9 Key Requirements to Consider Before Building Your App

To say that mobile app development is a complex process might be an understatement. Taking an idea to launch takes months but even when it launches, your center of attention will be just one of nearly 100,000 new app releases that month.

Standing out in that noise is difficult. You need a genuinely audience-focused mobile app that engages your users and solves a core need in ways your competitors simply don't. At the same time, you also need to maximize your chances of app success to ensure that all of the work and budget put into the development was worth the investment. 

Success may never be truly guaranteed, but taking the right steps can go a long way toward ensuring a positive ROI. These 9 key requirements can help you get there, covering all the bases as you look to build an app that helps you generate revenue and helps your business grow.

1. Define the Purpose of Your App

Do you truly need an app? It's a seemingly simple question with a surprisingly complex answer. Ask yourself why your business needs that app, and you can begin to develop its true purpose.

In other words, simply building an app because mobile device usage is on the rise or all your competitors have one is not enough. Instead, you need to define exactly why your app needs to exist, particularly from your audience's perspective.

The best and most successful mobile apps solve key audience needs. More specifically, they either solve different needs than current apps on the market, or solve existing needs in different and more beneficial ways. Every app idea has to be built based on that consideration, which is a core requirement for making sure that your audience will actively choose to download and use your app.

2. Know Your Target Audience

To know the audience need your app can solve, you need to know your audience. Both basic demographic insights and more nuanced behavioral and interest-based research can help you understand how they engage on mobile devices, what their preferences are, and more. 

More specifically, be prepared to define:

• Your audience's typical age range and gender make-up
• Professional and personal nuances, like income level and family situation
• The mobile devices they use to spend time online, and how they use them
• Other apps they typically use, both to spend time in general and within your industry in particular
• Current and common frustrations they have with mobile apps
• And more

The more you learn about your audience, the better. Every variable combines to build a comprehensive picture of what will become the future users of your mobile app. The better you know them, the more you can tailor core functionality, features, and interface to their needs and preferences.

3. Outline Your Platform Compatibility Needs

Knowing your audience can also help you with the next important pre-development requirement: understanding exactly what platforms your app needs to be built for and compatible with. Here, the most common choices are Apple and Android, which combine to own more than 97% of the app operating system market share around the world.

Building your app for Android devices gets you into the hands of more users, thanks to a global market share of just over 70% in 2022. On the other hand, Apple users are younger and more affluent, and more specifically concerned about device and data security than their Android counterparts. 

Ultimately, neither choice is wrong. But the platforms are different enough that knowing what to focus on early can make a significant difference in your app's success. For instance, Android app development tends to be more customizable because of the open-source operating system on which it's built.

4. Determine Necessary Integrations

No mobile app exists in isolation. Whether it's the core of your business or just adds to it, the product you build will need to be integrated into your business processes and other channels. Knowing what those integrations look like early on can help to make sure that those nuances are considered throughout the development cycle.

For example, you might want to integrate your mobile app with your website, allowing for easy movement back and forth depending on which task is more functional on either platform. You might also need to integrate backend processes, like connecting your app to your existing e-commerce payment system or contact database.

Each of these and any other integrations require adjusting the development process accordingly. Noting what's needed before that process starts helps to avoid confusion, complications, and delays down the road.

5. Specify Your Outsourcing Needs

The best way to build your app depends entirely on your internal capabilities. You'll have plenty of options, including:

• Working entirely through your in-house development team
• Using an app template or online platform to create your app
• Outsourcing the entire process to a custom app developer
• A hybrid of the above options, like combining in-house and custom outsourced app development

Each of these options comes with plenty of advantages and downsides. Ultimately, your choice should be entirely dependent on your situation and, more specifically, your internal development capabilities.

Related: The 4 Top Mobile App Development Services for Startups

Start by outlining your exact internal capabilities, and how they line up with all the required competencies like market research, strategic planning, wireframing, MVP building, development, and launch optimization. Where you fall short is where a custom app development partner makes sense, giving you the expertise you need to build a great app.

6. Set Your Budget

Developing a mobile app is a significant investment, though the nature and size of that investment depend entirely on the type of platform you're trying to build. According to one study, those costs range from $16,000 to more than $100,000 depending on the functionality and features, along with the number of platforms for which the app has to be developed.  

That wide range can make it difficult to scope your app if you don't yet know what exactly you're looking for. It's also why setting your budget early can play a significant role in making the development process—and the app as a whole—successful and worth the investment.

Any app developer you work with will ask for the budget you have available, or scope their work with the features you want in mind. The more information they have about your budget, the better. Set it early to avoid potential complications later in the process.

7. Understand Your Timeline

You probably already know to plan on a few months for the development process. Still, it helps to have a more specific idea in mind of what that development timeline looks like as you start to move from idea to finished product in the app store.

Expect to take between five and 12 months to develop your app. Integrating an outsourced development company with your own team is on the long end of that equation, while an entirely outsourced process takes between five and nine months. Some of the steps to keep in mind include:

• Design and discovery: 4-6 weeks
• Project build: 3-6 months
• Launch prep and execution: 2-4 weeks

Keep that timeline in mind as you plan with variables like your budget and internal capabilities. 

8. Plan Ahead for Future Maintenance

No mobile app is ever a finished product. While the version you launch with should have bugs ironed out and offer a great user experience, changes in expectations and technical capabilities over time will still require regular maintenance and updates to your app that should be planned for even before you launch. 

Related: 10 Reasons Why Mobile App Maintenance is Important

Planning ahead ensures that you don't launch with a great app, only to have it become irrelevant and ineffective within a short period of time. That means reserving around 20% of the project budget for app maintenance, while also ensuring that you have continued expertise on your side.

Whether you have an in-house developer who can update your app or continue to work with an external firm, build your maintenance plan now to ensure the long-term viability of your mobile app. 

9. Establish App Success Criteria

It's time to come full circle. We've discussed defining the purpose of your app as the first requirement of building a great mobile app; now, it's time to ensure that you can track the app's success based on that purpose.

Ask yourself: what would make your app successful, and how will you measure that success? You might be looking to monetize app features, drive more e-commerce sales, generate leads, or simply engage your audience. Knowing that core success criterion and any related criteria will help you define the mobile app KPIs and metrics you'll use to track success once the app launches. 

Knowing these metrics and criteria also means you can optimize your development process accordingly. Put simply, if you know what success looks like, you can optimize every piece of your app to drive toward that success.

Plan Ahead to Prepare Your Mobile App for Success

Developing your mobile app is a massive project that will take significant attention, expertise, time, and budget. A positive return on your investment is essential, which is why taking the right steps toward a successful development process becomes so essential.

From defining the purpose and target audience of your app to planning ahead for success measures and future maintenance, these nine requirements can help you prepare, allowing you to develop the right idea, build the right app, and find the right partner to get it all done in time and on budget.

That's where we come in. At Milo Mobile, we pride ourselves in building mobile apps designed to not just satisfy core business requirements, but solve key audience needs. Work with us, and you'll gain a true strategic partner that brings extensive dedicated expertise and isn't afraid to push back when we think an idea or decision isn't in your best interest.

Contact us to book a free, 30-minute consultation today. Come prepared with the requirements mentioned in this guide, or allow us to help you with any part of the process—from audience research to developing your app idea. No commitment needed, just an honest conversation about the mobile app development process and a potential partnership.