea 2 and some of the previous sub-ideas, you will know that the idea of TikTok is not new at all. If this indicates anything, it indicates that the merging method is a popular method in the field of creating applications.
Most financial applications and electronic payment applications depend on the concept of integration, but users are always looking for a comprehensive application.
In the case of these applications, all users are looking for an application through which they can conduct all their financial transactions, so we see many of these applications providing more than one type of financial services such as paying bills, transferring money, and even charging the balance of electronic games.
You may think that financial applications have always worked in this way, but the truth is otherwise. Each of the previous services had a different application in previous years. Later, a smart developer collected all these services and presented them in one application for users.
Users preferred to use one application for all their financial transactions rather than relying on several applications, note that this is better in terms of ease of use and security.
You can also combine more than one idea and service in one application. You just have to define the field of your application, search for and study the leading applications in it, and how they can be combined or combine features to provide a completely new application.
2. Define the properties of the application
Some people may confuse the concept of the application idea as including the characteristics of the application, and this is incorrect. The idea of the application is the solution that this application provides to its users, but the characteristics are how this application provides or presents this solution to the users.
In the previous grocery app example; The application satisfies the need of individuals to buy grocery ingredients without making any effort. As for the characteristics, we can say that they are the details of applying this need and the advantages that the application offers in the field of grocery delivery.
The deficiency in this example may relate to the delivery of these orders, the time of their arrival, or even the place of receipt or payment. Another famous example is financial applications. The idea of this application is to facilitate electronic payments and purchases for users.
The characteristics of these applications may be the possibility of paying bills or linking to electronic wallets or a bank account and so on. The bottom line is that you need to prepare a list of properties for your application.
We know that you may have a large number of features and features that you would like to add in your application and this is great, however it is preferable that you divide these features into primary and secondary features.
Essential properties are the focus of the solution or fulfillment of the need of the users you aim to help with your app, and therefore should be your primary focus in terms of consideration and consideration.
Secondary properties may include visual properties, display data in a certain way, or even share it on social media. These properties may be anything you want and they are important, of course, but their importance is not equal to the importance of the basic application properties.
Note that designing the application programmatically is expensive, and to reduce the cost, at least in the beginning, you should focus on the basic features of the application only. Of course, later on, you can add all the secondary features that you want, whether through simple updates or comprehensive updates.
Also, defining the basic characteristics of your application will help you to present it to investors clearly.
Investors need to know the most important thing that your application will provide to users, this will help them during the process of making a decision to fund this application, but it can be considered as the final decision in the process of financing this application or not, as we will explain later.
3. Study the market and search for the most popular applications in your field of application
Now that you have your app idea… it’s time to study its market. Whatever the idea of your application, it belongs to a specific field in the world of smart phone applications.
If your application provides a service related to money, then it belongs to the economic field, your application provides a form of communication, so it wishes to social networking applications, and so on.
You need to carefully study the domain market to which your application belongs, because it will alert you to important factors that affect the success of your application, such as:
- How much the market needs your application (depending on the size of the market, its scope, and the most popular applications in it).
- The nature of competition in this market (competition in the financial applications market is fierce, unlike in the field of self-development applications).
- The extent to which the applications available in this market meet the needs of users.
The last point regarding user needs brings us to a very important question, which is… is there another application based on the same idea as yours? This is another important thing to watch out for. Do not worry, the presence of this application does not mean that your application should not appear, but rather its presence may be necessary.
Do not be surprised that one application cannot completely control a field. In any field, you will find a large number of applications that perform almost the same purpose. Facebook and Twitter are considered among the most important social networking applications, but each has a different look and audience.
Telegram plays the same role as WhatsApp with some additional features, however, both are considered different from the other and have a large number of users.
Rather, I will add to you a verse of poetry; There are a large number of users who rely on several applications to perform one purpose, and this is not limited to entertainment or social networking areas, but rather extends to financial and service applications.
Well, there are applications that already exist based on the same idea as yours, how do you outperform them?
There are several things you can do to prepare yourself to compete with apps like yours, such as:
- Do a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) for your app and competitors.
- Download the top 5 apps you expect to compete with and use them extensively.
- Find what users think of these apps and their top reasons for using them.
There is also a method that guides the previous method, and it includes taking the following steps:
- Write down the most important information about these applications, such as; The name, the price, the rating, the number of downloads, the company that developed the application… and so on.
- Determine certain criteria that suit you through which you reduce the number of applications that you want to compete with (for example, you may not want to compete with an application whose rating is less than 3.8 on the Google Play Store, or you do not want to compete with a paid application), this will give you fewer applications that you aim to compete with.
- Find the most requested features by the audience of these applications and work to add them in your application.
- Targeting weaknesses found in similar applications and trying to address them in your application.
