What Should Mobile App Developers Avoid?

Whether you are a mobile app developer in the UK or in China, you both have in common the app development. The mobile app market is more competitive and saturated than ever, that’s why developers should be extra careful when it comes to developing mobile apps. One misstep could spell the end of your app’s life. If you look at the failed experiments, you could see some patterns emerging where developers go wrong. Here are the common pitfalls that developers have a hard time avoiding:

The Myth of the Lone Wolf

This might be a hard pill to swallow, but the self-made man is just a cultural myth. The Randian Hero CEO is a fictional character. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and trying to do everything on your own is a sure way to collapse.

It’s important to know your strengths and weaknesses and find people who can complement you. This advice is particularly actionable for an app developer.

Overworking Yourself to Death

According to recent stats, entrepreneurs are working harder and for more hours per day.

Overworking may cause depression and anxiety for some.

Developing an app is an inherently secluded activity for a one-man team, and you should be careful not to push yourself over the edge. Overworking usually leads to very avoidable mistakes and myopic short-term planning. It might seem counter intuitive, but you’ll most likely be more productive if you had a reasonable work-schedule and didn’t go overboard.

Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail

Once some of the apps make it and become popular, they can’t keep up with their growth and collapse like a house of cards. It’s usually caused by app developers that get spontaneous entrepreneurs beaming with ideas instead of far-sighted calm managers that have a long term plan. It’s very useful to clearly state your growth goals and long-term strategy when you are at the later parts of developing your application. A long term view will help you analyze the market better and even find niches you can expand into.

Perfect Bug-Free Code isn’t Everything

This can be hard to grasp for more technically minded developers. It’s meaningless if every function is so optimized and expertly crafted, that it brings Steve Wozniak to tears if no one is going to hear about your application and use it.

You should probably spend a comparable amount of time coming up with a plan on how to make your app go viral. While the tech boom might’ve made many things obsolete, the fundamentals of marketing still hold the truth:

You need to start by carefully analyzing the market and finding a market that isn’t oversaturated so that you can somehow find a niche in. Then you should come up with your USP (unique selling proposition) and make sure your customers realize it from the first minute of booting up your application. Lastly, you have to find a way to supply a constant influx of new customers while retaining your first adopters and loyal customers. Striking a balance between new features to appeal to new customers and keeping your application look and feel the same to appease your old customers is hard to maintain.