Tag: app developers

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Events

Developer Conferences 2019: The Roundup

developer conferences

Conferences are the best place to share your passions and get a great booster in trends, knowledge & even hacks. Here is a roundup of developer conferences taking place in 2019 globally.

Keep an eye on these if:

  • you want to upscale your current knowledge and network,
  • meet fellow developers,
  • you are ready to push yourself to build new paths in your career
  • you just want to learn new things & find fresh content on new technologies, latest practices, and innovative techniques.

 

Best Dev Free Conferences: 

AllDayDevOps

AllDayDevOps is a DevOps conference with over 30,000 participants that houses over 120+ sessions spread out between five tracks, and 24 hours, including CI/CD, cloud-native infrastructure, DevSecOps, cultural transformations, and site reliability engineering

  • November 6, 2019
  • Online
  • Free

 

DevConf.IN 2019

DevConf.IN 2019 is the annual Developers’ Conference organized by Red Hat in India. It is meant to provide a platform to the local FOSS community participants to come together and engage in knowledge sharing through technical talks, workshops, panel discussions, and hackathons.

  • August 2-3, 2019
  • Bengaluru, India
  • Free

 

Best Dev Conferences: Series of Worldwide Conferences 

DevOpsDays

DevOpsDays focuses on general DevOps topics and includes curated talks. It also features a spin on the concept of open space, with discussions on software development and IT infrastructure.

  • 29 May – 28 November, 2019
  • Worldwide, including: Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia, and Africa
  • Depending on location (~$150)

 

DevOps World | Jenkins World

DevOps World | Jenkins World is a Jenkins-supported DevOps conference. It focuses on the automation software Jenkins and it welcomes more than 2,500 attendees, making it the largest Jenkins-focused DevOps conference.

  • August 12-15, 2019 & December 2-5, 2019
  • San Fransisco, USA & Lisbon, Portugal
  • $499 – $1.199

 

Monitorama

Monitorama focuses strictly on software and infrastructure monitoring.

  • June 3-5, 2019 & October 21-22, 2019
  • Portland & Baltimore
  • $400

 

DevOps Enterprise Summit Europe & USA

DevOps Enterprise Summit is aimed at leaders of large, complex organizations that are implementing DevOps principles and practices.

  • June 25-27, 2019 in Europe & October 28-30, 2019 in USA
  • London, UK & Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
  • £600-£800 + VAT in Europe & $1,400 to $1,975 in USA

 

KubeCon/CloudNativeCon USA & China

KubeCon (and CloudNativeCon) is a Linux Foundation event focused on the Kubernetes technology.

  • November 18 – 21, 2019 in USA & June 24-26, 2019 in China
  • San Diego, California & Shanghai, China
  • $150 – $1.200 in USA & ￥375 – ￥6000

 

Best Dev Conferences in Europe: 

DevOpsCon

This conference includes an expo floor and addresses topics such as continuous delivery, microservices, docker, cloud computing, and shorter delivery cycles.

  • June 11-14, 2019
  • Berlin, Germany
  • €413-€1,979

 

Devopsdays Amsterdam

devopsdays Amsterdam brings development, operations, QA, InfoSec, management, and leadership together to discuss the culture and tools to make better organizations and products.

  • June 26-28, 2019
  • Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • €99.00 – €249.00

 

CloudNative London

CloudNative covers everything cloud-native, from containers and schedulers to Kubernetes & DevOps.

  • September 25-27
  • London, UK
  • $1,195

 

JAX London

JAX London is a four-day conference for cutting edge software engineers and enterprise-level professionals. Brings together the world’s leading innovators in the fields of JAVA, microservices, continuous delivery, and DevOps.

  • October 7-10, 2019
  • London, UK
  • £399.00  – £649.00

 

JokerConf

Joker is a large international Java conference for Senior Java developers, with more than 1400 participants.

  • October 25-26, 2019
  • Saint Petersburg, Russia
  • $TBA

 

Devoxx Belgium

Devoxx Belgium is a 5-day conference where developers and architects join to examine the latest technology advancements and fascinating ideas, with some of the most inspiring speakers of the sector.

  • November 4 – 8, 2019
  • Antwerp, Belgium
  • €350 – €845

 

dotJS 2019

The world’s largest & sharpest JavaScript conference.

  • December 5-6, 2019
  • Paris, France
  • €299/€199 (2-day/1-day passes)

 

Devternity

The conference that turns developers into architects and engineering leaders.