Now you are competing with 4 or 5 applications in your field of application and this is better in terms of focusing resources and ideas. Competition is always based on providing features and additions to the audience that competitors do not have, which is easy to do if you follow the previous steps.
4. Determine the operating systems on which the application will run
It is important that you select the operating systems that your application will run on. Operating systems are the market for any application.
If you create an application that works only on the Android platform, you will compete with applications for this system mainly.
This means, of course, that the more your application runs on multiple operating systems and devices, the more markets it will compete in. This may at first glance be intimidating, but it is not as it will provide you with greater opportunities for success and growth.
Also, this means that you will achieve your profits through several different methods. You can make the app available for free on Android and provide it paid on the IOS system, or vice versa, according to the market study that you did.
Each operating system has an audience that has a different economic nature, and the presence of your application on more than one system increases the number of your customers and, accordingly, your profits.
Well, you may be wondering now, which operating system did he choose? The answer to this question is up to you. The latest statistics indicate that the number of users of Android phones reaches 70 percent of the total smartphone users in the world.
This means that providing your application to run on this system helps you to reach a huge number of customers, however IOS phone users have higher purchasing power and so is the possibility of them purchasing applications.
In fact, I could write an entire article about the pros and cons of creating an app that works on either platform… It’s confusing, I know.
My personal advice to you is to conduct the following studies on the following factors, which differ from application to application:
- The field of application (the demand for applications of a specific field varies from one operating system to another).
- The cost of creating your application on both operating systems.
- Will you offer your application for free or paid?
In general, most application owners aim to create their applications to run on the Android system and the IOS system at the same time. Some of them may choose to launch their applications on one system before the other, but most of them target both systems, which is always a profitable and successful option.
Use the results of previous studies to determine the first operating system that you will launch your application on. After success and growth, you can launch it on the second system.
5. Determine the initial design of the application (design a simple form of the application form)
Initial design refers to the user interface and application pages, and does not refer to the application code or Backend, so does page design mean Frontend? Yes and no.
The initial design of the application interface and its sections is the design and layout of the general form of the application. As for programming these graphics to work when the user interacts with them, the way they appear is what is called Frontend.
It is preferable while creating your application that you have an imagination of the shape of its interface and the order of appearance of its sections. This imaginary design will be converted into the prototype of your application, which even if it changes later is very important and we will explain later why it is important.
This is a very important step in creating your application, and of course there is more than one way to implement it. According to your imagination of the shape of your application, we will first assume that you have an imagination of the shape of your application interface and its sections pages.
Now you need to convert this design from an idea into a sketch, either on paper or digitally on a computer. On paper, make an imaginary drawing of the shape and sections of the application, provided that they are transferred to the digital image by you or by a specialized graphic designer.
Of course, converting the idea directly into digital form is much better, but it may require some technical expertise or the assistance of a designer, as we have explained.
However, there are several tools that you can use to implement your design digitally, the most important of which are:
The above tools will enable you to convert the initial design of your app’s skin into a digital design. The importance of this model lies in its ease of implementation compared to creating the entire application itself, which requires resources that you may not have available.
This form can be relied upon while communicating with entities that hope to obtain funding from them. Of course, these entities prefer to view a complete programmatic application, but the existence of this form with the idea of the application and its characteristics provides an adequate presentation of the idea and design of your application.
Important note: This step can be overlooked and start designing the application directly. The design and programming of the interface and its pages is the responsibility of the programmer who specializes in programming the application interface or the Frontend developer in coordination with the application’s design officer.
However, we mentioned it here, because in the early stages of the application (and even before obtaining funding or agreeing with the application designer) you may need to create a prototype of its interface yourself and the easiest way to do this is the tools that we mentioned in this section.
6. Choose the name of the application
I know what’s going on in your head. Why have I been so late in discussing this area until now? In fact, choosing the name of the application is a step that can be completed at any time. Indeed, some famous applications have changed their name more than once over the years of their operation.
However, the name of the application is closely related to its idea and characteristics, so it is preferable to choose it after completing these two steps. Market study is another important factor in choosing the name of the application, through which you may discover that there is an application with the same name that you chose for your application.
You may also come up with suggestions for your app’s name based on the names of other apps in that domain or what users are searching for.
Of course, this does not prevent you from choosing the name of your application before taking any of the previous steps (including defining its idea), but rather many experts in the technical field advise that whatever the two options available to you are and what they say is true.
Make sure to choose an attractive name that is easy for your audience to pronounce, also take into account the culture and nature of your target audience. Will you target the audience of your country, the audience of several countries, or you aim to create an application that has a global audience.
Do not forget that the simpler and easier to remember the name of your application, the more it will spread among users.
