Do you wish to advance your mobile application? By implementing a well-planned mobile app redesign, you may improve user experience (UX) and increase engagement. 

Users expect mobile apps to have a high degree of functionality and usability because they have become a crucial part of our everyday lives. An app’s poor design can cause annoyance, unfavorable ratings, and ultimately user churn. A well-made app, on the other hand, can improve the user experience and foster loyalty. 

We’ll lead you through the process of a successful mobile app redesign in this tutorial. We tried to cover as many topics as possible, including user research, analysis, and testing, as well as design implementation. You can design a mobile app that is visually appealing, user-friendly and caters to the demands of your target market using the insights and techniques you learn in this guide. This can boost user interaction, boost retention rates, and eventually result in commercial success.

What’s an App Redesign?

Redesigning a mobile application involves making it look and feel better in order to make it more appealing and user-friendly. In other words, it entails assessing the app’s present design and determining areas that should be improved in light of user feedback. A redesigned software should offer a simple and intuitive user interface to entice repeat usage. To increase the performance, engagement, and retention of their software, product managers frequently start a makeover.

The redesign process might result in more functionality and a user-friendly design by bringing new ideas to the table based on user behavior analysis and unbiased feedback. Two equally significant steps are involved in the process of redesigning an app: 

• UI design 

User interface (UI) design is mostly concerned with the app’s visual elements. Layout, typography, color scheme, and other visual components fall under this category. The aim of a UI designer is to produce an interface that is aesthetically pleasing, user-friendly, and intuitive. 

• UX design 

When we talk about an app’s total user experience (UX), we mean it. In order to satisfy user needs, a UX designer attempts to create an intuitive, simple-to-use interface. To do this, UX designers carry out user research to comprehend the wants and objectives of the user. They build wireframes and prototypes to test and iterate on their design concepts after analyzing user behavior to determine how the app is utilized.

Benefits of Redesigning Your App

The process of redesigning an app is time-consuming and expensive. It will, however, earn back its cost and effort. Following an application redesign, product owners may benefit from the following:

• Creating a knowledgeable impression. Trend-following products appear to be enjoyable to use on a regular basis, which makes users admire the designers who created them;
• Becoming more visible on the market. Mobile apps that are updated regularly form a very compatible offer;
• Receiving higher conversion rates. Redesign affects not just the rates, but also other user experience (UX) changes, such as recommending the app to a broader audience, natural promotion, and loyalty;
• Increasing brand recognition. A mobile app’s brand awareness can help set it apart from competing products in stores and establish its credibility with users;
• Boosting the likelihood of additional investments. Your product makes a statement for you in front of investors. The regular release of new features and upgrades by a program is a strong argument;
• Becoming proud of your product. Any app makeover starts with swapping out old patterns and concepts for fresh ones. The software, which was released in a manner consistent with the newest design trends, will undoubtedly make you feel proud of the higher quality of services you now provide. And let’s not remember that a feeling of belonging to a bigger mission is what drives motivation.

6 Reasons for an App Redesign (With Solutions)

For a product to succeed, its functionality, intuitiveness, and stability are unquestionably crucial. However, when a user launches your app, the first thing they notice is how the design. The major part of first impressions is influenced by design. And in many circumstances, poor design can easily push a user away from your product. Now that you are aware of the design’s potential, let’s discuss some scenarios in which you might want to think about rebuilding your application:

Outdated Aesthetics

Modernization is a normal stage in the development of any brand because it enables a business to perform at a higher standard. In the context of rapidly evolving trends and user preferences, upgrades are unavoidable. Even the most effective UI will eventually seem old-fashioned despite originally appearing elegant and cutting-edge.

You don’t have to create an interface from scratch or adhere to every new UX/UI design trend, but it makes sense to update the product from time to time to keep up with the market standards. Apply modern design components and color schemes so that the app is both aesthetically pleasing and simple to use.

Negative Customer Reviews

What problems do users of your mobile app bring up? You need to update the design of your apps if you have low app ratings, poor customer evaluations, or reviews from clients who have issues. Even negative feedback brings about benefits. Having any user comments and real-life experience makes it simpler to identify the parts of your app needing fixing and improvement. 

Find the parts of the software that are frustrating consumers, such as the cluttered UI or the confusing navigation. To make it more logical and user-friendly, streamline the design and user experience. To fully understand the “why“ behind how users interact with your app, use session replays and analytic tools. They will help you obtain insights into unique user behavior patterns and identify chances for UX enhancement with the use of touch heatmaps, funnel analytics, crash logs, and event analytics.

Complex Interface

Applications frequently grow overly complex with time, especially when new features are added and the interface gets cluttered. It is particularly relatable for SaaS apps because they are often highly sophisticated and fulfill many different roles.

When Uber added new service options, it seemed that the screen was too small to show all the options at once, leading users to select the incorrect item. The answer to this problem was to ask them where they were going in the first place (include a “Where to?“ area) and only after that to display the price, the route, and other pop-ups. 

Rebranding

Sometimes, it makes no sense to hang onto an outdated perception because the design may not be the only thing that has to be updated; a new look and an effective marketing strategy might give a brand-new vitality. It piques the curiosity of current clients and aids in attracting new ones.

Despite being a popular platform, Airbnb’s brand over time didn’t align with its new product goal. In order for consumers to grasp its essential beliefs and guiding principles, Airbnb chose to develop its distinct brand identity in 2014. They updated the typeface, the logo and even added a new color they named Rausch during the overhaul. As a result, they positioned their product as being clear, approachable, and engaging to their customers with the help of design.

Platform Updates

Keeping your app updated is crucial as mobile platforms and technology develop. A redesign will help ensure that your app is compatible with the newest gadgets and cutting-edge frameworks for developing mobile apps. The solution will be to keep up with the most recent developments in mobile technology and make sure the app is optimized for these platforms. Enhance compatibility and app performance, this may entail altering the design or user experience.

Your Conversion Rate Is Not What It Could Be

Do you follow your drop-off rate? Visitors can easily become irritated by a poor UX design. Whether a visitor becomes a devoted customer depends on the experience they have with the app. The majority of people link poor design to poor service. The halo effect refers to this phenomenon. New trends in user experience develop over time, making even the most fashionable designs appear old. 

When the Redesign Is Not a Solution

Redesigning your application’s UI/UX might be useful if you, as the product owner, know what issues you want to address and what user behavior you want to modify. If you’d like to simply “add amazing animations to make it pop“ and “make the application cool“ rather than turning it into a work of art or transform the design into something truly exceptional, it is preferable to take extra time to investigate and consider exactly what you want to accomplish.

Don’t redesign merely for the sake of redesigning. It is unquestionably not worthwhile to change the appearance and feel of a program if it does not provide the end user with anything novel or beneficial. The redesign is also not a solution if:

• the cost of redesigning your app is higher than the revenue generated from that investment;
• most of the functionality will be changed in the near future anyway;
• there is no configured analytics for key metrics (adjust and collect indicators for 2-3 months and only then proceed to redesign in case there is a need).

And finally, redesign is not a designer’s job, despite how strange that statement may sound. Instead, it is far from just their job. A comprehensive team of experts, including a designer, marketer, business analyst, etc., is needed to rebuild an application or create an interface from scratch completely. Changing some parts of the app’s aesthetics or color design alone probably won’t help you for this reason.

Top 3 Factors to Consider Before Redesigning Your App

It’s important to remember that designing a mobile app for your company has the potential to revolutionize the way you do business completely. A well-executed redesign can raise engagement, enhance user experience, and even generate revenue. 

Prior to starting a mobile app redesign, it’s crucial to examine user behavior and feedback, identify problem areas and opportunities for growth, and develop a comprehensive plan that takes these issues into account. Here are some considerations to make:

• What objectives does the redesign have? Do you want to update the app’s appearance and feel, boost revenue, or improve user engagement?
• Who are your intended customers? What are their wants, actions, and objectives? Are there any issues with the present app that need to be fixed?
• What are the existing app’s advantages and disadvantages? What functions well, and what requires development? What kind of user feedback have you received?

Following our discussion of some important factors, let’s delve further into the main approaches you may choose to conduct redesign. 

Revolutionary vs. Evolutionary Redesign

Regardless of the choice of strategy, you need to address user behavior. Apps can be redesigned using either comprehensive changes or incremental interface improvements. Each of these strategies shows its efficacy in various scenarios:

• A revolutionary redesign involves rewriting an application from scratch. This strategy is frequently applied when an application’s original design is out-of-date or does not adequately address user needs;
• Evolutionary redesign involves a number of little adjustments that improve the usability of the program. Instead of creating a whole new interface, it involves making minor changes to an existing one. With this strategy, you can gradually roll out incremental updates without overwhelming people.

Your redesign goals will determine which of these two solutions you choose. The greatest alternative for you may be revolutionary if you’re seeking for a new beginning and want to develop something completely original for your audience. However, evolution may be more successful if you wish to keep things the same while still making improvements along the way.

The 4-Component Process for a Successful App Redesign

When we engage in this kind of cooperation, the redesign process is essentially split into the UX audit and the redesign process itself. Between them is the data analysis that interlinks two parts. Each of those stages is then broken down into smaller levels. They are depicted in the diagram above. After that, go testing and iterating changes logical before launching any kind of app update.

The first and perhaps most crucial pre-stage for you as a product owner would be to establish the purpose for a redesign, even though we just indicated that there are two key steps in the redesign process when improving the UI/UX of the application.

Set the objective. We’ve already spoken about one scenario in which you could want to make changes to the product. However, keep in mind the following elements in order to define the purpose correctly: 

• Do you have any definite knowledge of UI or UX issues to be fixed? Remember that “I don’t like the look of my product“ is not a sufficient response. 
• Have you looked at the attrition rate? You may better understand the moment of truth in CJMs — crucial moments when users either become frustrated and quit interacting with your application or choose your brand — by creating a user journey map.
• Are you aware of what consumers think of your product? Keep an eye on the reviews that users leave for it, solicit feedback, and speak with your users.

Always gather proof to back up each of your decisions throughout this phase. Once you’ve established the objective, keep it in mind and proceed to further auditing.

Step 1: UX Audit

Any application’s primary goal is to address a concern of its intended user base. An app must be functional, with a consistent and intuitive layout and appealing design, in order to rapidly and efficiently achieve this goal. Gather all the data you need to uncover the flaws in your current design by conducting a UX audit.

In plain English, a UX audit helps us to:

• Determine UX issues based on human factors principles, comprehend how users interact with various product aspects, and determine which features of rival goods they find most beneficial;
• Identify the target audience’s preferences, needs, and behavior patterns;
• Set the essential needs that your target market has for your product;
• Learn about the advantages and disadvantages of your product and gather suggestions for enhancing the design.

The audit’s findings are typically delivered in the form of a report that includes a thorough explanation of the issues within the app. It could be a customer journey map, an empathy map, or report visualizing approaches/methods that suit best the type of audit or query context, as well as results that need to be visualized to serve the base for further discussions. A pre-made manual for enhancing the user experience is the UX audit following, which requires the next steps:

Carry out market analysis 

Market research is the first step in any app design process, including comprehensive makeovers. Your mobile app needs to offer a unique value since you are undoubtedly aiming for the top places of the store charts. Market research helps in focusing and discovering what products or services rivals are offering and how to outperform them.

Heuristic analysis

Ignoring the current interface is quite a big mistake. Instead, analyze the present app design while paying close attention to the user experience. A heuristic analysis is used to pinpoint a product’s typical usability problems so that they may be fixed, hence enhancing user pleasure and experience and enhancing the likelihood of a digital product’s overall success.

In a broad sense, heuristic analysis, which focuses on usability, is an evaluation technique where one or more specialists assess a digital product’s design against a set of predetermined design principles (often referred to as heuristics) and pinpoint any instances in which the product deviates from those principles. Check out our Instagram to see how we conducted the heuristic design analysis of the Sahseh app.

Analyze consumer comments  

Evaluation of user feedback is the third foundational element of app redesign research. This involves compiling reviews across social media, the App Store, and Google Play. Additionally, business owners frequently conduct customer surveys.

Determining design concepts

Practically nothing has changed with the strategy. Wireframing. Prototyping. Make sure the redesign concept accurately captures the new identity if your organization undergoes rebranding.

Step 2: Data Gathering and Analysis

Businesses naturally involve data analysts in redesigning to understand consumer behavior better and produce user-friendly and effective digital experiences. 

Let’s dispel a frequent misunderstanding before we examine how data analysts and UX/UI designers collaborate: data analysts can play a role at the beginning of a product life cycle. You may be wondering how a data analyst may be beneficial before there is a product for which to collect data, but data analysts are also charged with making sure that organizations are in accordance with the legislation regarding the collection of data. 

Creating a user experience that is both legal and data-rich can benefit from the assistance of data analysts. They can also be beneficial by providing information gleaned from comparable goods or experiences. In the end, every position on a development team can be helpful at any stage of the product life cycle.

User Research

To produce something that users would love, designers must first comprehend precisely what people want from their products. Data analysts can close the user-designer gap by researching what features users value and why. It’s crucial that designers understand what users like, dislike, and wish they could have.

Product Design

With knowledge of the users’ priorities, designers can develop, iterate, and enhance products while giving priority to the most pressing problems already in existence. Designers can build user-centric designs that are optimized for usability, engagement, and general satisfaction by using a data-driven approach.

Usability Testing

This process, which takes place after a product or feature is delivered, is comparable to user research. The main goal of usability testing is to gather information on user interactions and behaviors so that it is possible to evaluate a design’s effectiveness and efficiency. Usability testing is one of the numerous methods that designers employ, similar to the scientific approach, to be able to adapt products to satisfy the unique needs of their consumers. 

Step 3: Redesign Itself

After successfully passing all the previous stages, you may proceed to the redesign process itself to organize all the insights into the efficient design solution. Typography, colors, icons, illustrations, element style, and the relationships between them are all included in this. In other cases, it could also include completely redesigning entire screens or even sections of the product, which might mean removing some elements, renaming, or rewriting entire pages, among other things.

Visualizations for all product screens

When redesigning a product, a designer will:

• Build a dynamic prototype of the application to thoroughly assess the appearance of the application and the logic of interaction between elements;
• Test the prototype to find flaws and areas for improvement before the application is finally sent to developers;
• Create a wireframe that presents all the most crucial interface elements and describes how they should interact with one another.

UI Kit

A UI Kit is a collection of all the UI elements that make up the user interface of your product. UI Kit implementation helps to visualize the user’s interaction with the interface.

The use of UI Kits can streamline, unify, and integrate large projects. It is the primary design document of the project, utilized by designers and developers at every step of work on a project, and it enables you to rapidly and effectively produce each subsequent app component based on the sample of the preceding ones.

Step 4: Final Testing and Iterating Changes

The final stage is to extensively test the app before making it available to the public once you’ve made the necessary alterations in light of the findings of the usability testing. Product owners distribute the software to a few users in order to get feedback and spot any problems that still need to be fixed.

It’s crucial to include software developers in this phase’s testing and launch procedures. They can collaborate with the design team to make sure the app is created in accordance with high-fidelity prototypes and satisfies all necessary criteria. This entails performing technical tests to make sure the software is compatible with various hardware and coding frameworks and optimizing it for performance, security, and dependability. 

The effort doesn’t end once the app has launched. Through ongoing testing and user input, it’s critical to keep track of and enhance its performance. Make sure that the software satisfies user needs and offers a satisfying user experience by thoroughly testing and continuously enhancing it. Users may become more engaged and devoted as a result, which will ultimately help the app succeed.

Top Mistakes of App Redesign Process

Here we have created a list of the most important mistakes to avoid during the app redesign process based on our expertise:

No Budget for Development

The ability to more easily adapt design thinking to financial restrictions is made possible by learning the typical expenses associated with creating particular concepts. Budgets shouldn’t be seen as a source of aggravation but rather as a beneficial design restriction.

Slowly, Then Suddenly

Your team needs a lot of time to complete the task successfully. Setting a strict deadline may lead to unneeded pressure and subpar performance. Being realistic and persistent is crucial, even if your website relaunch date is just used for internal planning. Your team needs a lot of time to complete the task successfully. Setting a strict deadline may lead to unneeded pressure and subpar performance.

“I Just Need a Talented Designer“

A collaborative effort creates a remarkable product. Although developers may be the first role that comes to mind, the product team and the finished product can greatly benefit from graphic designers, UX designers, and UX researchers. Important customer insights regarding the intended users can be obtained through UX research. Usability testing is also important to remember. Prototyping and design workshops can enhance team collaboration and foster an agile atmosphere. They are excellent for settling issues as well.

Not Organizing Design Assets Into a Design System

A design system is a set of guidelines for managing design at scale by minimizing duplication and establishing a common visual language and simple style across many pages and channels. Great UX places a strong emphasis on simplicity. Many make the mistaken assumption that people desire all-inclusive, feature-rich apps that can perform any task. However, having too many options can cause indecision. 

Don’t Break What Already Works

Don’t assume that everything needs to be entirely rebuilt right away. Most of the time, you simply need to modify the application’s components that get in the way of reaching the desired results. Users want to feel safe and at ease while navigating, free from the fear of unintentionally performing undesirable actions.

Release for a Limited Audience

An excellent strategy is to personalize the app by limiting the features that are shown to a user to those that are relevant, hence limiting the options. However, don’t assume you know your TA well (that is without assumption basis and subjective experience and expertise, instead define findings/reasons/data to transform them into important actions), conduct research, and you may discover new findings about the people interested in your app you would never guess blindfolded.

Choosing the Wrong Strategy

A strategy’s lack of or improper construction raises questions about the outcome. Laying a foundation is similar to planning. Spend some time creating a detailed plan. An app needs to be designed with your business plan in mind in order to be profitable. Choosing the wrong redesign strategy that does not correlate with the available resources (for instance, revolutionary when you have many features) will make your redesign go wrong from the very beginning.

How Much Does It Cost to Redesign a Mobile App?

In addition to the technology stack you choose, which is one of the most important factors in determining the price of redesigning a mobile app, there are other elements that you must take into account. The numerous variables involved in an app’s complexity, which naturally affect the redesign, involve:

• the complexity of the UI kit (the kit size, the complexity of construction and interactivity of elements, animations);
• the chosen strategy;
• the skill level of the designer;
• the uniqueness of the mobile application (competitor research or best cases).

Another element is the redesign strategy, whether you choose an evolutionary or revolutionary approach. Selecting the composition of your development and design team also matters. Will you be working with an internal team, independent contractors, a consulting firm, a larger team, or a combination of these? A mobile app’s redesign price is influenced by who works on it and how they work, in addition to the app itself. Even the project participants’ locations must be taken into account.

Additionally, when giving you a cost estimate, software development, design, or mobile consulting companies may choose between two methods: time and material or fixed price. You must also take into consideration this option. The time and material method rarely produces a precise cost; instead, it is based on hourly wages and the length of time needed to rebuild your mobile app. On the other hand, a fixed price proposal will provide you with a cost estimate for the entire project based on the specified scope.

Final Tips for Conducting Redesign

The user experience should be fluid, and they shouldn’t have to struggle to figure out how the product functions. Know your target audience before you begin designing a mobile application. Developing lean personas and customer journey maps and doing user research can help you understand the target market when product redesign. The ideal experience can be made for your audience the better you understand them. Now here are more tips:

• Before you start designing, you need to form a true vision and desire for your final product. This will help the designer with the relevant options and accordingly optimize costs;
• Establish clear objectives and KPIs, conduct user research to obtain audience insights, and keep an eye on the market to ensure a seamless and professional redesign;
• Before launching a major overhaul, do some preparation. Consider the budget and timeframes, consult with stakeholders on the plans, and choose someone to bear the brunt of the process management on your behalf;
• Carry out analysis of client reviews, coding, testing, and release. Following the rollout, collect user feedback to determine whether you are heading in the correct direction;
• DON’T hard reset your current design. Many businesses view a makeover as a complete restart. If you intend to radically redesign its appearance, rearrange its structure, or add new screens. You can apply a lot of the lessons you learn from your consumers’ actions and interactions with your current app’s language as you design a new one.

The post How to Redesign an App — Complete Guide with Recommendations from Devlight appeared first on Devlight.

Mobile eCommerce has reached $3.56 billion in 2022, according to Statista. Chances are you consider entering the eCommerce app development sector. The solution is creating an eCommerce app.

Despite the difficulties affecting the retail industry, we have observed that more and more people are turning to their mobile devices to meet their needs, and apps are becoming important to the buying process. To maintain our competitive edge and brand distinctiveness, business owners should continuously improve the user experience on their apps. This will help them stand out from the competition, stay relevant in the worldwide market, and achieve long-term success.

In this article, we’ll outline several processes for creating an eCommerce app similar to the market giants, discuss e-commerce trends, estimate the cost of developing a mobile-commerce app, and list the features your eCommerce app has to have.

E-Commerce App Development Market Overview 

The worldwide e-commerce market’s size, estimated at USD 9.09 trillion in 2019, is anticipated to increase at a CAGR of 14.7% from 2020 to 2027. The global population of smartphone users is growing as internet usage becomes more widespread. Among the many eCommerce possibilities available to the client base that uses the internet more frequently are financial services, e-tailing, travel and leisure, digital content, and travel.

Unsurprisingly, the number of internet shoppers is rapidly increasing. Online shoppers increased from 1.32 billion in 2014 to 1.52 billion in 2016 and 2.14 billion in 2021. This trend will continue as more customers use the internet for shopping. Despite accounting for a sizable portion of retail expenditure (27% in 2021), the mobile commerce app development sphere is expanding more slowly than traditional retail sales (32%).

This mismatch may be caused by the fact that many eCommerce businesses have started investing in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to tailor their content recommendations and suggest comparable products based on historical customer purchasing patterns. As a result, brands that successfully apply AI tactics have higher levels of social media engagement, which helps them draw in new clients and retain existing ones.

Consequently, consumer technical awareness would have a favorable effect on market expansion. In addition, the need for speedier surfing has increased connectivity, which has sped up the development of 4G and 5G technology. So now, let’s talk about other mobile commerce app development trends. 

eCommerce App Development Trends in 2023

New technologies that are introduced into the e-commerce industry have the potential to change the market in less than a year completely. Most e-commerce enterprises regularly follow the digital industry to adopt new solutions on their platforms. This enables companies to remain relevant and offer the finest consumer experiences, enhancing and personalizing them.

Follow (or even get ahead of) the latest e-commerce app development tech trends to ensure you keep up with client expectations and can compete in the market if your main goal is to develop an app offering a fantastic experience. Let’s examine the prevalent tendencies in this market more closely:

• Voice search is increasingly common. In the US, smart speakers are already installed in around 28% of homes, and by 2025, that number is expected to reach 75%. Voice assistants like Alexa or Siri embrace speech recognition, natural language processing, and speech synthesis to engage with users depending on the predefined scenario, in contrast to chatbots that are solely focused on text communication. This trend is primarily seen in voice-activated shopping apps that process complex queries to improve search outcomes and dialog. As a result, customers may browse and purchase goods using only their voices.
• AI-assisted upselling and cross-selling — according to Amazon, cross-selling accounts for 35% of their overall revenue.
• By adding the AR capability to their app at the most appropriate time, IKEA has amassed 8.5 million downloads. Augmented reality is used to visualize purchased goods.
• Due to the widespread in-store restrictions, the omnichannel approach has become another key component of retail practices. Thus, 60 to 70 percent of US shoppers across all categories conduct in-store and online research before making purchases. Therefore, it makes sense that in 2022, the development of mobile commerce apps will be smoothly included in a unified customer experience that combines offline and online channels to engage customers. 
• The prevalence of subscription-based services offers suppliers 65% conversion rates during the global pandemic.
• The majority of B2C organizations rely on big data to evaluate user activity, boost conversion rates, and provide actionable consumer insights. Personalized suggestions, dynamic pricing, demand forecasts, and trend projections are all supported by big data and its analytics. When used together, these strategies provide retailers control over the supply chain and enable them to maximize sales.
• A well-proven marketing strategy called geofencing is anticipated to generate more than $3 billion by 2026. It allows retailers to send in-app notifications based on a customer’s position, powered by radio frequency identification (RFID) or the Global Positioning System (GPS). This technique, also referred to as geo-targeted advertising, encourages more specific marketing messages and increases regional spending.
• Another trend that is expanding quickly is real-time shopping. This trend is anticipated to be worth $35 billion by 2024. Livestream shopping originated in China and is now a widespread phenomenon combining video, influential people, and E-commerce. Since users may remark on and respond to streams in real time, the phenomenon is also predicated on increased engagement.

The State of M-commerce as Predicted of 2023-2026

According to Statista, retail m-commerce sales in the United States are expected to amount to 710 billion U.S. dollars by 2025.

Consumers Spent Nearly 110 Billion Hours in Shopping Apps in 2022

Source: data.ai State of Mobile 2023

Creating an effective mobile user experience should be a priority for E-commerce brands. Here’s why you should take mobile commerce seriously:

60% Of E-commerce Purchases Happened on a Mobile Device

This stat alone should prompt you to look at your site’s mobile experience. Shoppers used a mobile device to make more than half of the online E-commerce transactions which happened in 2022. That’s a 1.2% increase from last year. Brands should ensure their mobile websites are on point to take advantage of this.

Source: Data Report, January 2023

Insider Intelligence Predicts M-commerce Sales to Hit $534.18 Billion, or 40.4% Of E-commerce Sales, in 2024

The m-commerce revolution is being driven primarily by smartphones and tablets. Seven years ago, conversion rates dropped due to customer annoyance from having to complete an order on a smaller screen, and m-commerce was roughly evenly split between tablets and smartphones. Nowadays, smartphones make up 87.2% of all sales made through mobile commerce; m-commerce trends are essentially smartphone trends. The main distinction is that overall, m-commerce is still growing more slowly than smartphone commerce.

Despite a two-year rebound, tablet commerce will lose share and absolute order value this year. By 2026, tablet m-commerce revenues are projected to drop from $61.08 in 2022 to $54.01 billion. This decrease is probably the result of fewer people using tablets overall and better mobile buying experiences.

29% Of Internet Users Make an E-commerce Transaction on Their Phones at Least Once a Week

In 2023, 29.3% of mobile users shop on their devices at least once a week. This is only expected to grow in the coming years. In some countries, that percentage is actually much higher. Here are the top 10 countries by mobile e-commerce purchases:

• South Korea – 44.3%
• Chile – 37.7.%
• Malaysia – 37.7%
• Taiwan – 37.7%
• Philippines – 37.5%
• Mexico – 37.0%
• Indonesia – 36.8%
• Turkey – 36.8%
• Singapore – 35.3%
• Vietnam – 34.4%

The USA’s mobile E-commerce purchase ratio is on 32.2%, while the UK’s comes in at 29.3%.

Source: Data Report, January 2023

E-commerce App Development: Why Your E-commerce Business Needs an App?

The benefits of e-commerce are difficult to sum up in just two words, but the key one to highlight is providing the finest service to each client individually. The following reasons are to accomplish this objective:

Consumers Choose Apps Over Mobile Browsers

There are currently about 15 billion cell phones in use worldwide. The majority of people turn to their mobile devices to swiftly and conveniently make online purchases anytime they want. Websites cannot offer many entertaining elements, such as scanning QR codes with a camera, using GPS to find nearby businesses, or taking payments over the telephone, which can be done directly by applications. E-commerce app development for your company is no longer a luxury but rather a requirement.

Image source: Compuware

Apps for Mobile E-commerce Increase Consumer Retention

Client loyalty matters. Making mobile applications could aid in increasing your clientele. How? The first step is continuous presence. Your app and logo should be seen whenever users use their phones. 

Reduced Response Time

Measuring response time enables the identification of the application’s slow-moving and optimization-required parts. The app reacts more quickly and offers a better user experience making users more inclined to stick with your business and refer others to it. Mobile users choose m-commerce apps because they load way faster and do not cause user journey obstacles common for websites.

Enhanced UX

E-commerce UX refers to the user’s experience while making a purchase on a website. Every touchpoint influences how a user views your brand, website, and goods or services. Users begin to create an opinion about how simple, practical, and effective your e-commerce experience is as soon as they land on your mobile application. 