  • December 6-7, 2019
  • Riga, Latvia
  • €299 – €598

 

Best Conferences in North America: 

Agile + DevOps West

Agile + DevOps West offers a full menu of conference services, including talks from recognized subject-matter experts and training and certification classes the day before the official conference begins.

  • June 2-7, 2019
  • Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
  • $1,595 to $3,995

 

Apple WWDC19

Apple gives you the chance to join thousands of coders, creators,  this summer to create insanely great coding.

  • June 3-7, 2019
  • San Jose, California
  • $1,599 (2019 registration is closed)

 

Velocity Conference

Velocity focuses on real-world best practices for building, deploying, and running complex, distributed applications and systems.

  • June 10-13,2019
  • San Jose, California, USA
  • $1.135 – $1.595

 

Open Source Summit

Open Source Summit is a technical conference where 2,000+ developers, operators, and community leadership professionals collaborate, share information and learn about the latest trends in open technologies, including Linux, containers, cloud computing and more.

  • August 21-23, 2019
  • San Diego, California
  • $950 ($275 hobbyist/academic tickets also available)

 

ApacheCon

In ApacheCon you can learn about the latest innovations in containers, cloud, DevOps, IoT, servers, web frameworks, plus many other Apache projects and communities in a collaborative, vendor-neutral environment.

  • September 9-12, 2019
  • Las Vegas
  • $500 (prices increase after June 27th)

 

Microsoft Ignite

Microsoft created Ignite to consolidate several smaller conferences: Microsoft Management Summit, Microsoft Exchange Conference, SharePoint Conference, Lync Conference, Project Conference, and TechEd.

  • November 2-8
  • Orlando, Florida, USA
  • $ TBA

 

Cybersecurity & Cloud Expo 2019

Arriving in the heart of Silicon Valley, the Cyber Security & Cloud event is co-located with the IoT Tech Expo, AI & Big Data Expo and Blockchain Expo so you can explore the convergence of these technologies in one place.

  • November 13-14, 2019
  • Santa Clara, California
  • $129 – $949 (prices increase after June 29th)

 

AWS re:Invent 2019

Join the AWS re:invent 2019 for deep technical sessions, hands-on bootcamps, hackathons, workshops, chalk talks, keynotes, and fun.

  • December 2-6, 2019
  • Las Vegas
  • $1,799 (2018)

 

Best Dev Conferences in APAC: 

 

SREcon Asia Pacific

SREcon 2019 is a gathering of engineers who care deeply about site reliability, systems engineering and working with complex distributed systems at scale.

  • June 12–14, 2019
  • Singapore
  • $750 – $900

 

Rootconf 2019

Rootconf 2019 is established in the middle of an era of data leaks and vulnerabilities, managing and running large infrastructure systems, architecting for the cloud and simultaneously optimizing costs.

  • 21-22 JUNE 2019
  • Bangalore, India
  • ₹3100 – ₹5800

 

PHPConf.Asia 2019

Can’t stop discussing and arguing about your favorite PHP framework? Join the challenge of defending the various PHP frameworks.

  • June 23-26, 2019
  • Singapore
  • $ TBA

 

RISE:

From the team behind Web Summit comes RISE, a gathering of the world’s biggest companies and most exciting startups. With more than 15,000 attendees and 350+ speakers expected, this is a truly massive event.

  • July 8-11, 2019
  • Hong Kong
  • $680

 

Open Source Summit Japan

Open Source Summit Japan is the leading conference in Japan. I is connecting the open source ecosystem under one roof, providing a forum for technologists and open source industry leaders.

  • July 17-19, 2019
  • Tokyo, Japan
  • $150 – $450

 

DevOps Talks Conference

DevOps Talks Conference (DOTC) brings together DevOps leaders, engineers, and architects who are implementing DevOps principles and practices in Start-Ups and in Leading Enterprise companies.

  • September 10-11, 2019
  • Sydney, Australia
  • $799,33

 

CIO Leaders Summit Indonesia

CIO Summit in Indonesia is the largest and most respected gathering of CIO’s and IT leaders in Jakarta.

  • October 24, 2019
  • Jakarta, Indonesia
  • $ TBA

 

Xilinx Developer Forum

XDF connects software developers and system designers to the deep expertise of Xilinx engineers, partners, and industry leaders. Earn insights and inspiration an get ready to tackle your next breakthrough in an application or system design.

