"I have an app idea…now what?" 

If this is a question that keeps you awake at night, or you find yourself constantly worrying or scouring the Internet about it, then let us tell you that you are not alone! There are hundreds of people out there who have interesting and innovative ideas and are trying to find the best way ton how to create an app and make money.

While getting an idea for a mobile app is exciting, it is just the beginning of a long startup journey. The real struggle starts with figuring out what to do next and how to proceed with your concept. And if you don't have the proper guidance, it can be a little bit confusing and sometimes frustrating too. After all, you would want to take the best course of action to turn your concept into a terrific smartphone application, right? 

Well, if you have just come up with a brilliant idea for a mobile application and don't know what to do next, then don't worry! You have come to the right blog, and we have just what you need. In this article today, we will give you a detailed and actionable plan in a step-by-step method. This will help you shape your mobile app idea and your business dream into a successful reality. 

By the end of this piece, you will have a solid roadmap consisting of six steps that will help you move forward in the right direction. 

So without further ado, let's get started! 

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How to create an app and make money: 6 Steps to Help You Get Started 

According to a study, the global mobile app market size is estimated to reach a whopping $407.31 billion by 2026. So there is no doubt that an innovative, fresh, and great idea for an app has a huge potential to be successful. All you need to do is cut through the noise and move forward in the right direction. 

Here are the six steps to help you get started. 

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1. Conduct a Competitive Research 

Developing, monetizing, and launching a smartphone application is not just a hobby or something people do every day. It is a serious business move that requires meticulous research and detailed planning. So, the first in your journey of successfully launching a mobile application – or any product or business idea, for that matter– should be to do competitive research. 

Competitive research includes recognizing your competition, analyzing their strengths and weaknesses and that of their mobile applications. Understanding this can give you valuable industry insights and help you position your app in the market in the correct way. In addition, it will help figure out how your own app stacks up and find out if there are any gaps in their product that you can cover in yours. 

Here are some of the best tools that can help you successfully conduct mobile app competitive research: 

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1. AppAnnie ‍

Pricing: Free and premium pricing options. 

AppAnnie provides you with a mobile performance suite and a high volume of data points. You can get advertising analytics and data-driven insights to help you make better and more informed decisions. The platform offers both free and premium pricing options. 

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2. TheTool

Pricing: 7-days free trial, then the Starter plan at €39/ month

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TheTool: It is another powerful App Store Optimization tool that can help you analyze and compare your app's visibility, analyze competitors' keywords and their rankings, and do a lot more.

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3. MobileAction

Pricing: Free trial, then the Growth plan at $299/ month and the Business plan at $599/ month

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This powerful tool helps you benchmark your competitors, get crucial and up-to-date marketing insights, visibility reports, keyword optimisation, etc.

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2. Formulate a Monetizing Strategy 

After completing your competitive research, you would have a fair idea about the app market, your competition, and where your mobile application idea stands. The next thing you should do is to create a monetization strategy. 

While most of the App Store and Play Store applications are free, it doesn't mean you won't make money from your app. You will need to create a detailed monetization model based on your concept, market insights, and what kind of experience you aim to provide to your users. 

Deciding how you are going to monetize your mobile app can be a complicated and time-consuming process. But it is also a critical process that will ensure you earn the profits you deserve. There are multiple methods and strategies that you can use to monetize your app; the most common ones include:  

• In-app purchases: If you want to create a free app, allowing in-app purchases is a fantastic way to earn profits from your smartphone application. This method is commonly used in mobile gaming, where users can buy things like avatars, unlock special features, purchase game coins, weapons, etc., in exchange for real money. Some popular mobile gaming apps that offer in-app purchases include Pokemon Go, Clash of Clans, Candy Crush Saga, etc.  

• It is also to be noted that both Apple's App Store and Google Play Store will charge a 30% commission for every in-app purchase. So, as a developer, you will get 70% of the sales amount and both Apple and Google will get the rest 30% as commission.  
  

• Subscriptions: You can also monetize a free mobile app by offering subscriptions or charge money for extra features. Such apps are popularly called "freemiums," where basic features are available for free, but users have to pay money to use other "premium" features. Popular apps that leverage this subscription model include Tinder, Spotify, Skype, etc. 
  