Thus, this implies that they start doing so right away. UX is essential to e-commerce as it guarantees that customers can quickly explore your app, find what they need, buy it, and move on. They’ll also buy more frequently if you make it simple for them to do so. Because of this, you need to ensure that your business provides the finest UX possible and implements enhanced UX best practices.

Increased Conversion Rates

Due to clients having access to your application from any device at any time, the business will see a significant rise in conversion. Additionally, smartphone features like push notifications, one-click purchases, and easy payment maximize every potential for a sale.

Applications that store data locally and use frameworks that are much faster than JavaScript on the part of websites allow for operation one and a half times faster than that on mobile sites. The best e-commerce applications also allow for offline basket adding and product viewing, which makes them handier than e-commerce websites and more tempting to customers.

User Behavior Changes After Covid-19

The e-commerce boom was considerably hastened by COVID-19, which greatly impacted how individuals make purchases. As a result, the total amount spent on e-commerce in May 2020 was $82.5 billion, up 77% from the same month in 2019. If we were to use the conventional year-over-year gains, it would have taken 4 to 6 years to reach that figure.

Additionally, there are other reasons to start mobile commerce app development besides only having a decent adaptive web view, such as:

• access to a user quickly;
• the ability to contact users through push notifications;
• improved alternatives for monitoring user behavior;
• effective data collection;
• prototype new features and test hypotheses.

Lower Mobile Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate

The user experience is what is causing this significant difference between the cart abandonment rate for mobile apps and sites. The online purchasing experience on apps is typically more user-friendly for customers. Challenges on the websites include trouble seeing text and figuring out where to click, which are a barrier to checkout.

Having said that, if a large portion of your store’s online traffic comes from mobile devices, you might want to take additional measures to improve your customers’ mobile website experiences in order to increase revenue and benefit from a lower cart abandonment rate. Offering discounts, being open and honest about your fees, and reclaiming abandoned carts are all examples of great tactics.

Higher Average Order Value

Because it represents the typical amount each client spends, average order value (AOV) is a crucial number for any e-commerce company. A greater average order value shows that a company is generating more revenue through cross-selling or pushing more expensive products. Mobile apps offer a better environment for high AOV because of their seamless UX and all other aspects deciding customer loyalty.

Detailed Analytics

The performance measurements are useful in identifying and resolving issues in real-time. E-commerce application development analytics focuses on the most important issues to the business. Analytics for e-commerce are useful for assessing user behavior, performance trends, and ROI. Marketers use analytics to highlight campaigns’ return on investment (ROI) and help them decide how to boost sales, save costs, and enhance their company’s operations.

Tips to Build an E-Commerce App That Your Users Will Definitely Love

An outstanding user experience and assistance in achieving your business objectives are key components of a successful mobile app. The chosen features contribute to your app’s performance the most, so functionality should be of great focus:

MVP Level Features of an E-commerce App

When searching online, people don’t need more filters; they need better results. Therefore, the essential features are determined by the product itself. If you are constructing Shazam, you only need one button to test the concept. If you’re building the next Amazon, you only need features that offer your clients the most value.

• Simple registration 

Creating a simple sign-up and sign-in process is the first step in creating an e-commerce app. The process often starts with logging in using your email address, username, or phone number. A multifactor authentication system, such as fingerprint scanning, may also be helpful.

• Profile management

The second essential component of e-commerce software is profile management, which allows users to view prior purchases, the status of forthcoming orders, stored addresses, and payment information.

• Search and filter

An e-commerce app aims to make filtering things as simple as possible, whether searching for a specific item or looking through the newest products. The items offered in your store should be easy to find, displayed properly, and interactive (complemented by “add to favorites,” “add to cart,” and “buy now” buttons).

• Product details

The product description is examined in this e-commerce mobile app development section. This information includes the product name, specifications, price, cost of delivery, ratings, reviews, and estimated delivery date.

• Add to cart 

Every mobile commerce app must have a shopping cart so users can quickly add products, modify quantities, and place an order. Users can utilize the function to save things they like and purchase them later. The best way to use this facility is to make it omnichannel-friendly, which basically means that no matter what device your users use to access your e-commerce app, the cart details should duplicate without any issues.

• Purchase the Product

This is the point at which browsers convert to customers. Having a simple checkout sequence with remembered payment options, autofill form fields, and transparency on the timescales for product delivery is one method to make sure it goes smoothly.

• Track the order

Order monitoring comes next on the list of features. After the customer purchases the item, the app should provide tracking information with information on how the purchase is moving and an estimated delivery date.

• Push notifications

Push notification is one of the most important features for notifying users about important updates in e-commerce software. A simple reminder can be used to let a client know that the product has been dispatched, there are new sales up, or new product launches going on.

• Customer service

Customers occasionally require assistance navigating an online retailer when making a purchase error, initiating a return, or exchanging an item. However, the process becomes significantly simplified when there is some e-commerce customer care within the mobile app.

• Admin panel 

The admin panel is a component of e-commerce app development that simplifies the management of processes like orders, clients, and stores for the app administrator. In addition to a filtering mechanism, it eases the promotion and award arrangement process. 

Advanced Features E-commerce Mobile App 

You can incorporate phone functionality into your app to make navigation easier and boost user engagement. Additional e-commerce app development features include engaging your clients’ devices or those that are secondary to the main user experience, e.g., more entertaining than necessary.

• GPS

It enables a program to obtain the user’s current location. By adding a feature that geotags the customer’s address, you can do away with the need to input shipping information manually or allow the user to find the nearest offline stores and departments in case your business has one.

• Visual Search

This feature enables customers to use a smartphone camera to shop. They post pictures from any website, mobile photo bank, or social network profile and the inbuilt visual search will find products that are comparable in terms of color, shape, and size on your e-commerce app. As Gen Z and millennials prefer visual search capabilities to construct retail apps, this is an increasing trend in the internet world. 

• Social Media Integration

This feature of e-commerce applications makes it simple for customers to recommend the item they are thinking about purchasing to their friends or acquaintances on social media platforms.

• Voice Search

Encourage the clients to express their search terms verbally, which will speed up the search process. This feature should be added at any stage of the e-commerce app development, for example, during product scaling.

• Several Payment Methods

A simple and seamless checkout procedure is made possible by having a variety of payment alternatives. The option to pay with a credit card, through a service like PayPal, or possibly with a purchase now, pay later company gives clients some further options.

• In-App One-Click Purchases

According to Barilliance, 85.6% of the time, items added to the app’s shopping basket are never bought. A one-click transaction is incredibly helpful for preventing cart abandonment. The first company to incorporate this function into its app was Amazon. Besides, putting this technology into practice is not too difficult. It enables customers to make immediate purchases from product pages without first adding items to carts and then proceeding to checkout.

• Livestream Shopping

The live broadcast function is one post-pandemic feature that has changed the way internet purchasing is done. Social media giants like Instagram and YouTube were the first to popularize live streaming. Typically, during a live stream, brands present their goods from a variety of profiles and pin a link to them on the screen.

• Buy-Now-Pay-Later

As an alternative payment option, consumers are increasingly expecting a buy-now-pay-later feature service like Afterpay. Users can apply this option to make a purchase and pay for it over time in a number of installments. In fact, it is anticipated that BNPL transactions will rise by nearly $450 billion through 2026. Consumers and shoppers are reportedly more likely to use BNPL than credit cards when making large installment payments.

• Great User Experience

Because there are so many clear-cut, user-friendly apps available, users won’t hesitate to uninstall an app if it doesn’t meet their needs. You can only imagine how crucial UI/UX is for your app’s user retention. Make a unique and superior user experience your main advantage. Your app should be worthwhile for anyone to invest their time and money in.

E-Commerce App Development Best Practices

Mobile e-commerce best practices are key to increasing user retention, and websites and apps that ignore them risk being left behind and losing out on billions of dollars. Adhering to these mobile e-commerce UX design best practices will make your e-commerce development experience more professional and easier:

Create a Sales Funnel

When creating a sales funnel for an e-commerce app, you are essentially guiding a user through the app to the last stage, which is a purchase. The typical actions a user would do are listed below:

• Discovering a product;
• Providing details on the goods;
• Evaluating the item in comparison to similar ones;
• Possibly providing a promotion or discount code;
• Activating the “Save for later” option in their purchasing cart;
• Checking-out;
• Payment;
• Receiving a message of congratulations and shipping information.

Painless Onboarding

The onboarding process for e-commerce apps can make or break a user’s expectations. Be sure to hold the attention of consumers, but avoid terrifying them with excessive commitment! Maintain a clean, straightforward design. 

Quick Checkout

A seamless customer experience starts with the checkout process. Users should have the freedom to navigate as they like, but the experience should be as straightforward and uncluttered as possible. Users are more likely to leave your checkout process if it is too lengthy and complicated. 

Keep the User Interface Smooth

On a small screen of a mobile phone, things might quickly appear cluttered by having too many user interface components. Users must maintain attention on certain CTAs, such as “Add to Cart,” on each screen. The number of items on each screen should be minimal to keep the interface simple and focused solely on the most important buttons.

Consider the Visual Hierarchy

The term “visual hierarchy” also applies to a content arrangement. On the mobile app interface, a certain hierarchy appears when the elements, headings, buttons, etc. are arranged in accordance with their level of importance.

For e-commerce apps, a visual hierarchy is employed to emphasize the key components on each screen. For instance, you may highlight the image of an item and enlarge the CTA button relative to other elements on the display.

The names and descriptions of products should be structured to make it easy for customers to find what they’re looking for, whether it’s a product description, additional information, or shipping details.

Substantial Branding Components

Brand recognition is important in e-commerce apps. To effectively communicate a brand identity, colors, fonts, images, and language should all tie together in a unified way. Your e-commerce app should have each of these components shown on all screens to give it a unique appearance and feel.

Social Media Integration

For e-commerce apps, social media integration is a requirement! And this is something more than just one-tap user login made possible by this. If businesses appear on users’ Pinterest, Instagram, or TikTok feeds, it helps to keep them top of mind. They will get the chance to learn about sales, promotions, and new products at this time. Additionally, it’s an opportunity to develop user-generated content, which can greatly expand the brand’s visibility!

Put a Progress Bar There

Daniel Engber made the observation that a progress bar transforms the experience of waiting into this fascinating tale that you’re watching unfold in front of you in his TED talk titled How the progress bar keeps you sane.

An e-commerce app may benefit greatly from this functionality. Users want to know where they are in the purchasing process and how much is still required of them before they finish. A progress bar makes it simple to understand these specifics.

Maintain Consistency

For an e-commerce app to be consistent, identical elements must appear, operate, and feel the same. Because of this, users won’t have to figure out how to use or navigate your app each time, making it more predictable (in a positive way, of course).

The three key levels of visual consistency are as follows.

• Consistent buttons, fonts, and color schemes provide visual coherence.
• Functional consistency: On each screen, interactive features (such as buttons or navigation elements) should function consistently.
• External harmony: Whether it’s a website, social media feed, or advertisements, try to keep the mobile app experience consistent with any other external assets or products.

Add a Wishlist Feature

A wishlist is a fantastic feature, but a shopping cart is a need! The major goal is to enable customers to save products they intend to buy in the future. This is a low-pressure alternative because most consumers dislike being pressured into making hasty purchasing decisions.

Allow people to add items to their wishlists so they can buy them later if they find something they want but are hesitant to buy. It’s nice because wishlist items might give you information about your customers’ preferences so you can send them reminders or exclusive offers.

Reviews and Ratings

Reviews significantly increase credibility and customer loyalty. Create a section where customers may comment on and rate the goods they’ve previously purchased. This part can be structured simply using stars, a review headline, and a description. Along with assisting new customers, existing customers are made to feel valued, which increases the likelihood that they will continue to support the business.

Things To Consider for A Successful E-commerce App Development

There are always limitations in developing an app that requires specific consideration. E-commerce app development is no different. Thus, Devlight recommends keeping the following in mind:

Data Protection

As consumers sign in to your mobile e-commerce app, the first thing they do is provide you with personal information, such as their home address, credit card number, phone number, etc. You can’t let your audience down. Take precautions to prevent unwanted access to their data:

• Employ a personal cloud. Ensure your provider offers a personal cloud regime and establish access controls if you store user data in the cloud. For instance, some services are only accessible to those with premium subscriptions.
• Set a strong security system. Then, even in an emergency, you should be immediately aware of the danger and have time to take action to reduce the harmful effects.

Scalability

Proper mobile commerce app development aims to make your business scalable to accommodate a constantly increasing user base. Of course, you can skip the app’s scalability prospects. However, the reality is that you must design the architecture to predict the growth of your app at different stages of its development.

Will your application be able to support 1,000 users at once? What about ten or a hundred thousand? Will it function well and not crash immediately? You must thoroughly test the mobile application before releasing it by responding to these inquiries. You should take great care in this in case you plan to scale the app one day.

Stability

Other factors dramatically reducing your app’s performance include instability and frequent crashes. Users would want to use something other than an unreliable and unbalanced app. To get performance stability for your app, you should conduct QA tests, create many product versions, obtain customer input, and publish updated fixes.

How to Build а Successful E-commerce Mobile App in 8 Steps?

Providing a good mobile experience is not only beneficial. If you wish to conduct business online, it is crucial. Retailers must prioritize and maximize shopping applications or risk losing money. But how can you develop a successful mobile e-commerce app that attracts more customers, sales, and one-time buyers? Discover the precise actions Devlight took in our collaboration with e-commerce firms by continuing to read.

Step 1. Create the E-commerce Project Requirements and Plan

You should first write a plan and the specifications for your product before you can begin developing a relevant e-commerce mobile application. To keep the entire process detailed and coordinated, you must follow a certain procedure. Accomplish the project more quickly and effectively by adhering to the plan.

In order for your design and development team to know exactly what they need to work on, the requirements for your product also need to be thoroughly documented. The following items are typically included in the project requirements:

• A detailed project overview;
• Main goals and needs;
• Target market and audience analysis;
• Functional specifications and the intended feature set;
• Design features;
• Details that aren’t functional;
• Prohibitions and recommendations;
• Questions.

Step 2. Select Your Development Partner

After you have finished all the stages involved in gathering and creating the necessary data, you now need to choose a reputable eCommerce app development firm that can offer you a qualified team to assist you in developing the best application for your project. Here are a few ways to find such a company:

• Browse sites like LinkedIn;
• Compare teams using rating websites like Clutch.co;
• Consult with friends and coworkers to receive their recommendations on whom to choose;
• Choose Devlight for a Productive Team Collaboration Experience!

Step 3. Carry out Product Discovery 

If you want to understand the target market for which the product is being developed, carrying out the discovery phase of the product development process is a must. Customer feedback is gathered in this stage, and the product’s end-user pain areas are researched. Product discovery typically consists of

• discussing expectations and wants concerning timeframes for current company processes or a potential startup concept;
• analysis of the target audience; 
• examining your market’s competitors (direct and indirect);
• providing pain point solutions;
• determining the work’s scope;
• defining priorities and timelines based on the complexity of the project and market trends;
• role allocation in a diagram.

Step 4. UX/UI Design

Because the visual data will drive your sales, quality UI/UX design is essential. If you want to realize your app’s all aesthetic potential, these design principles work well:

• Simplicity. By UI/UX design simplicity, we refer to content optimization for mobile devices and a structural model that enables the simplest possible purchasing experience. It must be done following the visual hierarchy’s rules so that a significant object catches the user’s attention immediately.
• Convenience. The most user-friendly user interface, which won’t divert attention but will stimulate purchases, is what you need to offer to optimize sales. 
• Attention to sales. This rule applies to e-commerce app development, heavily emphasizing internal product sales rather than brand building and communication. These apps are a substitute for actual stores, and their design is centered on underhanded ways to encourage users to make purchases.

Step 5. Get Down to Software Development

Core, back-end, and front-end developers should work with UX/UI designers to create engaging services and interfaces. The Project Manager must correctly coordinate this concurrent process. The excellent quality of the code is ensured by compiling the documentation, building and running a foundation of automated tests, and using code-coverage techniques.

Step 6. Hold Product’s QA (Pre-release Stage)

The life cycle of product development has always included critical software product testing. Product testing is crucial for both finding and fixing bugs in the product as well as ensuring that the development process is organized and effective.

The only method to identify flaws and faults ahead and ensure that a successful and trustworthy product is introduced to the market is to carry out software product testing effectively. The QA role includes the next responsibilities:

• Guarantiing the software product’s predictability and dependability;
• Addressing any product bugs by updating packages to fix flaws and errors in the system;
• Technically, testing and documentation standards are enforced by quality analysis in the product development environment. This aids in system-level testing as well as other testing requirements for any software product, including functional testing and environmental testing.

Step 7. Release Your E-commerce App Into the Market 

Designers should confirm that the visual adheres to the style standard again. Errors that have been fixed or appeared due to these fixes are checked in the previously tested code. In addition, you may now share a list of each sprint’s code changes with the QA team. If an application passes the testing, it is prepared to be published on the market.

Step 8. Ensure Product Post-Launch and Scale the App

E-commerce app development continues even after the app is released in stores. You’ll be able to continue working on your business by regularly monitoring the many trendy mobile app business ideas. Libraries that record information about the user’s actions at the time of the crash, the device on which it occurred, and other information will help track down app bugs. Sending a crash notification can be integrated into the application’s design or added later.

A mobile application must adhere to current software standards, receive fast updates, and include bug patches. In addition, support monitoring is done to determine future e-commerce app development scaling. To fix the errors, iterate changes using analytics and customer feedback. Later on, this will aid in increasing app revenue and retention while fostering brand loyalty and recognition. The process of creating a mobile app is very dynamic. Therefore, constant work is required to stay afloat.

The Technical Stack Needed for an E-commerce App Development:

The mobile world’s digital arena has been split between iOS and Android. To construct an e-commerce app rapidly, you should be aware of the variations in development since each has advantages and downsides of its own. We have noted the principal ones:

• Programming Languages

The code terms represent the key distinction between iOS and Android. Use Java or Kotlin to create an Android app for online shopping. Choose Swift if you want to design iPhone apps for online shopping. These collections of programming languages have a vibrant development community and rich ecosystem. Depending on your e-commerce app development goals, you may create an e-commerce app utilizing any of the few remaining mobile languages and the wide range of server-side languages used for m-commerce apps. 

• Development Complexity and Speed 

The gap in speed and complexity of development between iOS and Android is due to the proliferation of smartphones. In addition, Android has a huge range of supported devices, whereas iOS is happy with the iPhone/iPad/iPod trio. Thus, developing an Android app for e-commerce will take longer.

• Deploying Method

Android apps can be published on Google Play far more quickly and easily than their Apple counterparts, in contrast to how quickly they can be developed. The verification tenets of both platforms account for this. While the AppStore review team exhaustively checks for flaws, which typically take a week to fix, Google Play runs apps automatically for a few hours. 

Besides, Apple’s policy is much stricter and this is also one of the reasons why it takes longer to deploy an application on iOS — there are simply more requirements. Luckily, iOS has more in-app purchases revenue than Google Play, surpassing it by as much as 80%.

The Team Needed to Develop an E-commerce App

A full-stack development team is necessary for an e-commerce app development from scratch. Depending on the project’s type, budget, and other elements, its size and cast may change. The project needs the proper people with the right expertise to succeed:

• Project Manager

The development process is coordinated by a project manager, who keeps it on course. The best practices for developing e-commerce software are widely known to an e-commerce project manager.

• Technical Lead

A professional software engineer with in-depth knowledge of industry-specific technology is called a tech lead. Instead of being managers, tech leads are mentors. These experts don’t focus on something other than coding as their main task.

• IT Business Analyst

Typically, a specialist with extensive experience in the e-commerce industry shapes the project’s vision. These professionals help to establish the fundamental KPIs and establish major product benchmarks. The business analyst should check the technical task from the client to see if it is possible to implement it at all, and not just assign the task to the developers. In other words, he not only translates the requirements into a language understandable for developers but also writes a clear TOR. BA keeps in touch with stakeholders throughout the development process and ensures their feedback is considered.

• Account Managers

This person oversees effective communication between the client and the team developing the outsourced e-commerce software. Such an expert frequently updates internal and external stakeholders on the project’s status.

• Developers

To quickly produce a high-quality product, the developers you hire should be well-versed in e-commerce systems. Experienced programmers know the best practices for designing all crucial components of an online store, including different product pages, user accounts, shopping cart systems, and more.

• Designer of UI/UX

Your storefront in e-commerce is your mobile app’s design. The top e-commerce UI/UX designers know the ins and outs of e-commerce app development. They can create an interface that is easy to use, has strong branding, and supports the offer rather than obscures it.

• QA Engineers

Although contemporary e-commerce frameworks include automatic tests for some fundamental features, they don’t account for all the subtleties. QA experts create software testing scripts to expedite the quality assurance process.

E-commerce Mobile App Development Cost

Everything depends on the app’s work scope and the chosen software services provider. It comes down to who you are investing in and how much you are investing in the end. The budget is, without a doubt, the primary concern for developing the app. Here are some reminders for you to keep in mind as you move forward with app development in order to spare you from this budgetary predicament:

• You can choose to launch your e-Commerce app with the minimum viable product (MVP), a mixed bag of MVP and advanced features, or a fully functional mobile e-commerce app with advanced features.
• iOS or Android? Because iOS is more expensive than other operating systems, choose which device will serve as your main business tool. You can always grow your company later.
• The low-budget, high-maintenance third-party APIs or the low-maintenance, pricey backend development?
• Hybrid app development offers a better time to market, but native app development offers better sustainability. You’re in the business game for the long haul, so choose wisely!

The approximate cost can be determined by multiplying the number of person-hours needed to implement all essential features of the app by the fees charged by your preferred supplier. So, a fundamental e-commerce app would include:

• Implementing a user profile, which requires 35–45 person-hours;
• 30-45 person-hours are needed to complete the main screen;
• Product screens – implementing thorough sections with a slider would take 30 to 40 hours;
• A shopping cart’s implementation could take 80–110 hours, depending on the extra features.

Devlight wants to remind you once again: all the prices and hours estimates are approximate. You must consider the functionality and labor hours required to implement the app’s functionality when calculating the cost of developing a mobile e-commerce app. There is a direct interdependence between the product cost and the number of features (product complexity), release dates (speed to market), team composition (backend development, analytics), and selected technology (cross or native). The essential features you will find in mobile e-commerce apps are

• Registration;
• Profile management;
• Search and filter;
• Product details;
• Add to cart;
• Payment;
• Order tracking;
• Push notifications;
• Customer support;
• Admin panel.

This list is good for MVP and full e-commerce app development – they almost do not differ in basic function sets. Including features like social network integration, push alerts, wishlists, and similar goods can help you create an e-commerce application that not only functions well and completes the intended goal but also lives up to the high standards set by the sector. Here are the approximate rates for app development in Ukraine in terms of hiring rate breakdowns:

Since our full-cycle development strategy is adaptable and can be set up following each customer’s specific needs, Devlight’s team will support you regardless of whether you want to start from scratch with a mobile e-commerce app, establish a website, or continue developing at any point. Finally, we cannot provide you with a specific development price without knowing the details. In case of any questions, contact us, and we will help evaluate your application cost individually, taking into account all the parameters above.

Main Pacesetters of the E-commerce App Development

Here are a few e-commerce apps that are nothing short of outstanding, from personalization to enhancing user experience:

Sephora

A sizable cosmetics retailer, Sephora offers both online and offline sales. The business’s mobile app is visually appealing, slick, and clear — aspects highly vital for the e-commerce app development success. The app includes easy loyalty program connection, tailored product suggestions, list saving, in-store stock checking, and product scanning for search and review. In addition, users may view an augmented reality representation of makeup on their faces using the Virtual Artist function. 

H&M

H&M is a clothing brand that gives you access to the newest trends at a low cost. Their smartphone app allows you to explore and purchase individual clothing items and complete ensembles. Discounts, notifications, intuitive product navigation, and an in-app store finder are all available on the H&M app. The ability to scan an item in-store and buy it right away online is a nice feature for omnichannel customers.

Home Depot

The Home Depot app combines cutting-edge technology with practical tools and is a great example of a successful e-commerce application development. Users may browse through products on the app or scan the product barcode if they’re in-store to learn more about it. A toolbox with a unit measurement converter and even a DIY measuring trick, depending on the user’s shoe size, are also included in the app.

ASOS

A large selection of apparel is available inside the ASOS virtual shop. Customers can access over 850 distinct brands with more than 85,000 products. The app has the Apple Pay feature integrated, sale alerts, wearable product videos, and 360-degree product views. Customers benefit from free shipping and returns, tailored outfit suggestions, and a simple buying process. In addition, the convenient Style Match function allows you to quickly browse for clothing or upload a photo to get clothing advice. 

Devlight Experience (Case Studies)

ELDO.UA

About the client

ELDORADO is a Ukrainian retail group of online/offline household appliances and electronics stores. It was founded in 1999. The network has more than 120 stores in 57 cities of Ukraine. ELDORADO has a wide range of more than 60,000 models of modern electronics of the top world brands.

The key goal

To develop the #1 e-commerce application and to satisfy all user needs with necessary features

Project scope (iOS and Android apps)

– New features development

– Promotion of the app to the TOP App stores Ranks

– Sales increase through apps

– Enlargement in cross-selling (accessorises, services, etc)

– UI/UX app constant improvement

– Boosting user’s personalization

App’s state before us

ELDO’s app needed a full reboot because of the number of critical issues we had to solve using the next approaches:

– Fix all critical errors and crashes in the shortest possible time

– Reconstruct all the application architecture

– Reorganise the code base for further development

– Solve the critical user experience problems

– Return and increase user loyalty and number to the application

– Enlarge the communication interactions with users in the app

– Boost the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

– Setting up correct analytics from the app

Our solution

• Code Review phase+project documentation audit. Code and documentation review is necessary for a complete understanding of their structure, quality, and technology.
• UI/IX Audit phase. UI/UX analysis of the current application for the planning stage of the development scope and redesign
• Acceptance QA Testing phase. Current bugs documentation.  Forming the description report on the testing results. Photos and videos are also provided.
• Code refactoring phase. Updating and correcting the project code step by step
• UI design + product phase. Visual component design and detailing. Finalization of product and functional requirements collection.
• Development phase. Features development and bug fixing according to the approved documentation, design, and selected implementation methods.

Novus

About the client

NOVUS is a Ukrainian chain of supermarkets founded in 2008. In July 2020, the Novus chain had 80 stores in Kyiv, Kyiv region, Rivne, Cherkasy, Ternopil, and Mykolaiv. From April 2022, online sales and delivery of products were successfully launched. 

The key goal

Develop easy and powerful e-commerce application to satisfy clients needs and solve their pains.

Project scope (iOS and Android apps)

Create the first MVP version of the product and then spice it up with the E-commerce part by using the following steps:

Full and rich project Discovery to define main functionality and key features

Detailed Design phase to create application appearance

Materials preparation to enhance the app with unique and self illustrations and descriptions

Base application Development

Further Discovery phases and Designing for next application versions

Continuous application support and improvement

App’s state before us

Before our cooperation, NOVUS had one more Discovery experience with another company. But the results of that Discovery did not meet the expectations. The results were not enough to start a development or even to estimate preliminary works in the project.

So with that artifacts, NOVUS reached Devlight and asked for our expertise. Here is where our cooperation began.

Our solution

Based on our own experience and the improvements we bring into each project, we’ve prepared and presented a solid plan for NOVUS so we could proceed with the project implementation:

• Initiation phase. The starting point for all from-scratch projects is to gather general information and base features planned. Here we prepare the project’s Backlog describing key User Epics and User Stories, defining our clients and their needs.
• Requirements phase. Deep business analysis session to gather all the needed requirements and understand the overall project scope. Based on the Backlog, the detailed PRD is created. Our Business Analyst proceeds with subject area research, as well as with investigation of current client’s solutions. After collecting information, they describe Acceptance Criteria for each Epic and Story. So-called Q&A sessions with our clients are held so we can dig deeper and understand better the main functionality and what they expect from the product.
• Design phase. Requirements visualization as UI/UX Design based on the existing brand book. With the completed PRD, we can now proceed and create rich visuals of our product. Similar to the Requirements phase, our designer specialist does their own research to investigate similar solutions and understands main patterns. Then they develop a full UI/UX Design of the product relying on the existing client’s brand book.
• Development phase. The Development itself. Creating dream applications based on gathered Requirements and Visuals. Having a precise description of the work that needs to be done, we can now continue with the project development phase.
• Iterative process. Repeat the plan above for each version to achieve the best results in the next releases. Now, if we want to proceed with further versions, we can just stick to the plan and iterate through the steps to enrich our existing product with new features.