  • December 3 – 4, 2019
  • Beijing, China
  • $ TBA

 

Best Dev Conferences in South America:

 

The Developer’s Conference

The Developer’s Conference (TDC) is the largest event related to software development in Brazil. It is connecting meetup and event organizers, speakers, companies, and sponsors on a single platform, in order to empower the local ecosystem.

  • July 16-20, 2019
  • Sao Paolo, Brazil
  • $TBA

 

Ekoparty Security Conference

Ekoparty Security Conference is the annual IT security event that, due to its unique characteristics and its particular style, has become a benchmark for all of Latin America. The attendees have the chance to learn more about the latest technological innovations, vulnerabilities, and tools.

  • September 25-27, 2019
  • Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • $TBA

 

WorkTech Buenos Aires

WorkTech Buenos Aires is the leading international conference dedicated to the future of work by bringing together international experts, who provide an inspiring and innovative look.

  • October 17, 2019
  • Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • $TBA

 

InfoComm Colombia

InfoComm is the main fair for the Audio, Video, Lighting, Domotics, Networks, Voice and Data industry in the region of Colombia.

  • October 23-25, 2019
  • Bogota, Colombia
  • $TBA

 

The 7th International Conference on Software Engineering Research and Innovation

The purpose of the conference is to bring together practitioners and researchers from academe, industry, and government. The aim is to advance the state of the art in Software Engineering, as well as generating synergy between academy and industry.

  • October 23 – 25, 2019
  • Mexico City, Mexico
  • $TBA

Best Dev Conferences in Middle East & Africa:

 

AI expo Africa

AI Expo Africa is the largest business-focused Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Data Science Community event in Africa.

  • September 4-5th, 2019
  • Cape Town, South Africa
  • R4,500 – R6,500

 

International Conference on Science, Engineering & Technology – ICSET 2019

ICSET 2018 will provide an excellent international forum for sharing knowledge and a result in Science, Engineering & Technology. The goal of the Conference is to provide a platform to share cutting-edge development in the field for both researchers and practitioners.

  • September 25-26, 2019
  • Johannesburg, South Africa
  • $TBA

 

South Africa 2019

The ideal conference for database administration and developer community who use PostgreSQL to get to know each other, exchange ideas and learn about the current features and upcoming trends within PostgreSQL.

  • October 08 – 09, 2019
  • Johannesburg, South Africa
  • $TBA

 

3th edition of International Conference Europe Middle East & North Africa On Information System Technology and Learning Researches

EMENA-ISTL 2019 is the conference that focuses on areas of Information System & Technology, e-Learning and artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and how it applies to the real world.

  • November 21-23, 2019
  • Marrakech, Morocco
  • $TBA

 

Africa Arena

AfricArena accelerates the growth of tech startups and the ecosystems in which they operate by providing a platform where they can share their business model, gain valuable networks and attain funding.

  • December 11-12, 2019
  • Cape Town, South Africa
  • R1,499 – R7,975

 

Did you find this list useful or did we forget any important conferences? Anyhow, let us know your opinion in the comment section!

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Categories
Business Platforms

How to Make More Money with Enterprise Apps

enterprise apps

According to our latest developer research, 20% of mobile app developers primarily target enterprise apps. This decision produces a significant boost to their revenues, with 43% making more than $10K per month versus 19% of those who target consumers above the same revenue level. Similarly at the $100K+ per month revenue level we have 18% of developers who target enterprises versus just 7% of those who target consumers. Aside from selling to businesses, government or non-profit organisations rather than consumers, what are these developers doing differently?

profiling-enterprise-app-devs

Custom apps

Although it’s far from the only thing developers are building to sell to enterprises, 64% of enterprise app developers are making enterprise-specific apps. In some cases this will be apps that are common to a particular vertical that are either re-skinned or sold as part of a service offering. In other cases these will be entirely custom apps designed and built for one company. Automating or streamlining parts of business processes that naturally happen away from a desktop computer via mobile apps can enable significant efficiency savings that businesses are very willing to pay for. Allowing developers to do more of their work whilst mobile can also improve productivity and company efficiency. This type of development can also cover apps that are explicitly designed to help make more money, for example, sales aids, such as product visualisation or demonstration solutions.

