What mistakes startups must avoid in mobile app development? Part 2 of 7 part series of most common myths about mobile app development.
Here we go. Part 2 of our 7 part series where we look at most common myths about mobile app development and try to address them.
Myth #2: You can build your mobile app internally as fast as others can
Reality: Making an app yourself will take you at least 3-4 times the amount of time.
Let me put it as simply as I can.
Many people come to us and ask how much time it will take to implement a particular feature set. We evaluate and provide an estimate, sometimes 1 month, sometimes 3. Several of them decide that to save money and invest their time instead; to build their mobile app themselves. Tracking the release on app stores, we usually see almost 3-4 times the time initially estimated and poor reviews thereafter if not done correctly.
Why is that? Several reasons:
- This is your first shot at mobile app development. You will need to research everything.
- You don’t know how to structure for performance and scaling.
- You never did finish finalizing requirements or don’t know how to.
- You do not have a formal team to do testing.
- You do not have proper project planning or execution planning.
- You keep changing your mind on feature set because you have the liberty to do so.
- You won’t even know you are making mistakes till very late.
Unless you are planning to hire expert mobile app developers, it is always a mistake to build it yourself. You will make the same mistakes every new mobile app developer would make and it would take several iterations to get the mobile app built correctly. Of course you need to hire a good company, not just a job on elance or similar sites.
Just because you know HTML, CSS and JavaScript, does not means your skills will directly translate into killer mobile app development skills required for building a feature rich, user friendly mobile app and you will be able to leverage all that a mobile platform offers.
And God forbid, if you had planned on hiring and building yourself, the biggest time sink is actually just that. Hiring people, making them productive and building yourself a team, takes lot of time. You assume that while you are hiring a mobile app development team you can do requirements. Obviously you are an entrepreneur who thinks he/she can do it all and sleeping is for weak people.
When you hire an expert company to build your apps, you are hiring multiple experts, each aligned to a particular skill set and is available to address the proper needs of mobile app development. Experts who design, plan and schedule tasks in parallel and are much more efficient in addressing all aspects of app development. In addition you get a mobile app development manager with tons of experience delivering mobile based products. You must have heard the phrase: "Been there, done that”.
We understand the confusion for folks who are trying to get an app built. But hey, making a mistake to start with is not going to help.