Choose a Reliable Business Partner — Work with Devlight

We are prepared to help you if you consider updating your online store to take advantage of the most recent developments or creating a brand-new business solution from scratch. Our experts in software development have a lot of practice integrating the newest digital technologies into e-commerce software and are passionate about constructing it.

What makes Devlight one of Ukraine’s most experienced app development companies?

• Our mobile app engineering company, which has been operating since 2016, creates excellent apps for well-known brands in the market. We presently collaborate with the Forbes top 100 companies to establish digital category leaders;
• We have cases of working with e-commerce app development giants; our portfolio of 100+ projects includes collaboration with Nova Poshta, Eldo, and Epicentr; 
• We know how to work with large volumes of data and scale products. We serve more than 450,000 active user sessions every month;
• Our team launches digital leaders — our application for new mail is #1 in the Business category in the Ukrainian app store and Google Play;
• Devlight has its own Mobile App Development School; we launched a project where we taught people how to code on Android. 

Finally, Devlight has more than 6 years of experience developing mobile apps, 35 million installs, and more than 100 completed projects. We do sound like a great option for your next development company, don’t we?

The application is an effective digital tool that will promote client loyalty, boost revenue, and make your company more competitive. We raised in-app purchases for one of our retail clients by 313% on iOS and 244.5% on Android. We can ensure the quality and durability of our products with the basis of a professional development strategy. Feel intrigued? Contact us to set up a time to discuss the ideal option for your company.

The post The Ultimate Guide to a Successful eCommerce App Development appeared first on Devlight.

Hiring mobile app developers in Ukraine seems wise if you seek hard-working, profoundly educated, and enthusiastic employees. However, this is not just about the spark in the eyes. Over the years, Ukrainians have been rightly considered among the best players in the programming Olympics because of the tangible results they manage to provide. According to the 2021 research conducted by Hackerrank, Ukraine app developers show the best skills in cyber-security, mathematics, and distributed systems programming. Why is it important?

A relevant idea and a competent entry into the market are vital for the great start of any mobile app. But the key ingredient is a quality product. After all, even if the service meets the target audience’s needs and has no analogs, no one wants to use an application with bugs and long page loading. Development is the most important applied stage of work. And hiring a competent team is crucial for ensuring its stability.

Thus, let’s figure out why it is worth hiring app developers in Ukraine: what are their competencies, rates, and soft skills? We’ll delve into the statistics, consider geopolitical levers, and provide a detailed analysis of what the IT market in Ukraine has to offer the world.

Overview of the Ukrainian IT Market

According to the research conducted by IT Ukraine Association, the country has advantages in this market compared to its nearest competitors. Ukraine offers one of the largest labor markets in the world and the largest number of graduates with IT specialization. At the same time, Ukraine has 2-4 times fewer specialists in this field per 100,000 population than competitors. And this means there is a potential for employment growth in this area.

Official data also evidence the IT market size: according to the State Statistics Service, about 8,200 legal entities work registered under the SICCs of “IT” (Standard Industrial Classification Code) in Ukraine. The study’s authors cite the following figure: 5,000 IT companies are active in the Ukrainian labor market.

The export of IT services from Ukraine grows by an average of 27% yearly, and this volume has doubled in the last four years. The main drivers of this growth are the USA (39% of exports) and Great Britain (10%), which hire developers in Ukraine the most often. The number of IT specialists in Ukraine is growing significantly due to the high demand for such qualifications. Working with IT specialists as individual proprietors is the most popular model of interaction in the Ukrainian market due to the Simplified tax system offered to entrepreneurs by the government. The IT industry also actively attracts young people: 80% of IT company employees are aged 18 to 32.

According to the 2022 data:

• The labor market in Ukraine is quite fragmented, as evidenced by the differences in the level of remuneration for the same positions.
• Project Managers’ income varies little by region. The salaries of other specialists in the capital are expected to be higher than average.
• Regions with a level of remuneration lower than the average Ukrainian are economically more attractive for opening offices or branches.

If we look at specific numbers:

• 87% of app development companies in Ukraine review salaries once a year and plan to do the same in the future.
• Months when Ukrainian IT companies review salaries most often: April and October.
• Typical percentage of salary budget growth: 8.5%.

If we talk about how exactly IT companies cooperate with IT specialists:

• 5% of companies consist of full-time employees only.
• 9% use various forms of cooperation, including individual proprietors.
• 86% mainly cooperate with individual proprietors.

Why Hire Ukrainian Mobile App Developers?

Ukrainian developers are a strong brand in the world market. It is customary to associate their high demand with increased work capacity and diligence. But this is far from the main factor that makes them one of the best.

Much more specialists work in China and India, with no less zeal. In fact, the main advantage of Ukrainian engineers is the price/quality ratio. This argument is the first one cited by IT entrepreneurs when listing the advantages of hiring Ukraine app developers. At the same time, “quality” in this connection is provided by strong hard skills. Here are the benefits of hiring app developers in Ukraine:

1. High Level of Knowledge

First of all, Ukrainian specialists understand that to be competitive in the international IT market, they must be highly qualified. They are not limited to learning a single coding language. Knowledge of at least three languages is common among Ukrainian coders. Of course, they have experience with more than two frameworks.

Ukrainian IT specialists can improve their skills and gain practical experience rather than just theoretical knowledge and diplomas upon completing their BC. So, when you decide to entrust your task to a Ukrainian team or a single specialist, you will likely find specialists with the necessary skills and experience.

2. Flexibility

Ukrainians are familiar with negotiations and are ready to agree on a different hourly cost than initially requested. Or, they can negotiate working hours. You get the idea. Suppose you compare the negotiation process with specialists from European or American countries and those from Ukraine. In that case, you will notice that the latter are open to discussions and can accept the terms you consider essential for your business.

3. English Proficiency

You may think Ukrainians are great, but it will be too complicated to communicate with them and understand each other. The truth is that English has been a compulsory subject in primary school for over 20 years already. Thus, most Ukrainians have at least a good understanding of English and can communicate freely in writing. Those who have decided to build their career in app development companies in Ukraine have certainly taken English courses and have at least an intermediate or higher level, so there will be no difficulty in understanding each other.

4. Time Zones Don’t Matter

Yes, Ukraine is in a different time zone than the Americas. However, some working hours overlap. Also, if you plan to hire developers in Ukraine, you can be sure they will try to adapt their schedules to be present during meetings and video calls. Thus, there will be no problem with an employee missing due to jet lag. As we mentioned, Ukrainians are really flexible. If they agree to work for an American or European company, they understand that this means adapting their working hours to the working hours in these countries.

5. Affordable Pricing

Compared to recruiting Americans or Western Europeans for the same position, hiring software developers in Ukraine is more cost-effective when done through outstaffing or dedicated software development teams. Ukrainian programmers typically charge between $25 and $80 per hour, depending on their experience, qualifications, level of English language, and other factors.

6. Simplified Scaling

An outsourcing firm can assist you in scaling the workforce fast if you need to do so during the development phase.

7. Global Acceptance

Numerous international rankings for the IT sector place Ukraine at the top. For instance, Ukraine is ranked top in the Eastern European outsourcing market rating and the Science & Technology category of The Good Country Index. In addition, numerous major IT companies, including Microsoft, Oracle, Huawei, and Samsung, have opened R&D facilities here.

8. A Big Tech Scene

The Agile Eastern Europe Conference, Lviv IT Arena, and DEV Challenge, three of the biggest IT events in Europe, are routinely held in Ukraine. Additionally, numerous IT groups and clusters regularly host conferences and meetups.

9. Various Development Specialties

Modern technologies, including but not limited to JavaScript, Node.js, Python, Ruby, and PHP, are well-understood by Ukrainian developers. They are also knowledgeable on IoT, VR/AR, and AI (Artificial Intelligence) (Internet of Things). That is why tech-focused firms typically choose Ukraine as their outsourcing destination when searching for a certain skill set.

10.  Taking the Protection of Intellectual Property Seriously

An NDA must often be signed before working with a Ukrainian company to safeguard the privacy of any sensitive information you give during the course of the project. Later on, your project will adhere to international security standards like ISO, HIPAA, or PCI. You may also rely on Ukrainian software developers to keep you inside the law.

11.  Cultural Fit

Most Ukrainian coders share Western culture and values, are outgoing and open-minded, and have a strong work ethic. Their love of technology plays a major role in their decision to pursue a career in the IT industry. They are also motivated and diligent workers.

12. Strategic Location and Convenient Travel 

CEE is practical due to its strategic location, which makes travel from many nations easy. Of course, given the many flight cancellations brought on by the russian invasion, visiting Ukraine at the time is not advised and frequently impossible.

Ukrainian Mobile App Developers’ Profile

In start of 2022, Ukraine was reported to have around 329,000 software developers and IT specialists. 71% of them were men, while the median age of a Ukrainian IT worker was 31 years old. Additionally, 46% of these professionals were software engineers, 17% were QA engineers, 8% — were IT managers, and the rest worked in other roles. Here are some more specific insights on Ukraine app developers:

• Age

The median age of an IT specialist, as of a year ago, is 29 years (28 years in 2020). Technical specialists are slightly older than non-technical specialists (29 vs. 28). 

• Location

Most IT specialists come from Kyiv (26% of respondents live here now, 44% a year ago) and Kharkiv (2% of IT specialists versus 13% a year ago). After the full-scale invasion of russia, many app developers in Ukraine decided to move. They primarily chose Lviv and the region for this (19% of respondents live here now, compared to 14% a year ago).

Those who moved abroad most often stayed in Poland (4% of IT professionals), Germany, Spain, and Portugal (about 1% in each country). Most of those who went abroad plan to return — 61% of those who are not currently in Ukraine said so. Most often, they plan to return after the end of the war (38%). 14% of those who left do not think of returning.

• Sex

The share of women in Ukrainian IT did not change during the year — 23%. 17% of technical specialists are women (16% a year ago), and 64% are non-technical specialists. 

• Positions

Developers remain the largest survey group, with their responses accounting for 50% of all questionnaires. 17% of questionnaires were filled out by testers, 7% by project management specialists, and 5% by HR. Technical specialists make up 87% of those who took part in the survey, and non-technical (HR, designers, marketing, sales, support, Customer Success, and Technical Writers) — 13%.

• Titles

If you decide to hire developers in Ukraine, you should rest assured about the balance existing on the market in terms of title distribution. Most often, the experts interviewed have the titles Middle (35%) and Senior (26%). Juniors make up 16% of all Haitians. Interns represent only 1%. Most beginners at the Intern and Junior level are HTML coders (45%), Data Science (27%), Game Developers (25%), Analysts (24%), and Testers (23%).

Pros and Cons of Software Outsourcing in Ukraine in 2023

Outsourcing in the Ukrainian field allows foreign companies greater flexibility and optimization of their costs but also benefits from the services of talented engineers. So, let’s reconsider why Ukraine is recognized today as a country of IT opportunities.

• A talent pool. According to the forecasts, by the end of 2022, the industry will generate USD 7.1 billion and 2.2% growth in the volume of exports relative to 2021. The IT development community currently employs more than 329,000 specialists.
• Innovative and conducive IT clusters. Ukraine hosts 110 R&D centers for global tech giants such as Microsoft, Samsung Electronics, Apple, Skype, IBM, Boeing, Ericsson, Siemens, Oracle, Magento, and Wargaming.
• Miscellaneous Skills. Ukraine has over a thousand IT companies offering “classic” development services (web, mobile, UI/UX design) but also services on complex subjects such as Data Science or Artificial Intelligence.
• Knowledge of English. 80% of Ukraine app developers are proficient in English at an intermediate or advanced level.
• An advantageous tax system. Tax rates in Ukraine are much lower than in European countries: employer charges are between 5% and 22%, while personal income tax is between 5% and 19%.

Now, let’s consider some cons:

• Power outages. It is no secret that since russia invaded Ukraine on a full scale in February 2022, all Ukrainians have experienced severe problems with accessing a stable mobile connection, Wi-Fi, heating, and even water. People relocate inside the country and do their best to perform the tasks assigned, but with the uncontrollable missile attacks every few weeks, working consistently gets harder and harder.
• Possible mobilization. The government offers six-month-long military ID protection for local specialists. The Armed Forces of Ukraine understand the vitality of the IT segment of Ukraine’s economy, so they try to stay away from the developers and let them earn money to provide for the whole country, yet there are no guarantees at times like these.
• Relocation costs and refugee payments. If you decide to hire developers in Ukraine who are women and can move abroad, you will need to cover their commuting costs, basic living expenses, and apartment initially. If you cooperate with a male developer who has moved abroad but whose family remains in Ukraine, it would be logical to let him reunite with the family and cover the expenses for transferring the spouse and/or kids abroad. Of course, given the rates for developing services that are considerably lower in Ukraine, this won’t cost a fortune. But, the human factor now plays a big role in cooperating with Ukrainian employees.

Hiring a Team of App Developers in Ukraine: Terms and Options

It can appear that working with a vendor is more difficult than employing a freelancer and that doing so will relieve you of all responsibility. However, it is not always the case. Finding the ideal candidate shouldn’t seem quick and simple; the hiring process for software engineers can take anywhere from 3 weeks or more for junior experts to 6 weeks or more for seniors.

Hire a reputable app development company rather than a single developer if you need to meet a tight deadline or simply need a dependable provider. The advantages outsourcing provide are as follows:

• A large talent pool;
• Risk reduction;
• Streamlined scaling.

It is wise to let a software development team handle the hiring process. It not only saves time but is also economical. Let’s examine the price of outsourcing to Ukraine in more detail.

App Developers in Ukraine: Rates

One of the most important factors to take into account when selecting a software vendor is the project development cost. Ukraine is one of the most well-liked locations for software development because of its affordable rates for software professionals. Let’s investigate the statistics.

In the US, the hourly rate for a skilled developer ranges from $100 to $150. The hourly fee for hiring specialized developers in Eastern Europe will be more affordable without sacrificing the quality of the finished project. In Ukraine, wages per hour range from $25 to $80. If you have a limited budget, a cost-effective chance like this one is very appealing.

The exact rates of Ukrainian developers will be largely influenced by their area of specialization, technology, and level of experience, just like anywhere else in the world. We’ve created a table listing roles and associated rate breakdowns so you can get an idea of potential pricing of Ukrainian mobile developers in particular:

Here are some specific numbers:

• iOS developers

A few apparent trends include an increase in the wage gap between junior and senior roles in technologies like Objective-C. Junior iOS developers often earn around $950 per month from Ukrainian IT companies, while senior iOS developers can earn up to $4,000.

• Android developers

Salaries for Java Android developers would be a little bit less. The monthly take-home pay for Junior is about $950. Middle-level Java Android developers make up to $1,300, and senior developers often want $4,000.

• Flutter developers

Specialists with experience with this framework are in high demand among numerous firms as a result of its rising popularity. A Flutter developer in Ukraine earns $36,565 per year.

Salary satisfaction is also related to the intention to change jobs: 51% of those who are not satisfied with their salary plan to change jobs this year, compared to 7% among those who are satisfied.

Hiring Model

Development companies in Ukraine offer the same hiring models as IT entities around the world:

• Monthly Contract. If you have a small project requiring quick implementation, we will select the appropriate specialists to implement all the tasks effectively:

1. Part-time and full-time engagement;
2. Monthly billing;
3. Pay only for completed tasks;
4. Dedicated team.

• Fixed Price Contract. This model is suitable for large projects requiring the development and maintenance of functionality. We can sign a contract for any necessary period of time:

1. No hidden fees;
2. Clear deadlines and budget;
3. A wide range of services;
4. Enhanced communications.

• Hourly Rate Model. This type of collaboration serves the purpose of undefined projects or companies seeking long-term partnerships. You only pay for the hours worked by the developer:

1. No hidden fees;
2. Part-time and full-time engagement;
3. Monthly billing;
4. Pay only for completed tasks.

Legal Aspects Of Mobile App Developers

A company that wishes to hire Ukrainian developers typically works with a vendor, which, in turn, offers to sign the three following papers to secure the client’s data:

• Document detailing software requirements. Includes the software’s functional and non-functional specifications. Explains the software’s development process and intended use;
• Confidentiality Agreement. The contract that was signed between the customer and the vendor was designed to safeguard private information shared during commercial transactions;
• Work Statement. This document explains the specifics of the collaboration, including payment procedures and schedules.

As you can see, it is simple and well-established to hire software engineers in Ukraine because local businesses have a wealth of knowledge from working with Western businesses. To ensure convenient cooperation, the majority of Ukrainian organizations align their business practices with those used widely in other nations. Because your software development partner will take care of the legal issues, you can hire professionals in Ukraine without worrying.

10 Steps to Hire Top Mobile App Developers in Ukraine

Putting together a development team that creates value can be difficult, but it’s simple to become lost in the prospects the Ukrainian IT sector offers. Here we outline the best way to hire app development companies in Ukraine in the step-by-step instructions:

Step 1: Select a service category

Choosing the engagement model that best suits the objectives of your project is the first step in hiring Ukrainian developers. There are three choices available:

• outstaffing (hire developers in Ukraine to expand your internal IT team);
• bringing on a dedicated Ukrainian development team (useful if you start a mobile software project from scratch);
• outsourcing software development (contracting a team under a Fixed pricing model, Time and Material (T&M) model, or dedicated development contracts).

Step 2: Compile a vendor list

Once you’ve chosen a service category, start looking up reputable sites like Clutch or GoodFirms to compare businesses based on factors like size, location, specialization, hourly pricing, and client reviews. Try asking your partners and coworkers for recommendations. Following that, make a shortlist of 5–10 providers you believe would be a good fit for your project.

Step 3: Assess the chosen vendors

You now need to research the information on the websites of the app development companies in Ukraine you’ve narrowed down to find out what technology their teams have the most expertise in and what reputable projects they have under their belt.

Step 4. Make a list of questions

It’s time to contact the vendors you’ve narrowed down. In your email, you may ask them about their fees and how they handle private information. Additionally, you might request that a vendor sign an NDA before disclosing any details about your project.

Step 5: Express the details of your project

Once you obtain their responses, it is time to make calls and chat with the vendors who made the shortlist. Your outsourcing provider becomes a valued partner and invests in expanding your business when it shares your purpose and project vision.

Step 6: Request a preliminary cost estimate

Ask the app development companies in Ukraine you’ve shortlisted to prepare rough estimates or include a pricing range before going too far. Ask about any potential future hidden expenses as well.

Step 7: Select an engagement strategy

For collaboration to be successful, it is essential to share a project’s goal, go through all the details, and agree on the project’s parameters. But another factor is still equally crucial: picking an engagement model (e.g., fixed price, T&M, or a dedicated team). This decision will impact your final project budget.

Step 8: Select a supplier

Consider the vendor’s communication style and the information you’ve gathered (such as the tech stack, projections, and engagement models).

Step 9. Legal considerations

Each and every reliable Ukrainian software development company operates lawfully. Therefore, after selecting a vendor, you must sign a contract and decide on a payment schedule in accordance with the engagement model.

Step 10: Gather your team and start working

It’s time to get to know your team once everything has been set. Establish your priorities and reach an understanding regarding the working procedure, meeting timetable, deliverables, and other crucial issues. Build your ideal software by monitoring the project’s progress, considering the suggestions of your app developers in Ukraine, and making decisions.

Success Stories of Hiring Ukrainian Developers with Devlight

The portfolio of Ukrainian development studios includes dozens of successful projects: from small mobile applications and high-level desktop, console and mobile games to websites and sophisticated codes using API and artificial intelligence. Ukrainian developers have a competitive advantage in the global development market and have a high chance of becoming leaders in this niche. And, of course, the cost of their services will become higher. Why waste your time? Now you can outsource professional development services at competitive rates. Thus, there are many successful cases of hiring developers from Ukraine, but we at Devlight want to share a few of our own.

• Sense Bank

Sense Bank is one of the largest Ukrainian banks with the international capital. According to the National Bank of Ukraine, as of January 1, 2022, the Bank kept top positions across all banking market segments, was named as one of the most stable and trusted banks in Ukraine, was in the TOP-10 list by the amount of assets, was designated as one of the systemically important banks of Ukraine.

Sense Bank became part of the Power Banking joint banking network, which was created at the initiative of the National Bank of Ukraine. This means that 74 critical branches of Sense Bank will work even in conditions of a prolonged blackout. All of them are provided with alternative energy sources and backup communication channels.

The first request was to conduct a series of consultations to develop a super app for digital banking. The company has its own in-house team, but due to the rapid growth of the company, the development does not have time. To address this task, the company decided to hire app developers in Ukraine.

• Nova Poshta

Nova Poshta, the largest Ukrainian international group of logistics companies, is the leader of express delivery in terms of the volume of delivered parcels in Ukraine, with a chain of more than 10 000 branches. The company, founded in 2001, has provided businesses and individuals with a full range of logistics and related services.  The daily record for the number of shipments was set in December 2021, when Nova Poshta delivered 1.8 million shipments per day. According to Nova Poshta, the company delivered 113 million parcels and cargo in 6 months of 2022.

With the growth of the e-commerce market in the form of large retailers represented by online stores and marketplaces for small and medium-sized businesses. Although the business has an internal staff, it lacks time for development because of its rapid growth and the expansion of its offerings and geographic reach. According to the reviews, the Ukrainian team established a friendly working atmosphere despite the time difference.

Potential Risks of Hiring Mobile App Developers in Ukraine

Ukraine has strict labor laws. Regulations favor employees, which means that the focus is on employee well-being rather than business growth. You need a strong fixed-term or permanent employment contract in the local language to hire developers in Ukraine. Legally, the contract must include certain employment-related information and terms, including:

• Employee and employer names;
• Workplace;
• Job details and start date;
• Remuneration methods;
• Working hours;
• Holidays;
• Social Security;
• Occupational Risk Protection.

Nevertheless, the biggest change that has happened to app developers in Ukraine because of the war is relocation. 64% of those surveyed were forced to move because of the war, but 24% had already returned to where they lived before the full-scale invasion began. 40% of Ukrainian Haitians are in places of relocation: 27% in Ukraine and 13% abroad. But in addition to moving, there were other changes.

Approximately 1% of the interviewed Haitians are mobilized. Surveys may not capture the full extent of mobilization and job loss among IT professionals, as these professionals may not be able or motivated to respond. However, the obtained figures show that such changes affected some of the Ukraine app developers.

Consider Hiring Devlight as One of the Most Trusted App Development Companies in Ukraine 

If you’ve already made the decision to work with Ukrainian software developers, your next move should be to identify a reliable tech partner. Pay close attention to an outsourcing provider’s knowledge, experience, client testimonials, and completed projects while deciding. Devlight is a wonderful and reliable choice. What makes us one of the most experienced app development companies in Ukraine?

• We are a mobile app engineering company that has been in business since 2016 and produces top-notch apps for big names in the market. We currently work with the top 100 firms according to Forbes to create digital category leaders;
• Having more than 6 years of experience developing mobile apps, 35 million installs, and more than 100 completed projects, we have cases of working with media and market Giants — our portfolio of 100+ projects includes cooperation with Sense bank, Nova Poshta, Visa, Vodafone, Tailor Brands, and Movinga; 
• Devlight has been recognized as one of the top app developers in Ukraine by Clutch.co, an independent research company based in Washington. Clutch.co is known for identifying the leading software and professional services firms that provide outstanding results for their clients. Using the Leaders Matrix methodology, Clutch.co has mapped the capabilities of top B2B service companies, and Devlight has achieved the highest rankings based on various criteria, including the company’s experience, market client list, industry recognition, and client reference interviews.
• We are among GitHub top contributors, with more than 13 thousand reviews and thousands of network members. Thanks to open-source solutions, we contribute to the development of the mobile development industry and, accordingly, receive good reviews, as evidenced by 13k stars. Our open-source solutions were among the top libraries of the world rating in GiftHub;

• Devlight is proud to be recognized by GoodFirms as Top Mobile App Development Company in Ukraine. Our team’s dedication to delivering high-quality mobile app solutions has helped us achieve this recognition. We strive to continue providing exceptional services to our clients and be a top contender in the app development industry.
• Devlight has its own Mobile App Development School — we launched a project where we taught people how to code on Android. Our graduates show a high employment rate. This is how we contribute to the development of the IT community of app developers in Ukraine, further develop the talent pool.
• Devlight is thrilled to be recognized as one of the Top Mobile App Development Companies in Ukraine by DesignRush. Our team of skilled professionals takes great pride in delivering exceptional mobile app solutions to clients worldwide. Our commitment to quality and user-centric approach has set us apart in the industry. Check Devlight Profile on DesignRush to learn more about our expertise and experience in mobile app development.
• Devlight is delighted to announce that we have been featured on the prestigious platform, TopDevelopers.co. We are listed among the leading mobile app development companies in Ukraine, a testament to our commitment to excellence.

The post Hire Top-Rated App Developers in Ukraine: Devlight’s Competitive Advantage appeared first on Devlight.

Business development is always associated with certain risks. App validation helps to reduce and prevent many of them. It gives you tangible instruments that can be used to iterate changes when applied to the development process. Despite half of the startups failing in the first year due to a lack of product demand, you can avoid their misfortune by testing the project idea and creating an MVP. So, this article will teach you what validation is and how to carry it out.

Why Is App Validation Important?

To create a successful startup, you need a passion for the idea, ambition, and a measure of realism. Idea validation in the startup ecosystem means testing and checking the viability of a business. This process aims to prove or disprove the hypothesis that the market needs a particular product and the audience is ready to pay for it. This stage is highly important because it lets you: 

• understand the market. Study the current situation in the industry, and perhaps you will see a clear vector of what the product should be;
• reduce the risk of losing resources. Testing an idea and launching an MVP is the cheapest way to test the viability of a business.

What Are the Main App Validation Criteria?

There are four main criteria you can use for idea validation. Making the correct forecast in the context of these indicators significantly increases a startup’s success chances.

Feasibility: Is It Possible to Built?

Any startup idea needs to be carefully checked before you invest real money into it. How to validate an app idea? Start by analyzing how much will the solution cost. Who tried to solve the same problem before you, and how is their startup doing? Is there any OpenSource solution or its prototype, and what is wrong with it?

Viability: Can You Grow a Sustainable Business Out of It?

Founders who made their fortunes from their companies put great effort into creating products tightly interrelated with business mechanisms that satisfy customers and ensure stable revenue. App validation aims to find connection points between an innovative idea that aims to change the world and a pragmatic aspect of monetizing it. Turning crazy ideas into reality sounds romantic, but a startup owner is an entrepreneur and should think and act like an entrepreneur. 

Desirability: Do People Need Your Service or Product?

If your product idea has no market value and people don’t want or need it, it won’t sell. Researching desirability will specifically tell you whether your product is a want or a need. For example:

• You need to get to work which you can do by walking, taking public transport, driving, carpooling, etc.
• You want a car to get to work because it offers convenience and maybe more luxury than public transport.
• A need is something your customers cannot live without, while a want is often a more desirable option for fulfilling that need. Both check the box for desirability, but a product that fulfills someone’s need is far more valuable than something a user wants or thinks “it would be nice to have.”

Market idea validation always relies on interviews with potential buyers of your product. You can also conduct a survey among experts, analysts in your industry, employees, consultants, etc.

Integrity/Ethics: Does The App Positively Impact the Environment and Society?

How to validate an app idea ethics? It implies a certain attitude towards consumers. This is a high quality of goods and services and introducing various sustainability practices. Sustainability is an essential part of social and environmental responsibility in business today and it is a necessary step toward preserving our planet for future generations.

How Carry Out an App Validation Quickly and Effectively?

Even before creating the MVP, we advise you to launch advertisements on a simple landing page. The page should have a brief description of the product and a “Buy Now” button. How to validate an app idea then? You can make many options for landing pages, varying the price and the essence of the offer.