Finally, it is preferable that the name of the application indicates the service it provides, as this will facilitate the process of identifying users, which greatly contributes to encouraging them to use it. Everyone prefers to use an application that knows what it is doing easily, and here the name plays a big role.
7. Funding the creation of the application
The word financing may seem scary to some, but it is not. There are several solutions that you can rely on to fund the process of creating an application, such as:
a) Relying on your acquaintances or friends to fund the creation of your application
We mentioned this earlier, and in general this method of financing is relied upon by a large number of owners of startups and small projects.
We’re not talking about an advance or debt here, we’re talking about a formal partnership between you and someone you know to fund the creation of your app.
It is easy and simple, but it must be completed professionally, so do not let your relationship affect the decision of your friends or acquaintances positively or negatively.
Present the idea of your application, its features, and the market study that you did to your friend whom you would like to finance your application, and explain to him all the idea of your application in detail, the amount that you need to create the application, how you will make profits from it, and when.
If your friend agrees, start immediately documenting the details of the agreement between you in an official manner that clearly guarantees each party his rights.
b) Get a loan
There are a large number of successful projects that have started to be financed by relying on loans. Do not forget that creating an electronic application is a small project, and this type of project is very popular with those who provide loans at the present time.
Banks are the first party that can be thought of when we mention the word loan, and although some may not like to borrow from them, it is very common in the field of small projects and startups, especially because banks facilitate the conditions for borrowing for these projects.
We know that banks are the best or common direction when we talk about loans, but they are not the only option. List all the parties that provide loans, including banks, associations, and any other party.
Now compare the details of each loan in terms of fees, terms and value. Through this comparison, you will be able to find out the best loan that suits you and the details of your application in terms of the value of profits and the time to achieve them.
c) Rely on crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is relying on presenting the idea of your application to a number of individuals in the hope of obtaining funding from them to create this application. Access to these individuals is through several well-known platforms in the field of crowdfunding.
Major crowdfunding platforms:
Register on one of the previous sites, know your application idea, and receive funding from people who like your application idea. Of course, you will pay this financing later with a small profit margin for each financier, but in general financing through this method is easy and its cost is low.
d) rely on private companies
Many private companies offer grants in various fields out of their belief in their societal role towards the country in which they carry out their activities. Do a search for private companies that offer financing loans and study their conditions well.
Search for private companies in your country and visit their websites to find out what grants they fund. It is better to search for large and international companies, since they provide more funding than small local companies.
e) Look for grants
Every once in a while, some government agencies and private agencies provide grants in specific areas such as information technology and application development. Find grant donors in your country and contact them to fund the process of creating your application.
In my personal opinion; Grants are one of the best sources of funding you can rely on to build your application.
Dependence on loans means the obligation to pay these loans and their benefits, which although they may be simple, are still an additional cost that you will not benefit from completely, unlike grants whose terms are often easier, and you may not need to repay them.
f) Find an angel investor
An angel investor is an investor who finances a project from his own money, provided that he has a large percentage in this project. Of course, the percentage is determined and agreed upon before starting financing, but it is often greater than the percentage of the owner of the project idea himself.
An angel investor may be a friend or a classmate, and dealing with him is not much different from what we explained in point A.
Of course, any destination you will go to for financing will ask for several information about your application, which may include the following information or more:
- app idea.
- Application properties.
- Application name (or default name)
- The required financing amount.
- Feasibility study for the stages of creating the application.
- Market research.
- Approximate dates for the stages of creating the application.
Characteristics and the basic idea are basic elements that any financing entity must require. However, the presence of the rest of the elements you have will enhance your position towards these entities and suggest professionalism and seriousness, which are factors that greatly affect the approval of granting funding.
8. Create a business team (or group of teams)
Let’s be honest, creating an app is a huge process. Can one person do it? Yes, but not easily, especially in the early stages of the application creation process
The stages of finding the application idea, its characteristics, and even its name may be completed by one person within a short period of time. As for the advanced stages in this process, such as market studies and marketing the application, a team is indispensable to complete it properly.
Marketing the mobile application alone may require an entire team, note that you may be marketing a product that you want to publish globally and not just locally, not to mention the presence of other factors that make the idea of relying on one individual to market the application almost impossible.
other than voltage distribution; Having a team work with you to help you manage and market the application is essential. Even after the implementation phase and launching the application to the user, you will need to launch updates and handle errors. In other words, you will need a technical team.
Of course, you can rely on the party that designed the application to carry out maintenance tasks and updates for it, however, it is preferable to have a technical team available to you, even on a part-time basis, to solve emergency or huge application problems.
Well, the purpose here is not to complicate things for you at all, but rather to clarify what you need for your application to succeed in its field. Now that we have explained the reasons for your need to have a work team or small work teams, we will help you on how to form these teams.
First, you will need to identify the tasks that need a team, which are often:
- Financial tasks (managing application funds and paying various expenses).
