What do the world’s most successful apps have in common?  Our research team have spent some time digging into this question and here is what we have found. Your awesome app idea has a much greater probability of success if it incorporates these 5 elements of success:

1. Meet a Universal Need:

A universal need is something that transcends culture, language, location and time.  These are things which make us all human beings, like:

• – The need for food and shelter
• – The need for safety and security
• – The need for connection and belonging
• – The need for recognition and appreciation
• – The need for skill mastery, achievement and freedom

For example, social networking and instant messenger apps are among the most successful category because they full fill the need for connection and belonging. Gaming apps help people feel skill mastery and give a sense of achievement. Sharing apps, like AirBnB and Uber, help people to save money and make money, and in doing so help meet their need for financial security and freedom.

2. Tap into the Habit Loop:

All successful apps tap into the human operating system by making some element of their app part of a regular routine for its users – in many cases, this leverages the first element of meeting a universal need. Successful apps utilise the habit loop of cue-routine-reward. They know and define the triggers or cues for users to use their app and include clear rewards for the habit. Read Sticky Apps: Decoding the Habit Loop to Ensure Success for more info on the Habit Loop for apps.

3. Incorporate Network Effects and Viral Loops:

The network effect is the phenomenon where a product becomes more valuable and useful when more people use it (this also plays an important role in your chosen revenue model, see next element). Facebook is great when all your friends are in there with you. Whatsapp is cool when all your friends, local and international, are using it as it makes communication quicker and easier. This motivates users to invite their contacts to use these app.

A viral loop is created when there is a clear need or incentive for 1 user to invite other users. The best apps build in incentives for their users to invite more users. Dropbox offers free storage when a user invites a friend to use Dropbox.  Uber gives you taxi credit when you share your experience with your friends and invite them to use it. AirBnB offers Hosts money for introducing new hosts to AirBnB. What viral loop can you create to leverage the network effect?

4. Discover the Right Revenue Model:

Revenue split, subscription, in-app advertising and in-app purchases are the 4 most successful revenue models. Which model is the best fit for your app?

• – Revenue Split: apps that make the most money are the ones which helps others make a lot of money – for a small cut. These app companies help their customers make money, and in doing so, they split the revenue. Uber takes a 25% commission, AirBnB takes a 6 to 12% commission and Spotify up to 30% commission.
• – In-App Advertising: This is when you build an audience (see the Network Effect) and then charge advertisers for clicks and views by your users. Facebook makes billions of dollars every month from advertisement revenue.
• – Subscription: This is where you charge an ongoing fee for the service your app offers. Lumosity, a cognitive games app that focuses on improving different functions of your brain, provides access to the app’s brain games for an annual fee.
• – In-App Purchases: Make your app free and have valuable features (ensure Habit Loop is in your app) within your app for users to buy. Candy Crush Saga is a multi-billion dollar app which uses in-app purchases with only a 3% conversion rate. This demonstrates the power of the previous elements of Human Need, Habit Loop and Network Effects. Read Ways to Make Tons of Money from Apps for detailed information on revenue models you can leverage for your app’s success.

 5. Focus on Your Niche:

Yes, we know, everyone wants their app to be globally dominant, but the starting point often requires focus on a particular niche and/or market. For example, Facebook initially had all its focus on Universities. Amazon was only selling books and then once it had the market, it started selling all products. This will allow you to learn fast and pivot (read Top Secret of Success: Billion Dollar Apps), market more effectively and build a proven model ready to scale. Make sure you have a clear niche target market you can get started with as it is through a targeted approach that you will learn what your users need and improve the success factor of your app.

How many of these items does your idea tick?  The more, the better.  Comment below if you are interested in our process for creating and installing these elements of success into your app.

If you are outsourcing your app development to a developer, there are two aspects of app quality you must know about:

1. Functional Quality – the quality you can see, and;
2. Structural Quality – the quality you cannot see but acts as the foundation of your app

Most developers don’t want you to know about the second type. Let’s explore what that means for your app.
Functional quality is how well the app looks (appears visually) and works (buttons, sliders, etc). Functional quality focuses on whether the app performs against the documented features and requirements for your app.

Lack of functional quality shows up through poor UI and features that don’t work as they should. For the most part, you report these issues to your developer and they fix it.

Functional quality relies primarily on how well the developer understands the app requirements and, after fully developed, how well the app is tested. With a myriad of mobile devices, operating systems, and browsers, the app must be tested in multiple environments to ensure functional quality.

Structural quality, on the other hand, is not visible to you or to users as it forms the foundation upon which your app is built. Structural quality it is based on how good your developer is. If you are working with a single developer you will only get the knowledge and experience of that one person, if you are working with a development partner, they typically have an architect who oversees the structural aspect of the app. Therefore, when it comes to Structural quality and whether you use a freelance developer or a development partner really depends on how much risk tolerance you have (ie individual developer = higher risk of future problems).

Given many people have either been part of the home building or renovating process than have built an app, and given app development can be as personal a journey to their creators as their home is, it is useful to use home development as an analogy for your app quality development.

If functional quality is building your house to your specifications like a certain number of rooms, placement of windows, colours, fittings, measurements, etc., then structural quality is a strong and reliable the foundation and walls that support your cherished home.

Bad structural quality can have a very negative impact on the cost and time required to maintain your app through time. It may not be a big problem when your app is initially launched (or it may) but as you proceed with future updates, enhancements and general maintenance to the app, bad quality may show up in following ways:

1. Inconsistent App Bugs – certain bugs are hard to reproduce in any given scenario; the bug appears random

2. Bug Dominos – fixing one bug may lead to one or more bugs throughout the app

3. Big effort for Small change – small changes take way too long to fix because the app’s foundation is unsteady and hard to debug

4. App Crash- the app works fine most of the time, but it can crash suddenly for no known reason

These issues arise often times because the developer hasn’t followed a proper framework or app architecture.

In these instances, there may be little code documentation or code structure to identify different elements and features of your app. The absence of architecture and documentation make it very difficult for a new developer to understand your app and make changes to it when you decide you need another developer or yours disappears on your through time.

Trust that the chances are high that you will change developers a few times during the lifetime of your app as it grows and changes in line with your user demands. So how do you assess the code quality of your developer and ensure a solid foundation?

1. Talk to their clients. Ask them if they faced those above symptoms of bad code while they worked with the developer you are assessing.

2. Have a look at the code – A good code should look neat like a nice formatted word doc versus a word doc with text all over the place. You should be able to see English comments in different places explaining the code and the changes made. You will see white spaces, meaningful names used for variables and functions within the code

3. Ask the developer what framework and architecture they use in their coding. Ask them what is their process/tools for maintaining code versions.

4. Get a developer friend to review their code.

If you’d like an experienced app developer to take a look at your app code for testing or to give their opinions, simply call us today on 1300 781 794