Episode Summary

Getting ready to build an app can be a lengthy and expensive experience. So how do you do it the right way? Last week we talked about the Product Validation Funnel. Testing, validating, and understanding your target market are essential before building anything.

How do you know when you’re ready? When you’ve done the legwork to secure validation for your app or feature. You’ve tested it with consumers, you’ve created an MVP, and you know with little doubt that this app will take hold in your market.

Below you’ll find some handy tools to help you on your journey, but as always – we’re here to help and can walk you through some of these exercises. Tune into this weeks episode!

Handy Tools To Help You Build an App (a working list)

Business Model CanvasProduct Vision Board

Full Transcript

Erin Srebinski: [00:00:00] Today we’re talking about if you’re ready to build an app. How do you know? What questions do you need to ask? What prep should you do ahead of time? There’s a lot that goes into it. It’s usually a relatively big investment.

Josh, how do you know if you’re ready to build an app?

Josh Barker: [00:00:26] Every custom software development project is really understanding the why. What are they trying to achieve? That’s the first question we ask. Very much a sub question under the why is, should you build an app?  We asked that question with such kind hearted intentions to make sure you’re investing your money in the right spot. That’s where we truly  act like a good partner of helping them go through that Product Validation Funnel.

Validating their product idea prior to just going out and building the thing.  A lot of times when we meet with people, what we’ll do is we’ll analyze where are they in the funnel? We meet you where you’re at and then we help you get where you want to go.

If you come to the table with, this is an idea or a concept, you can look at what kind of assumptions they’re making, but what kind of validation have they received?

So a good example of not starting at the top would be if you have a website for a proven organization. There’s a lot of innovation behind just a website. So for us, when we go through a website project, if it’s a client that has an existing business, it’s more of an innovation optimization and writing out the assumptions and then narrowing that down. So they’re actually further down. Should you build this website? The answer is almost an obvious. Yes. Right? I think everyone could say, well, you’re an existing business. You don’t have to prove whether or not you should have a website.

If you’re talking about a product that has an unknown track record in the marketplace , a lot of people will come to the table and say, ” I want to build this thing.” And here’s some proof that the market needs it and they’ll point to other products in the market.

That’s an area where we’ll sit down and we’ll go through the assumptions again and make sure they understand when you’re building this thing, you’re making the assumptions that there is room in the market for another player.