Overview of what's needed to create a successful app, including, required tech stack, product development strategies, suggested team structures.

1. Sydney Mobile
Commerce Tech
Insights on building a
successful App

2. Hello!
I’m Alex Boudreau
Let’s talk about Mobile
Commerce and Tech!
@alexboudreau
#sydmct

3. 1.4 million
1,000

4. 1.4 million
1,000
Number of apps in App Store
As of Jan. 2015
Daily number of new apps added
to the App Store

5. Extremely
Competitive

6. Highly
Rewarding
$15B +
valuation
$50B +
valuation

7. $10 billion
2014 developer revenue

8. 1.
Why an App?

9. Mobile Commerce Market
▧ Mobile Commerce is growing like a weed
▧ 34% of global eCommerce
▧ will be 40%of all e-commerce by end of
year

10. Mobile Commerce Market
▧ $300 Billion global value in 2014
▧ Projected to reach $850 Billion in
2018

11. App Usage
▧ App usage much greater than web
▧ 89% time spent on mobile is in App
▧ 11% on mobile web

12. Reasons Users prefer Apps
▧ Quicker to load
▧ Simpler to navigate
▧ Provides more functionality
▧ Provides better user experience!

13. 2.
Where do I start?

14. Lean development/startup
▧ You have an idea?
▧ Don’t start developing your app just yet
▧ Tak a lean product development approach

15. Lean development
Three key phases:
1. Problem/Solution Fit
2. Product/Market Fit
3. Growth

16. 1. Problem / Solution Fit
Problem Space Solution Space
Hypothesise on problem
Interview users to better
understand problem
Observe and synthesise
Define potential solution
Interview users to validate
solution and learn more
Refine and iterate

17. 1. Problem / Solution Fit
▧ Outcome = Minimum Viable Business
▧ You’ve defined a viable solution
▧ Better confidence that your idea will work
▧ Proceed to MVP (minimum viable product)

18. 2. Product / Market Fit
▧ Develop MVP
▧ MVP only includes features that are
ABSOLUTELY necessary
▧ Purpose is to focus on core
problem/solution
▧ Roll-out MVP to early adopters (not prime
time yet)

19. 3. Scale your product
▧ A successful MVP = product/market fit
▧ Now it’s time to scale product
▧ Start focusing on user acquisition
▧ But always continue improving product

20. 2.
How do I build it?

21. Tech Stack
Mobile App Cloud Service

22. Mobile Platform
42% 47%

23. Mobile Platform
▧ Start with one platform
▧ Choose wisely
○ based on customer demographics
▧ Keep in mind
○ growth of mCommerce faster on iPhone
○ android market highly fragmented
○ over 18,000 unique android devices

24. App Dev
▧ Go 100% native app development
▧ Android = Java development
▧ iOS = Swift development
▧ Remember: users love apps because they’re
responsive, simple to navigate

25. App Dev
▧ Quality of developers is critical
▧ Bad code = customer churn
○ slow app
○ high crash rate
▧ Hire or contract carefully
▧ Note: More difficult to find than web
developers

26. Cloud Service
▧ Most apps consume and generate data
▧ Eg. Instagram
○ Image filters done in App
○ Account info, social networking, image storage >
in the Cloud

27. Cloud Service
▧ Cloud service powers your app
▧ Datastores / Databases
○ Store customer data
○ Data required for app/service
▧ API
○ Service Layer used to read or store data
○ Adds “intelligence” to your app
○ Eg. Business logic or algorithms

28. Cloud Service
▧ Good Apps also require good APIs
▧ In mobile world, cloud services and APIs
must be super quick
▧ Build high throughput services

29. Cloud Service
▧ Good news: no longer need to invest in
hardware and infrastructure
▧ Great platforms available!
▧ Lots of companies offering all kinds of APIs

30. Cloud Service

31. 3.
Increase your chance of
success

32. Team Structure
▧ A great app requires a great team, not just
an app developer
▧ Create a cross-functional Product team
○ Product Owner
○ UI / UX Designer
○ Mobile Marketer
○ App developer
○ API / BE developer
○ Tester

33. Continuous Improvement
▧ Your app is live, you have some users, now
what?
▧ Measure
▧ Hypothesize
▧ Experiment
▧ Improve

34. Measure
▧ Use app analytics tools like Google Analytics
▧ Look at user lifecycle
▧ AARRR Metrics!

35. ▧ Acquisition
○ How many users are downloading your app?
▧ Activation
○ Of those, how many have opened/signed up to
your app?
▧ Retention
○ Are users coming back, how many, how often?
▧ Revenue
○ How much revenue is each user generating?
▧ Referral
○ Are users spreading the word?
Measure: AARRR

36. Hypothesise
▧ If users are not coming, why?
▧ Have you done marketing, SEO, SEM,
Social…

37. Hypothesise
▧ Users download and open the app, but don’
t come back, why?
▧ Is the app not serving the need
▧ Too complicated, app is slow… ?

38. Experiment
▧ Once you’ve Hypothesised on problem, next
step is to experiment
○ Increase marketing spend to attract users?
○ Or simplify login process?
○ Improve app performance (speed)
▧ Measure your experiment and see if it
improves… keep going

39. Summary
▧ Follow lean development practice
▧ Make sure you build a stellar cross
functional product team
▧ AARRR metrics
▧ Apps are all about great user experience

40. Thanks!
Now, let’s have a chat!