It will help you collect statistics to start developing a prototype. This approach, called “Ask first, then do,” is widely used by the followers of the lean startup methodology.  Leaners also often use The Validation Board to test ideas — a free product that is a lined board, each part of which is an important element of a successful startup idea.

Another tip on how to validate an app idea for free lies in carrying out user interviews. First, carefully complete the description of the concept of your future product and go to the nearest coffee shop. Sit down at a table in a conspicuous place and put a sign next to you that says, “I will treat you to coffee for 10 minutes of your time. P.S. It’s important for me to know what you think of my idea.”

In 2-3 hours, you will be able to communicate with at least 5 people. Tell them about your idea and identify whether they like or dislike it. Would such a product help them cope better with solving certain problems or not? Are they willing to pay for such a solution? 5-10 quality responses will help you identify patterns in people’s responses and help you understand your idea’s viability.

How to Validate an App Idea: In-Detail Steps

For a startup to become successful, it must be flexible, ready to adapt, and able to change to users’ real needs. But for this, you must conduct a validation of the product.

For a preliminary analysis of the product, market, and consumers, you may need a team of specialists from different fields: managers, engineers, designers, and financial analysts. Thanks to them, studying the subject area as accurately as possible from different angles will be possible. The steps below describe the app validation steps in detail.

• Find a Problem That Is Worthy of Being Solved

List the pool of issues relevant to society that need to be addressed here and now. Regardless of whether you have competitors, focus on what qualities of the product will be appreciated by users. Write down a list of features and benefits that will qualitatively distinguish the company from peers.

• Identify Pain Points

A pain point can be defined as a specific problem that your client is facing, either potential or current, that causes them “pain” in all interactions between different touchpoints.

Finding customer pain points affects both your sales strategy and your marketing strategy. The sales team identifies the client’s pain points to adapt the product to user needs and presents the service as a suitable solution. Marketers want to understand these pain points to effectively and attractively advertise/present their solutions.

• Do Market Research and Confirm There Are Enough Potential Users

After you identify the pain points, seek users who potentially face them often enough to fall for your idea. To do this, describe the profile of a potential client. Do not try to cover the entire market at once. Imagine who exactly is the ideal client. Further, as the startup scales, you will be able to reach a wider audience.

• Conduct Keyword Research

Any idea is a set of hypotheses, such as “taxi users are more willing to use a mobile app than a phone service” or “students want to share thoughts in a short format of 140 characters.” Google keywords and bits of such ideas to measure the temperature in this market niche. Check industry platforms and resources, relevant forum threads, or questions on Reddit. So that you can find indirect evidence of a business problem and keywords further related to it.

• Analyze the Competitors

Competitive analysis is the process of studying competitors. What exactly to analyze depends on the business objectives. This can be an analysis of a trade offer, pricing, assortment, customer relations, profits, turnover, loyalty programs, distribution channels, and advertising. Learning from the experience of other entrepreneurs during idea validation helps you avoid their mistakes and use only successful solutions. 

• Set Validation Goals

The main goal of validation is to get proof that the market needs a certain product. Form a minimum list of clear and measurable goals that you would like to achieve before the end of the study, for example

1. Positive feedback about the future project from 50+ potential clients.
2. 5-10 successful meetings and presentations.
3. 1-5 successful product MVP pre-sales.

• Conduct Surveys

During this step, you may create a  future project web page with a form for collecting information about interested users, conduct a large-scale mailing of a questionnaire, or create an MVP product. As a result, you need to collect feedback from potential consumers. It can be direct feedback or expectations from a future product. After finishing work on the study, you need to make an important decision and decide whether it will be profitable to continue working on a startup. 

• Develop the USP of Your Future Product

This is a phrase that refers to the unique characteristics of a product or service. USP addresses representatives of the target audience and explains how the product of this company differs from competitors and what its benefit is. That is, it answers the question: “Why should I buy this and why should I buy from them?” USP is done once and for a long time, often for the entire life of the brand. Its main characteristics are

1. Message uniqueness.
2. Product importance explanation.
3. Difference from competitors defined.

• Create User Personas

A persona is a description of a fictitious user of a product with the sum of their basic needs, characteristics, and goals. Focusing on an individual or a small audience segment increases empathy for the users the team is designing. We are all human beings and are more interested in concrete examples than abstractions and generalizations. This helps to focus on creating a product that will really solve people’s problems.

• Create a Customer Journey Map 

Customers are the company’s main profit source, so it is necessary to understand their needs. The Customer Journey Map for app validation is developed on the basis of research and analytics, so it allows you to understand the audience and the psychology of consumer behavior (fears, motives, and customer expectations). A CJM solves the next tasks:

1. Implementation of a client-centric approach and, as a result, increased customer loyalty.
2. Ensuring omnichannel interaction — offline (shops, points of issue, courier service, advertising) and online (online store, applications, mailing lists, and SMS).
3. Creating a continuous user experience — preventing “dead ends” when interacting with the project and motivating movement in the required direction.

• Conduct User Interviews 

The interview is an important generative method in UX research. Generative methods (interviews or focus groups) create knowledge, while evaluative methods (usability testing) test hypotheses. When the interview is done well, we can find out:

1. What the user thinks about the product in general.
2. Their views on other similar products.
3. Their models of thinking.
4. Their experience.

This knowledge helps us create products and services that will solve real user problems, not those we invented. 

• Create a Landing Page

A landing page is a website that talks about a product, service, or event. Usually, a landing page offers the client one thing, and the main purpose of such a short site is to collect views and visits to track the product’s reaction. How to validate an app idea via a landing page?

1. Determine the purpose of the landing page. Do you need to collect a certain number of email addresses or get pre-orders? 
2. Understand who your target audience is. Creating a landing page is a good way to determine your business’s real clients and focus on a specific segment.
3. State your product’s idea as clearly as possible. 

• Create Mobile App Prototype

Think of application prototypes as the first draft of your idea. It only shows basic functionality and is used to get early feedback before you move on to the next phase of development. The purpose of prototyping is to ensure that the final design meets all technical requirements and is easy to use.  The apps that will come in handy are: Moqups, Proto, UXPin, Figma, and InVision Studio.

• Create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

MVP is an app version that includes the minimum possible, verified set of functions used to model the product’s behavior in real-life conditions. It aims to

1. Make sure potential users need your product.
2. Receive a better target audience definition.
3. Collect feedback, assess the need for improvements, and correctly prioritize them.
4. Understand the optimal direction for further development after various iterations.
5. Attract the first users of the product and start monetizing it.
6. Reduce development time and cost by filtering out unnecessary functionality at the product development stage.

• Conduct User Testing

When we create a product, we can only assume its users’ needs. It is impossible to predict exactly where inconveniences will arise and what will remain incomprehensible. That is why user tests are so necessary for QA. They show how users interact with the product and their challenges. Four user test rules are

1. Prepare scripts for testing.
2. Prepare the “proper” users who are interested in testing and belong to your target audience.
3. Conduct the data carefully. 
4. Analyze the results correctly. 

• Upload Your App’s Rough Version on Review Sites

The rating directly affects the “attractiveness” of the application. Half of the users won’t download an app with a rating of fewer than 4 stars. More than 80% — with a score smaller than three. Moreover, the assessment also affects the reputation of the brand as a whole. 55% of users begin to be wary or negative about a well-known company if the rating of its application does not reach three stars. And vice versa — 71% admit that 4- or 5-star ratings incline them to a positive attitude.

• Promote Your App

How to validate an app idea via promotion? Communicate with potential customers in the applications they have already installed — place ads and surveys. Categorize the target audience by interests, choosing exactly those applications that are in demand among them. And put your banners there. Such opportunities are provided, for example, by Google AdWords.

Select the resources where your target audience spends time and publish a series of guest posts about your app’s benefits. Give interviews and record podcasts. Make a video about your app and promote it on YouTube. Be active on social networks.

• Processing the Feedback

Listening to your users is the best way to improve their experience and actively engage your audience members. Feedback processing means that you

1. Find bugs and fix them.
2. Understand user intent.
3. Identify the most important user tasks and focus on their improvement.

What Are Main App Idea Validation Frameworks?

All your ideas are your assumptions. Many startup teams naively believe that all the internal debate and personal opinions of each of the team members can grow into an indisputable fact. Whereas in fact, all these are just extensive hypotheses that still need to be tested in the real world. Devlight focuses on the idea validation models.

Lean Startup

In his “The Lean Startup” book, successful entrepreneur Eric Rice described how to test the viability of ideas. Idea validation aims to determine whether your customers are willing to pay for the product. As described above, Rice presents landing pages as one of the simplest yet truly effective ways to validate a project idea. Collect data, test hypotheses, and after working with statistics, only then proceed to develop an MVP. 

Customer Development

CustDev is a study of customer needs through special in-depth interviews to understand how much the product will be in demand. If we talk about specific tasks, then CustDev helps:

• Create an accurate portrait of the client;
• Identify the needs of the audience;
• Adapt the product to the needs of the market;
• Make a product that customers will pay for.

The team’s vision may not meet the market’s needs, so sometimes, the product has to be changed during the research. It helps not build a business on guesswork but directly ask customers what they need. Therefore, the work flows according to the scheme:

Identify Need → Develop Product

Design Thinking

Design thinking is an app validation method and process of solving specific problems that help to understand the user, comprehend their problem, and find alternative solutions. 

Herbert Simon formulated the idea of ​​design thinking in 1969 in his book “The Sciences of the Artificial.” In some companies, such as Google, design thinking becomes a paradigm and even an ideology where teams of researchers and developers use this method to come up with and test new ideas based on three principles:

• Empathy: the ability to put yourself in the place of another person, to understand their feelings and emotions;
• Universal thinking: the ability to cover the problem both in general and in all possible details;
• Experimentation: the willingness to try, fail, and try again.

App Validation: Devlight Approach

Whatever area of ​​business you are in, you are most likely limited in both time and resources. Therefore, it makes no sense to drown in details, which in the end, may not matter at all. Devlight is interested in making the most out of the app validation process, so we carry it out in a few logical steps:

Trend Canvas

Trend Canvas is an easy-to-use forecasting builder. The trend canvas model we use for idea validation consists of two asymmetric parts: analyze and apply. Each of them is divided into several blocks, designed to find answers to certain questions during foresight sessions and leading to the maximum unpacking of trends.

Marketing Competetive Research

Competitor research is an ongoing process. The essence of a competitive analysis is always to know where the market is moving, what competitors are doing, and how the interests of the audience are changing. The results of competitor analysis are packaged into a working document and presented to the company’s top managers. This single file can affect advertising campaigns, communication strategy, and brand positioning. 

Customer Journey Map

Customer Journey is not a sales funnel because it is wider. It takes into account not only the stages that the user must go through before buying but also the habits, tasks, lifestyle, “pains,” and fears of the client and helps to:

• create a continuous user experience with the product;
• better solve the problems of the audience, close their “pains” with the help of the product;
• simplify the start of work with the product, reduce the number of objections during the sale;
• increase customer loyalty;
• collect ideas for further development, draw up an action plan.

Value Proposition Canvas

VPC, when used for idea validation, is a diagram showing the key benefits of a product and the factors that influence its choice by the user. The value proposition canvas includes the following sections:

• Products and services — a list of products offered to the user;
• Pain relievers — characteristics of the product that will help solve the user’s problems. 
• Gain creators — opportunities to improve a customer’s life who uses a product with distinctive features.

Testing the Value Proposition on Respondents

It is important to find out how potential customers today solve the problem that your product is going to solve and whether they are satisfied with the solution that exists on the market. Offer them a new one and collect feedback using the methods we described above.

Creating+Testing High-Fidelity Wireframes and Low-Fidelity Prototypes

In the case of app validation, we are talking about well-designed wireframes and prototypes, often clickable, that help you catch all errors in the scripts before submitting mockups to development. Figma turns your images into a full-fledged prototype — with working buttons, scrolling, and switches. That is, at a level sufficient for a general understanding of the layout of the screens and transfer to the designer, who will already prepare the final design, which will go into development.

What Are the Most Common Mistakes Owners Make During the App Validation Process?

Testing the idea is about failing but not giving up. Apart from the unforeseen circumstances that no one can predict, you will probably face some widely spread idea validation mistakes:

• Believing assumptions to be the truth.

Never rely solely on your gut feeling or talent to create hypotheses. Carry out many types of research and analyses before you consider the idea to be worth implementing into life. Put real people under the test and ensure your product has potential customers.

• Not understanding your customers’ perspective

Interview as many not connected to you personally people as possible. Create a statistical sample of people of different sexes, ages, and professions, if the product allows, or narrow down the group of interviewees while still keeping it diversified. Don’t miss the importance of researching the opinions of real buyers.

• Validating a product instead of the idea

Don’t validate a single-purpose product, but tell the idea behind it. Explain to anyone who expresses interest in your project the vast spectrum of the features it owns. Let them see wider and expand your vision as such. Don’t test a product before the idea. Make the idea a solid base for the product. 

• Not testing competitor’s products/service

Keep an eye on other market players. If you let them grow bigger and faster, it will then take your product many years to reach the same level. Creating a product without having any experience using similar already existing services is a one-way ticket to a disaster. 

There are a number of other app validation factors that can affect a startup, including some that are out of your control: economic crises, the political situation, and the actions of competitors. However, it is often enough for an entrepreneur to evaluate the main indicators to understand that a startup has a high chance of becoming a successful business.

Validate an App Idea and Create Your Mobile App With Devlight 

Idea validation helps startup teams get the information they need to make decisions and take action. But don’t hang around the idea validation stage for too long. It is enough for you to identify 70-80% of the problems and form a common understanding of the needs of the market. In the end, you cannot forecast everything, and the pursuit of the mythical 100% will only take away such valuable time and resources from you.

Otherwise, your desire to do a good idea validation will quickly turn into procrastination when you just keep postponing the implementation of your idea, explaining this by the need to “be a little more confident in the idea’s viability.” How to validate an app idea? Reach out to Devlight as soon as you feel ready to share your thoughts. We will deal with the rest.

App Validation: Summary

Finally, our team has identified several key nuances that should not be forgotten both during the validation of the idea and after it:

• Monetize your idea. This is an expected and logical scenario for the project’s further development. At the same time, it is good if you start pre-sales of the product already at the stage of its development.
• Remember adaptability. Society is changing, and business must change too. Adjust the idea and the project to the realities of the world around you. Sometimes it may even be necessary to abandon hypotheses or radically change the approach to creating a product.
• Don’t take failure close to heart. It can be difficult to abandon your hypotheses and realize that developing a product will be completely unprofitable. If the idea doesn’t pass the test, it’s better to take it as a valuable experience and move on to validating another startup.

Idea validation will help avoid sudden failure, but it will not eliminate all the problems that founders face in the project’s development process. At the same time, you will at least study the market in detail and gain invaluable experience.

The post How to Carry Out an App Validation in 2023: Main Approaches With Tips appeared first on Devlight.

Having a mobile app for your business, no matter how small, can give you an edge over the competition. B2B app ideas possess a big potential and serve as a profitable option to monetize your entrepreneurial urge. Do you think of developing an app from the B2B niche that will differentiate your business from those of your competitors and increase customer satisfaction? Then our ideas will definitely come in handy.

Most Common Types Of B2B App Ideas (With Examples)

B2B stands for “Business to business” — this abbreviation for the marketing term defines the process of exchanging goods and services between companies, not including their end client. In other words, it is when one company develops products for another company, so the second is the client of the first. Regular customers will benefit from using the end product of this cooperation. For you to better understand this sphere of software development, we have identified several types of such apps and the most common B2B app examples.

E-commerce Apps

They resemble B2C e-commerce apps, offering the same services for companies rather than individual end clients. It can be a database app with an extensive catalog of suppliers, directly linking suppliers and buyers (retailers) worldwide. We are also talking about applications that offer conditions for finding suppliers, both in the case of long-established brands and for small businesses.

• Examples: Alibaba (a marketplace for intermediary suppliers).

External Management

A successful B2B mobile app for external management is used to speed up task assignment, handle the processes that go beyond the team, and involves third parties in the workflow. Those are convenient platforms for document distribution, task management, and progress tracking. You can customize their interface and data access levels depending on the user’s role.

• Examples: Jira (project management and tracking solution) and Zoom (an online platform for shared video conferences).

Internal Operations

These are apps for complex automation, warehouse logistics, and supply chain tracking. Flexibly customizable for the specifics of any enterprise, their functionality allows you to optimize processes and solve the main problems that are relevant to your company. 

• Examples: Monday (cloud-based project management platform), Slack (collaboration and team interaction software solution).

Work Process Facilitation

These are all the tools your team can use to make the workflow quicker and more productive. The preferred list of tools will differ from one business field to another. For example, online accounting systems for entrepreneurs and small businesses are necessary in field of wholesale trade and the provision of services. Also designed to maintain a database of counterparties, such mobile app business ideas allow you to facilitate each step of the work process and generate all necessary documents:

1. Electronic invoices
2. Electronic supply contracts
3. Electronic checks
4. Automatically generated accounting entries
5. Logistics reports
6. Statistics on changes in income and other indicators

• Examples: CloudShop (a single information space for working with contractors and clients), Subtotal (functional warehouse automation and accounting system).

14 Top B2B App Ideas

Various management apps designed to automate small and medium-sized businesses or software that helps you manage sales and purchases. Apps used to control mutual settlements and work with the client base. Programs for keeping inventory records and printing documents — all of these are B2B app ideas. Here are some more specific ones that you can use for inspiration:

• Business Management Apps

This app should allow the client to work with statistical data. Think about methods for integrating the following in-demand B2B market tools:

1. Integration with accounting and logistics programs
2. Integration of the warehouse system. The system reflects not only the remaining stocks but also what products are popular with customers
3. Team management and salaries
4. Overall business plan and real-time progress
5. Transparency of document flow

• B2B E-commerce App

Marketplaces offer small businesses the easiest launch and fastest scaling. Agree that using the existing infrastructure for a young project is much easier than building your digital presence from scratch. B2B e-commerce apps are a valuable offer for companies or developers looking for a niche to start their business or even to test hypotheses for a product without having a strong brand.

• Product Supply App

Creating a system of relationships and interactions with suppliers will always be among B2B app ideas. Working with the database of suppliers should allow the user to automatically select applicants according to the purchasing department’s own criteria (financial indicators, industry and project experience, company age), without resorting to manually reviewing each application.

• Mes (Manufacturing Execution System) App

MES strives to improve the client’s experience of tracking the manufacturing processes. How about creating a mobile application that helps the worker instantly receive the production task and the necessary information, marks the completion, and communicates with the entire production system? Meanwhile, the manager sees any employee’s entire production process at any site. 

• Warehouse Management System App

Such B2B app ideas help to arrange the work of the warehouse to avoid losses and increase the profit of the enterprise. Control the receipt, movement within the warehouse, the disposal of goods, and payment for it. The warehouse accounting program will make it possible always to be aware of how many goods are in a client’s warehouse and what needs to be purchased.

• Logistics Apps

You may also create the service used for automating the process of delivering and ordering goods. This system makes it easier to enter contact details, automate communications, and schedule deliveries. The service allows you to create a single database of up-to-date and structured information about goods. All goods suppliers and optimal routes in a single service interface with current balances, prices, and control of order execution.

• Team Management Apps

All business ideas have people behind them. Thus, team management apps will always be in demand. Allow a B2B client to create additional accounts, access team chat, and conduct a full-fledged market analysis in one app. In practice, this should be a virtual mini-office.

• Document Sharing App

This app aims to automate routine processes and save time. Automatic distribution of letters with requests for the provision of documents, report generation, and changes in real-time will be useful features. Instant loading and document editing tools should be a must. A large number of editable forms and document templates will also be a plus.

• Project Management App

Project management apps should allow business owners to access, create tasks, assign roles, and follow the project’s progress. Working files that are always at hand with inside chat and video call features will be necessary for workflow facilitation.

• Security App

For B2B sellers not to be afraid to use electronic document management, a business plan system, and other functions that require the use of corporate data, they must be confident in the application’s security.

For this purpose, you can develop a high-security app aiming at data protection. This can be an authenticator app, the app that monitors the warehouse, or stores encoded files. Here are modern options for protecting the personal account of the B2B seller:

1. Levels of access to the information within the account
2. Facial biometrics
3. Electronic signature
4. Voice confirmation

• E-Invoicing

Suppose you left the office and the accounting department urgently needed your signature on a new supplier invoice. In that case, you can use an application that allows you to scan, edit, sign, and send documents. Electronic invoices and document requests are technologies with great potential for implementation in your successful B2B mobile app.

• Mental Health Apps for Employees

Sustainable business owners invest in retaining their talents, and mental health tracking is one of the most tangible trends in this niche. Predictive analytics helps to identify mental health problems long before they reach serious proportions. 

• Offline & Online Activity Merging Apps

How about creating an online system for recording sales, goods, and offline customer experience? Such an app allows clients to quickly carry out basic trading operations — selling, purchasing, returning, and downloading goods or balances from Excel spreadsheets and tracking warehouse and other offline operations. 

• Calculator App

Allows work with customers and suppliers, carry out joint work of employees, control costs, and calculate profit and cost. A calculator app should help clients to control the amount of money at the cash desk, sales, returns, average bills, and markup.

Why Should You Create a B2B App?

Of course, your competitors are probably evaluating these or similar mobile app business ideas and are preparing to develop them or have already taken the plunge. Why should you still consider developing a B2B app?

1. B2B applications are used for various purposes, from finding leads to tracking sales.
2. If you’re in B2C (Business to Consumer), you will need a B2B app at some point in your project’s scaling. 
3. Whether you are planning a public online marketplace, a home building with online private shopping, or an e-buying center for your corporate website, your company will benefit from efficient e-commerce that reduces costs for buyers and suppliers and brings value to your organization.
4. The B2B application can also organize your internal processes so that you can better meet customer needs.
5. With today’s cost-effective business-to-business e-commerce solutions, access to information becomes easier and faster. 
6. A fully flexible B2B e-commerce environment allows site operators to have full control over product content and management, inventory, order fulfillment, and delivery.

Advantages of B2B App Ideas

Compared with a B2C app, a B2B app’s functional design is usually clearer and more understandable. Since this software is designed to solve specific problems, it means that iOS and Android developers have a clear understanding of the purpose and requirements of the application, so they can develop specific functions in demand and ensure continuous improvement. 

Business-to-Business aims to simplify business operations and make them more reachable for the client, ease the workflow, and optimize business processes, thus offering a competitive advantage. Such an app

• Enables scalability;
• Offers improved loyalty and customer engagement;
• Facilitates communication and business operations;
• Provides increased revenue.

B2B vs B2C App Ideas Comparison

B2C refers to an application developed by an enterprise (Business) for a consumer. According to RiskIQ Report, there are 900 million applications in Google Play. Mainly for the end user (end consumer). Thus, the applications that most of us use every day are mainly B2C applications. This kind of application’s main purpose is to meet consumers’ needs and expectations.

There are differences in design, implementation, and feature sets between B2B and B2C applications:

• Goal: developing a B2B application is more suitable for businesses solving specific market problems, while a B2C app aims to encourage networking, provide entertainment, and produce or share content.
• Cost: B2C mobile app development is usually many times cheaper than that of B2B apps.
• Target audience: B2B apps cater to a smaller circle of clients, while B2C ones are more massive and large-scale. 
• UX & UI: Customer experience and user interface form the base of B2C because they aim to attract multiple users. B2B apps are stricter and simpler looking.
• Customer acquisition: B2C apps put an emphasis on the emotionality of their audience and try to encourage it, by all means, to get them involved for longer.
• Business models: B2B apps use a subscription-based model while the B2C often sticks to the freemium approach — downloading and using the primary version of the app is free but all advanced features cost money. However, ads help B2C apps monetize all users’ experiences while B2B’s usually are ad-free. 

A B2B app is more focused on the development of each potential customer because the audience is small, so it needs to be promoted through exhibitions, professional magazines, or the Internet, so the potential sales costs are much higher than B2C. But as long as you find your stable target audience, a successful B2B mobile app will offer faster revenue than B2C, and the return on investment will also be proportional.

How to Build а Successful B2B Mobile App in 9 Steps?

Before you actually start building a mobile app, your company or business will need an app strategy. More than just creating an application is required. The development scenario consists of many predictable steps with various unpredictable circumstances.

Idea Acceleration

A good idea is the basis for a good application. If you still need an idea, take a look around: there is probably a problem in the market that you can develop the right application to solve. Try to identify the source of the problem and why it still needs to be fixed. Gather data and your team — brainstorm collectively, and if you have enough development resources, get down to business.

Product Discovery for B2B App Ideas

The discovery phase of the product development process is a phase of gathering information that provides an understanding of the industry for which the product is being developed, your business, and the target audience. This stage is devoted to collecting user feedback and studying end-user pain points related to the product. Product discovery usually includes:

• Discussing the existing business processes or future startup concept, expectations, and wishes regarding the deadlines;
• Target audience analysis;
• Competitive market analysis (direct and indirect competitors);
• Offering pain point solutions;
• Determining the scope of work;
• Marking deadlines and setting priorities dictated by the market trends and project complexity;
• Schematic role distribution.

App Marketing Strategy Setup

For you to decide on the necessary functions, we recommend using the user journey map — with a step-by-step description of everything that happens in the application. From the first opening to the completion of the target action. To recreate a journey map, try putting yourself in the shoes of a user who just downloaded the app and opened it for the first time. 

Study the target audience but be ready to change the marketing strategy because your client base is not a phenomenon developing a vacuum but an entity that can change. Our advice is to be ready to change the direction initially set by the most popular mobile app business ideas, adapting to the new reality.

UX/UI Design and B2B App Examples

The design should be done at the highest level — with cool visualization and well-thought-out logic. A raw, unfinished interface will only frustrate users — and this is clearly different from what you need at the MVP stage, right? If you have done a good job with the user journey map, you will notice that an advanced B2B app includes many different features. How to implement everything without confusing anyone? Invest in quality UI/UX design right from the start.

Software Development

At this stage, the ideas of the team and designers are brought to life. The QA team or project manager is responsible for checking the results of the team and monitoring the even workload of developers at each stage. Developers must clearly understand the concept of the application and its specifics. Some of the features may still need to be claimed.

Generating Analytic Map to Get Real B2B App Ideas Data

The functionality of the application must correspond to the declared. Entrust the assessment of the usability of the application and its functions to the QA team of the contractor or hired specialists who will:

• Create an app performance analytic map;
• Create user flow analytics map (Determine analytics tool);
• Add marketing analytics for the app to track sources, funnels, etc;
• Study the process of handling data privacy of mobile app users.

Tech-savvy users can identify potential application problems by seeing the product for the first time.

A high-performance application must cope with all operations quickly. Usually, this characteristic is checked later, but monitoring the application’s reaction is necessary now and get inspired by the best B2B app examples.

Release

Designers should once again make sure that the visual matches the style guide. This is another great reason to work with companies that develop mobile applications inside and out, like Devlight. Apart from that, release may include the next types of app testing:

• Regression Testing — previously tested code is checked for fixed errors or errors that arose due to these corrections. At this stage, you can connect the QA team with checklists of code modifications for each sprint.
• Platform Testing — observe the behavior of the application on smartphone screens with different resolutions and on all possible OS versions.
• Acceptance User Testing — trust your application testing to your potential audience.

An application is only ready to be released to the market if it has successfully passed the previous tests.

Product Post-Launch

After the publication in stores, work on the application continues. Regular monitoring of various trending mobile app business ideas will help you in further work and scaling. Actions you should make to ensure continuous improvement:

• Create A/B tests;
• Track app progress & success through daily, weekly, and monthly data report;
• Analyze customer engagement with product;
• Measure the Customer Acquisition Cost vs. CLV ( customer lifetime value);
• Collect & analyze first users’ feedback and comments. Run live feedback sessions to define areas of improvement.

Libraries, which store data about the user’s actions at the time of the crash, on which device it happened, and so on, will help in monitoring app crashes. Sending a crash notification can be sewn into the structure of the application and sorted afterward.

