Known entrepreneurs in the tech world say that the success of any IT best development team venture depends on two factors. Firstly, a unique idea that solves a modern or an old pressing problem. Secondly, it needs right execution, which involves an efficient team, a monitored development process and a timely launch. If you too are up for starting such a business, especially in SaaS or app development, here is a quick guide that covers everything from creating your business plan to marketing your vision on social media.
1. Create a business plan
Writing a business plan will give you a rough roadmap to base your overall development process on. In your business plan, start with the basic function and idea of your app. Talk about its niche and category, the platform you are developing for and technologies you wish to use. Write down the cost you have allocated and the revenue you are expecting. Then write down the sources of both: your plans to seek investment and your avenues to monetize your venture. Also mention if you have allocated a budget for marketing and a tentative timeline when you’ll begin with promotional activities.
2. Reach out to investors
Turn your business plan into attractive graphical presentation and start pitching to investors. You can either create a visual, high-fidelity prototype and convince investors to give you money. Or, if you have don’t have initial cashflow constraints, ask your developer to build an MVP. It is the first version that only has the basic functionality of the app with core features. Then you can monetize your product or at least see how it is performing in the market. Seek further investments from venture capitalists when you plan to scale, or expand through updates after you have earned some revenue.
3. Hire a development team
Developers can actually make or break your tech product – and so, your business potentially depends on who you hire for the job. Therefore, there are certain factors you need to consider when making a hiring decision. Here are some tips to help you with the process:
Search for specialization, expertise and experience
Any tech product or SaaS program requires heavy investment. Therefore, hire once and for all and quality. Go as technical as you can during the interview phase.
Location is also one of the important factors you should consider when hiring an app development team for your project. It affects your overall communication, business hours and project management. Also, hiring from specific locations will help you optimize your budgets. For example, a mobile app development company in DC will offer economic hourly rates, as compared to a team in UK or Canada.
Platforms like Clutch let you do this. Clutch is one of the most trusted B2B review platforms for B2B service businesses, specializing in tech and digital domains. After Google Business listings, this is almost every technopreneur’s go-to website for assessing the social proof of a service provider and read verified testimonials from real clients.
You can filter hundreds of results for an iOS developer in Miami, or you can hire a node.js developer in Dallas. This research and interview process does take time, but pays for itself when your development stages unfold.
Secondly, pay close attention to portfolio. Look at their main clientele and the domains they have worked with. Don’t trust a company with your database product if the company has only developed ecommerce solutions in the past.
We also recommend hiring a complete team with a designer, developer, project manager and QA tester rather than hiring dedicated professionals. After portfolio and niche, do check the non-disclosure agreement and ask about the legal copyright of the source code. In the end, you can always mutually agree on
4. Manage the development process
So you can hire a developer within 2 weeks, sign the contract, pay your first cheque and see them start working. But your real effort starts when you manage the overall development process. Monitor the timelines of each milestone. See that they are completed as per the deadlines. Also, keep testing the app when each build or feature completes and get errors fixed in time. You’ll be typically assigned a dedicated project manager. Make sure to stay in close communication with this person and report whenever they or you have scheduled a meeting.
5. Market your business
While there are millions of Android and iOS apps in the tech arena now, it is essential you market your vision effectively and forward your narrative to target users. Here are some digital marketing techniques that most apps are using:
· Content Marketing
This is the quickest way to establish the narrative about your SaaS product, app or tech service. Create a blog and publish industry-relevant content in forms of webinars, live sessions, infographs, whitepapers and ebooks. When once you are done launching your product, you can turn these publications into lead magnets.
· Search Engine Optimization
SEO starts with a simple website. You can choose to create a DIY WordPress blog, or hire professional web development services for a multi-featured, visually appealing website. Target hot keywords trending in your target industry and create on-page and off-page content around those. Check the technical aspects of your website like indexing, crawling and rendering. Attract organic search traffic to your website and direct it to your landing page. Know that SEO campaigns take around 3 to 6 months to show steady results and generate leads.
· Social Media
Social media marketing helps with increasing likes, shares and boosts engagement around a business, a cause, a movement. It’s ideal if you want to quickly forward the narrative of your brand in your local areas. Now in social media, you can go for organic as well as paid marketing. You can post sponsored posts and choose demographics of audience you wish to target. Social media also helps you cross market the promotional material you would create in your content marketing regimes. You can consider reusing the infographics as your social media posts, post a link or two to articles on your website, invite more people on webinars and collect email ids while distributing lead magnets.
· Pay Per Click
This is another branch of search engine marketing, the first was the SEO which is totally organic. PPC is paid marketing and the campaigns run through Google AdSense. In these campaigns, you choose specific keywords that you want to show ads for. For SaaS products, you might have to pay $2 – $19 per click depending on the competition in your industry. While PPC does require a heavy budget, it shows quick results and you can optimize these costs by carefully choosing keywords that you want to show up for.
· Community Building
Quora and Reddit are two ideal platforms to build a community and generate discussions about your product and service. Find like-minded people, answer their questions and tell them how your product can solve their problems.
