One element common for both startups and corporate mammoths is “Time Is Money”, and using time efficiently means million dollars pouring in. 

Put, 2021 is the high time you forget about adorning logos or the website you have created. If you have not validated your app Idea before launching your startup, the chances of survival are slim. That’s why it is essential to test your app ideas quickly and without leaving a burning hole in your pocket. 

In this post, I’ll shed light on how to do it.   

To start with, did you know a high percentage of new services and products fail? 

According to CBI insight, 42% of startups failed because there are no market needs for the products, services or app.  Even, Harvard Business School professor – “Clayton Christensen” , states it’s near to a whopping 90%.  Thus, the most common reason why most mobile apps fail is poor market and target audience research. 

Though it’s easy to fall into the pitfall of working on your idea in a silo and believe that you have a winning idea ready to disrupt the market, however, most entrepreneurs who face a backslide to validate their ideas have their startups dream sliding into the chasm.

So, before you start with a single line of code, you need to ask these incisive questions:

• What problem is your app going to solve?
• Is your app helpful to customers to achieve their jobs-to-be-done?
• Have you targeted the right audience with the correct problems?

Else, it could be gushing your efforts, investment and time, the moment you realize that there is no demand for your product.

So, how to ensure users will admire your app and download it once it’s live? To test the interest of your potential audience even before you start with a line of code, make a prototype of your mobile app idea and present it to them. I’m not talking about typos, indeed pretotypes.  

For a trusted app development company in Dubai, Idea validation is an imperative part of the process and pretotype is the unskippable element.

Let’s start!

What Actually Is Idea Validation And Why Is It Important

 The most unfavourable thing to do while launching an app is to assume that users will love your app. So often, the tech giants can be found perplexed into a biased perspective of “create it, and they’ll love it”, where they firmly believe that they have got a winner in their hand. 

In simple words, product idea validation looks for feedback from the targeted audience for whom the app will resolve the problems. Simply put, will the users find it an attractive proposition for addressing the pain points that they are facing? 

In essence, the initial motto should be “Make Something People Want”. This sums up the need to validate a product idea. Even it assures you that validating ideas with the customers saves you from the kind of heartaches you can feel in your bones at the launch time. 

Pretotyping: The New Coinage In Idea Validation

What is Pretotyping?

Pretotyping is an approach to test your idea with minimal time and finances by making a virtual yet extremely simple version mirroring your potential product.

Alberta Savoia, the author of “pretotype it, said “The Art And Science Of Faking It Before Making It Is Pretotype”. 

Probably, you must be wondering how pretotyping is different from Prototyping? 

Here’s the answer!

Pretotypes are simple and take less time in comparison to prototypes. Initially, the prototype is the very first version of your product with a stripped-down functionality. Thus, it makes sense that creating such a model of your upcoming product takes much time and effort, whereas pretotyping is merely an image that presents the idea of your product. 

All you have to do is assume that you have a prototype and show its description – “pretotype” – to the target audience. Surprisingly, creating a pretotype is a matter of a few hours instead of days or months. 

To your surprise, there are numerous stories about well thought out products with refined prototypes that firms had been developing for months to find out that customers didn’t like the product. So what should you be doing if you plan to roll out a new mobile app and simultaneously don’t want to waste time on a prototype of a product that nobody will use?

However, collaborating with an app development company in UAE, you can easily create a pretotype of your mobile app, present it to users and evaluate whether they liked it or not. 

The Basics Of Validating Your App Idea 

Using aforesaid processes or discovery stages is convenient when everything funnels down to validating your product ideas. This is what industry giants follow:

• The market research
• Preparing proto personas
• Making a Customer Journey Map (CJM)
• Managing user interviews
• Crafting and testing paper or digital prototypes
• Using the design sprint

So, if you are at the fork of starting your business, it’s advisable to complete as many of the steps to get a more precise report on the viability of your idea. But, usually there is limited time, so skipping a handful of them is also acceptable. The worst is not doing anything at all. 

Step 1: The Market Research 

Market research is about evaluating the viability of your app idea. It includes clutching information on the targeted demographics, especially about the customers’ needs and looking for the data to influence their buying behaviour.  