Product Scale

A mobile application must comply with current software, be updated promptly, and apply bug fixes to the application itself. The purpose of support monitoring is to understand your next steps. Use statistics and feedback to identify weaknesses, go back, and strengthen them. It will later help you boost app retention and revenue and build loyalty and awareness. The mobile app development process is extremely dynamic, and to stay afloat, the work on the app must be non-stop.

B2B App Ideas: Summary

Mobile apps are more than just marketing tools. Their use extends far beyond marketing gimmicks. Mobile app business ideas facilitate or add value to helping the customer create a positive perception of your business, and this leads directly to higher profits or economic impact.

Having an app is a sign that your company or business is up to date with the latest trends, and it gives consumers a means to interact with your company or business (thus adding tangible value to them). This leads directly to increased sales and a better customer experience. So, B2B ideas are in the air — you just need to choose yours and start developing.

The post Advanced B2B App Ideas To Develop in 2023-25 appeared first on Devlight.

An online queue, an online shopping system, online checkouts — building your own neobank is closely connected with features that seemed impossible only a dozen years ago. Financial institutions have long ago taken positions in the digital space since our lives have been drastically changed by factors such as

• total globalization;
• coronavirus pandemic.

Many services have switched to a virtual format and work primarily online. Worldwide quarantine has shown that it is profitable and convenient. More and more areas are switching to remote customer service, banks included.

In practice, a neobank is a fintech company that provides banking services only in digital format: through a mobile application or website. Sounds simple, right? However, to build a neobank that will make clients trust their money to an entity having no tangible department, you will face a few exciting tasks and overcome some challenges. How to open a neobank in 2023? Let’s delve into this topic.

Building Your Own Neobank: Market Overview

After you decide to develop a neobank, you automatically become the fintech player. Fintech is a generic term that applies to industries, organizations, and innovations, the expertise of which lies at the intersection of finance and technology. Fintech dates back to the late nineteenth – early twentieth century when the first Trans-Atlantic communications streamlined the processes of exchange of financial information and, thus, improved financial services. 

Neobanks, otherwise known as challenger banks, or banking disruptors, are companies that are designed to provide banking services digitally, via web apps and other types of software, without any physical offices or contacts between the representatives. They are one of the fintech industry’s latest trends aimed at improving the fintech services making them fully accessible online.

There are more than 200 neobanks in the world now, and their number is going to grow, as it is quite a competitive and tough market where it is difficult for businesses to sustain themselves and cater to the client’s needs effectively. The market size of neo and challenger banks was estimated at nearly 47 billion U.S. dollars in 2021.

Why Should You Develop a Neobank in 2023?

Neobanks began to develop recently but have already managed to win a large client base. This trend can be explained by a number of advantages offered by this type of fintech app. If your desire to build a neobank lacks specific arguments, we hurry to ensure you that such a business will be on top of market demand in the next decade. Why? Apart from switching their services fully online, neobanks also offer

• High interest rates on deposits. Since neobanks have no branches and fewer employees, they can offer better interest rates on deposits;
• Simplified way to get loans. The process of obtaining loans from neobanks is more convenient and faster because it uses modern technologies to assess the client’s credit risk;
• Low rates. Often, neobanks do not charge fees for servicing cards and transferring funds; 
• New solutions for financial analytics. In addition to conventional banking services, a neobank API provides services for the automatic analysis of account movements and, at the same time, offers users personalized financial solutions.

The success of neobanks often depends on the regulatory environment and clients’ actual needs in a particular jurisdiction. At the moment, the most successful neobank launch stories are associated with Europe, where the UK is the leader among all countries.

How to Develop a Neobank: What Are the Trends in 2023?

Neobanks, sometimes referred to as “challenger banks,” usually specialize in specific services such as checking and savings accounts. They also tend to be more nimble and transparent than their mega-bank competitors in the financial industry, although many of them partner with such institutions to secure their financial products. However, since this niche has been developing quickly, some clear trends can be already highlighted. Before you start building your own neobank, pay attention to the next:

1. Opening an account in seconds. Customers should be able open a neo-bank account without visiting the branches of financial institutions. Everything is signed online via a digital signature. 
2. General fintech trends matter. As people use digital banking services, they become more aware of the financial instruments available to them. Follow the market trends otherwise, you will lose clients.
3. Transparent financial services. Strive to provide real-time information on any fees and commissions that the client incurs. 
4. Visible cybersecurity. Build a neobank that lets the client feel protected: use biometric verification, encryption technology, and various other security measures such as lock and freeze at any time through the app.
5. Personalized AI helper. AI has enabled internet banking technologies to provide customers with a wealth of useful information about their transactions, spending, and investment activities. A neobank is not just a bank — this is a dozen of apps in one.

Differences Between Neobanks and Traditional Banks

Traditional digital banking is always tied to the bank itself. Clients will still need to visit the offline bank establishment to sign papers or carry out some procedures. Building your own neobank means developing the digital interface to provide a fully virtual standard service set.

Besides, a neobank is always about the broad functionality of financial services, including but not limited to automatic income and expense reporting. It is an app more functional than most fintech startups we usually deal with. Mainly because a neobank is regulated by the same legislative base as a traditional bank or has to be in a partnership with a traditional bank that works as a banking services provider for the neobank’s clients. 

The main idea of a successful neobank lies solely in market research of clients’ needs and providing painkilling functions by technically innovative means, even if the client wants to have a trading tool and parenting control features for junior banking in the same app. The concentration on satisfying customers’ needs is key to the neobank API.

How to Start a Neobank: Best Examples in the World

In the global fintech market, customers have a broad selection of successful neobank apps. As developers who strive to build a neobank that would stand out, we follow the market leaders to highlight the features that make these apps special. 

Our top-3 best neobanks apps list:

• Revolut
• Nubank
• N26

Revolut

Revolut’s journey started in July 2015 at the Level39 tech accelerator in Canary Wharf. Last year, being the most significant financial unicorn in Great Britain, it raised Series E funding of $800m. More than 16m customers are happy to use this great financial tool.

The goal of Revolut is to become the world’s first truly global super app and provide access to financial services to everyone.

Features

• Money transfers in 29 currencies, without borders.
• A pre-paid debit card for cash withdrawals in 120 countries without fees.
• A crypto-currency exchange with converting currencies functions for the most popular and trending currencies.
• Junior banking features.
• Budgeting and saving money functions.
• Mobile phone and overseas and pet medical insurance.

Main points

Revolut’s owners definitely knew some secrets on how to start a neobank. The app is controversial in its marketing, PR, and HR branding, but it might be the way to get on the first lines of scandals, hypes, and trends. The ambition to satisfy all tech-savvy dynamic people with their financial tools brings to the market full of competitors: starting with traditional banks and ending with niche banking or money apps.

Nubank

“Brazillian neobank giant” and “the most valuable Latin fintech” are typical synonyms for Nubank. And these descriptions are not empty words, as overcoming the new success milestone of 6m users and reporting a new record of profit in the latest quarter are good signs for the neobank business. 

After some rounds of seeding investments, in early 2016, Nubank had 500.000+ users reaching their limits of operational capabilities and had more than 75.000+ future accounts queuing on the waiting list.

Features

• Clear UX/UI design of an app based on simple access to any function. 
• 100% digital, no physical contact with a client.
• High operational efficiency and manageability for the client.
• ~Twice fewer fees for standard banking operations compared to traditional banks.
• Quick answer on customer complaints and questions—both inside of the app and on platforms like ReclameAqui.

This seemingly comprehensible and attainable set of features made Nubank the friendliest and most transparent bank that changed the image of the banking establishment in Brazil.

Main thoughts

Following the axioms of physics, things are doing everything to stay in stillness and save the status quo. Still, the victory of such simple apps made by dynamic and stubborn companies like Nubank is unavoidable. 

N26

N26 is a European neobank paying attention to digital security and achieving full compliance with European financial regulations. It is fully recognized as a regular bank in the Eurozone and currently has more than 5m customers worldwide. Starting from 2013, N26 has been through various difficulties developing and balancing the app under the circumstances of high competition, a heavily regulated Eurozone, and a community of whimsy users with high demands. 

Do you want to develop a neobank like N26? Let’s see what makes it #1 for its customers. 

Features

• Bank account in 8 minutes, based on IBAN, no bank offices needed;
• Quick access to payments, paying bills with no hidden fees, 
• Both virtual and physical bank Mastercard;
• Foreign transfers with Wise, cashback services;
• Personal finance management, insurance, and travel perks;
• Quickstart with Google/Apple Pay, 
• No deposit fees, deposits are protected up to €100,000 according to European legislation;
• Smart goals, tracking habits, push notifications, categorization;
• Biometrics login, face recognition function;
• Multilanguage support.

Main outcomes

The N26 has become a child of old Europe and a dream of digitalization: pursuing the ideals of bureaucracy, lobbying of interests of current banking market participants, but still motivated by its own customers to break the old rules. Reliability is tightly connected with security, so keeping customers assured of the safety of their assets is still a top priority. 

How to Open a Neobank: Common Success Drivers

You cannot take the best of each neobank and produce a Frankenstein monster of it without preparation and market research. Your audience deserves something special and customizable, and you have a different background than Revolut or Nubank. Still, you should develop a neobank with of a kind bearing these points in mind:

1. Personal motivation, skills, passion, story.
2. Team and failure-proof attitude.
3. Market research is a must.
4. Simple functions will not surprise anybody.
5. Neobank should be a business.
6. Official recognition and banking licenses are unavoidable tasks during the growth.
7. If your clients do not need a bank building, it does not mean they do not need customer support. Your staff will cost a lot. Massively a lot.

How to Start a Neobank: Challenges and Domain Specificity 

Neobank starts with a customer need and discomfort you can solve using technology. Then, the abstract hypothesis matures into a product idea and decomposes into scenarios of how it benefits the customer. The answer to “how” you have to do it—lies in the domain specificity. 

Reasons Behind the Ideas: Audience Investigations for the Neobank API

How to open a neobank? The first and main challenge you must overcome to hit the neobank market is conducting Comprehensive Customer and Market Research. Get a list of fears and worries, nice-to-haves, and must-be features. 

The most important high-level statements are tightly connected with the following questions you should answer before building your own neobank:

1. What is the attitude of your target audience to money?
2. Will your audience adopt new financial habits easily, and what is their vision of “comfortable” usage?
3. What is the lifecycle of your target audience, their traveling and living routes, and what is your product’s place in their lives?

Markets and Their Legislations Above All: Unavoidable Circumstances

The ignorance of market and geographical targeting can cause a lot of twists and turns that were not planned and thus will multiply the cost of development. So in parallel with your audience research, select the market you want to compete in as you develop a neobank. 

The maturity of the neobank markets of the world can vary depending on the region. The most developed and saturated markets are European, with visible leaders of Great Britain and Sweden neobanks, the USA, Brazil in the LATAM region, and South Korea. 

To cope with regulatory obstacles, you must deal with powerful institutions and spend some time in rooms and corridors of bureaucracy. In the United States, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) within the United States Department of the Treasury checks and approves all emerging neobanks. In Europe, this is the European Banking Authority (EBA), another not-cheap and not-fast circumstance to deal with as you build a neobank.

Build a Neobank: Security as a Must-Have

There are two main principles for building secure infrastructures that are worth mentioning here:

1. Avoid security through obscurity: you will not get a better security level through the complicated and intricate mess of connections. 
2. Claude Shannon’s maxim: “…One ought to design systems under the assumption that the enemy will immediately gain full familiarity with them.”

Hiring security specialists to build up the security information and event management system (SIEM) that will automatically monitor and react to unexpected behavior due to the protocol is a must. Other actions you can take to make your development more security-aware and your whole neobank more attractive for your clients:

1. Standardization

ISO 27001 standard: if you go through this certification, you will be in a league of neobanks that cover all FinTech data security standards. It is tough but worth it.

2. Restless testing
   Use penetration testing, black box, and white box tests to check if your system behaves correctly.
   
3. Role-based access control (RBAC) or Access control list (ACL)
   Provide a clear and transparent policy of access and functions for each role existing in your neobank.
   
4. Store and protect only the essentials
   The less is staying on your side, the less chance to lose it someday.
   
5. Use CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery) with incorporated security requirements
   The messy code will cause problems for your infrastructure, be sure to use tools that will enforce developers to write clean, testable, and consistent code.
   
6. Care about all third-party integrations and libraries you use
   You have to know what’s going on behind each endpoint of your system. The smooth testable attachment of each integration will cause fewer chances of breaking your system.

Develop a Neobank Using These Models

After we mentioned the integrations part, we have come to the most interesting part of our research of how to start a neobank. Your company has to cover the heroic to-do list of bureaucratic regulations on the one hand and deal with all features development on the other. 

• Connecting BaaS (Bank-as-a-service) for outsourcing banking services and licenses.
• Platform neobank is exclusively licensed as a traditional bank, including all banking systems alongside interfaces.
• Cooperative model: traditional bank provides the back-end via API while neobank is responsible for tech solutions and the front-end layer.

The BaaS model of development is the most common one, as the cooperative model requires a tech-savvy bank partner which is not easy to find. Besides, to build a neobank using a platform model, be ready to provide investment and seek synergy of geniuses in programming and project management.

The biggest plus for the BaaS model is that they care about all connections with banks and licenses, transferring services, card emitting companies, and all those Visas and Mastercards for you. All connections are reliable and tested and can be customized with 3rd party providers for your convenience.

Common & Advanced Features of a Neobank

Another way of prioritizing features is by applying the Kano model. This framework is based on the simple thought that a feature has higher priority than another if it is clearly more desirable for the client. The price of implementation is also taken into account. 

How to start a neobank based on the Kano model? Devlight team uses its modified version and categorizes features into three groups:

• Must-have features;
• Delighters;
• Wow-effect features. 

We have collected a general list of features for you to sort and group according to your special case: 

How to open a neobank depending on the maturity of the market? Each of the advanced features can be simply moved to the basic section because the appetites of the audience grow with each new neobank launch.

Develop a Neobank’s Architecture

Your architecture will be unique. As the blueprints differ from person to person, your architecture will differ from each already existing one. We can just describe some of them for you and explain what is common for all of them.

Simple architecture example

As you develop a neobank, you should make sure it works safely, fast, is efficient and stays error-prone. So all knots of integrations, ETL (extract, load, transform) processes, recording, and storing sides should be reliable and secure.

Another important point to consider from the very beginning is scalability. Without layers that will provide you with readiness for any traffic, the app’s security and reliability will equal zero.

Types of Business Models and Monetization

An important part of learning how to open a neobank is choosing the specialization and the way of being profitable according to your market and target audience. Neobanks acquire clients faster than traditional ones, but the end revenue is still smaller. 

The ways to generate profit include

• Interchangeability: when neobank cards are used for payments, neobank profits. 
• Cash withdrawal: when people get cash at ATM, they pay a fee.
• Credit cards, Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services: provide credits in the traditional way but give more control to the client over expenses and income.
• Financial superapps and marketplaces: neobank becomes a mall of financial products providing everything in a few clicks.
• Debit-based, investment, and other assets models: clients place assets easily, raise them, and comfortably operate them.
• Development and implementation of extensions for the main products that solve some limitations of financial domains: providing extra service or access to the financial analytical tools or data that cannot be reached in another way. 

The Technical Stack Needed to Develop a Neobank

You may not know that, but building your own neobank isn’t just coming up with the newest tools and the most expensive development services from the beginning. Be mindful of your dev journey, as it is a marathon, not a sprint. Even if you have already won a round or two of investments, you should be mindful of each new tool bought for your team to use. App Development approaches:

Choosing a cross-platform or native approach depends greatly on your customer’s habits. If 99,9% of them use iOS and you plan mobile apps only, you shouldn’t even think about cross-platform. 

Costs of Development

This is the most painful part of our guide, so we will try to be as delicate as possible here. The price for a neobank launch may vary drastically depending on

• the maturity of the market;
• legislation restrictions and bureaucratic procedures of getting a license;
• the prices of BaaS providers;
• your dev team location.

The price you pay will always be less painful if your business is profitable. As most fintech startups, and neobanks in particular, struggle with their business models and revenue schemas, you must thoroughly think over your neobank API. 

Develop a Neobank Starting With a Team

From the very beginning of development, each of your team members will have more than one role. After a few sleepless nights, your colleagues will start delegating and sharing their responsibilities. 

As per Conway’s law, a system’s technical boundaries will reflect the organization’s structure. So, if an organization is built more around verticals that are oriented around features or services, the software systems will also reflect this.

Core: Founders’ Team

These people are energy core and inspiration machines for the neobank. They also become public personas typically, so all scandals and bumps will hit their reputation if something goes wrong:

• CPO (Product Manager with roadmap vision);
• CTO (architecture, tech issues, and integrations, building the infrastructure of the whole app);
• CMO (marketing and promotion, relations with target audience).

Head’s Level

These guys know what to do with each vision of the Founder’s Team. Such professionals are key managers for all branches of the company. Their synchronization is a key to quick development and high quality of the final product.

• Head of Acquisition (building of internal funnel within the app and managing the CAC/LTV costs);
• CBO (Banking Operations, running all banking operations, including risks, frauds, and relations with other banking partners);
• CCO (Compliance Officer, law specialist);
• CRO (Revenue-driven Business Development Operations, the main task is to keep the revenue high);
• CIO (Infrastructure, security, and data).

Development Team

This is where the true jewels are hiding. People that will perform all the created tasks and make your neobank possible to appear on your client’s screen. Your core players of this game.

• DevOps (the more the merrier);
• Mobile App developers (~4 specialists);
• Back-end integrations team (~5 specialists);
• 2 Manual QA;
• 1 Automation QA;
• MBA;
• 1-2 Project Managers;
• UX/UI team;
• Low-code Business Processes Engineer.

Know How To Build An App for a Neobank In 7 Steps

In the simplest of terms, your neobank is a technical savvy layer between banking functions set and a customer. A full-fledged neobank may cover the need for more than 90 back-end applications, 4 mobile applications, and 10 web applications, as in the case of Revolut. 

The simplest lifecycle of the feature while building your own neobank has a defined set of stages:

1. Definition of requirements
   This stage requires the involvement of the Project Manager and Product Owner in constant negotiation regarding the main terminology, definitions, and dependencies of what is going to be developed. Even studying part of this stage is important to clarify the understanding of both sides.
   
2. “Click dummy” based on UI
   It is a UI-based prototype of the features used to ensure being on the same page with the Product Owner. Typically Product Owners need to see the feature prototype to be aligned with a dev team even before the development itself starts. And “click dummy” is much cheaper than MVP.
   
3. Proof of Concept
   Developers are on the spot: they take the approved “click dummy” and implement it in terms of the selected framework. Within this stage, developers get a fuller image of the obstacles to overcome as they develop a neobank feature.
   
4. Minimal Viable Product
   At this stage, the Product Owner sees the implementation of the functionality in the ecosystem of the apps.
   
5. Development
   Now, the efforts of core, back-end, and front-end developers, as well as UI designers, are united for the creation of vivid functions and interfaces. This is a parallel process that the Project Manager must properly orchestrate. Compiling documentation, creating, and launching a base of automatic tests alongside code-coverage tools guarantees the high quality of the code.
   
6. QA (Quality Assurance), testing
   After entering the production-ready stage, in-house testers run customer scenarios and check invariants and all possible deviations from them by hand and automatic tools. The reports about unexpected behavior are unavoidable at this stage and must improve the overall experience of the feature’s functionality.
   
7. Production
   Finally, you have finished your neobank API feature. Now you have to publish an update and check user activity stats in your analytics. According to your policy, you can launch A/B and other kinds of tests at the Play Market and App Store if you have an app. 

You may say that it is a classic “waterfall,” but such a linear base fits easily within any Agile/ Scrum application development methodology. But remember that these instruments are created to simplify developers’ and project managers’ lives. For example, prioritizing the feature tasks can turn many devs’ problems into not-problems-at-all.

How We Build Neobank for Vodafone — Top Telecom Provider

It was 2020, the first lockdown after COVID-19 pandemics has hit the world economy. Each business had to adapt to the new circumstances and stay profitable. And missions to discover new markets become not a benefit, but a chance to survive and enforce the business.

One of the largest telecommunication company in the world, Vodafone, has come to us with a bare wish to build up an app in the quite new market for them. Thanks to the strong product development expertise, we assess the market quickly and find the best-matching app idea according to our clients’ requirements and limitations.

Thanks to the Discovery phase of our service-providing model, we can pull the business insights out of data shredded over the niche as we at Devlight are mostly interested in building viable products, not just lines of code.

Request

Vodafone asked us to find a competitive set of services that can be wrapped in the app that will fit the market and deserve the customers’ love and everyday use. The client wanted to diversify its services and strengthen its position as a multi-market company.

As Vodafone assessed the fintech industry as quite new for them, they wanted to hear more suggestions from us on where they have to focus. So our task is logically divided into two parts:

• Market and customer investigations—we’re doing everything to find strong needs and pains that can be covered by a service that can be owned by Vodafone;
• Prototyping the service based on the app according to the data we collect on the first step and testing its viability. Presenting the app prototype with all inner and outer processes explanations to the client.

Limitations and challenges

Because of the pandemic, we had to provide 100% of our services online with no discount for quality. We conducted 40+ hours of online conferences, meetings, and in-depth interviews. According to the client’s deadline, we have had only 2.5 months for all we have planned. But treasures are born under high pressure — from stars to diamonds.

After a few investigation sessions with a client, another strict limitation we have got was that Vodafone wanted to avoid any crediting services in the app’s services portfolio. That motivated us to find another business solution for the neobanking experience that would fit Vodafone and generate a stable income. 

Process 

To build a neobank by forging the right solution for the client, Devlight uses a two-phased process of Product Discovery and Product Development, as both processes are inseparable. This is the reason for the viability of our products and their popularity with millions of customers who use our products every day.

In this particular case, here is a detailed action list of what has been done for Vodafone to complete the task.

Solution 

After dealing with each task from the Product Discovery phase, we ended up with a set of outcomes for our customer:

• Market research:
  • competitors research + cost structure
  • market user research
  • digital products + feature set
• Business model canvas + customer profiling
• UVP of the service
• Service blueprint + customer journey mapping
• Testing of the business model 
• App prototyping testing:
  • high-fidelity prototyping via Figma
  • user testing via Maze
• Presentation of a colored neobank API prototype alongside the testing results for the client + product development plan.

Competitors’ research is an efficient instrument for positioning and market discovery. It’s a must-be stage of our product development.

After analyzing what’s under the hood in competitors’ products, we’re able to create our own features backlog to get a helicopter view of all things that must be done in development.

It’s design time! We prototype the main screens and their possible variants of them to select the most fitting vector for our design system. Few options of design are going through our targeted audience reviews to check if it’s clear and understandable for them.

It is an excellent visual tool that describes the value proposition of product, its structure, customers, and the financial part of business. This diagram allows you to document the entire shape of your business model.

Vodafone was pleased with the prototype and business model that we developed for their project. We found a way to build a neobank that would land a telecommunications giant on a completely new market based on a tested and prototyped viable service. 

Final Thoughts: The Future of Neobanks

Traditional banks are already forced to respond to changes in customer behavior and compete now not only with each other but also with fintech companies. A neobank API is not burdened by a giant employee base and capital costs but is still able to increase its market share quickly.

The sooner you as a business owner realize the changes that are taking place and start building your own neobank, the more likely you will survive. The quicker you succeed in the digitalized world, the more opportunities consumers will receive. Build a neobank to offer your audience a better product at a better price. And for new entrepreneurs, all these trends serve as a great opportunity to start building the business of the future immediately.

The post Full Guide on How to Develop a Neobank App from Scratch in 2023 appeared first on Devlight.

Any startup begins with an idea. Coming up with a product is a key task for a business but make sure your simple app ideas for beginners stay in tune with the market trends. If the market shows no demand for the app, neither high-quality development nor persistent advertising will save you from failure. In choosing an idea for an application, you can rely on analytics. Let’s see how the mobile app industry has developed recently and what products may be relevant in 2023.

Modern Mobile App Ideas: Trends and Statistics

According to App Annie, the most popular apps worldwide are major social networks and instant messengers: TikTok, Instagram, Telegram, and Whatsapp. The top 10 most downloaded and most used apps worldwide include Spotify, Zoom, and Netflix. 

2022 trends in mobile application development include augmented reality, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and superapps — applications that combine many functions at once.

The following conclusions can be drawn:

• Working for the US and Japanese markets is profitable — users spend the most money on mobile applications in these countries.
• The most popular applications are instant messengers and social networks. Also popular are music and video services, food delivery services, and online shopping applications.
• Pay attention to superapps, electronic wallets, and e-commerce applications if you want to develop a highly-demanded app.

Market statistics clearly show that mobile applications are one of the most profitable niches for development and investment:

• Research shows that there are 80+ apps installed on the average smartphone. But with that said, people aren’t using all of those apps.
• Smartphone users spend on apps about 2 hours and 15 minutes. 
• By 2022, consumer spending in app stores worldwide will increase by 92%.
• App users spend 77% of their time on the top three apps and the rest on ten others.
• 87% of users check their phone an hour before bed, and 69% check their phone 5 minutes before bed.
• 75% of apps are only opened once and never used again.
• On average, the Google Play Store releases 100,000 new Android apps each month, three times more than the Apple App Store.
• In the first half of 2021, the number of downloads of various applications in the Apple App Store and Google Play reached 72.5 billion.

Thousands of projects are already released to the market daily, and this number will only grow. So how to participate in this competition? Not only do everything better and faster but more interesting! And if you feel intimidated, start by choosing an idea from the list below.

Brilliant App Ideas for Startups

The relevance of mobile traffic is growing every year, which is the reason for the increased hype for creating mobile applications. Ideas for mobile applications in 2023 are specific because noticeable trends dictate them. This approach means you have an increased chance of success if you combine these trends with the market demand. Please choose the one that sunk into your head the most, and remember: you need to implement it better than competitors did.

Business App Ideas

• Restaurant POS Application

This application is best monetized by charging a commission from the restaurant or store where the user makes a purchase. An alternative option is a low-cost paid subscription: if people regularly use the mobile application and find the best prices, their benefits will outweigh the payment. But there is no point in introducing this right away — first, users must realize the product’s value.

• Bike Servicing App

You can create an on-demand bike service app and collaborate with a wide selection of bike service centers well categorized based on locations. Users should be able to fulfill the requirements they want to get on their bikes and submit their requests. The bike service shop will accept the user’s request and pick up and drop off the bike at the owner’s door. 

• Goods-Transporter (Logistics) App

The download rate and review are highly important in this case. It would help if you started by creating a stable network of roads, business owners, private entities, and companies who may be interested in parcel delivery. Then, arrange them all into a single net and start delivering goods. 

• Home Security App

An application that records and stores all interactions with your home appliances (if they are smart) and stays on guard of the security system will be in high demand. The smartphone should automatically solve the problem if someone tries to break into your home by sending a notice to the police and locking the doors in case it can be done remotely. 

• On-Demand Fuel-Delivery App

Every car owner is familiar with the problem of running out of fuel at the most inconvenient time and place. What if you offer people fuel delivery service to any point in the city or suburbs? This solution will also save time for those far from the gas station.

• Restaurant Reservation Or Booking App

In today’s fast-paced world, no one has time to wait outside a restaurant to eat their favorite meal. Offer people a mobile app that will help them book a table at a restaurant on a specific day and time without draining calls and talking to the manager. You can hire developers to make the app more interesting by adding new features. Integrate customer reviews, restaurant ratings, menu and meal images, or a restaurant panorama to help users choose.

• On-Demand Car Wash App

Show the maximum number of car wash spots, allowing the user to compare time frames and prices. You can organize this using filters: the user roughly indicates what they need, and the application gives out the most profitable options.

• All-In-One Help App

Where to find the right consultants for a particular situation, experts for articles, lectures, and lessons, and specialists for collaborations? A networking application can be a solution. Add filters to sort help by areas of activity, cities, and level of expertise.

• Consumer Guidance App

Applying for a refund or repair on warranty will become easier if you create the app to automate the process. Add fields for checking the warranty number of goods, discovering what are the rights of the particular company’s customer, or finding out how to behave if the service provider refuses to consider the complaint.

