Business owners are now investing in a variety of digital products to boost their sales online. More and more companies are now interested in mobile app development to take advantage of advancements in the mobile technology industry. However, many of them fail to reach their intended market and some don’t even reach the launch stage. The solution has always been to set up digital products for success in the long term.
The best way to build a digital product for long term success is to know beforehand some of the problems that can arise during the development process. Asking the right questions and making vital considerations during the discovery stage will help in identifying common issues and coming up with a mitigation strategy to address that will address it when it occurs.
Experts in mobile app development have identified some post-launch problems that can easily render your digital product dead on arrival (DOA). Some of the indicators of a product that is on its path to fail are poor reviews, and less use of the solution. Most of these problems stem from the product discovery or ideation stage.
Here are some possible problems to take into consideration and ways you can use to build your digital product for long term success
Poor Identification of Requirements
Failing to identify the basic requirement of your digital product can be a source of problems in the development phase. You need to fully estimate the development efforts, equipment, budget, technology, features, and other things that are needed to fuel the process.
Your mobile app development should flow without any hiccups, ensuring a smooth transition from one stage of the process to another. Poorly identified requirements can lead to confusion in the division of labor and numerous change management events, which leads to delay in launching your product.
What you need for your digital product development should be influenced by two things: market research and consumer needs. Working with a professional developer will help you develop the best product in the market. Therefore, before you embark on your journey of giving life to your idea, you need to determine what you need to put you on a successful path.
Lack of Support from Various Stakeholders
Developing a digital product involves many people who contribute in various ways. Such projects need financial, expert, and data support. Failing to provide the necessary development resources can cripple your progress.
Lack of financial support is common with startups, which are always struggling to remain relevant in the market and at the same time raise funds to support the digital product idea. Lack of expert advice and delivery from the members of the development team can also be seen as lack of support.
Key stakeholders have the greatest influence; their support can crush and bury the product or it can take it to the next level. You and your team need all the support you can find to take the project through all the necessary steps of digital product development.
Division of Ideas Among the Stakeholders
A house divided against itself cannot stand; similarly, stakeholders that do not share similar vision, goals, interests, and opinions will kill the product idea. As much as having different opinions and contributions to the product idea is relevant in the discovery stage, at one point everyone should be on the same page during development.
Stakeholders should agree on the core functions and features of the product before the development process starts. Digital Product developments in small to big companies suffer from senior stakeholders showing off their influence; the results of which suffocate the entire project due to limited support and funding.
The best solution to solving the problem of having divided views on the product idea is working together with the stakeholders and narrow down the focus to key features and core functions. Brainstorming and voting are two of the most important tools you can use to solve this problem.
Overdoing Your Product Development
This situation has two sides: one that deals with perfectionism and the other that focuses on developing substandard products. If you are doing too much or too little in regards to product development, then you are facing this problem.
All projects that deal with mobile app development are bound by four constraints: time, scope, cost, and quality. Changing one of the determining factors can affect the rest; meaning adding more features in your digital product design leads to launch delays, an increase in budget, and more work.
The biggest challenge in digital product development is balancing all four constraints. With a good plan and key value propositions will prepare you for long term success. Sometimes going for a minimum viable product (MVP) may not be a suitable solution for your company.
Missing Your Window of Opportunity
Failure to build your digital product within a specified timeline can make you miss your opportunity to capture the market. Most investors fail to see the type of competition they have considering that there are more than 3 million apps currently available on app stores.
Timing is a crucial piece in digital product development especially when the solution is intended for a growing and highly competitive market. Failing to create a strategic timeline to launch your product can negatively impact the success of your mobile app development goals.
Failure to create a timeline for your mobile app development process and delay in launching your product leaves you in the hands of new technologies and a decrease in interest of your app. The solution to this problem is to work with timely goals that are based on market research.
Conclusion
We learn that the most important thing in digital product development is identifying product needs, increasing stakeholder support and contribution, balancing developmental constraints, and good timing. Always work to solve these problems first before you begin developing your mobile app, web app, or any other form of digital product.
About 5280 Software LLC:
5280 Software LLC, located in Denver, Colorado is a premier software development firm. We have worked with a variety of clients over the years. Our expert team of developers have helped small to medium sized businesses, startups, as well as enterprise level clients such as RingCentral. If you are looking to build a mobile app, we can deliver flawless apple ios mobile apps as well as android mobile apps. These apps can be designed for smartphones, ipad and android tablets, wearable such as smart watches, and even smart TVs. The power of a well designed app to gain new customers is key in today’s market. We help execute your app development to perfection. A website is powerful tool for branding and showcasing the products or services you offer. We can build you a WordPress, E-Commerce, or custom coded website at competitive prices.
Once the site is launched, or if you already have a website, we offer Search Engine Optimization Services to achieve higher search engine rankings. Contact us today with your website’s URL and we will put together a free SEO analysis of your site with pricing and timeline to get your site ranked on the first page of Google and other search engines. Our experienced and dedicated team has a proven track record and provide regular reporting on tasks completed and keyword movements during your SEO project. We help businesses and companies gain rankings on all the major search engines.
Many businesses use multiple software packages and services to run their business. We offer custom software development services to streamline your business process. We have developed custom dashboards that can pull data from multiple points and display all this information in one place. Do you use an off the shelf CRM? 5280 Software LLC can customize this CRM or even build a custom CRM from the ground up based on your requirements. If you need a custom Windows desktop or Mac desktop application, feel free to reach out to us.
We can improve the understanding of your business and marketing outreach through the use of analytics. We offer a complete solution with the latest technologies to solve your obstacles and scale your customer base. From the start of any project (and at every stage, step, phase, and release) we focus on the client and always ask for feedback while we develop the project. Creating a quality solution for a business or startup is our end goal. Our strategy and processes are based on solid communication with our clients.
All projects are built according to a clearly defined scope of work. If you need assistance with scope creation, we offer this as a service. This scope of work will be used in the provided development contract. Make sure whomever you hire for your project provides you a development contract with clearly defined pricing, development timeline, payment schedule, and deliverables. We would like to learn about your project and help refine your scope of work.
If you have an idea for a mobile app, please emails us your full name or company name and we will send you a signed NDA. We send NDAs to all potential clients to guarantee your ideas and documents will be kept in confidence. Once an NDA is in place, feel free to book a free discovery call. You can also fill out our app development questionnaire to share the details of your project before your call. We are the leading firm specializing in building solutions for the web, iphones and other smart devices including IOT. Our company can create a custom solution on a variety of platforms using the most current popular programming languages. Weather it is a cross platform hybrid app or a natively programmed solution, we have you covered!
We look forward to speaking with you about your project. Learn why clients around the world trust working with 5280 Software LLC. We support our clients from mockups, sketch, wireframes, and graphic design, development, product launch and ASO when we publish your app, and even code updates at a competitive price point. Feel free to visit us on our social sites Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or send us a LinkedIn connection request to learn about our offers to get answers to your questions. Let us turn your idea into reality!