The second most popular category for enterprise developers, at 52%, is business & productivity tools. This is likely to include typical cross-vertical apps for functions such as human resources, customer relationship management and accounting. Also, 20% are making more general utilities and 17% are developing communications and social networking apps for enterprises. In the latter case we see [tweetable]some of the innovation in the consumer apps space being brought to the business world[/tweetable].

Globo_03

Better revenue models

Enterprise app developers have a very different mix of revenue models to consumer app developers. By far the most popular revenue model, used by 49% of enterprise developers, is contract work. Part of this is the bespoke app development discussed above but even those selling products into enterprises will often have a significant customization component. In general, the larger the company, the more likely they are to have complex integration needs for a new software product. Subscriptions, in the form of Software-as-a-Service is the fastest growing segment of enterprise software spending and 27% of enterprise app developers are already using this model. Moving software to the cloud, where upgrades and maintenance are continuous and shared with other users, makes a lot of sense for most businesses. Once key software a business uses is in the cloud it’s often highly desirable to have it accessible from mobile devices too, giving SaaS providers with a strong mobile offering a major advantage.

It’s not so surprising that we have to wait for 3rd place in the revenue models list to find app store sales, with 21% of enterprise developers using it. Indeed, although Apple has special volume discount programs for businesses and schools, it’s slightly surprising that the percentage is still so high. For some SaaS offerings, the mobile client or extra utilities to interact with the service are paid extras. This will probably reduce as mobile support becomes the norm rather than a differentiator. App stores for businesses and education are probably still working as discovery mechanisms for some too. This is also likely to reduce, just as the consumer app stores became so full that it’s almost impossible for most apps to get noticed, so will enterprise app stores. Also higher than average in terms of preference for enterprise app developers are selling physical goods and royalties & licensing. Having an app as a component of a larger hardware product is increasingly popular. A tablet can be incorporated into all kinds of kiosk or point of sale systems. Developers can then capture some of the value of the software through higher margins on the hardware. Alternatively, high value software is often sold to enterprises on a per-seat or per-device licensing basis – mobile is no exception. For high value software where sales are typically made directly it’s entirely sensible that this is done as a licensing deal rather than sold through an app store with the store owner taking a cut.

More platforms, much more web

Enterprise app developers are more likely than average to support each of the major platforms. The majority of them support Android and iOS. Most also support at least one other platform too, with the mobile browser and Windows Phone being the top candidates for that. When we look at priorities though, the picture is slightly different. [tweetable]Enterprise developers are slightly more likely to prioritise iOS than average[/tweetable] (with 33% doing so versus 31% for all developers) and slightly less likely to prioritise Android (39% versus 42%). When we consider only full-time professional developers though, these differences are not significant. The major differences are further down the platform mindshare list, with enterprise app developers being significantly more likely to target and prioritise the mobile browser. Also, whilst they are slightly more likely than average to target Windows Phone, they are less likely to prioritise it. Overall the platform picture is one where more platforms must be supported to serve enterprise clients and there’s a heavier emphasis on the web.

Heavier tool users

In order to support more platforms, enterprise app developers turn to cross-platform tools much more frequently than their consumer app developing peers. 41% of them are using cross-platform tools to reduce the cost and complexity of supporting multiple platforms. However, it’s not just cross-platform tools that are more frequently used to create enterprise apps. Other important tools are push notifications (28%), crash reporting (28%) and mobile Backend-as-a-Service (18%). User analytics, at 46%, is still the most popular tool amongst enterprise app developers, as it is in the developer population as a whole, although used slightly less than average. Heavy use of user analytics and crash reporting tools suggests a greater emphasis on quality. Push notifications are key workflow and efficiency enablers, providing access to timely updates and the latest info available at a glance. Last, but not least, mobile Backend-as-a-Service lets developers rapidly build out cloud services to accompany their apps. The features of these BaaS solutions for enterprise apps are likely to become increasingly differentiated from those designed for consumer apps. Most legacy backend systems were designed before mobile access was even a consideration and they often aren’t very suitable for direct interfacing. We expect to see significant growth over the next 5 years or so for solutions that can simplify the integration of legacy systems whilst enabling rapid development of mobile apps. Where we’ve seen consolidation in the consumer tools sector giving rise to mega-SDKs for solving multiple needs, it’s not surprising that several enterprise focused tools vendors are already covering most of these developer needs in a unified package.