• Third-party ads: You can also include third-party ads on your app and earn revenue every time a user engages with the app. This includes earning from ad displays(payment per impression), clicks on the ad (pay per click), or when the user downloads the product mentioned in the ad (payment per download). 

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3. Design an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) 

An MVP or Minimum Viable Product is a popular concept used by companies to test new applications and products. When you design an MVP for your smartphone application idea, you basically build an app with the most basic and core functionalities and present it to early users for feedback. 

MVP development is an integral part of bringing your mobile app idea to life. You need to create an MVP to get the users' opinion on the core features of your app and make changes to it accordingly. It also helps you secure funding, assess the performance, and get genuine feedback from the users. Therefore, it is crucial to clearly define all the assumptions and features you want to include in your app and test them through an MVP. You can take help from the app development agencies to help you test your MVP.

Do you want to see more MVP examples? Read the ultimate guide to building an MVP (Minimum Valuable Product) + 8 examples of MVP

Testing all your assumptions will help you get a deep understanding of your end-user and the market you want to enter. It also lays the ground for all the future rounds of development and improvisations. By designing and launching an MVP of your mobile app idea, you can get a clear and sequential roadmap for the project’s future development.

Here are the examples of some of the biggest companies that started their journey from simple MVPs: 

• Amazon: The E-Commerce giant began its journey as an MVP that was based on selling books online.
  

• Facebook: Initially, Facebook was only about connecting the students of Harvard University with each other. And multiple iterations later, it is one of the biggest tech giants present today. 
  

• Uber: When Uber came into existence, its core feature was only to enable mobile users to communicate with taxi drivers and pay for their cab via credit cards. 

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4. Choose the Right Tech Partner & Select the Right Tech Stack 

While developing your mobile applications, it is crucial to pick the right app development approach and select the right tech stack; otherwise, you'd get lost in the way. For that, you need to understand the app's basics. There are two different categories of apps available out there, and they have different app development approaches and tech stacks.

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Here's a brief overview of each of them: 

• Web Apps: These apps are applications that are accessed via a web browser over the Internet.
  
• Native Cross-platform Apps: Such applications are developed by creating a unified API that runs on top of a native SDK. The developers use native IDEs and create iOS and Android applications sharing the same codebase.
  

At Apexive, we use the Flutter Framework to help you develop your mobile applications.

With these options, it's natural to get confused about which approach to adopt. Therefore, we suggest you choose the right development agency to help you out. Selecting the right development agency with ample industry experience is very important to turn your visit into reality. 

Apexive helps you develop your mobile application and ensures that the final product is precisely lined up with your vision. Once we collect all the app requirements, we provide you with top-notch development in record time. 

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5. Design a Marketing Plan and Roadmap 

At this stage, you would be having a pretty clear idea about your audience, your competition, and the market you'd be entering. So the next step is to formulate a detailed marketing plan. Again, it is important to design your marketing roadmap while your app is in the development stage. This way, as soon as you have the finished product, you'd be ready to roll! 

You can leverage online platforms like Product Hunt, Reddit, and social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, etc., to create a buzz for your marketing campaigns. Moreover, you can collaborate with influencers for advertising your smartphone app. Finally, you can launch a beta version of your app in the market and request users for initial feedback and reviews.  

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6. Analyze and Pivot! 

After launching the beta version of your mobile application, it's essential to analyze your results and app performance. This will help you decide the future course of action. 

You can use Google Analytics and Firebase for getting statistics and insights about your mobile applications. It is also a great idea to track the user retention and user activity rates to understand how your app is performing amongst the early users. These analytics and representative data will help you decide whether to pivot and introduce changes in your mobile app or go for full production.

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The Bottom Line

So there you go! From "I have an idea for an app" to "I have launched a great mobile app," these steps will help you turn your vision into reality! 

While successfully executing these steps will take a lot of your time and energy, but if you can implement them with perfection, there won't be a thing stopping you from starting the app business you have always dreamed of!

If you are looking for an app development agency that can assist you with building and publishing your mobile application, then Apexive can be just what you need! Our team of experienced developers will guide you at each stage of your app development journey and will help you turn your vision into a successful reality! Contact us now and let us help you develop your dream mobile applications.