Thus, conducting market research allows you to identify trends in the industries and the challenges customers face. Besides the audience validation, you will also be needed to research your competitors. This will put all the data in place to ensure that you are braced by validated data instead of mere guessworks.

Step 2: Preparing Proto Personas

Are you confused between standard persons and proto personas? 

Don’t worry, here’s the subtle difference! 

A proto-persona (or ad-hoc persona meaning impromptu and improvised) is a persona that is crafted using a project stakeholder’s intuition and anecdotal proofs. This can be easily created in several ways, though they cater to the same purpose as true personas, ensuring alignment between all stakeholders on the project. 

The initial difference between proto personas and true personas is the absence of background research. 

Proto personas are different from the standard personas used in characterizing the product’s target audience. While the latter includes extensive research, proto personas sheath a more low fidelity and ad-hoc approach. 

As creating proto personas is rooted in the intuition of the project members, it’s essential to choose the right resources. And, to do so, you ought to ask, “What Is The Need Of Our Target Audience?”

As proto personas are not developed with research, they can be updated when frequent tests are conducted to reflect what has been learned about the users more accurately. Notably, through this method of developing better personas, your website, mobile app development in Dubai and anywhere can evolve to better cater to the users’ needs.

Step 3: Crafting A Customer Journey Map (CJM)

How many steps do customers have to take to complete a purchase? 

That’s one of the probing questions you must ask if you are building a product.

The map grasps this journey from the user’s or customer’s viewpoint. Every touchpoint along the way is curated on the map. So, when you have a customer journey map in place, you have a better idea of how a customer would be using your product. In some scenarios, it can be very different from your initial assumptions. 

But, remember to update your customer journey map while discovering your target customer audience. 

Step 4: Managing User Interview

With all the analytics tools easily available, the best way to understand what users want is to talk to them directly. Despite it’s one-to-one or a group interview, you will be unfurling helpful information when you ask the right questions and give a peace hearing to their responses. 

Keep in mind that the product’s goal is to solve the user’s concerns. Thus, user interviews should be held at the initial stage of the customer validation process. A fruitful interview may stretch to 45 minutes but you should be speaking to the right person. 

The Smart Tip 

Make sure that your team is jotting notes and keeping a record of the crucial points. The best mobile app developers in UAE ensure they summarize the discussion into the pros and cons of the product. Using colour-coded stickers to differentiate the feedback on the products can be one choice.

This approach ensures the team sheaths all the questions during the interview session. I advise you to conduct at least four interviews in a day; that’s much. 

Step 5: Crafting and Testing Paper

Prototypes help in testing the flow of the design. Besides, it allows you to understand better how an app would look way before it’s developed. You can also have feedback to facilitate immediate improvements in the design stage. 

Step 6 : Using The Design Sprint

If you are not in the mood to spend too much time on customer validation, you should opt for a design sprint. 

The design sprint has been beneficial in solving significant challenges, whether it’s about creating new products or improving existing ones. Adding on, it proves to be a helpful solution when you are testing hypotheses. 

During this time, the app development company deployed a cross-functional team, narrowed their focus area and assumptions, defined clear goals, and built the prototype website. Further, they tested with a handful of users and gained valuable feedback that shed light on the following product directions. 

Right after making adjustments based on the interviews, the product is launched for early signups. This is how a design sprint can help you quickly test and verify an idea in minimum time. Thus, considering the positive responses, you can be pretty sure you are heading in the right direction to develop the actual product. 

Notably, a design sprint enables you to avoid the pitfalls of making assumptions and braced the development with data from real users. 

Are There Any Companies Doing This?

Sure. Several reputed companies in the aisle of Hybrid, iOS and Android app development in Dubai are taking advantage of these tools for mobile app idea validation. 

Even globally known app development companies have started taking full advantage :

• They test the idea
• Evaluate features
• Experience strong growth on the user acquisition stage

Thanks to the app idea validation process for making your app debut a big success. Moreover, this is a handy tool if you plan your first mobile app and even if you are developing mobile apps regularly. 
Finally, don’t jump into development without bracing the app idea with facts. Still, you have any dark shadows, talk to the industry adroit for free tips on how to conduct a proper validation of your app ideas.