• Freelancing App

Freelance exchange platforms have been popular with netizens since the invention of the Internet. Unite those who seek outsourced talents for occasional projects and freelancers ready to cooperate. The most popular freelance fields include design, copywriting, editing, programming, and academic help.

• An Online Virtual Assistant App

Let’s say you lost your ID at your hotel and don’t know what to do now. The app will help you provide solutions like authority and police information. Instantly request another ID, direct you to the ID help center, or even log into the desktop. These apps work wonders for real-time problem-solving.

• On-Demand Pet Care App

Caring for animals will finally become easier with such apps. Creating an app dedicated to pet owners is a smart idea. Does your small family member seem to feel unwell? Receive their health report in minutes by sharing photos and details with a veterinarian. The solution will be provided in the nearest time possible, and the clinic will send the doctor to your house if needed. Taking care of your adorable four-legged friend will no longer be a problem.

• Online Food Delivery App

The main function of the food and beverage delivery app is to allow users to buy delicious food from the comfort of their homes. The coronavirus pandemic has significantly accelerated the growth of food delivery apps and made them a more profitable business. Start by integrating local restaurants of the city where you plan to launch the app into a single net and cooperate with the delivery people.

• Real-Estate App

Renting or buying an apartment should not be a thing bound to draining endless talks with dozens of real estate agents. Create an app uniting estate agencies and those interested in moving into a new apartment to ease the process. Add filters, AI simulation, and interactive maps to make the app more exciting.

• Grocery Delivery App

There are quite a few apps for delivering food from stores — and, judging by the statistics, they are popular. But they all work with different establishments, and each has different prices. Sometimes, the user must download ten applications to choose the best delivery option. You can solve this problem if you make a convenient integrator — for starters, within the same city.

• On-Demand Beauty App

Beauty service apps have also proven to be beneficial for salons as they can easily manage the flow of customers. Open a platform where beauty salons and experts can create profiles describing their services for consumers to connect with them. The most successful model for such an app is the Uber one.

• E-Commerce App

Regardless of which sector you plan to invest in, e-commerce applications can be developed across multiple domains by integrating various technologies to ensure a seamless experience across platforms. Marketplaces, online transactions analysis, data exchange, and chain sale apps are all in stable demand.

• Parcel Delivery App

Of course, different delivery services have been on the market for years. How to compete? Introduce an unusual element into the user experience. Deliver faster, cover bigger territories, let users choose the exact delivery time entry, and create electronic invoices for parcels without leaving their homes. 

• Entertainment App

Gather the latest updates on concerts, art events, gallery openings, excursions, and festivals in a single app. Start by covering a single city and add filters for users to narrow down the choice of preferred activities. As long as the crowd asks for Meal’n’Real, developing an entertainment app will be a good idea.

• Packers & Movers App

Moving out causes so much stress that some may even avoid it for as long as possible. Creating an app to ease this process will save thousands of people their nerve cells and effort. Find experienced professionals who know how to pack all household items efficiently, hire truck drivers, and start promoting! 

• Inventory Tracking App

Tracking all the inventory in your office, gym, lab, or even home with the help of a single app. What can be more pleasant? Those who enjoy perfect arranging, Excel sheets, and endless lists will appreciate it if you add convenient filters and UX design.

• Business Card App

Carrying a stack of plastic cards for various professional clubs, different services, and special events can be nerve-racking. So instead, develop an app that allows scanning of all business cards to store them in your phone later. Then, all bar codes, club numbers, and user data are within a few clicks’ reach.

Education App Ideas

• Language Learning App

It can be difficult for a startup to compete with larger language practice apps as a small business cannot immediately hire many professionals. Solve this problem by raising the audience’s activity: offer free bonuses, trial lessons, and interactive learning. Monetize private lessons in the application and make part of the content paid.

• Virtual Study Group App

Develop a service for watching educational videos and presentations and passing quizzes. Various content can become the main service feature: films, series, news, educational lectures, and professional teachers’ help. You can monetize the service using a paid subscription with a free trial period.

• Exam Study App

As statistics show, educational applications are in demand, and better monetization can be achieved on the global market. Based on this data, you can develop the concept of a language learning application that is relevant to people worldwide. The application should have a theoretical part in the form of texts or video tutorials, tests for self-testing, and the ability to create close-to-reality tests for a self-check.

• Real-Time Translation App

The demand for voice translation apps is growing rapidly. For example, people who travel abroad frequently use a voice translator app to facilitate their conversation with the native person. Either dictated or written down manually, the content inserted into your app should be translated in minutes to help users quicken their interaction with a foreign language.

• Pet Training App

Reminders of meals and walks, useful tips, a calendar with groomer appointments, or vaccination reminders — a pet training app will be very valuable for those who care for their little family members. Finally, you will make the app pop by adding practical training tips and help chat with a real cynologist.

• Learning Apps For People with Disabilities

You can teach people with disabilities to understand literature, philosophy, art, and legislation, prepare them to pass some exams, and make courses for general development or professional development. The main thing is choosing understandable formats: small videos, texts, and short tests. You can make such applications completely paid, by subscription, with a short test period.

• A Reading App

Simple apps with books are popular. Not to compete with the giants, you can focus on a particular segment: for example, take children’s books, art history, and 20th-century literature, or focus on rare books. Offer users a library for reading, audiobooks, and translations into different languages ​​for study practice. To monetize the mobile app, limit the number of available books per month and set rates based on how much content the user wants to consume.

• Traffic Rules Training App

This one is an eternal topic because the number of people who want to receive a driver’s license is only growing yearly, which means that new users will appear organically on their own. So, yes, there is a lot of competition in the niche, but regular updates, beautiful design, and a large number of multiple choice tasks are quite the working secret of success. 

• AR for School App

Educational mobile apps are popular, and people are willing to pay for them, partly because they allow you to study freely — open your smartphone and experience a new approach to school. Introduce tech trends into the education field, and you are guaranteed to overcome the competition.

• School News App

All modern schools at least have Facebook pages or sites. You can go further and offer schools cooperation. The establishment will stand out by developing an up-to-date app with the latest news, curriculum, charity events, professional changes, or school competitions. Explain this benefit to the clients, and they will invest in your idea.

• College Application App

The same applies to colleges but in a broader sense. High schools, colleges, and universities produce a continuous information flow that users must follow on the official site. So why don’t we ease this formality and provide them with a cool app, convenient reminders, and excellent personalization?

Finance App Ideas

• UPI Payment App

Brainstorm an idea for a mobile app that can act as a single POC (point of contact) for all transactions. Whether it is for mobile bills, rent payments, deposits,s or any other type of transaction — integrate several services to let a single app become a universal payment platform.

• Personal Finance App

Let’s be honest. We all need financial education, especially young people who are mature enough to earn their first money but need to be more experienced to know how to invest. So create an app that provides free, personalized financial advice to users: enter details about your financial situation, lifestyle, and goals so that the app creates a plan to follow.

• Loaned Money Tracking App

Financial institutions do not ban taking out several loans from different providers. Your application will be declined only if you have unpaid debts. Thus, not to get lost in several loans and their conditions, obligees will need a simple app to track their current loan balance, repayment terms, and APRs.

• Finance And Bill Management App

A digital bill application responsible for collecting all transactions made in the application will reduce paper overuse and make it much easier to track expenses and save receipts. So keep track of your finances and check the budget accuracy on-site with everything in one app.

• GST Return Filing App

The tax system sometimes gets so complicated that people hire accountants to help them file tax applications. A smart app for registering the tax return on goods and services can become a very profitable startup. People will see investing in a financial app as very rational.

• Investment App

The market has long been preparing for an increase in demand: several major players are already offering to invest when just using a smartphone. The recipe for a retail investment boom is a mix of free money, time (due to lockdowns), and technology, multiplied by the relative youth of the audience. But the main thing is that the threshold for entering the stock market has become practically zero.

• Taxation App

“Create and send reports without wasting time and exhausting queues, pay taxes online with a card or through a client-bank, and do not miss the deadlines for sending reports and paying taxes.” Sounds inspiring? We guarantee that the users will fall for this offer.

• Blockchain-Based Money Transfer App

A crypto application is a mobile phone application with which you can manage your cryptocurrency portfolio. An application can be analogous to web platforms in terms of functionality or a separate service. However, blockchain, the main security trend, continues to dictate the requirement of the fintech market. 

• A Money Saver App

A money-saver app will help you accumulate funds in a few single steps. First, let the user set up the fixed percent deposited to the specific account from each transaction. What is more, managing the service should be easy, performed online, and not require visiting any offline office: connecting/deactivating the service, checking the balance, withdrawing funds from the account, or changing the conditions of accumulation.

• Payment Wallet App

The time for cash is gone, and plastic money and mobile wallets are replacing it. There are many benefits to giving online transactions an edge over handling cash. The ease of carrying unlimited amounts of access, accessibility, account tracking, and more all add up to encourage mobile banking.

• Lottery App

People love risk and entertainment — better combined. Integrate the most popular lottery providers (start with small and proceed to the government ones) or create your own concept. Follow mathematical rules and stay clear in terms of announcing the winner — people should see the lucky one and believe in your transparency.

• Betting App

For most bettors, regularly monitoring the changes in sports events is very important. And a mobile device, be it a smartphone or a tablet, is the best choice. It makes betting more portable and, therefore, comfortable. Cooperate with the market giants or set up a new betting company — bookmakers will always be in demand.

Food App Ideas

• Meal Recipes Based on Ingredients App

A simple application that gives the user a list of recipes based on the ingredients they specify. To start, you need to collect and upload a database of recipes, enable users to offer their own recipes, and introduce a system of ratings and likes. Then, you can monetize the project using an advertising model — to promote certain food manufacturers. You can also make some of the content available for a paid subscription.

• Food Donation App for Restaurants

Nowadays, many apps deliver food to your door and even offer many discounts and benefits to attract customers. However, how many of those deliveries get canceled, or how much food goes to waste? Redirecting such meals to those in need can be a great solution for sustainable restaurants. 

• Recipe Management App

Given the popularity of lifestyle content apps, food delivery services, and instant messengers, creating an app with recipes and nutrition tips seems logical. Let people communicate and exchange recipes and cooking results in a feed with comments and chats.

• Food Planner App

Let users choose the meal plan best suits their health condition and partner with grocery stores to deliver the necessary products. Everyone knows planning meals when on a diet can be exhausting, especially if you are not used to food limitations. Simple guides, exclusive recipes, or meal subscriptions can help you monetize food planning. 

• Food Recommendation App

Few can correctly understand the composition of the products, decipher the notorious E-666 (or any other additives), and other incomprehensible words. So it’s a great idea to create an application with a database of all product compositions, especially those from mass-market stores, and food recommendations: which product is safe for your food goals and which you should not buy.

Mental Health & Fitness App Ideas

• Fitness App

Lifestyle apps are popular, super apps are trending, and people are becoming more health-conscious after the pandemic. As a result, a multifunctional service for checking the health and maintaining it will be relevant in 2023. It can include a calorie tracker, a chatbot with recommendations for sports exercises depending on the habits and specifics of work, a search for swimming pools, gyms, and parks for jogging by geolocation, and expert content from nutritionists/trainers.

• A Workout or Exercise App

The name speaks for itself because sport-related apps have been one of the first to emerge after social networks and games. You can monetize a mobile application by advertising specific fitness centers, sports equipment, and brands of healthy products. Also, make some content, for example, private online lessons and consultations paid. 

• A Meditation & Yoga App

The new wave of conscious healthcare, self-love, and repeating affirmation has logically introduced a new niche to the tech market. These types of applications seem to be nothing special and repeat themselves. However, your startup is always free to introduce a revolutionary design or cool trends to make the service pop.

• Diet & Weight Loss App

This service is much more than just a calorie counter. The “smart” application gradually learns your eating habits, takes into account the personal requests of users (for example, if you want to try a low-carb diet), and forms an individual dietary profile — with optimal food recommendations, personal motivation, and workout suggestions.

• Water-Reminder app

Apps like this shouldn’t take long to develop because they focus on a single feature — an interactive user profile where you can tick every glass of water consumed and receive reminders about the next one. Thus, a cute design will be useful to retain the audience in this case.

• Training Tracking App

An easy-to-implement application: the user specifies their fitness goal (losing weight, becoming stronger, more mobile, or gaining muscle mass), and the app uses professional recommendations to build a personal program. Every other day, a user needs to put conditional “ticks” to see their progress or lack thereof, and sometimes regression.

• Track Your Mood App

What would you say about developing a mobile app for Android and iOS that will allow you to observe your day and look for patterns or things that affect your mood? Useful app features would include adding and rating activities, events, places, or conversations that happened during the day. Mental-health-based startups are now in huge demand, so don’t lose your chance as a developer.

• Calorie Counter App

Professional sportspeople need to track what they eat using calorie counters daily. Today’s main requirement for such apps is automatizing calculating data that used to be filled out manually. For example, a user should enter the meal name or product brand, and the app should mention all the ingredients mixed and nutrients.

Lifestyle App Ideas

• Car-Sharing App

Taxis are cool, but sometimes you need a car for longer periods or circumstances more unpredictable. Again, car sharing comes to the rescue! Price comparison and passenger safety features will earn your app more points.

• Parking Space Finder App

An application that helps users find free and paid parking lots in their respective locations will be a hit for the megapolis citizens. Developing the software for such an app means integrating webcams, GPS, location, parking data, and navigation in real-time to detect any available parking space in the area.

• Recycling Helper App

Small daily gestures can considerably reduce the harmful impact of waste on our planet, particularly through the emission of greenhouse gases. For example, introduce AR into your app to help it recognize the discarded items to let users sort them properly. An interactive map with the nearest sorting centers will also be useful.

• Anti-Smartphone Addiction App

A simple widget that keeps track of how long the phone has been in use. The application will save people fighting digital addiction from spending too much time on the screen. Block time is a great metric to see if there is a real reason to be paranoid. A simple design and stern reminders are vital.

• Caller Image Identifier App

Software development for this app will include all available number database integration, linking the numbers to social media or any info on the Internet, and then creating a single system uniting the research results. It should finally work the following way: the app recognizes the unknown number, searches the caller image in the database, and shows it on the screen straight during the call. 

• Party Planning and Invitation App

Inviting guests to family functions and events is a delicate task. With an invitation app, this duty becomes a pleasant activity. Let users select and create a group to send mass invitations within the app. Integrating creative and beautiful designs for various festivals and events increases user engagement with these apps. The most important celebrations to focus on are birthdays, weddings, Christmas, Easter, and New Year.

• Hair Dye Touch-Ups Reminder App

Often people need to segment their plans by activity type. This is especially true for women with a rather busy schedule of procedures at home and with professionals. Using a special calendar to systematize all the necessary touch-ups and know when to do what can be a great solution.

• Smart Alarm App

For millions worldwide, problems begin in the morning, when getting out of bed is a heroic feat, not a daily routine. The problem is that the alarm clock does not sound motivating. But if you punish a sleepyhead by deducting a small amount off their bank card to charity? Or blocking non-essential smartphone options for a day? You can think of many options. The main thing is that the discomfort from getting up is more pleasant than the punishment.

• Family Update Mobile App

Imagine opening an application on your smartphone right now and seeing what events happened in your life and when. Do you think you remember everything? Perhaps yes, perhaps not. But without visualization, it is impossible to conduct analytics, see the correlation between what happened in the past, and think about what all this will lead to in the future. An app for family timeline following is your helper in this case. 

• Wedding Planner App

A modern wedding app should be set up as a marketplace for all events related to the ceremony. Venues, caterers, musicians, flower shops, event organizers, makeup artists, and designers should finally be united into a single app. Experts promote themselves, and future couples browse offers, read reviews, articles, and testimonials, or even start conversations with users with similar agendas.

• Church App

Who said religion is out of fashion? A stylish religious app can be a unique solution to attract more parishioners to the church. Events, charity, prayers, and philosophical context will make the app encourage interest even in atheists. 

• Magazine App

Of course, planning to beat Vogue is an exercise in futility, but no one says you should compete with the market giants. Set your own rules instead. If you are into journalism, fashion, coverage of events, and interviews — start your digital magazine and present it in the form of a user-friendly app.

• Decorating App

Decorating trends, everything needed for your next DIY, and professional help on demand will be the main features of such an app. Introduce AR to let users put on a new look on their room, furniture piece, or clothing. Blogs with articles will also raise audience activity. 

• Repairing Gadgets App

Isn’t it a pity when a favorite gadget breaks down? People usually don’t want to pay crazy money for repairs. Enter the brand of the gadget into the application, indicate the problem, and get recommendations on how and what to change, and ideally, also a list of professional service centers or freelance repair people. 

• Religious Gathering Notifier

Religious people should benefit from digitalization in its best terms as well. For example, the gatherings and payer reminder app should include the next features: the ability to add widgets with up-to-date prayer information, a button to turn off the sound during prayers, the list of religious events, and info on weekly gatherings in your local parish. 

• Karaoke App

Play karaoke online by singing the songs to your friends and letting them guess, or get together and sing along to your favorite track! Translating the phone screen on a bigger device such as a laptop or TV will be a great plus, as well as connecting the sound to the speakers. 

Healthcare App Ideas

• Health Check-up Reminder

Taking care of your health is vital, and simple daily actions can be enough to reduce the risk of illness. Unfortunately, we do not give enough time to our lifestyle, but fortunately, applications are there! For example, informing the user about their state of health and where they should go to a doctor will be very useful.

• Consult a Doctor’s App

Digitalization of medicine is one of the most useful achievements of IT during the pandemic. Thanks to applications from the mHealth category, people can monitor their health without leaving home, which means they help themselves without endangering themselves. Such apps will be highly popular in 2023.

• Period-Calculator/Birth-Control App

Apps helping you check your health daily and keeping track of your period and BC intake cater to half of humanity and are in huge demand. You can extend the app to include nutritional tips or exercises to reduce period cramps, further predictions, or professional tips from doctors.

• Pregnancy-Helper App

The application tells what happens to the body and the fetus at all stages of pregnancy, what you should pay special attention to this week, what medications you can take, and when to expect childbirth (the algorithm calculates this date using data about your cycle). A bonus in the application is a contraction timer and checklists — what should be done during each trimester and immediately before childbirth.

• Suicide Prevention Mobile App

An app of this type allows you to track mood and emotional well-being, analyze dynamics and identify impulses for disturbing thoughts. But the main thing is that the application helps not to distance oneself from psychological problems and anxieties but to work them out with the help of simple and quick mental exercises. 

• Symptom Tracking Apps

Create a superapp that will work for people struggling with various conditions: from depression to diabetes. Make sure that your application offers recommendations based on different data of users, well analyzes their age and anamnesis. You can also add a “Call a doctor” button to quickly access an ambulance in unforeseen situations.

• Stress Relaxing Apps

If we look at the statistics of the last few years, there has been an increase in mental health-related issues, and this is where effective relaxation apps come into play. Meditation and other mental practices are known to reduce stress and calm people down, making them one of the best ideas for a startup.

• Air Pollution Monitoring App

Environmental changes are now visible and tangible to the people of the world. To know the temperature outside is no longer enough. Megapolis citizens are forced to track the air pollution indexes because there are days when health organizations do not recommend leaving the house at all. 

• Water Quality Monitoring App

The same applies to water: drinking is vital, but what if there was a huge water poisoning, oil leakage, or seasonal floods in your region that resulted in poor water quality? Again, notify the users about occasions, share precautions, and suggest they avoid the beaches.

• App for the Color Blind

Have you ever wondered what the world looks like for the color blind? And what if you are color blind and have never realized you perceive everything around you in a way far from reality? Inventing an app that changes colors according to the specific color blindness spectrum that would work as an AR filter is a great idea.

• Telemedicine Apps

Being sick but not able to get an appointment with your doctor immediately is frustrating! The Internet enables major changes, and the health sector is no exception: patients can get a chance to receive the medical care they need without leaving the comfort of their homes. 

• Pill Reminder & Medication Tracker Mobile App

An app that helps users take their medications, dietary supplements, vitamins, and birth control pills on time will always be in demand. Make it a pill reminder and a complete electronic first aid kit. Allow users to set specific parameters — how many pills, how, when, and for what period they need to drink; create a family account for taking vitamins; create separate lists of effective “situational” drugs (for abdominal pain, allergies, and so on).

Photo & Video App Ideas

• Video-Editing App

Content-editing apps are setting the bar higher and higher, offering users new features unlike previous: cropping the video, cutting out an extra fragment, improving quality, and adding effects or captions. A video-editing app should have an intuitive design, do the job for the user, and fully replace a full-fledged editing program on a laptop.

• Graphic Design Helper App

Apps for designers with tools suitable for working with vector and raster graphics are in demand due to the rapid increase in blog popularity. Now most influencers and bloggers post high-quality content with elements of professional editing and graphic design. Monetize the app by offering a free trial period followed by a paid subscription.

• Photo Filter App

Target at creating an app with features ranging from cropping, color management, or adding filters and creating collages, logos, or banners.

Enable users to arrange their visual style layout and share the pictures straight from the app. Paid presets or professional tips for an additional fee are a great monetization option.

• Video Filter App

Most standard smartphone camera applications already have basic video filters, but the standard tools are usually very limited. Therefore, creating an app with extended filters, AI, and professional tutorials is great since you can promote it straight via social networks and quickly gain an audience.

Productivity App Ideas

• Task-Scheduling and Motivation App

Sometimes it can be difficult for us to analyze the progress we have made in our lives. Imagine an app that records the details of what the user has learned and the progress they have made on a daily. Enable users to create free-look boards, lists, tasks, plans, and goals to later track. Please provide them with a smooth design, and convenient reminders.

• School Notes App

Note apps can simplify brainstorming by allowing students to visually link and organize ideas, files, events, and images. If students struggle with a certain topic, an app will offer a tangible representation to understand the process better. In addition, multiple people can access the same account, so team members and teammates can easily collaborate.

• Phone Silencer App

Not all smartphones have personalized silence managers that let you choose between several modes and restrictions. An app for declining calls, switching all apps to the muted mode, and hiding notifications can be a great startup idea. Add some unpredicted features to revolutionize the concept, and you’ll be able to monetize it.

• Stop Procrastinating App

Such an application should motivate users to fulfill their plans. The mechanics are simple: the user indicates what and when they need to do, and the application sends reminder notifications. The app may block the screen or different phone features if the user refuses to put the phone down.

• Reminder App

The payment, task, date, or any other activity reminder is a tracking app that helps potential users keep track of their duties. The application’s job is to send the user a set-in-advance notification encouraging them to perform a certain task (meditate, call their mom, walk a dog, or drink water). Allow the user to unite several reminders into a single system and personalize notification sounds.

• Note Taking App

A modern, sophisticated, and aesthetically pleasing note app — what can be better? Thinks over the concept allowing users to focus on different aspects: notes, knowledge bases, tasks, projects, spreadsheets, and databases. Note-making is a real art, and thousands worldwide devote time to such apps daily. 

• Answerphone App

An answering machine app is a very useful service for busy people unable to answer calls constantly. Unfortunately, most smartphones still need to offer this feature, so users must contact their mobile operators to set it up for an additional fee. Thus, creating an app allowing automatic answers and leaving voice messages is still relevant.

• Writing Assistant App

Even though this feature is usually built into the phone’s OS, not all of them appeal to users and offer real help. For example, compared to simple “letter-by-letter typing,” an assistant allows you to significantly increase the speed of writing messages via an algorithm that intelligently predicts which word the user is currently typing.

Shopping App Ideas

• AR App That Helps You Design Your Room

Create an interface allowing users to try on room designs or see how well a certain furniture piece will fit in the interior. Virtual fitting has been a trend in many fields, and room design is one of them. In addition, you can monetize the startup by offering the users professional tips from real designers for a fee. 

• Scan to Shop Apps

What if you could scan any product you like at the mall, grocery, or makeup store and add it to your virtual cart without interacting with a consultant? If this sound is inspiring, you should share this idea with the world by developing a cool app.

• Mall Navigation Map

Large malls purposefully make it very difficult for customers to locate exactly the store where they want to go. An app with the mall’s map directing users to the needed store in minutes will save them a few weeks of life in the long run! 

• Supermarket Checkout App

Various apps constantly improve the quality of shopping services and take care of customers. For instance, a scan-to-shop app allows you to point the camera at the product’s barcode at the supermarket, scan the cart’s contents, and then pay online! No more long queues or arrogant cashiers. And if necessary, you can ask the consultant for a paper check.

• A Gift Suggestion for a Friend App

This a huge problem that every person faces several times a year. If only an application would tell you what to give a person, perhaps even based on the interests of the addressee indicated by the user. Add custom lists and go to PlayMarket/AppStore.

• Virtual Clothes Shopping App

Virtual reality is a trendy technology to use in software development now. It helps make the product more convenient for users: let them try on the clothes they would like to purchase, see how well they will fit, or which color matches the best. The better the technology is implemented, the higher the demand for the application.

• Toy-Exchange App

Developing a platform where parents could sell their old toys, or even trade them with others will always stay relevant. Swapping children’s stuff is a great idea because your child grows out of clothes quickly, and buying new pairs of overalls each month can cost a fortune. Besides, children get fed up with toys quickly and expect you to immediately bring them a new one. 

• Automatic Coupon Applier App

Every Black Friday, local stores announce hundreds of amazing deals. It’s a pity to find out about them after they are almost over or there are no goods left. With an app like this, you can get first-hand, reliable, and timely information about coupons for different stores. The deal could be related to travel, fitness, food, clothing, etc. It will save the user a lot of time and ultimately won’t take a toll on their pockets.

• Referral App

A referral program is a way to promote a product or service through referrals. The company offers customers to recommend their product to friends and receive a reward: a discount, money, or points to a bonus account. Simply put, it’s a way to stimulate word of mouth. For example, you can create an app uniting different products and grant users with bonuses for promoting them.

• Online Flower And Gift Delivery App

How often did you experience an urgent need to cherish your loved ones with a special gift in the middle of the night or wanted to buy them flowers but had no time left? You can monetize the application by offering gift and flower delivery to the door in an hour. Cooperate with flower shops and local gift providers to generate an extensive database. 

• Charity Donation App

Choose one donation-receiving channel or unite several funds and focus on storytelling. Let the users feel special because of their great deeds (donating and spreading information). However, the lack of monetization will be a great choice in this case. The application should have no transfer fees, interest deductions, or advertising. All money may go directly to the foundations, and the project works with users’ and patrons’ help. 

• Shopping Assistant App

You can cater to people who always shop at branded stores. Or those who are looking for discounts and deals. Unite many shopping malls or online stores into a single platform and create an assistant to offer shop recommendations based on budget, habits, requirements, and mood. Your app will give users the ultimate confirmation that the product they’re buying is worth it.

• Wishlist App

All of us have been stuck in a situation when we see something we like but cannot afford for now. Saving the link to bookmarks or notes is most inconvenient. Thus, a pretty wishlist app with arranging, filtering, and sharing features is a great idea for a startup.

• Original Item Detector App

According to OECD, the global sale of counterfeit products and goods is $1.7 billion annually. Many consumers suffer from buying fake products and end up having a bad day. Imagine having a web application that tells you the entire journey of a product, from its origin in the field to the store. 

• Collective Shopping App

In most cases, buying a product per unit is more expensive than buying in bulk. It also happens that many websites offer free delivery after exceeding a certain amount. So create an app that allows random people with shared needs to unite into groups to save money on various deals.

• Price Comparison Apps

We have been actively buying goods in online stores for a long time. It is convenient and often relatively cheap. It is even more convenient to view products at once in all stores. In addition, price comparison services have been in huge demand since customers have become smarter about their spending.

• A Digital Receipt App

Scan and save the receipts in a few clicks. Then, allow the users to compare the prices for the same goods in different stores and analyze their budget with the help of a smart assistant. 

• Search Products by Photo App

Many e-commerce platforms have already introduced this feature for their products, for instance, Aliexpress. What if you combine the smart image search from Google with the shopping patterns users have (how they describe the product when searching for it online) to create a revolutionary shopping app?

• Barter Exchange App

Create a platform where people post ads about things they want to sell/buy and what they want to receive/offer instead. Money is great, but sometimes even it is useless! Let the community members filter adds, modify their requests, and unite into chat groups with moderators for further discussions. 

