App Development: What Features You Should Build First And Why
You came to the point where you are ready to write down all features your app will have, but sure enough, not all of those features will go into your MVP. Here is how to choose the first few features you should start with.
If you start Googling, you will see many suggestions like 7 Must-Have Features for Mobile App Development, but none of this will tell you what features you should have in real life, nor how to make a decision.
But it is easier than you think. Don’t focus on what your app should do, but rather what hypothesis you want to test out. The goal of the MVP is to get feedback from the market. It might happen that you believed your solution is the best one, but when you give it to the clients, you find out they don’t need it. So before that happen, ask them for their opinion.
What Do You Want To Prove With You App?
Start with the first question. What problem are you solving and for who? If you still don’t know that go back and read:
Let’s say you want to build an ordering app for companies.
The problem you are solving would be cutting the time necessary for each person to order food for themselves, or in some companies, it is one person who would spend 30 minutes on it.
The audience who will test the app would be employees of medium-sized companies. In this case, your audience is not the same as your targeted customers as maybe John from QA team won’t be the one who decides if that app would be used it the company or not. But for sure, John would be your future user, and his experience is very valuable for you at this moment.
The goal you want to achieve in this case would be 20% less time spent on ordering food within the company.
This means that your first features should test your idea, that you can later present along with the gathered data to your investors.
What is One Main Feature That Will Prove Your Idea?
Do you remember that 20% from above? Probably you asked your self why just 20%? Why not 30% of 50%? The answer is simple. If with only one feature, you can enhance productivity for 20% and get positive feedback from your users, what you could do with the whole app?
With the MVP, you are already building the story and the vision for your product. Because of that, you need to make sure your app is built correctly from the first line of code.
In our case, it could be a bulk order. Once we have that defined, we should write down small features that will support our main feature. It could be:
- The login part — not for each user, but rather just one login per company.
- Lists of 10 restaurants — you could have the restaurants in the same area so it will be easier for career to pick it up.
- The access link for sharing with employees.
- Order cart
And that’s it for the first interaction. You could also make a prototype with dummy lists of restaurants where you would explain testers that they won’t get what they ordered, but investors like real data more.
You could also choose to go with 3 main features aiming a higher goal, but my suggestion would be to test it and get feedback from the market as soon as possible.
Architecture and Technology
The last step and the first step before you start with app development is defining the architecture and choosing the right technology for your app. If you are not a technical founder, this process might be harder for you as it should be done with someone who understands the development process. At Aurity, we have a dedicated architect who helps our clients to kick off this stage.
Feedback and Adjustment
After you build your first small feature, you should go and get the opinion of others. We usually do this within 2 weeks from when we start the development.
The best solution you will make is by listening to what users have to say.
If the tested users don’t see any value in your product, try another approach for the same feature or test another one. During the test-phase consider using 3rd party solutions to speed up the process.
When deciding on your first features, always have in mind your goal, and once you have it, go through your list and skip all the features that are not essentially necessary. And when you choose the first feature for your app, try to make it as simple as possible.
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