Converting business ideas to a product isn’t a simple feat; it bears so many challenges and burgage. It especially gets tricky when the endeavor is by a startup company. Identifying an excellent idea isn’t good enough when it comes to making your endeavor a success. You have to validate this idea to ensure that it gives back more than it takes to reduce the chances of getting huge losses. However, even after validating your idea, you still have to do more to get your product out there and doing well. You must keep improving and updating your product, which will eventually earn you a competitive advantage. After successfully scaling your business endeavor to the larger market, you can then opt to sell business shares to external parties or individuals. But how do you scale up your company to reach this level?

Why focus on the Application Development Journey

The application development journey, just like any other endeavor, can get pretty tricky. It is hence not for the faint-hearted. It especially gets more challenging when you decide to scale up this business with little to no guidance from experts. However, following some crucial yet straightforward instructions, you can scale up your endeavor from a mere MVP to an IPO in no time.

Startup Application Development Stages which will help you Scale up your Business

To efficiently build an application as a startup and scale it up to hit the IPO level, you must follow the following development phases.

Brainstorming session

To start your product development journey, you have to come up with a “product” to build that comes out of an idea. Brainstorming with your entire team to generate product ideas is hence pretty crucial to your business’s success. However, not every idea is valid. A good idea is one that helps solve a real-world problem, and that problem must be affecting many people.

The tech market is pretty competitive, with ideas coming in almost every day. That makes developing a perfect idea more challenging but not impossible.

To optimize this process, start by figuring out:

• The areas that interest you
• Problems that you can solve in these areas that interest you
• And lastly, the changes that you are looking to impose on the life of your customer

Research and then Validate your Idea

After deciding on the idea to work on, take your time to study the market and learn about your competitors. Doing so helps you validate your business ideas before moving on to invest in the business. It also enables you to identify the parts you need to alter to efficiently achieve your business goal.

Once competitor analysis and market research are over, you can now gauge your business endeavor and resolve whether to invest in it or not.

Choose the right Development Team

Your development team can either make your business endeavor a success or ultimately a failure. It depends on the type of team that you choose.

To choose the perfect team, look for individuals who can help bring the very best out of your idea. They also have to boost your operation’s flexibility, which will optimize your application development phase.

Suppose you are looking to hire programming experts from trusted android and iOS application development companies. Get to know their entire development team first. Look up their UI/UX designers, maintenance team, testers, etc. Each of these individuals will give you a glimpse of what you are getting yourself into.

Create a Prototype

Prototyping is an important process that involves transforming your idea into a physical demo product that users can interact with. The demo product does not work entirely like the actual end product. However, it helps users visualize and get a taste of the real app even before you launch it.

Prototyping helps you develop a straightforward navigation and design concept. It also lists out the crucial feature that you have to include in your end product.

What’s more, you can utilize the demo products in prototyping to test out updates before configuring them to the actual product. Doing so helps mitigate configuration risks, and it also enables you to make updates in a timely and cost-effective manner.

A perfect prototype does not just help you build a product of high quality. It also lets you figure out issues at the beginning phases of application development. Using a prototype is bound to save you a lot of trouble.

Develop an MVP

After developing a prototype, it is time to shift your focus to your MVP (minimum value product) development. An MVP is basically your first product version, the one that features only the essential components. MVPs are pretty crucial to application development. That is because you can utilize this application to predict whether or not your product has what it takes to succeed.

To gain optimum results from your MVP, release it to your potential customers and let them interact with the system for a while. You can then ask the customers to share their honest feedback regarding the product. Next, utilize your feedback to improve your product and provide better services to your customer.

Another crucial MVP advantage is utilizing it to present your product to potential investors. You can also use your MVP’s “potential customers” feedback to display product stats. If the stats are great, that might convince your investors to invest in your idea.

The initial MVP might not be great as it features essential components only. But, as you advance, you can make it better by making alterations following the feedback that you get from your potential customers.

If you face any challenges when developing your MVP, try to connect with your development team. They can provide some insight to help you turn your idea into reality.

Find the Perfect Investors

If you are looking to build a successful business, you need to have a bulletproof budget. Therefore, take your time to study and pick out the right business investors. Look for those investors that have immense experience and diverse backgrounds. These investors can support and boost your journey immensely.

When you find the perfect investors for your application development journey, “sell them” your idea. Do so by explaining to them your product’s importance and why they should invest in it.

Testing and Launching

Testing comes as the final phase of the application development process, and for a good reason.

Before releasing the application to the public, you need to test it rigorously to ensure it does not contain any bugs. That is because an application that includes bugs can lead to a bad UX, which in turn might lead to you losing your customer base. Fixing the bugs also cost a lot of money and uses up a lot of time and resource.

When you are sure that your application is functioning impeccably, you can then advance on to launch it to the public. However, you need first to devise a marketing strategy that will help you promote your product. Using this approach, be sure to deliver your application to a broader customer range efficiently. If you face any challenges promoting your application, you can easily employ a marketing squad/team to handle this feat for you.

Taking your Product to the Next Level

Advancing your product from an MVP to an IPO takes a lot of time. On average, it takes about 5 to 7 years.

However, before taking your business to the next level, you need to consider the following factors:

• Predictable financial advancement – study the financial performance of your business. If it is going up invariably, you can take it to the next level.
• Have a good team on your corner – your development team has to match the public market’s standards. Becoming an IPO comes with a lot of responsibilities. Hence your team should be prepared.
• Have a growth blueprint – Devise a growth strategy. Then, utilize this strategy to “sell” your IPO venture to your investors by showing them how beneficial it could be to advance to the public market.
• Backup plan – If your IPO plan delays or does not go through, you should have a great backup plan to get you back on track.
• Turing your MVP into an IPO promises bigger profits. However, it requires effort and patience so take your time.

Conclusion

Before taking your product public, you need to build an MVP. Using this MVP, you can scale up your business to reach IPO levels and reap more significant results. The process we have gone through is practical. Try it out and watch your profit hit the roof.

Connect with MVP development company to know more!