• Pet Marketplace Mobile App

Selling or adopting pets is a huge market as well. Apps that offer pet owners and seekers a convenient exchange platform will always be in demand. So, why don’t you develop a cute startup helping four-legged friends find new families?

Social Networking App Ideas

• Social Networking App for Item Sales, Buying, and Rent

You can also create a virtual shopping app that will be used to rent, buy, or sell various items or services. The application must also tell its potential users whether the products they have selected are available from different sellers or in a location close to them.

• Finding People to Maximize Your Spending on Rewards Credit Card App

Many stores offer an accumulative bonus system for their clients, which means the more they spend, the bigger discount they receive. Of course, sharing these bonus cards between friends and family is not a new thing. But what if you offer a giant network uniting people with different interests willing to share their discounts with others to earn more points?

• Social Networking App for Single Parents

To attract parents, the app must have unique features. Add the chat, feed, and search filter options between the profiles, for example. Let people unite into groups of interest, arrange offline events for children, and search for the other half who understands how hard it is to be a single parent. 

• Find Your Band Member App for Musicians

It should be an application that looks like a job search for musicians. Band members looking for someone to fill a position, whether it’s vocalist, drummer, or guitarist, will find them here. Of course, musicians looking to join a band can search the different groups registered on the app and choose which ones they want to join.

• Business Tips App

Professional guidance on filing taxes, business sustainability, or retaining clients will always be in demand. Many serious companies arrange offline business courses and international meetings for young and experienced entrepreneurs. Why don’t you provide them with a convenient app for these purposes?

• Roommate Finder App

It would help if you connected tenants and landlords so that they could communicate. At the same time, you must create a profile with detailed information to ensure the safety of those who are going to rent a room, as well as those who are looking for it. Let people look for cohabitants based on personal preferences and make the app feel more like a social network.

• Tutor Searching App

The wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the entire education system and moved traditional schools to online learning. Now schoolchildren and students need additional help from a mentor to cope with their curriculum. Tutors can be attracted to young students, freelancers, or professional teachers. What about the audience? Social network promotion, of course!

• House-Keeper Finding App

Here is a good old startup idea: take an existing agency service and shorten the number of human interactions. For example, instead of calling the cleaning service, allow users to search for house-keepers online based on convenient filters. You can earn by charging a service fee for each successful deal, or every service offered bu your house workers.

• Intelligent Flirt App

Finding your soul mate has become easier now — netizens are more comfortable communicating online with new people. Given the popularity and growth of dating applications, developing new applications with unique features and technical innovations always makes sense. For example, an intelligent matching system and flirting phrases suggestions will surely appeal to users.

• App For Refugees

There are just a few platforms specializing in this sector now. However, the year 2022 has shown that war is still near and the problem of refugee migration will stay with us for a long. Especially in Ukraine, more than 5 million people have allegedly fled the country due to the Russian invasion. So why not create an app to help them socialize, and find jobs, friends, and accommodation in a new country? 

• Eat-Together App

How often did you dream of somebody inviting you out for a date or wanting to visit a new place, but all of your friends were busy? Developing an app uniting food lovers to eat together sounds like a great startup idea. But, an additional advantage, make the service communication-focused to maximize your app’s success chances. 

• Social Rating App

Imagine a social network where you could anonymously rate the different personality traits of your friends: temperament, appearance, behavior, or style. People will see their ratings and the number of users who voted, but they can never know who rated them and how. This type of application is said to be particularly popular with teenagers. 

• Interest-Based Dating App

Choose one niche or let users set their interests in the profile settings: fishing enthusiasts, mothers with children, dancers, artists, or hikers. This approach will help people with common interests find each other. Then, monetize the project with the introduction of paid profiles or limit the number of acquaintances in the free version.

• Book Review App

As statistics show, book applications are of interest to audiences around the world. In the application, you can publish recently published books, engage experts to write professional reviews, and make a filter that allows you to find new items based on users’ tastes. Earn by selling merch and books straight away and making partially paid content.

• Social Goal-Sharing App

Let users unite into communities based on shared values and aspirations. Then, they must submit their requirements, specifications, or experience in the field they want to grow. The application will then provide the user with friend suggestions, professional tips, and paid guides/mentors. 

• Selfie Competition App

Trends show that communication apps are relevant and in demand. But it would be difficult for a startup to compete with global giants, so it’s worth focusing on narrower niches. Even though unofficially, Tinder is a fully appearance-focused dating app. So, why don’t you develop an app that doesn’t hide and makes things clear from the beginning?

• Startup Assistance App

Of course, this whole article is devoted to startup tips and ideas. However, choosing the app concept is just the first step. Now you can imagine how much help young entrepreneurs will need to create a startup: business guidance, legal obligations, hiring talents, scaling, and many more.

• Finding Occasional Part-Time Job App

Many brands and businesses closed during the pandemic, and people were left without work. So developing a mobile application that offers jobs to a large number of people around the world would be a great idea. You can create a common platform where employers and job seekers can help each other. Companies will be able to post vacancies for certain hours of work or under a contract, and specialists will be able to search for work by filtering offers by skills, experience, knowledge, and form of employment.

• Random Chat App

People actively use social networks, but ordinary social networks insert certain rules into communication. Meanwhile, chatting is a serious need for many people — let them find employees to fill vacancies, partners, friends, or companions for any activity.

• Giveaway App

Similarly to referral programs, giveaways work in a way that promotes the product in a natural way among its target audience. In addition, the feedback from sharing the item is worth giving to one of the participants. And we all have that one friend who shares all the giveaways on their social media. Thus, creating an app that collects all the giveaways in one place will be great.

• Matrimony App

Another aspect that suggests that dating apps have a future is that they are no longer of interest only to young people looking for short-term fun. Singles focused specifically on searching for a life partner have created a need for dating apps. In addition, matrimony-oriented services are in huge demand! Take this concept and make it stand out by adding unique features.

• Lost & Found App

The Lost but Found app deserves special mention. With this app, people who lost their car keys in the car park, dropped jewelry in a fitting room, or couldn’t find their pets for a few days can post ads, and other people will respond. The app’s purpose will be to reconnect lost items or goods to their original owner.

• Find Game Companions App

Finding a partner to train outdoors or play video games online can be difficult when you’re new to town or don’t have friends with common interests. This web application offers an ideal solution for users with common interests to get together to play. Allow chatting and search filters to weed out the results.

• Dating & Chatting App

Dating apps are already plentiful. This does not mean that the market is saturated. Indeed, there is always a way to enter this sector. Moreover, people interested in finding a partner rarely use one app but download a few. Make your appeal to them! Fill a certain niche and offer cool features.

• Remote-Control Toys for Couples App

IoT technologies allow the development of smart devices that can be controlled through an application. The more convenient and understandable the application, the more willingly people use devices. For example, toys for couples are highly popular today, so let’s save long-distance couples by offering them such an app.

Travel App Ideas

• Best Vacation Spot Finder App

Experienced travelers have probably visited all the popular tourist areas and are interested in discovering something new. So why not develop a tourist-helping app that will amaze even professional globe trotters? Let users enter parameters for their perfect trip and get instant recommendations.

• Travel-Planning App

Exploring each country and city, taking into account your budget and free time, is difficult and long, but with the help of this application, the user can quickly make a travel plan and make the necessary lists. Then, offer complete travel packages or destinations according to a person’s requests.

• Tourists Helper App

It is a travel assistance application that gives its users suggestions and recommendations about local attractions, world cuisines, and activities that can be done in a certain place. Experienced or new to traveling — users will have to install an app like yours if you come up with a new concept previously not seen.

• Public Transport App

The main idea behind this amazing mobile app is to inform users about the best and safest route to take when using public transport. In addition, it will also notify the user when the departure time is approaching to attend the train, bus, or even the plane. Additionally, the application should be able to track traffic, crashes, delays, scheduled departure times, and rush hour.

• Toilet Finder App

Being new to the city or country, it is sometimes hard to find a public WC or understand the local hospitality culture: is it allowed to use the restaurant’s restroom for free, or will it look weird here? So the interactive map with toilets will come in handy.

• Nearby EV Charging Station Finder App

Owning an electric car means always staying on alert for the battery and ultimately seeking out the nearest charging station. Some car brands offer simple built-in navigation system that directs the car straight to the station and updates the map. However, not all cars have this function, so developing an app like this is a good idea for a startup.

• VR Based Virtual Travel App

Nowadays, common tourist trails are hard of interest to many people. At the same time, many travelers who have had fascinating travel experiences will be eager to share them with others. This mobile application aims to create a database containing travel routes, or walks, explained by the users themselves, and then allow others to experience the effect of presence based on VR. Let people feel the country before they decide to visit it.

• Nightlife Guides App

Creating an app focusing on the nightlife is familiar to the market. Still, the recommendations probably need to be updated when you go to a Trip advisor or any other giant tourist helper service. The suggested clubs are cringey and not popular with the locals. Let your app solve this problem by cooperating with local experts!

• Free Wi-Fi Finder App

Free Wi-Fi is available at airports, large stores, as well as in some governmental establishments and other places. However, it is better to use apps specifically designed for finding it rather than wondering where it might be and taking risks. Monetize the app by cooperating with the restaurants, promoting different events with free Wi-Fi, and ads.

• Travel Buddy App

Social media are used for various purposes, searching for travel companions included. Why don’t you create an app focusing specifically on that? Let users fill out their profiles with the info on all countries they have already been to, post travel blogs in the feed, and make announcement on their next holiday destinations. In case other people feel interested to share this experience — they can ask to join. 

• Railway Tracking App

Traveling across Europe usually requires buying train tickets, so developing an app for purchasing them without additional fees will be very useful for thousands of travelers. Enable the app to inform passengers about the departure, and the arrival of the train at the station, track number, and any delays.

Utility App Ideas

• Scan and Convert to PDF App

Users often have to convert a file from one format to another when uploading a document file to a website. Creating an application for this will be the ultimate solution for converting a series of documents into multiple formats. In addition, integrating editing and sharing options will add more value.

• Voice Translation App

The simplest software that connects a smartphone/tablet to a speaker and recognizes the text enables you to develop an app for voice translation. There are multiple such apps on the market, yet the demand for them is not decreasing as most show bugs or work slowly.

• Call Recording App

Recognizing the caller’s picture or leaving a voice message after the automated answer is great, but call recording is another vital privacy feature not built into most smartphones. Develop an app for this to let users save all their phone call tracks or even convert them into scripts.

• Criminal Alert App

The emergency alert program allows users to be aware of any unwanted natural disasters or criminal activity in the area. For example, we cannot eliminate forest fires and hurricanes, and no one can guarantee a crime-free state. Emergency or crime alert users can easily update information about the area’s illegal activity or natural disasters. The main reason for these types of applications is to try to keep residents safe.

• Warranty-Expiry Alerts App

This idea will be the solution to the rampant problem of not knowing whether a particular food or item is expired or not. The app will keep track of the expiration dates of all the products you have in your kitchen. 

• Internet Speed Checker App

The loading speed seems off, but you need help determining whether the problem is in your phone or the Wi-Fi router itself? This app should help you measure the Internet speed and compare it to the average to determine the issue.

• Subscription Alert App

From music app subscriptions to app store subscriptions — an average user has dozens of paid plans they need to follow. So, it’s about time an app hit the market which can track all subscriptions and let the user know when the next subscription is due and how much should be deducted from their bank account.

• An App That Scans Terms/Conditions

Let’s be honest. You, too, skip reading long Terms and Conditions when you are excited about registering for a new service or playing a cool game. However, these contracts may contain seemingly minor details that can later be used to bring you to justice. What about an app that scans those kilometers of text and highlights controversial parts that you should truly pay attention to?

• Complaint Registering App

Chances are you have felt humiliated and mistreated at least once. Complaining is every person’s right and what better way to do it than via an application designed for this purpose? Develop a service where people would write anonymous or open complaints about a service, restaurant, employer, or practically anything, and others could search for those reviews using filters.

• Disaster Management App

Safety apps can play an important role during a disaster, so it makes sense to invest in their development. But, interestingly, security applications are not just limited to disasters: they can be used to track children, provide immediate assistance to assaulted women, or help notice security breaches.

• Text Reader App

Phone use, especially reading or replying to text messages while driving, is one of the main causes of many traffic accidents worldwide. Everything on your phone is distracting, including navigation, music player, conversation, or text messages. Thus, a text reader app would be a universal tool to read books out loud, send voice messages, or dictate recipes when you are in the middle of cooking at cannot scroll the screen.

• Digital CV/Resume App

A cool CV is half of the success in the job-searching process! Especially if you are a designer or a copywriter, since your experience brief should reflect your professional abilities. An app with CV templates and tips will always be in demand. Moreover, you can easily monetize it by offering premium templates with extended features.

• A Wi-Fi Sharing App

You may develop an app that allows you to share Wi-Fi with others by creating a hotspot. Now you can create a Wi-Fi hotspot even if you are connected to another Wi-Fi, allowing other devices to provide a secure Wi-Fi connection. Apps like this can also protect your smartphone from viruses and other electronic threats or share the unknown password from the Wi-Fi you are connected to.

• Measurement App

Integrate AR to let users measure things in real-time: point the camera at an item, move the phone to let the app assess the parameters, and receive an approximate size value.

• 3D Scanning App

While you can create complex objects with design software like Blender, it takes a lot of time. Luckily, modern technologies allow 3D scanning via an app that will do the job for you in minutes. A service like this should use AI hardware and capture more information than just a 2D image later compiled into 3D.

• Battery Optimizer App

How many apps run in a background mode as you focus on using a single one? As a result, they exhaust the battery and make your phone die in a few hours. Thus, a battery optimizer app will target a very specific pain point. What is more, you can easily monetize it by running ads.

• Remember “Our” Dates

Nothing beats a partner that keeps track of your anniversaries, even if the reminder app does the job for you. Developing the app will consist of a few simple steps and shouldn’t take long: the service will be a combination of a calendar + alarm clock.

• Stargazing App

The user takes a photo of the sky, and the application shows where the constellations are in the photo and indicates their names. Then, enable the app to tell users more about this or that star and planets. You can also add an astrological element to make the app more popular.

Why You Should Outsource Your Mobile App Ideas Development

By outsourcing mobile app development, you can reduce the time of delivering the app to market, reduce project costs, and improve app quality. For success, it is necessary to get an expert understanding of modern technologies and qualified help — a company focused on developing applications for sure has necessary experience and understanding of all processes.

Test Your App Idea With an Expert App Development Company [Devlight’s Case]

According to statistics, 80% of startups do not last more than 2 years. 60% of all product business failures happen due to the lack of product’s demand. All the other problems that led to the business or product closing account for 40%.

You, as the creator of the idea, are biased towards your product and cannot be its target audience. Your opinion should be moved to the background as soon as an idea appears. Of course, don’t be afraid to check whether others like your future app’s concept. The more information you get at the beginning of the idea’s journey, the faster the right decision about its implementation will come.

Devlight can help you test your idea before starting development. We have many successful cases behind our backs — one of them is Vodafone Mobile Neobank. Vodafone is Ukraine’s leading mobile operator, with 45 billion US dollars of total market capitalization and more than 700 million subscribers per year worldwide.

Since the client agreed on the fintech industry being quite new to them, they wanted to hear more of our suggestions in terms of what they should focus on. So, Devlight’s task logically fell into two parts:

— Market and customer research — we do everything to findserious needs and problems that can be covered by the customer’s product;

— Prototyping the app based on the data we collect in the first step and testing its viability. Presenting the project’s prototype to the client with explanations of all internal and external processes.

Step 1 — Making a Trend Canvas

We filled out the trend canvas to better understand the banking market in Ukraine, synchronize our values, mission, and drivers of the future project, define the market context in which the future product should exist, and generate the first ideas.

Using Porter’s Diamond methodology, we have prepared a large market competitor study. This step allowed us to analyze the scope of existing market players, their strengths and weaknesses.

New players who were just entering the market, their strategies for entering the market, their expectations about the strengths and weaknesses of competitors, as well as about the target audience were also taken into consideration. We also analyzed substitute products that could replace our app and other services that users can start using instead of neobanks.

Step 2 — Carrying Out a Deep Competitor Research

We already had gained some information about the market and competitors, but it was time to go even deeper. We then studied competitors according to the following criteria:

— typical bank products such as rates, commissions, cashback, and loyalty programs;

— separate comparison was imposed on loan products;

— the speed of opening an account and the time spent from issuing a card to being able to use it;

— app functionality and ease of use;

— user engagement models at the base of competitor apps, their retention models, LTV, and awareness models;

— the number of application downloads, feedback, and other product indicators that we could obtain using the Data.io service.

We conducted an in-depth open-source market research of the target audience, identifying user needs, pain points, motivations, and expectations for the future digital product and prepared the next audit types:

— user profiling by socio-demographic characteristics;

— description of specific customer jobs for each individual profile;

— determination of which services currently cover certain user needs;

— user comment analysis on the pages of competitors via platforms like PlayMarket, AppStore, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram;

— analysis of the reasons for user’s opening an additional account in another bank;

— study and description of criteria for choosing a new bank (rational and emotional);

— creation of special hypotheses based on the information obtained above;

— preliminary determination of priorities of target groups.

Step 3 — Forming Hypotheses

This stage consisted of conducting 30 in-depth interviews to test, refute, or confirm user hypotheses and fell into the next tasks:

— Sorting user hypotheses;

— Creating a survey script for conducting in-depth interviews with respondents;

— Forming a database of respondents;

— Choosing a reward for interviewers for conducting an in-depth interview;

— Preparing scenarios and systematizing data, as well as development of an analytical note based on surveys.

Step 4 — Ideation Session

At this stage, we systematized the insights we gained from research and in-depth interviews.

We put these ideas on a dashboard and our task was to consider whether we wanted to implement them in the product. Also, we could come up with more ideas if needed. Each idea went through a process of discussion, brainstorming, analysis and understanding of the possibility of its implementation in the future product. This process reduced the final number of ideas to 25, which were to form the basis of the product.

Step 5 — Creating a Product’s Value Proposition. Testing the Value Proposition on Respondents

All preparatory work was completed. Then was the time to do the most important exercise — create a product’s value proposition. We took the Alexander Osterwalder framework as a basis. It is a strategic management tool for designing, testing, building, and managing products and services. Our team completely filled the right side of the value proposition canvas with the ideas we selected during the ideation session. The results of in-depth user surveys and competitor analysis were included as well.

The workshop with the client’s team lasted 5 hours. During this time, we were able to generate enough service ideas to say that the product offer was ready.

Step 6 — Creating High-Fidelity Wireframes and Low-Fidelity Prototype

These are often created early in the design process to communicate design decisions to the development team before the final product is coded.

We also prototyped the main screens and their possible options to choose the vector that best suited our design system. Several designs were tested by our target audience to see whether they were clear and understandable.

Final Results

We tested the idea, created a value proposition and a prototype. A pleasantly looking ergonomic design was what we got after all the previous stages of hard work and deep research.

We found a way to bring a huge telecom giant into an entirely new market based on a proven and prototyped viable service.

App Ideas for Your Startup in 2023: Summary

We have given you several examples to set a vector to your imagination. Ideas are in the air — choose the ones appealing to you based on your experience, capabilities, and budget. Finally, it would help if you asked yourself th next questions:

• Do you want to aim at the international market or work for a specific country?
• How do you plan to monetize the product?
• What are you good at enough to make a cool product?
• What resources do you have for content creation?

Trends and analytics should guide you, but you must understand the larger concept before blindly following fast-changing tendencies. After all, various narrow niches are providing good profits even though such applications will never enter the top of the most popular.

The post Advanced Mobile App Ideas to Develop in 2023 appeared first on Devlight.

There can be multiple reasons for a project vendor switch: the app has matured to significant improvements, or the MVP didn’t live up to the client’s expectations. Many cases result in a software transition plan, creating conditions in which technical support and development of the project have become the most popular service of mobile and web development studios. 

Relay races with the transfer of the project from one team to another have not yet become firmly established in everyday life. Many companies would rather choose to stick to the same development supplier because of the risks that creating a stable knowledge transition plan for software projects imposes. However, we are here to prove that even the most complicated solutions can be implemented seamlessly if you pay attention to detail. 

Why Do You Need an Established Application Transition Plan?

Sometimes, the old manager leaves the project, and you start noticing that the dev team went off the beaten track. Alternatively, working with the old team may become too expensive for the client and force them to look for a cheaper option. 

The question “Why did you part ways with the previous vendor?” is always the first one we ask when we start developing an IT project transition plan. Nevertheless, there can be multiple reasons for this, and the human factor is far from being the most important.

Buggy application and negative feedback from users

This situation arises when your application relies on technology that is not keeping up with the times, either unintentionally or on purpose. The publisher may, in fact, decide not to release new updates to its technology for various reasons. Of course, this is a solid reason to start searching for another vendor.

Unmotivated delays on releases

The previous contractor may not be meeting important deadlines. Is their lack of necessary competencies clear? Remember: missing deadlines is an important reason for coming up with a software transition plan checklist. Of course, switching to a new vendor doesn’t mean rebuilding the app from scratch. Despite requiring immediate, unforeseen solutions, switching saves you much more in the long term.

No dynamics and lack of efficiency

You will likely be faced with a frozen application if your dev team shows no consistency in their progress. The efficient separation of roles and responsibilities is crucial for dynamic development. If you notice tremendous irrationalities in how the software team’s work is arranged, you should consider moving to another architecture. An IT project transition plan template will allow your app to evolve. 

No sufficient communication

What do you want as a client? In addition to advancing your competitors, be sure to meet your users’ expectations. If your application no longer resembles the initial plan, you feel frustrated because of the lack of communication, and correcting each minor error takes ages — you should switch the vendor. 

Distorted focus

Indeed, an IT transition plan is also an opportunity to clean up or enrich an application or to reformulate its evolving needs. In a computer development project, it is estimated that almost half of the desired functionalities are never used. Using the Agile methodology in your projects allows you to focus first on the most important features and limit this percentage.

Slowing down the scaling process

This can quickly become problematic because your application, developed at a given time on a certain version of the technology used, risks falling behind if the updates are no longer installed. This risk is all the greater if your application uses peripherals that would continue to benefit from new updates. It could end up not supporting them anymore, and the scaling will become even harder over time.

Exceeding budget and deadlines

Several factors directly impact the development costs. Evolutions that make any maintenance operation laborious, the economic situation, new technology used, or bug accumulation cause going over budget. The vendor should feel free to reconsider the initial budget, but the procedure should be clear and within the legal terms of the contract. 

Lack of automatization

Tools like Jira and Confluence allow you to follow the development process and see each feature’s progress in real-time. If your company keeps everything behind closed doors and you often feel a lack of transparency — do not settle for less. It’s time to move on. 

Lack of tech documentation and requirements

A code or application audit will help us see more clearly and let you determine the aspects where your software can evolve or if it will be necessary to restart everything. However, the old vendor should be ready to cooperate as sometimes the knowledge transition plan for software projects is bound to people. Responsible documentation handling should always result in a clear SDLC process.

Challenges in Switching the Vendor: Overcome Them With a Reliable Application Transition Plan

Even a minor refinement, in the form of the remaining 15%, results in huge expenses not provided for by the original budget. If the previous contractor completed only half of the work, it would most likely be more profitable to start from scratch. Sometimes, dealing with the legacy of a previous developer can be much more time-consuming and difficult than starting over with an IT project transition plan template. What other challenges might you face?

The Current Vendor Denies to Cooperate During the Software Transition Plan

If a manager introduces people to someone else’s team, it’s worth finding out if it’s a product team or freelancers. We noticed that freelancers do not have the habit of working according to corporate principles. They very rarely hold on to the product with their heart and soul. They just make money and have no interest in the release’s success. 

Previous vendors may also sabotage the project transfer because a software transition plan is a painful procedure for their ego. In the worst case, they won’t share all the necessary documents, and we will have to carry out most audits by ourselves. However, this is not the end of the world.

How to check the vendor for quality (professionalism, seniority, and maturity)

The search for a contractor must be approached thoroughly, and especially if you do not have much experience in dealing with IT companies, the main thing to focus on is interviews with performers and management. It is important to understand how transparent the project management processes are in the company and how well-established their methodology is. Talk to them to get a better idea of what it will be like to work with this IT company. You can also study any IT project transition plan template to have a better understanding.

Here are four aspects that define software development quality:

• Vendor’s professionalism — A responsible approach with attention to detail should be seen in everything, starting from the offered solutions to documentation.
• Team seniority — Choose development companies that are able to retain talent and take care of their employees. The team consisting of senior developers, business analytics, and designers is a good sign.
• Software company’s maturity — The product is constantly evolving, taking into account user feedback. The vendor keeps track of all processes and carries out detailed measures to ensure them.
• Vendor’s experience — Has the company dealt with the same/similar projects before? How successful were these cooperation cases?

Very often, an IT project transition plan opens up a new look at your product and can ultimately solve the accumulated problems by bringing your project to a fundamentally higher level. 

Agreed SLA

SLA (Service Level Agreement) is a document that regulates the working relationship between the client and support. It describes the situation in which this document was required, the amount of support (number of hours per month), roles on the project, response time depending on the status of the task (critical, urgent, normal), what the result of the response will be, as well as how it is planned and the terms for paid time for the project manager, developer, tester, analyst and designer.

SLA work is the result of negotiations. So, taking over a project means new discussions based on the current conditions. Every development team is free to define its comfortable format of cooperation. Thus, the SLA will differ from one vendor to another, but such things cannot be left in the form of an oral agreement.

Users shouldn’t notice the switch to another vendor

If your goal is to serve the end user and make them more productive, integration is a no-brainer. Today, it is often said that employees are “timeless.” And, because the software market is so saturated, users are bound to have high expectations. 

An IT transition plan should take this into account and create the base for a smooth transition. Finally, after you exchange the development process for a tangibly more qualitative provider, a new company will take care of the previous bugs, thus making the user experience even better.

Challenges in Switching the Vendor: Overcome Them With a Reliable Application Transition Plan

Building a new web of audits and human connections is difficult. Thus, an application transition plan requires maximum cooperation between the client, the previous software team and the new software team. Of course, we won’t do everything from scratch, but to know where to start, Devlight carries out a few important audits as well as analyzes the current workflow.

Documentation, access, and communication channels brief

The longer a team works on a project, the more it covers functionality with good code. At first, these are partial edits, but over time, this code covers the entire project. Of course, can be painful to hand over your masterpiece to another vendor. The team may not agree with this, but evidence is needed.

The acceptance test document, which includes all the functionality and bugs, will be used to analyze the current situation and determine the success of the project. Both the client and the performer are responsible for it, so they should take care of each other’s time and effort. A brief can be used as insurance against counterproductive showdowns on the topic “Is this specific bug new or inherited?”

Even Google Docs can be used for bug documentation: attach photos or videos and describe the actions step by step and what they lead to. Problems should be described as specifically as possible. Some of the bugs may be less critical than others. Whether we should fix them now or wait — it’s up to the client. 

Finally, let’s not forget the IT transition plan is also an analysis of the reasons for the transfer of the project (inability to fulfil the strategy, poor understanding of the requirements, etc). We usually ask the client for their point of view to avoid possible miscommunications in future cooperation.

Knowledge transfer 

Sooner or later, everyone has to accept the knowledge transition plan for software projects. In order to do this effectively with minimum risk for the client/project, we recommend following the scheme above, created and perfected by dozens of successful Devlight cases.

Of course, modern development frameworks are extremely helpful in project management, and in general, all the ceremonials and roles in the team are known, but there is always room for improvement, so it’s better to understand the team’s activities from beginning to end when designing an application transition plan.

It is worth noting that it is best to conduct KT when it is possible to keep 2 teams in parallel so that new employees gradually join the development process, deal with system configuration, and process systems together with knowledge holders. For example, using JIRA, which helps us deal with the life cycle of a defect, requires knowing many details of the previous workflow. Nevertheless, this step is often skipped.

