Are you exploring how to create an app from scratch? But have no idea what you actually need and how to execute this idea?
Do you have an excellent app idea and want to shape it into life?
Well! No need to worry. I have written this blog precisely to help you with this dilemma.
There is an app for everything, from business, fitness, lifestyle, and entertainment to utility, productivity, education, and management. In short, you can build an app for anything you can think of.
How to build an application from scratch is the fundamental question that every vendor, business owner, and startup keeps asking when they are planning a new venture.
So, before making a final decision on investing in an app, take a little time off to read this article, as it explains all your questions in detail about how to create an app from scratch.
The current generation of smartphones offers more facilities than just making calls and sending SMSs. People use smartphones to avail physical services and products in a blink of an eye. Therefore, businesses also need to include this into their core marketing strategy to woo the ever-growing mobile user population.
The business strategies should specifically target mobile customers to stay on top of the competition and earn business profits.
To understand its significance in your business, we have gathered some interesting facts.
Let’s explore;
Mobile App Market: Facts, Figures and Market Share
Before we dive deep into how to build an app from scratch, let’s go through some interesting findings by Statista.
Let’s explore these stats in detail by taking a look at the images given below;
While a report says that 42% of all sales in the UK by 2024 will be done through mobile apps, business apps will be the core elements for every online business to drive sales. In such circumstances, creating apps for your business will help you not just with a competitive edge but also provides lots of marketing opportunities.
Should You Develop a Mobile and Web Application from Scratch for your Business?
Did you know users spend 3.1 hours a day on their mobile worldwide while in the USA? It increases to 4 hours a day (with 88% of their time within apps).
Given that half of the world’s population have smartphones and spend more time surfing, mostly with apps, having a business idea on a mobile platform matters the most. Creating a web or mobile app brings a pool of possibilities to the major market players, new-age startups (including the veteran ones), and SMEs (Small Medium Enterprises).
So, without a doubt, developing an app for your business is as essential as it is starting your business in the first place. If you want to know how to make an app from scratch or develop a mobile app for your business, then this guide is a perfect search for you.
How to Create an App from Scratch —A Complete Guide
Nowadays, creating a mobile or web app has become a common phenomenon, and anyone can build an app in just a matter of time. But, creating a functional and successful app is still a complex task to achieve.
You need to follow plenty of technological protocols to build a new mobile or web app that is helpful for users and for your business.
To help you with comprehensive solutions, I have divided the entire mobile app development process into three main sections:
So, let’s dig deeper into them before you connect with a mobile app development services of a company or individual contractors.
Pre-Development Phase
As we have divided this into three main sections, the first will help you understand what necessary measures you should take while exploring the idea to create an app from scratch. So, here we go;
1: Brainstorm with an app idea/set your goal
Having a healthy discussion paves a way to create a user-friendly mobile application and helps you become more optimistic and give the right direction to your business plan before you begin. You need to ask a few questions to yourself before finalizing your app idea;
You can take the help of your business partners, friends, or experts in your field to find the best possible answers and, in turn, the right business idea.
“Discuss the goal that is measurable and conceivable (for short and long term).”
Pen down whatever ideas you come up with, discuss them again with the aim to create a successful app. Write down everything on paper for a better perspective.
2: Do Some Market Research
You may probably be done with the theoretical stuff, and now it’s time to validate your theories and what output you have come up with. An easier way to validate your ideas is to conduct accurate market research.
All your questions regarding how to build an application from scratch will have answers here. Most importantly, you will come to know if there is enough potential for your app in the market.
Going in blind without market research may land you in trouble, and you may waste your time, money, and resources on an app idea that doesn’t have enough potential or need in the market.
If you plan to begin with an app-based business, you need to research what apps people are attracted to and for what purposes.
Here’s an infographic by Statista to lead you in the right direction with your research:
The image shows the most popular mobile app categories with the best market reach. You can do similar research based on the specific region where you live or plan to operate.
Find more statistics at Statista
Besides, if you are exploring how to build an app from scratch for your existing business, you should also talk to your current customers. Ask them what they would want in the app; what features and functionalities will help them use your products or services effortlessly.
What better way to serve your customers than providing them with exactly what they are looking for.
3: Research Your Competitors
Once you are done with market research, the next step is to explore your existing competitors in the market with similar products, services, or business ideas. If you find any, study them, their business model, revenue streams, marketing strategies, etc.
While doing competitor research, focus on the given points;
Having peeped through your competitors’ window, you will know exactly what to do and what not to do while building an app from scratch for your own business.
4: Choose the Right Technology Partner
As the next steps become more technical and development-oriented, you need to find a proficient development partner. There are two ways to find a technology partner;
Building your own in-house development team: It’s good to have your own in-house team to create an app from scratch. But, this approach requires a lot of money, resources, and infrastructure. Something a new startup or Small and medium enterprises can’t afford.
You need to hire a tech team headed by an experienced CTO. Besides, you need to focus on management, like hiring human resources, gathering other resources for projects (hardware, software, infrastructure.)