Enterprise developers clearly have slightly different tools and tactics from consumer app developers for good reasons. Consumer app developers looking to switch their primary audience in search of better revenues should re-evaluate what they build, how they build it and how they sell it.

Categories
Business

Is the Indie App Opportunity Gone?

The app stores created an opportunity for any developer to build their own products and reach a global audience with them. For some developers this offered the promise of an independent app business, giving them creative control of their work and hopefully a comfortable income. Recently there have been lots of posts (great summary list here) from current and former independent app developers about the state of the market and how much harder it is to earn a living from your own apps. If it’s tough for established indie developers then is it still possible to get started? We’ll look at how the market has changed and share some data on the revenues of over 500 solopreneurs and small indie developers versus their bigger rivals.

indie_game

The indie developer gold rush

[tweetable]A key advantage of small indie app developers is their agility[/tweetable]. They can shift their strategy to take advantage of new opportunities incredibly quickly. The success story that may have started the iOS app gold rush was built before there was an official SDK or App Store. Steve Demeter was working on ATM software for a bank and built the game Trism in his spare time, initially releasing it for free to the jailbreak community. When the App Store launched it was initially a $5 paid download that earned $250,000 in profits in the first two months. Demeter quit his day job to become one of the first full-time iOS indie app developers. Trism was reduced to $3 to stay competitive but went on to sell around 3 million copies. Four months of evenings and weekends, just a few weeks equivalent in full time development, earned a life-changing amount of money.

It’s the overnight success stories like these that continue to drive lottery-like behaviour from some developers. Playing for the outside chance of winning big. Even the media coverage at the time noted the increasing competition with more than 1500 iPhone games available in the App Store! Today’s developers would love so few apps to compete against; there are now hundreds of times as many.

Raising the bar

By 2011 life-changing solo developer success on the app store looked rather different. A $5 app created in a matter of weeks wouldn’t stand a chance. Andreas Illiger is a gifted musician, artist and coder. His Tiny Wings took 7 months of full time effort to create and sold for just $0.99. The increased scale of the platform meant he was able to sell more than 10 million copies. In 2014 it’s debatable whether a solo developer will ever repeat the feat. Monument Valley looks like the modern benchmark for a chart topping paid game title but developer UsTwo primarily serves clients in three countries and has over 100 staff in the London studio that created the game. Sirvo’s Threes! is a better comparison yet it was created by three people over a 14-month period (not full time). Threes! was almost immediately copied with numerous free alternatives to the $1.99 original springing up. Whilst Tiny Wings enjoyed a year as a top 10 game and another two inside the top 50, Threes! is already in danger of heading out of the top 100. [tweetable]There’s just so much free-to-play competition[/tweetable]. Making a more complex game to differentiate from the crowd is just beyond the scope of most small independent developers.

Not just games

Those examples have focussed on games and it’s tempting to think non-game apps might be a different story. However, consider that our data shows only 33% of developers are making games. Those developers collectively earn over 80% of store revenues across iOS and Android. So [tweetable]67% of developers are competing for less than 20% of store revenues[/tweetable].

Lets take a look at what Hunters (our name for developers that are aiming for direct revenues from their apps) can expect to earn at different company sizes.

As you can see, iOS is still a much healthier place for an indie app developer to be than Android but unless your cost of living is very low then the chances of making a comfortable living aren’t great. The bigger developers are taking over the top charts. [tweetable]If you’re outside the top app charts then it’s incredibly hard to get noticed[/tweetable]. Some of the successful smaller developers in our survey already have established apps with a strong history of downloads and ratings that keeps them high in the search results. If you’re just starting out, is it still possible to join them?

Find the right sized niche

The key difference with non-game apps is that they don’t all compete for the same attention. If your indie developer dream is to build the app you really want to use and be richly rewarded for it, you’d better have a fairly unusual problem that you want solved. Jared Sinclair’s Unread is the cautionary tale for those wanting to build for other technology lovers like themselves. An RSS reader (or client for any popular internet activity), however beautifully executed, has to compete with a vast array of free alternatives. Many of those other apps will have been built by hobbyists with no need to make any revenue at all. Anyone wanting to succeed as an indie developer today needs to think like a small business. Trying to compete with hobbyists is as futile as trying to compete with Google.