Code Audit as a Part of Software Transition Plan

Knowledge transfer, mentioned earlier, does not reveal all the problems of the project. To fully comprehend the code, the team needs to start coding. The code review should result in developers saying: “OK, we know what to do and how to handle the project further.” But implementing new features and dealing with dependencies is another story.

If the performance of your current contractor raises questions, it is best to seek an audit from a third party. A professional view from the outside will allow you to assess the situation and find the least costly way to solve the problem. The Devlight code review means the customer receives a specific list of what needs to be fixed. Even if they later decide to choose another vendor, they can use this document, which summarises what is wrong with security, scaling and other aspects.

Design audit

We conduct interface audits according to the same principles as we develop the design: feasibility, reliability, convenience, and acceptance. You can call them the four qualities of the interface. During development, we create these qualities, and during the audit, we check them.

The interface should allow the user to perform their basic tasks. This doesn’t just apply to buttons — scripts may not work either. At the same time, we check if the interface allows scenarios to be passed in alternative ways. The principle of convenience helps to evaluate how effective the patterns the designer has chosen are — in other words, how quickly the user solves problems. We then attach the screenshots to your IT project transition plan template.

Finally, can we discuss the UI? Yes, but we that’s not all we focus on. Everything influences the perception: understandable texts, brand voice, animations, illustrations and the number of menu items — each element works to ensure that the interface establishes a positive relationship with the user.

QA audit

QA helps us assess how much the IT transition plan client is potentially losing based on Firebase analysis. Firebase is Google’s mobile app development platform that provides state-of-the-art features for developing, repackaging, and enhancing apps. Firebase is, at its core, a set of tools that developers can use to create and modify applications based on their needs. The goal of Firebase is to solve three main problems for developers:

• Quickly create an application
• Issue and provide robust health monitoring
• Engage users

Some of the most popular features of the Google Firebase platform include databases, authentication, push notifications, analytics and file storage. We analyse these features and more as part of an IT project transition plan.

Analytic analysis of the product

As a code review is based on the technical side, the marketing department deals with measuring app performance in terms of user efficiency. Analysing the business model and product processes must get us answers to key questions:

• Who is this product for?
• What is its central service?
• What is its priority functionality, and how is this priority supported?

Perhaps the client has been moving in the wrong direction with their old team. The task of another vendor is to find the right path, believe in this path and convey this confidence to the client.

Software Transition Plan Demo + Conclusion 

The more entropy in the project, the longer drawing a software transition plan checklist will take. Our practice shows that it can last from a week to a month. This is enough time to understand the nuances of the code and study the architecture and technologies. In the result, we summarize our analysis and make up a short budget conclusion: 

• Everything is ok, so the client has to pay just for a few new features;
• We cover the technical gap (in case there are too many product bugs to start immediate work)
• The final option is to rewrite the code from scratch

Although the client wants to know the exact terms and plans, any IT transition plan should start from the stage: “let’s figure it out first, let’s see how things work there.” Meetings should be very frequent at each stage.

How Our Team Creates Software Transition Plans That Work

Regardless of the reason why the project is going to other hands, the new team is expected to be rescued. The job of the manager is to set the frame for the whole team’s cooperation: talk, ask, answer, and explain.

Once the client understands your goals, we make sure to measure their success in achieving them by setting appropriate key metrics. The stated goal reflects the intended result. At the same time, we need some kind of benchmark to assess the success of achieving this result. This is why we set SMART goals. SMART goal setting provides clear and measurable indicators of success that can be easily identified at the end of the project, describing to what extent these goals have been achieved.

The Devlight software transition plan checklist also contains the next questions for the client:

• “What did you not like about the old team, and what did you like?”
• “What are your plans for the project?”
• “What audits/briefs/documents can you provide?”

After that, the manager and the client agree on the time that the team will devote to getting to know the code. A week, two weeks, or a month — the term depends on the size of the project. Sometimes we can refuse to review the code if we plan to rewrite it fully. Partial refactoring acts as a lifeline, which will simplify and reduce the cost of development in the future.

We will start working on the acceptance document after the software transition plan contract is concluded. It describes the project, its functionality, and its bugs. The acceptance document will insure the new team from liability for problems left after the previous team and save time and nerves for all project participants.

We make sure to arrange the knowledge transition plan for software projects according to SLA, determining the arising tasks according to the degree of criticality, response time and required result. Devlight understands that it is necessary to predict the timing, taking into account possible risks that the client should be aware of.

Project Transfer Blockers

Changing a contractor when developing an IT product (whether it’s a mobile application, website development, desktop application, or customization of a ready-made solution for yourself) is always painful. Clients want to avoid it with all their might. Why? Because specific pitfalls accompany the whole application transition plan process. 

Occuring budget override

Implementation of a knowledge transition plan for software projects costs money. Whether you’re hiring freelancers to write content or a catering service provider to host an event, you’ll likely need to spend a certain amount of money.

Since you have already identified the goals and stakeholders in the project plan, this information can be used for budgeting. For example, if this project involves multiple departments, will the costs of the project be shared among them? If you have a certain measure of success, such as the number of participants in an event or the number of new users, is your estimated budget capable of meeting that measure?

Creating a budget during the IT project transition plan (before you start any spending) will ensure that the financial side of the contract is fully agreed upon. Devlight will take over the entire setup of the process and show you all the materials — audits, artefacts and documentation. 

The slowdown of the release process 

Clients don’t want to wait a long time for the next releases, but following the software transition plan checklist is essential for preparing the project release. Without a stable new base and correction implementation now, the project won’t be able to scale. As a solution, we may set a lower price of ownership — fix less and spend less time on refinement or support. This will result in a new revenue stream.

The boundary against client dissatisfaction is again drawn in the SLA: we determine the response time to client requests in advance. This way, we guarantee to bear legal responsibility for not fulfilling our side of the contract. Naturally, even a perfect software transition plan can cause some release slowdowns because the period needed to teach a completely new team was not included in the initial development timing.

Overestimating the state of the project

Often, a software transition plan manager makes confident promises that a new team will pull it all off. We at Devlight do not guarantee anything we are unsure of. Responsible managers must ensure their promises with a buffer of time in case of unforeseen obstacles. A negative result of the audit may scare the client away as they were unprepared to see the real state of things. And it is our responsibility to have your back.

So, if you plan to start drawing a software transition plan, mentally prepare yourself for the fact that your app may be doing worse than you thought. The sooner you understand the real situation and decide to fix it, the easier it will be to start. 

Intellectual property

Intellectual property in the IT field is no different from intellectual property in other areas. It allows its owner to get the full benefit of a product that has gone from idea to market launch. Only the owner agrees to copy, modify, distribute, sell or modify the intellectual property during the application transition plan included. Thus, we will need a lot of permissions from the previous vendor before we can start full-scale work.

On the other hand, you shouldn’t worry that we will use the result of your programmers’ creative activity. If our team needs access to any object code protected as a literary work, we will contact the author and ask for permission to do so.

The previous vendor sabotages cooperation

For a software transition plan manager, relationships with another team can be a nightmare. We try to deal with things professionally and aspire to make the transition process as painless as possible for all parties. However, the vendor may sabotage an application transition plan in a different way: incompetence accusations, slowing down the cooperation process or holding back documentation. As a client, you should be ready for such pitfalls.

Using ready libraries or your own archives

Taking a ready-made lib seems like a great solution to speed up the application transition plan. Everything has already been written or invented before the new team arrived. However, projects are growing, getting covered with more and more logic, and sometimes it becomes more difficult to understand them. After several years of project development, any new developer can easily get used to the project, so a clear project architecture is needed. However, some libraries may reduce project maintainability to zero.

If the app was coded using ready solutions, it may be hard for a new vendor to handle it. One of the necessary IT project transition plan steps that is often overlooked is deciding on using own resources only or sticking to the previously made libraries. Choosing either option will lead to a completely new perspective.

The app’s general incapability

Even the best IT project transition plan template will not help if the app is impossible to assess or transfer properly. Outdated apps that have not been taken proper care of will require serious time and money investment. If we notice a great technical gap between the current state of things and what we strive for, we will need a lot of effort to cover this lack. However, we don’t usually refuse projects, so even the worst scenario is not the end of the world!

If you feel that your project needs a software transition plan, we can carry out a surface analysis before you decide to transfer your project to us! 

The post How to Make the Transition of Your Software Project From One Vendor to Another appeared first on Devlight.

About the client & the story behind them

Moneyveo is the biggest microcredit company in Ukraine. They are the main hero of today’s story — the client. Let’s take a closer look at them.

As stated above, Moneyveo is the absolute champion in the MFI\microcredit business in Ukraine. They are completely digital and online; there are no physical branches in Ukraine. But there are a lot of happy clients and loyal employees. The numbers will say it all:

• 44 million dollars — the amount of net income Moneyveo received during the first half of 2021 (the most among competitors) 
• 1.4 million dollars in net profit
• More than 700 employees
• 1.8 Ukrainians regularly use their services
• 6 million loans issued in the service
• 1 billion dollars issued in total

It is a large, modern, and properly organized company. This allowed them to think about diversification and new directions of development.  

Why did the client decide to develop the solution?

Moneyveo’s business model was really effective. In fact, it was one of the fastest-growing on the market. But over time, the pace of growth slowed down, and by August/September 2021, Moneyveo realized that they had hit a glass ceiling. The volume of the market that they had didn’t allow for further expansion. The target audience had exhausted itself. It was no longer possible to grow at such rates as they grew before.

The time had come to look for new solutions. It might be a new business model or differentiation options that would give the business a new push for growth. They weren’t certain at the moment about the direction they were going to move. But they knew for sure that they had to act. 

The obvious decision for the client was to move further into fintech, a promising field in which they already had considerable experience. Their goal was namely to create a neobank that would touch a target audience that was opposite to the one they had at the time. These are customers with medium and high incomes. They also were interested in credit products, like the main target audience of Moneyveo, but on completely different terms.

The client set himself the task of expanding his business, diversifying his product portfolio, and entering a new market.

Pros and cons of current solution

Moneyveo’s main products were loans. It was the main pro of the solution that brought it a big success. But over time, it exhausted itself and didn’t allow for further scaling of the business and the target audience. And thus, it went from being a pro to a con.

The cost of attracting clients was higher than the commission income from one client. And overall, the country’s population was decreasing. The target audience was running out and there were no signs of an influx of new people into the market. There was no one to work with for new clients further. 

Moneyveo is a fully profitable company without creditors, credits, or obligations. It meant that they had a sufficiently powerful resource to experiment, invest in new niches and try to enter new markets. And they decided to stop at neobank.

Users behavior and new trends

Neobank has been the main fintech trend since 2016. The business model and product are clear, and the client understands what it is and how to use it. The cost of attracting a customer is not too high, and the business model calculation is usually very accurate. Especially in Moneyveo ‘s case, as they had a lot of data: how much it would cost to acquire a user, how long they would stay, how much revenue the product would generate, etc.

For the end client, it is a clear, obvious, and expected product, which is why Moneyveo’s team chose neobank and not some other financial product.

Competitive landscape

The neobank market in Ukraine was very competitive at the time (as it is now). But let’s look at the landscape of 2021, when the project was at its very start. 

We had an absolute neobank leader in Ukraine — Monobank. At the time, they had 4 million customers (25% of the market). PrivatBank is a classic player, but they also had their digital solution and had 4 to 6 million customers according to various estimates. There also were products with much smaller volumes: Neobank from Concordbank, Sportbank, Todobank, Izibank, Sense Bank, and Alfa Bank.

Competition in the market was very high. And the market was divided by business models. Some projects were based on lendings and installments (and Moneyveo was among them). They knew their target audience as well as their target audience knew them. Other players were projects with mixed business models such as PrivatBank or AlfaBank. Keeping this image in mind, we understood that in order to enter the market, it was necessary to find a sophisticated solution. On the one hand, it had to be logical, on the other hand, it had to be truly necessary for the user.

Another important point is that the Ukrainian banking market was definitely driven by loans. This was the most obvious and understandable business model — free issuing of a bank card and free issuing of a credit limit with a grace period. This is how it works: you provide a credit limit, and when a person leaves the grace period, they start consistently paying interest for using the credit limit. This results in consistent income from the client to the bank.

Moneyveo had a large credit system and an understanding of how it all worked. They made a key bet on large credit limits with a long grace period as the main competitive advantage, and it has borne fruit. But in order to maintain the growth rates of the company, they had to start looking for new directions of development.

Request to Devlight

How did they come up with the idea?

Our cooperation with Moneyveo started long before this project. We’ve been working with them since 2017 by providing different consultations on the implementation of mobile applications, improving the performance of their mobile applications, implementing design solutions, and more.

The Board of Directors had approved the idea of creating a neobank as a way of diversifying business in August 2021. Right after that, the Moneyveo team contacted us as they knew that we were one of the leaders in neobank development in Ukraine. At first, they requested a series of consultations. At this stage, we conducted a market survey and user profiling for them. This allowed us to take a more focused look at the market opportunities, possibilities for Moneyveo in that market, and, of course, Ukrainian users. The survey helped us to better understand their problems, values, motivations, how the competitors’ products satisfied all these areas, and what can we do to find and occupy our own niche.

Exact request

The plan was to first conduct a series of consultations, and if they proved we share the same values, worldview, and level of competence, and saw one common goal in this project, we would move forward to the next stage, which the discovery stage. This part includes market research, research of customers and competitors, and the development of a future digital product based on the unique value proposition. Other tasks of this stage include:

• making a high-fidelity black-white prototype
• testing prototypes on the target audience in order to make sure we are making the most accurate, understandable, and usable interface for the client, before the development stage
• creating a technical task based on it, which will include the technical and functional parts for the creation of the product

After the discovery stage, the UI and development stage starts.

Customer thoughts and references 

A CPO, a CBDO, and two project managers — representatives of Moneyveo who walked with us all the way, side by side. They had extensive banking expertise and a a strong background in banking, with a deep understanding of the banking market, methodology of the products, and an understanding of the correct formation of certain bank operations and transactions.

What they also had was a vision and a broad understanding of what the new product should be. They needed our expertise to sharpen the blurred vision and combine it with their thoughts and desires and the results of our research. As a result, we had a clear understanding of what the product should be, its user interface, and a mobile application.

The client was actively involved at all stages: whether it was the creation of a value proposition, some discussion, or research — we always worked as one team.

Moneyveo’s team saw the competitiveness of the market as one of the biggest challenges in this project. We could not afford to enter the market with a mediocre product. A product that wouldn’t fully cover the needs of the user. It’s everything or nothing. The expectations of the end user are very high. The market has set a very high bar of competition.

How do we make the right first impression on our end user? All our client’s thoughts and all our work revolved around this question. We cannot create a second impression, and trying to change a bad first impression would be expensive.

How do we make such a great first impression that the client wants to stay with us? This was a key question for the client. It requires strength in many important areas: UX, functionality, product content, and the entire customer experience.

Expectation

Product performance

Moneyveo’s expectations were more than clear. Their goal was for their new neobank to become the #2 neobank in 3 years in Ukraine. We started our work in August 2021, so the plan was to become the #2 neobank in Ukraine in August 2024. 

2.5-3 million active customers were expected, which would determine the product’s performance. The project was expected to profit within 2-2.5 years at most. The business model built by the client’s team confirmed that with the basic scenario that we pictured for ourselves,  2-2.5 years would be an adequate period for payback.

Deadlines

We planned to finish the active session of market research and discovery in 6 months, so the deadline was the middle of February 2022. Our team fully met this deadline. By that time, Moneyveo already had all the artifacts and materials that were agreed upon.

By August 2022, the product was expected to be released.

Devlight’s service

Ownership and living role in conducting discovery and building product value and the product functionality model — this was our service. As well as adaptation of all the artifacts that we got as a result of research to a mobile application by creating interfaces ad designs. At the other stages, our responsibilities would be completely leading the development of the mobile platform on both iOS and Android. And after that further work with the product and development of the product after the release.

Our solution

Research & preparation. Series of meetings with client

An important phase of the preparation for the project was to immerse in the client’s thoughts. To do so, we held 5-6 online meetings with the client to understand their technologies and business model better. It is very important for us to understand that we share the same picture with our clients: how we see competitors, how we evaluate the players and their competitive advantages, how we understand what drives the competition in the market, and how we should develop our product. It is crucial for further success to be on the same page with the client at the very beginning of the cooperation. As such, the final goal of all these consultations and preparatory talks was to develop a common vision of everything: from potential user profiles to product expectations. 

What the clients’ team did at this stage: 

• Commissioned an in-depth socio-demographic study of Ukrainian bank users in 2021, which gave us an understanding of the market. 

This research allowed us to see a detailed list of the costs of Ukrainian bank users, to understand from which banks to which banks users transfer money, and why exactly they choose those banks. We spent 2 meetings discussing this research.

What we did at this stage:

• Prepared a trend canvas synchronization exercise. Before starting our cooperation with the Moneyveo team, we did a synchronization exercise that we do with all clients — we filled out the trend canvas in order to understand the banking market in Ukraine better, synchronize our values, mission, and drivers of the future project, determine the market context in which the future product should exist, and also generate the first ideas.

• Prepared a large study of competitors on the market. Used the Porter Diamond methodology. This allowed us to analyze the market for existing players as well as their strengths and weaknesses.
• Analyzed new players who are just entering the market, their market entry strategies, their expectations about the strengths and weaknesses of competitors, and about the target audience.
• Analyzed substitute products that could replace our product, and other services that users could start using instead of using neobanks.
• Analyzed the competitive forces that exist on the market now and that is driving the market further.

A series of these preparatory synchronizing meetings allowed us to develop a common vision of the current market situation, competitors, and market drivers. With this, we could start moving further to in-depth research. After we were immersed in the thoughts of the client, it was time to immerse in the thoughts of users. 

Solution hypothesis and internal discussions 

Meetings with the Moneyveo team gave us a better understanding of their technology, product, capabilities, vision, and passion. With our extensive experience working with Ukrainian non-banks and our understanding of the market, we realized that we can reach our final goal. We can create a product that is functional and necessary to the user, which would be based on the lending model, but we called it «advanced lending».

The Ukrainian banking market of 2021 was entirely credit oriented.

As of 2021, the Ukrainian market was entirely loan oriented. Users willingly took loans for everything from personal expenses and small household purchases to cars and businesses. Loans were part of the culture. It was normal, an everyday phenomenon that customers were well familiar with.

But offers that existed on the market didn’t satisfy users enough. They were unpersonalized and monolithic. We realized that we can play a competitive fight exactly on this weakness. Depending on their credit score, we can provide various users with flexible credit limits, or large limits with a long grace period. For example, a large credit limit of UAH 100,000 for 100 days was absolutely unique on the market. We would be able to acheive this quite easily due to Moneyveo’s extensive expertise in the credit business.

The ability to effectively work with credit scoring and possible risks was one of the strongest points of Moneyveo’s business model. These strengths allowed us to create a hypothesis of a flexible product credit engine, around which we could build a defining competitive advantage for the product.

Of course, this hypothesis had to be tested on the key target audience. But at this stage, we were already quite sure that it would become the basis of our proposal.

Proposal structure and final discussion with the client 

Before our final handshake, we prepared the proposal for the client. Here’s what it looked like:

• It was assumed that we could build a highly competitive product that the user needed based on working with credit limits.
• We acknowledged that we had to enter the market with a highly functional product, talking about added functionality, as well as the list of functions and its usability. We aimed for absolute leadership in the field. We also understood that we had to release a product that the client would love at first sight. For that, we had to research the best practices of neobanking in Ukraine and the whole world, and then implement these practices in our product.
• We planned to conduct at least 100 in-depth interviews to identify those micro needs of users who are not satisfied with other products. The market is mature and competitive, and the competitors have professional teams that know their job. There were no obvious insights in the market, like some feature that would attract the audience of, for example, gamers, because no one else has it. All products on the market were functional, although they differed slightly in depth, in functionality, and in usability. But, as stated above, the market was at a stage where super-obvious deep insights weren’t easy to find. So we realized that the key to success could be working with micro needs: an additional tick or dot when transferring, shortening some flow by one click, and adding some functionality for small groups. Due to the closure of a large number of such micro needs, and due to usability, we would be able to create a highly competitive product,and thus, be remembered as a necessary and valuable product in the users’ eyes.

The client was completely satisfied with our proposal and strategy, and after our commercial proposal and deadline were accepted, we began our work.

The process of value creation

The process of value creation in this project consisted of a lot of stages. Let’s start with the first one:

Deep competitors research

We already had some info about the market and competitors, but it was time to go even deeper. We analyzed the competitors according to the following criteria:

• analysis of banking products, tariffs, commissions, cashback, and loyalty programs
• a separate comparison of credit products
• the speed of opening an account and the speed of issuing a card to start using
• analysis of the application functionality and its usability 
• analysis of the user acquisition model, retention model, LTV model, and awareness model
• analysis of amount of app downloads, reviews, and other product metrics that we could get using Data.io

Thorough research on the target audience from open market sources, determining users’ needs, pains, motivations, and expectations regarding the future digital product

• Profiling users according to socio-demographic characteristics
• Describing specific customer jobs for each individual profile
• Determining which services currently close specific user jobs
• Analyzing user comments on PlayMarket, AppStore, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages of competitors
• Analyzing the reasons for opening an additional account in another bank
• Study and description of criteria for choosing a new bank (rational and emotional)
• Creating custom hypotheses based on the information obtained above
• Preliminary prioritization of target groups

Conducting exactly 100 in-depth interviews to test, refute, or confirm user hypotheses

• Sorting user hypotheses
• Creating a survey script for in-depth interviews with respondents
• Forming the respondent base
• Choosing a reward for interviewers for conducting an in-depth interview
• Scripting and systematization of data, and development of an analytical note based on surveys

Ideation session, systematization of ideas that we received based on research and in-depth interviews

Through the entire process of interaction and research, some ideas were created by respondents and the team; ideas that came from analyzing all the available sources on the internet. And we collected each of these ideas right away. 

We put them on the dashboard, and it already had more than 170 ideas even before the start of the ideation sessions. Our task was to consider each idea, decide if we want to place them in the product, and come up with more ideas if needed. Each idea went through the process of discussion, brainstorming, analysis, and understanding of its feasibility in the future product. This process reduced the final number of ideas to 25, which would be the basis of the product.

Creating a product’s value proposition and testing the value proposition on respondents

All the preparatory work was completed. The moment had come to carry out the most important exercise — creating a product’s value proposition.

As a basis, we took the Alexander Osterwalder framework. It is a strategic management tool to design, test, build, and manage products and services. Before the start of the workshop, our team completely filled the right side of the value proposition canvas, using the ideas we selected during the ideation session. The results of in-depth user interviews and competitor analysis were included here as well.

The workshop with the client’s team lasted 5 hours. During this time, we managed to generate enough ideas for services, pain relievers, and gain creators to say that the product’s value proposition was ready.

Creation of user stories based on the value proposition, formation of the product backlog

This stage included forming the product backlog based on VPC, sorting using the KANO model, and determining the volume of the first release, and after that, the approval of the first release by the client team.

Since the value proposition of the product was formed, we approved the list of services, functionality, pain relievers, and gain creators of our future neobank. The time had come to form a product backlog and move toward its detailed study.

This work took about 2 weeks. As a result, we received about 640 lines of the product backlog, which had to be sorted to understand its impact on the future product.

When performing such work, we at Devlight usually use the Kanno model, which allows us to analyze each functionality for its purpose in the future digital product:

• must-have functionality
• delighters
• wow effect

After several conversations with the client’s team, we decided on the scope of the first release. It was based on the team’s budget and deadline expectations. Thus, we approved the scope of the first release of the product.

After that, we moved to write user stories and acceptance criteria for each element of the backlog. At Devlight, this type of work is typically done by a team of business analysts, project managers, and quality assurance engineers.

Here is the result of this stage of work:

All work on gathering all the requirements for the future digital product was done by that time, and the phase of active prototyping and usability testing began.

During the prototyping phase, we use the Figma environment, where we create high-fidelity black and white prototypes. It allows us to fully reproduce the user experience of the future digital product and the user’s interaction with it. Each element of the backlog is also worked on in detail by a team of product designers, project managers, and business analysts to create the best possible digital user experience.

At this stage, we usually receive 400-500 black-and-white screens. We combine them into an interactive clickable prototype, and later use them for usability tests with the target audience.

Before the start of the development, we use Maze to fully test the entire interface for user understanding of:

• customer flow
• interface buttons, actions, pop-ups
• general interface convenience

And thus, we get an understanding of how obvious and user-friendly our digital product will be. As a rule, usability testing gives us 3-4 iterations of changes. It allows us to be completely sure that the target audience will perceive our future digital product positively.

At this stage, the black-and-white prototype was agreed upon and approved by the client, and we moved forward to preparing for the engineering work, namely, designing the API methods using a UX-driven ADI design approach. For this, we use the Postman environment. The result of this work gives the entire team comprehensive information about which integrations should be carried out and which data points from the client side should be created for product functionality.

The API project serves as the basis for the entire product development cycle, which is why we at Devlight are extremely careful and meticulous about this stage.

Limitations and challenges

Problem we faced us during the process

The process of research, interaction, and discovery went quite smoothly, as the workflow was built right both from our side and from the side of the client. With a client who showed tolerance and patience, we kept a good work pace. This allowed us to complete the preparatory phase and the discovery phase without any problems.

Biggest challenge we met while creating the solution

Working with respondents was the biggest challenge for us, as it was the largest piece of work. We conducted the exact amount of 100 interviews, but after it was done, we still had work to do: we needed to transcribe them, systematize, and find insights.

Respondents had great motivation to be genuinely involved in the interviewing process as they were rewarded for it with a gift certificate. As respondents were happy to share as much of their thoughts and insights as possible, the interviews lasted a bit longer than we expected. Each interview lasted approximately 1.5 hours.

How we solved the problem

Our decision was to connect additional interviewers to complete the process on time. There were so many materials that we received after this phase that our whole team had to work for several weeks without days off to analyze them and find the insights they needed. But after weeks of hard work, we managed to meet our deadliness and get the results we needed from this stage.

Results and Outcomes 

Solution launch and going live

The deadline for discovery was February 20, 2022. On February 10, the entire process was completed, and the results of it were handed over to the client for approval. 

We presented the results of the discovery to the Moneyveo team with pride. The management board of Moneyveo felt our excitement and was sure that this product had to be built and released. All doubts that existed before that disappeared. We saw the green light in front of us, and we were ready to move forward to the next stage.

Meanwhile, the branding agency was finalizing the work on the development of the name, visuals, key message, and color guideline for the product. We were waiting for the results of their work to start the UI design phase.

But then the war started.

Compliance with expectations

The entire process of interaction with the client was as productive and efficient as possible. We didn’t have any tension, except, maybe, during the interview conducting phase. Due to long inverviews with the respondents, we had to spend twice as much time as was expected. But we still managed to meet the deadline. A little (or not so little) overtime works wonders.

Clients’ feedback

The management board was impressed by our presentation; they stated that the results exceeded their expectations and they recognize the overdelivery we’ve made. They also stated that they wanted to continue moving forward in this project with us. 

We exceeded expectations the most at the prototyping stage. Two experienced designers worked on it, and every time we presented the result, the client was shocked by how well everything worked out.

Some market numbers, proofs, and results

• More than 100 interviews were conducted with users
• The total duration of the interviews was 120 hours
• 250 customer hypotheses were developed
• At the ideation session, we worked on more than 400 different ideas
• Less than 10% of them were chosen to be the basis of the product
• 660 screens for the prototype were developed

Conclusions 

Market & users insights

The market was and still is very competitive, but we managed to find a unique competitive advantage and the niche for our successful work in the market. That was our most important and biggest insight.

After close work with the target audience, we clearly understood that despite there being a lot of different products in the market, clients were still ready to consider and try our future product. Flexible crediting and management of their own credit mechanism is what gave us users’ attention and interest.

What we’ve learned from this project? 

• Satisfying a large number of users’ micro needs can become the driving force of a product.
• Customer interviews should be planned to take at least an hour, preferably for an hour and a half.

How our skills shaped after the case 

Retrospective

We realized that customer interviews require more time. Customers genuinely wanted to share; they were involved in the process and wanted to be a part of the product creation. 

That is why, when working on our next banking projects, we now invest more time in this phase.

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