Find an outsourced development partner: Finding an outsourcing partner can help you save a fortune in money, time, and responsibilities. All obstacles that you face with the in-house team simply vanish with outsourcing.
However, you need to make sure that you are not hiring individual contractors or freelancers. You must connect with a reputed mobile app development company like Excellent Webworld that takes responsibility for every project and client that they accept.
With this approach, you don’t need to worry about infrastructure, resources, and management, as your outsourcing partner will manage everything.
5: Choose Development Platforms
With the right technical partner at your side, the next thing you have to consider is what development platforms you want to build your app for.
Your options here are;
Mobile Platform: When it comes to developing an app from scratch for a mobile platform, you have two options that you can choose based on the project needs.
Naive app development: Native development is about creating apps using programming languages adopted for a particular platform. For example, if you want to build an app from scratch and launch it across iOS and Android platforms, you need to create two separate apps for each platform.
So, you need two different teams of developers to maintain the codebase across both platforms.
Hybrid app development: Hybrid or cross-platform development approach is a cost-effective solution and beneficial to initiate if you are tight on a budget yet want to reach multiple app platforms.
It enables you to build a single app and deploy it across multiple platforms. For example, a single developer or a development team can create apps from scratch using hybrid technologies like React Native, Flutter, Kotlin, Ionic, etc.
All you need to do is hire mobile app developers with a good understanding, expertise, and experience in hybrid development or native development.
Web Platform: Some businesses choose to build apps for both platforms —mobile and web to target millions of users across multiple platforms. You can consider developing web apps if you have flexible budget options.
Developing web apps will enable you to target the audiences who spend most of their time with P.C. or laptops. And, when you create web apps, you may consider developing Progressive Web Apps (PWA) that provide a seamless user experience across both mobile and desktop devices.
Developing PWA apps will save your time and cost as it is built using standard web technologies, such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Meanwhile, It facilitates users (who want to save ROM and RAM of their devices) with app-like feeling in less internet consumption. Customers can get a fast, installable, and engaging experience across web and mobile platforms.
Note: If confused with any of these technical steps, you can connect with our CTO or project managers, and they will help you with all your needs.
6: Brainstorm on Technical Specifications
You need an expert team to brainstorm “tech specs” to dig deeper into your apps’ inner workings. Technology specifications help you with added insights that developers work out by going through specific technology stacks that meet all your app needs in the best cost and timeline.
Tech specifications help businesses see through the goals, clears away the obstacles, and show you how to develop an app from scratch. More importantly, you clearly know if your goal can be achieved with a specific technology stack and save you thousands of dollars and months of time by leading you with the right tech stacks for your project.
7: Set Project Milestones
Setting milestones and acceptance criteria may help you divide the development process into smaller chunks and efficiently track progress and make fair installment payments. It will help you focus on who is working on what and when the team of developers will complete each module.
Instead of looking at one larger project at a time, focusing on smaller bits divided into many segments will make your job easier. This approach makes it easier to maintain the smooth development process and build outstanding mobile and web applications from scratch.
Companies with a strong development team utilize scrum methodologies (i.e.) agile development, to deliver value to clients throughout project development.
Development Phase
Let’s create a web app from scratch now. All the pre-development tasks are done, and now it’s time to get into the ring with the development phase. You have plenty of things to look into in this phase as well.
8: Sketch your idea, create a prototyping/wireframing
Now, let’s give a form to your business idea by creating prototypes or wireframes. Wireframing involves no rocket science, it’s easy to make, and you can do it yourself. But proper wireframing that can be converted into a stunning app does need the assistance of experienced app designers.
The prototype is the skeleton of your mobile app, while wireframe refers to the layout. Wireframing is an essential step that gives your project a direction. When you have a pathway for how to create an app from scratch, everything becomes smoother forward. To sketch out, just take a paper, whiteboard, or use a digital wireframing tool to create one.
All you have to achieve out of wireframing is to have an illustration of the core components of the app. You work with app designers in creating the wireframe. So, you need to clearly state what you want in the app and how you want it to look.
9: Evaluate the wireframing
Now map out a user’s journey and how it reacts to an action taken by a user. Besides, you can also evaluate what happens to the next app screen at each interaction. Once you are done evaluating the wireframing, you will easily guess any change and rectify it before starting the development of a mobile app from scratch.
Wireframing helps your team (designers and developers) understand your vision by getting them on the same page. After a few revisions, your finalized wireframe will be ready to be sent ahead for development.
10: Begin with MVP
If you lack the budget to develop an entire mobile app on your own, you can go for a minimum viable product (MVP) development. It’s the most basic form of your app in which only a handful of key features are built to show the app’s execution.
This approach helps you to define the essential features and test your app’s capabilities and user acceptance. You can distribute or release the MVP app to a certain number of users in particular regions to see how they respond to it. MVPs are a great add-on if you want to pitch for more capital investment to potential investors and capture the most desirable funding.
11: Build your app
The development of the app is done in two phases that happen simultaneously: frontend and backend coding.