The right sized niche for an independent app is one that’s small enough not to be interesting to much bigger competitors but big enough to earn a living. Even winning the niche is not going to support a big team. The best niches will need specialist knowledge or intellectual property that make them both unattractive to hobbyists and defensible. Ben Thompson provides a great case study of Pleco, a Chinese dictionary app with some high-value in-app purchases. This example has two key advantages worth replicating: unique licensed content and a natural channel to market outside of the app stores.

What about getting rich?

If that sounds more like hard work than the indie developer dream of becoming an overnight app millionaire, it is. It’s also many, many times more likely to succeed. [tweetable]If you want to be an app millionaire then build contract apps for businesses and grow a team[/tweetable]. Then build some products for enterprise customers in niches that won’t attract immediate competition from much better funded rivals. Or get some venture capital and think really big! If you prefer the dream of being a millionaire, stick to building apps in your spare time. Better yet, buy a lottery ticket, it’s much less effort for about the same odds.

Categories
Business

6 tough questions on app business models and strategies

[VisionMobile’s Andreas Pappas was recently quizzed on app business models, best practices and strategies for developers and entrepreneurs. In this post we’re presenting the most interesting questions and answers from this interview. These are tough questions that all developers and entrepreneurs are faced with in the early stages of their ventures.]

 Print

Q1: I am thinking of developing my own mobile app: What are the main business models I can use to make money and how do I select the right one for my idea?

There are numerous factors to take into account when developing your business model but the two key questions you have to ask are:

  1. What problem am I trying to solve?

  2. How am I solving this problem?

Once you have answered these two questions, you will be in a much better position to develop a business model. A good place to start from is the Business Model Canvas, a simple tool that outlines the key areas that a business model needs to address.

A number of areas within your business model are interdependent. For example, your target market will initially be defined by the problem you are solving. Once you have identified your target market you can start thinking about revenue models, marketing, partnerships, distribution etc.

While it helps to get everything right the first time, it is most likely that you will need to adapt both your product and your business model several times along the way.

From an economics perspective, a large number of successful business models these days are built on two-sided networks and even multi-sided networks. These are usually services that connect businesses to consumers or consumers to consumers, such as, for example AirBnB and eBay type services. These models exhibit powerful network effects if they manage to scale up and allow owners to monetise either one side of the network (e.g. consumers or businesses) or both (e.g. commission-based) depending on the application.

[tweetable]When it comes to making money, there is a variety of revenue models available[/tweetable] and the selection is to some extent dependant on your business model, competition, target market, and exit strategy. There is no one-size-fits-all solution here.

Free services can scale up quickly but monetisation may be problematic. So if your business plan requires scale, think about indirect income sources such as advertising or even VC funding, to get you through the growth phase. Once you’ve achieved scale, an exit is an option you should consider: user acquisition is expensive and larger businesses will frequently opt for acquisitions rather than organic growth.

[tweetable]Advertising may be profitable but requires massive scale and even then, getting it right is tricky[/tweetable]. Advertising is more popular on Android and WP than on iOS, due to the fact that Android users are not as heavy spenders as iOS users.

Obviously app-stores allow developers to monetise their apps directly, via paid downloads or in-app purchases. The latter has become increasingly popular, particularly on iOS and competes favourably against paid-downloads.

Beyond these obvious ones there is a range of options that have to do with the type of app/service that one is providing. For example, apps offering content or services (e.g. news apps or some fitness apps) may utilise a subscription model. This app business model is not easy to pull off though – even popular newspapers are struggling to make money off subscriptions.

 Advertising most popular revenue model

Q2: I am a mobile developer. Which sectors have the most potential in my country?

The good thing about mobile apps is the fact that the market is global and the costs and barriers to reach international markets are very low compared to other, more traditional businesses. So mobile app development should not be seen in the traditional way of “what works in my local market” but instead, from the viewpoint of “what works in the markets that I want/I am well placed to reach”. In short, any sector has potential in your country if your focus is international and it should be international-first.

While this change in mindset is critical, that is not to say that there are no opportunities locally. If one is developing apps that rely on local content or services (e.g. transport services) then highly localised content is required. So it may be easier for local developers to source and access this content, although this is not always the case.

One would think, for example, that local travel/tourism apps would be more successful since they’re optimised for each region. However, the most successful apps in this sector are global because they have scale. [tweetable]For most apps, scale is critical and thinking locally can only get you so far[/tweetable].

Q3: What is more difficult? Coding or marketing the app?

