3 Key Aspects to Consider for Mobile App Development

Let’s take a step back and think about this. Mobility as a culture? Most people wouldn’t see the average person spending five to six hours daily on their mobile devices as a positive reflection of our modern age, let alone a cultural phenomenon. Yet, to Daniel’s point, “Mobile is a movement,” and the contemporary consumer is hungry for what mobility brings: freedom and instant access to the world with the swipe of a finger. (It’s almost magical, like Sabrina the teenage witch waving her finger and immediately gaining a new outfit!)

For businesses, a mobile-first strategy is no longer an option. It’s a necessity. Mobile technology is the way businesses can bring their product or service to their consumers and keep their workforce connected in a seamless experience, instantly. Ultimately, a mobile app is the digital manifestation of your business for everyone to access using their phones, which is why it is so critical for businesses to get the mobile app development process right.

If you can properly prepare for these three key elements of the mobile app development process, then you can guarantee the best mobile experience for your customers.

Budgeting for Development Costs

The cost of developing a mobile app is nothing to overlook. The price for an average mobile app developed by third parties can range anywhere between $40,000 and $150,000, and even higher if you develop it in-house. The total costs can fluctuate depending on the following factors.

• App complexity: Will your app require customized features and functionality? Do you need to consider specific integrations for your app to work with your current tech stack?
• Development resources: Who will be developing your app? Will it be developed in-house or outsourced?

Accounting for how much financial investment is needed to build your app will help you understand the exact resources you need without going over budget. However, while you can get an estimate of how much building an app might cost, finding the money to implement the project can often be a roadblock for some teams. Keep on reading to learn how you can develop an app from start to finish at a fraction of the cost with minimal complaints from your accountant.

Allocating Technical Resources

The second key element of the mobile app development process is securing technical talent. That means gathering your software wizards to begin building your app. Businesses can approach this in two ways.

• Outsourcing: Finding an agency, third-party vendor, or technical team overseas to take on the project.
• In-house hiring: Finding candidates with the technical skill sets and adding them to your team.

Both options come with their limitations, however.

Firstly, investment is needed to source potential candidates or third-party vendors to take on the project. The search for this will take weeks or months, as mobile developers are currently in high demand. Whether you are a growing business or a widely recognized brand, sourcing talent is an increasing problem for recruiters. The demand for developers is vastly outweighing the supply.  An Indeed survey found that 86% of hiring managers and recruiters believe finding and hiring software engineers is challenging. Unfortunately, the shortage of tech talent is only going to get worse.

Secondly, onboarding requires time and internal resources. For example, onboarding an agency and setting up project timelines can take weeks, depending on the project's scope. Meanwhile, onboarding a new team member can take three to six months while your new hire tries to understand company goals and business strategy, until, ultimately, they can begin developing the app you need.

Not to throw another wrench in the recruitment process, but sourcing talent is quickly becoming difficult. The demand for technical skill sets is outpacing supply. According to PwC’s 22nd Annual Global CEO Survey, in 2019, four out of five CEOs complained about a skill shortage among their workforce, and they identified this as a threat to innovation and overall business growth.  

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. There are low and no code tools to help you build a mobile app from scratch without adding new team members. Keep reading to find out how adding low and no code mobile app development tools can help you and your team upskill to build the app your business needs.

Accounting for Time to Market

Every meticulous leader with a penchant for project management knows a thorough timeline for any scope of work is critical for setting up a project and team for success. However, teams often automatically dive into the building process before testing if their idea is worth investing in. Trying the idea first is critical to gathering a comprehensive time-to-market timeline.

Before finding Thunkable, clients have been frustrated with delays in their time-to-market timelines for the following reasons.

• The technical team is stuck in a development loop with limited progress being made.
• Communication breakdowns between design and development teams.
• Project timelines keep getting pushed due to feature requests and multiple design iterations.

Breakdowns in the mobile app development process can derail the whole project. So, how can you ensure your mobile app can survive the development phase and align with mobility culture?

Thunkable Takes Care of it All

Businesses can spend months aligning on all aspects of the mobile app development process; these are months of time and resources that could instead be spent developing the best app for your consumers.

Before arriving at Thunkable, our clients would face significant app development delays due to team silos slowing down the building process, a lack of available coding skillsets, and being stuck in the iteration loop. Some leaders even became so frustrated with project timelines being pushed back that they decided they’d do it themselves. At Thunkable, we make it easy to execute a mobile-first strategy and develop a mobile app from start to finish, without compromising your vision.

We have a proven track record of saving businesses hundreds-of-thousands in app development costs and reducing the development time down by half, compared to what it would take with traditional app development. With Thunkable, we simplify every process of the development phase so you can bring your app to life in three easy steps.

Design

Kickstart the user interface (UI) design process with templates or import your designs directly from Figma into the Thunkable platform. With Thunkable, you don’t have to worry about designing for multiple devices. Instead, simply create one design and add it to your app project while our extensible framework adapts for multiple devices.

Build

Our collaboration capabilities allow teams of one or 100 to work on the app project, depending on team needs. Our drag and drop app builder makes it easy for anyone to develop a mobile app. Our extensive integrations and open APIs give you the flexibility to integrate with tools already in your tech stack. Unlike other no code app developers on the market, we allow you to tap into native capabilities to leverage a device’s camera, geolocation, Bluetooth, and more to meet your business needs.

Publish

We make sharing your app easier than ever by providing cross-platform publishing to the Google Play, Apple App Store, and Web. Our embedded publishing wizard simplifies the publishing process, so you don’t have to worry about configuring your app for Android and iOS devices. Don’t slow down progress by making updates to adhere to Google and Apple’s compliance requirements. With our platform, in one click, your app will be compliant with Apple and Google marketplace requirements.

At Thunkable, we prioritize setting clients on a path for implementing a mobile-first strategy and begin that strategy with a successful app.

Get Started with Thunkable Today

Interested in receiving a free assessment of your mobile app idea or how to begin the mobile-first strategy process at your company? A 15-minute assessment with Thunkable saves several hours of guessing the right path for your mobile app development journey. Don’t do it alone. We’re here to help.