- Legal tasks such as usage agreements.
- Technical and software tasks (maintenance and updates).
- Application marketing.
- Public relations (communication with investors and companies).
Now dealing with all the previous tasks requires some intelligence. You can arrange and classify these tasks according to their importance according to each stage of the application.
For example, the financial tasks will exist at the beginning of the life of the application and continue thereafter. Marketing the application will not take place until after the completion of its design, or at least a short period before its completion.
You will encounter legal tasks once you receive application funding, especially if you rely on an angel investor, partner, and so on.
After following the previous method, you will have fewer teams that need to be formed.
Now we move on to the formation methods , which team will take on which of the previous tasks and its final management will be directly subordinate to you.
Remember this matter well when choosing your work team, because one of the team building methods that application owners may rely on is relying on their friends and acquaintances to be the basis of these teams, and this is an excellent method for forming these teams.
However, with regard to business management, you may face problems in communicating with some of your friends and acquaintances when it comes to issuing orders and instructions, but do not let this note keep you away from following this method of forming a team, but rather take it into account while following it.
The first advantage of this method is that it may be a great savings. We do not mean here that you save on the wages of your acquaintances and friends who will work with you, but rather that their wages (or part of them) can be saved in another way, such as shares of profits or shares in the application.
We are assuming here that your dependent friends are not experts in the areas they are going to undertake, but rather they have some knowledge and experience that qualifies them to take on these tasks.
In other words, the cost of their wages will not equal the cost of relying on companies or specialized teams to carry out the same tasks.
Of course, you can hire professional people to carry out these tasks, whether from self-employment platforms or through an agreement with a company. The appropriate method for forming a team is related to your personal opinions and your available budget in the first place.
9. Choose a design method
How will you create your application will you depend on yourself? Or on others?
Anyway, there are several ways you can create your own app:
a) Design the app yourself
Yes, it is possible and easier than you can imagine, but of course it depends on your application idea (see the first step), for example, merging two application ideas is easier than creating an application based on a completely new idea.
It is easier, of course, if you are a programmer or have a background in the field of programming , but even if this is not available, do not worry, you can learn the appropriate programming language for the application that you want to create … Do you find it difficult or Western, I assure you that it is not.
The history of creating apps is full of individuals who learned programming languages themselves in order to create their own apps. Of course, this is not the easiest and reliable way to create an app, but it might be the best.
Remember that you are the owner of the idea of the application, that is, you may be the person who is most familiar with how it works. Don’t worry, learning programming is not as difficult as some people think.
b) Hiring a programming company
Hiring a programming company to create your own application is a practical and logical solution. Programming companies will save you time and effort to learn and train a programming language to create your own application.
Do a quick search for the best programming companies available in your country or even globally, and contact them to find out the cost of creating the application.
c) Hire a programmer
Do you think hiring a programmer to create an app is the same process as hiring a software company? Well that is not entirely true, hiring a programmer may be easier and cheaper than hiring a software company.
There are several ways in which you can hire a programmer to create your application such as:
- Seek help from a programmer you know (one of your friends or acquaintances).
- Hiring a programmer through Fiverr – Upwork.
Try to review the programmer’s previous work or resume before hiring him. Of course, it is preferable to seek the help of a programmer who has experience in creating applications similar to your application or even in the same field.
d) Using App Builder platforms
Application building platforms enable you to create your own application without the need to have knowledge of programming languages.
Here are the top platforms on which you can easily create your app:
The previous platforms have a low cost, and some of them are free and easy to use. There are a large number of world-famous applications created through these platforms.
10. Post-creation tasks
After creating the application, there will be some tasks left that you will have to do. These tasks can be divided into two types: the first type are tasks that are performed once, and the second are continuous tasks throughout the life of the application.
The tasks that you will do once is to upload your application to the application store of the operating system that your application is running on. Each store has different conditions for accepting applications. You need to read these terms carefully and know each shop’s software and hardware ID requirements.
As for the ongoing tasks, they are tasks such as marketing, maintenance, and updates, and most of them are tasks that began with you during the creation of the application. These tasks do not end, but their objectives change every period.
The task of marketing the application moves from the stage of attracting users to use the application only to marketing its new features that are added every once in a while. Maintenance tasks and updates work all the time to solve problems and improve the performance of the application continuously.
These tasks are the secret to the success of any application. Creating the application and uploading it to the store without marketing will not bring you users, profits, and so on.
Important note: The order of the steps to create your application that we mentioned in this article is indicative and not mandatory. It is true that there are always steps that will precede steps such as the idea selection step precedes the design step, but this is not the case with all steps.
With regard to generating profits, we have provided a special article for him in The Winners entitled Ways to Profit from Mobile Apps , which I advise you to review.