The consensus among developers says marketing. While adopting new languages, frameworks, SDKs and APIs may pose challenges, it is usually a straightforward matter of learning to use new technology. For most developers, marketing has been uncharted territory until the very first app-store appeared. Mobile marketing is quite a different beast to anything that was available before iPhone-era smartphones. Even digital marketing specialists may find the landscape too perplexing since the strategies, practices and even the KPIs are in constant flux. Constant experimentation (in other words trial-and-error) is one of the strategies most frequently used in order to find out what works best in your case.

Q4: What are the best ways to do marketing for my app and acquire users/downloads etc?

😉 See above. The best advice is to try several options and see how they work for your particular case. Before you pay for any advertising or promotion network, try some textbook marketing methods that are still of great value:

#1 Cross-promotion

If you have several apps, make sure you promote your other apps through them. Of course this must be done in a way that will not annoy your users. If you can promote your app through other apps, that’s also a good idea.

#2 Become part of an ecosystem/platform

Make your app work with other apps if this is an option. For example, if you’ve developed a fitness app that could work with Withings or Runkeeper, why not make it work with these and gain more visibility through their own ecosystem?

#3 Do some PR

Let people know about your app. Send emails or press releases to popular websites, newspapers and anyone with a sizeable reach. Most of them may not respond but it’s definitely worth a try and there are several success stories that started this way.

After you’ve done the above, there are plenty of options to try, depending on your marketing budget. If you have determined how valuable each customer is to you, then you can hire a mobile marketing expert to handle all your marketing activities and pay them per customer acquired.

Q5: What are the most common mistakes that mobile app developers do and how can I avoid them?

#1 Failing to see app development as a business

[tweetable]The best technology solution is not good enough without the right business models and execution[/tweetable]. This is one of the best known principles in the area of technology strategy. Developers that lack business experience often fail on the commercial side of the business.

#2 Failing to prepare for success

The nature, scale and pace of the app economy is such that in a matter of days your user based may grow from tens to tens of thousand users. Will your back-end cope? Will you be able to pay for third-party API calls utilised in your app? If not, what may have been initially a great service, will fail due to poor customer experience or you may run out of money. A proper business case should anticipate success.

#3 Failing to pivot/adapt

A common advice in the startup world is “pivot till you die”. If your idea is not working try applying it on a different market, adapt it to the current market, flip it on its head or scrap it altogether and go for something else.

#4 Failing to know and listen to your users

In a market where consumer switching costs are so low and a user can easily replace your app with the competitor’s app, user experience and customer support are critical success factors. Your app will be deleted if it crashes repeatedly, if it is poorly designed, or does not deliver what it says on the tin. Test your app, test it again, use crash-reporting and user-analytics services and keep it up to date, implementing new features and listening to user feedback.

Q6: Is it better to try to innovate with a never-seen app, or is it better to be a follower?

Neither is easy and both can work. The advantage of being a follower is that you learn from others’ mistakes and failures. You may for example see what is not so good or what is missing from an app and fill the gap, or extend it into another market. The downside is that by the time you do it, others will probably be trying to do it too, so there will be more competition. You don’t just need a better app, you also need better execution, i.e. a better business model and marketing, in order to topple the leader.

On the other hand, a new, innovative idea can take you a long way before the competition catches up (although never at a safe distance) but it is more difficult to create a niche and then expand it.

[tweetable]While most developers develop apps they want to use themselves, this should not be the only criterion for developing your ideas[/tweetable]. At the very least, discussing with users, friends or researching the market can get you a long way.

Those developers that extend tried and tested ideas into new markets are usually more successful. That doesn’t mean that you can just copy an app; you have to adapt the business model to the new market at the very least. In the app economy innovation is not limited to technology but extends to business models too.

Successful developers grow by extending to new verticals

Comments? More advice? Feel free to start the conversation.

Andreas Pappas

Follow me on twitter @PappasAndreas

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Appsfire Infographic illustrates once more difficulty to get to the top

Appsfire Infographic

Appsfire Infographic shared figures for the iOS App Store in 2012.

  • The growth in the amount of apps, while still high, seems to be slowing. This might indicate that the market is maturing.
  • Only 1 in 10 apps gets any reasonable traction at all. Only 1 in 1000 manages to get to the top 10 of the App Store. For non-games, only 1 in 1690 reaches the top.
  • The percentage of paid apps has dropped dramatically.