The frontend or user-side is the part of the application that the users interact with, the one you see on the mobile screen. While the backend or server-side is where all the data is stored, accessed, and modified according to the app interactions done by the user on the frontend.
Both these phases of the app are developed together by your designated development team that consists of frontend and backend developers, each proficient in unique technology stacks. You need to run several meetings and discussions throughout the development process to ensure that the app is being built exactly the way you intend to without any unnecessary features or misunderstood requests.
You may also consult an expert of your choosing to help you in managing the tech team. Consulting experts will help you determine which features, functionalities or technologies will suit the app that you are building from scratch.
12: Review your app—Testing, bug fixing & deployment
Finally, we are at the final part of project accomplishment. Once the app is developed, you need to make sure that the app is ready for the users and has no bugs. A big firm like Excellent Webworld offers its own QA testers to check the app for any bugs, glitches, or errors.
However, no one else can know your app more than you as the visionary. So you need to review your app carefully, even if your development team has verified it multiple times. Review it from a user’s perspective and point out any issues to be solved.
Once everything is verified from your end, say the big “yes” to your development team to deploy the app to the platform. Once the app is successfully deployed, all the necessary credentials are handed over to you after you make the final payment of the project.
Post-Development Phase
Your app is ready to be used by the world, and your dream of creating an app from scratch accomplishes here. But wait! Your job is not done yet. You have plenty of things to do post-launch.
Let’s explore what comes next;
13: Market your app
You have developed an app from scratch, and that’s the first step of your project development. Once it is deployed, the next big thing you have to do is promote it. No matter how excellent your app is, it will be of no use if nobody knows about it.
Hence, app promotion is vital because your target audience must know there is an app to serve their particular needs. To market your app, you should have an active presence across multiple marketing platforms. You may choose to focus more on a particular platform or forum where your target audiences spend the most time.
You can also promote your app across social networking sites, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. Using these networking sites, you can even start promoting your app much in advance (while the app is still in the development phase), keeping users informed that a fantastic app is being developed from scratch and will serve all their needs.
The advance promotion will keep your users excited and help you create brand awareness well before your app hits the market.
14: Keep upgrading & innovating with your app
Several big companies and brands failed in the long run due to a single factor, stagnation. If you want a different and more promising future for your app, you need to continuously track your app to see how people are using it and find ways to improve your app to stay relevant.
The best way to do so is to track key performance indicators. From app speed, uptime, and adaption, you should prioritize users’ comfort and also keep intriguing them with new features periodically.
Besides, you can prepare a list of questions and track the progress accordingly;
You need to keep upgrading your app, integrating new features based on the feedback you get from your users’ behavior.
SEE ALSO: Utility App Development
Final Thoughts
When it comes to modern businesses, no one is immune to online platforms and the internet. Some companies, even if they don’t sell products or services online, have websites.
You can surely learn from their perspective and vision for the future.
Having a web and mobile app for your business is not just the need of the hour anymore, but the most basic necessity in 2023. Our aim with this guide on “how to create an app from scratch” is to help you understand everything there is to know about app development in the simplest of sense without complicating things with technical jargon.
If you want a more detailed explanation about the process of developing an app, you can connect with our experts to learn more. Our technical experts will guide you through every step of the app development.
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FAQs on creating an app from scratch
While creating an app varies wildly, depending on multiple factors, the average time it takes (from Excellent Webworld’s perspective) is 4-6 months. Usually, app accomplishment duration depends on the apps’ complexities, number of features, platforms, technologies used, and several other factors.
The period given here is based on the average estimation, and the precise timeline may vary by a good margin.
The entire blog is a simplified answer to this very same question.
As far as your specific question is concerned, you can hire Android app developers from our firm to build an Android app of the highest standards. All our developers have an average of 4+ years of experience in developing applications from scratch.
The short and easy answer is to hire iPhone app developers from Excellent Webworld and start the development process with the leading iOS developers.
It’s a common question that every business asks a development company, and the ubiquitous answer to this question is “it depends.”
You can explore the complete cost details, including what factors are involved in costing and more, by going through our article “How Much Does It Cost To Make An App.” You will get all your questions related to app development costing answered here.
Yes, when it comes to creating an app from scratch for ordinary purposes, learning, or getting simpler tasks done, you can make an app (with no experience) using online tools, like Andromo, AppsGeyser, AppMakr, and others.
However, this idea is not helpful when you are making a complex or big app for your business. Countless minute details go into building a perfect app, and achieving such a task is only possible with the best of development talents working on your app.
So, you can make an app with no experience, but it is definitely not advisable if you wish to turn it into a revenue stream for your business.
Go through the article given here and explore every step on how to create your own app from scratch; you will get the best ideas to build your own app. After that, you can connect with our experts and get all your technical, non-technical, and business-related queries answered by them.
About the Author
Meet the web tech lover and COO of Excellent Webworld. Mahil is an expert in drupal web development. He's the complete package skilled in design, development, and deployment of exceptional websites. His blogs are helping lots of start-ups to understand how to improve website performance and how to enhance web designs.
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