Custom Application Development [The Ultimate Guide of 2023]

Creating an electronic application is one of the most important means of profit from the emerging Internet in the current period. Everyone depends on applications in various areas of life, such as social communication, entertainment, money transfer, and others.

Also, the use of applications is no longer limited to technology experts only, but there are millions of people who depend on applications in their daily lives without having great or even average technical knowledge, and without the need to own expensive smartphones.

In 2020, the profits of applications reached about $ 582 billion. This, if anything, indicates that the application market is a successful and profitable market.

You may now think that entering this field is limited to large companies, and this is not true. In this article, we explain to you in detail the steps to create a smartphone application through which you can earn thousands of dollars and more.

What are Custom Apps?

Custom apps, also known as bespoke or custom-made apps, are developed specifically for a particular client or organization. They are tailored to meet clients’ specific needs, requirements, and preferences. They are typically built from scratch using programming languages such as Java, C#, Python and frameworks like React, Angular, Vue.js, and .Net Core.

They are not available for the general public and can only be used by the organization or client who commissioned them. Custom based apps can be used for various purposes, such as automating business processes, data analysis, customer relationship management, etc.

What is Custom Application Development?

Custom application development is the process of designing, developing, and deploying software applications for specific users or use cases. For example, many organizations have custom-made HR portals for their employees, freelancers, etc.

According to a recent survey, up to 80% of organizations say that custom development through the help of citizen developers has given their IT departments more breathing room.

Low-code, no-code citizen development platforms have encouraged the rise of a new category of citizen development. These are tech-savvy members of the various teams within your organization that can build the kinds of apps they need to optimize their business processes without writing code.

In the past, the responsibility of building custom app development software used to lie on in-house development teams or IT departments. These days, thanks to low-code development platforms, businesses no longer depend on professional coders to build the app they need.

Building custom business apps helps users design, build, and deploy applications to suit their needs. This type of app has a well-defined set of requirements that focus on the unique needs of a specific group of users.

The design of these apps begins with a unique problem they’re meant to solve, and the software is fully optimized to solve this problem. Custom application development allows business users to step into the shoes of app developers and build apps from the ground up. This ensures business users greater flexibility and control over how they work and helps reduce overall dependence on IT teams.

What is Meant by Custom Application Development?

Custom application development is the design of software applications for users in an organization to meet specific business needs. Design and develop your own custom application to address specific obligations rather than traditional, standard software.

While it may seem tempting to start using the no-code app builder for a quick turnaround, there’s no guarantee that it will have everything you need. There are some benefits of creating private custom apps which are:

• You can finish changing business strategies or procedures to work with pre-defined software for off-the-shelf applications.

• Override the use of multiple applications for specific business functions.

• Reduces external threats from hackers and other cyber threats.

• It gives your organization its intellectual property rights to improve and update the custom application as needed.

• Save money on hardware as your custom app is built into your infrastructure.

• Provide full access to your development team so issues can be resolved quickly.

After you decide to build your next custom app, you’ll have a whole host of possibilities.

Steps to Create and Build your own Custom apps

Before your team can start developing your next custom app, developers and business decision makers need to understand your users’ requirements, both necessary and optional. Here are the steps to take when creating your custom app.

1. Determine ideal User for Applications.

Find out what types of people will use your app. Creating individual personas will help you define who your users are, what they need, and how often they use your app. By gathering this information, you will build detailed user profiles for your application and get a better understanding of the functions you will need.

2. Translate your ideas into a Prototype.

Once you have the personality types of who’s using the app and the functions you’ll need, you need to create an interactive prototype for testing. The Rapid Application Development (RAD) methodology is a great way to give users consistent and fast feedback on long-term planning while also allowing you to make changes quickly. Make sure to A/B test any new features and validate the user experience before starting the next phase of the launch.

3. Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

After a successful prototype, you can create an MVP to release to the entire world. Here, you can get feedback from real-world applications, not just from your teammates. By offering users the latest updates with continuous delivery, the latest compatible technology, and encryption that protects your customers’ data, you remain committed to personal privacy.

4. Make Sure your App Stands Out.

You can stay on top of the latest updates and features, but if your custom app doesn’t offer anything special, users will look elsewhere. Ensure the latest features are installed on all operating systems, integrate with other third-party applications, and keep up with logging functionality to help eliminate bugs and speed up the Quality Assurance (QA) process.

Mobile teams don’t always plan for the necessary time QA takes to deliver a ready product to the user. Focus on testing while developing mobile applications as you present all kinds of user experiences, both positive and negative.

5. Decide Which App is Best For you: Web or Mobile.

There is a common misconception that mobile and web apps are interchangeable. Knowing what application you’re developing will have a significant impact on everything from design to software to build applications to use, to user experience to deployment. Mobile apps are limited to your phone and platform, but they can access internal resources like GPS, photos, and contacts, are faster, and can work offline. On the other hand, web applications work just like any Internet browser: no need to download or install on your computer and work almost the same as on a mobile device.

Both web and mobile apps can be considered customized apps, so make sure you understand what your users need and how they will be able to access your information.

6. Consider The Cost of Custom Application Development.

Depending on your end goal, many cases affect how much your app can cost. Building, maintaining, testing, functionality, and constantly updating to the latest features for both operating systems—all play a role in the final cost of your custom application. There are price points based on each item, so making sure you’re getting what your users need is crucial.

This does not mean that you have to spend a fortune to get an application that is effective and easy to use. Microsoft Power Apps provides a cost effective, low code solution to help you build custom apps just the way you want them with built-in dashboards, pre-built templates, and rapid deployment.

7. Define The Properties of Application.

Some people may confuse the concept of the application idea as including the characteristics of the application, and this is incorrect. The idea of the application is the solution that this application provides to its users, but the characteristics are how this application provides or presents this solution to the users.

In the previous grocery app example; The application satisfies the need of individuals to buy grocery ingredients without making any effort. As for the characteristics, we can say that they are the details of applying this need and the advantages that the application offers in the field of grocery delivery.

The deficiency in this example may relate to the delivery of these orders, the time of their arrival, or even the place of receipt or payment. Another famous example is financial applications. The idea of this application is to facilitate electronic payments and purchases for users.

The characteristics of these applications may be the possibility of paying bills or linking to electronic wallets or a bank account and so on. The bottom line is that you need to prepare a list of properties for your application.

We know that you may have a large number of features and features that you would like to add in your application and this is great, however it is preferable that you divide these features into primary and secondary features.

Essential properties are the focus of the solution or fulfillment of the need of the users you aim to help with your app, and therefore should be your primary focus in terms of consideration and consideration.

Secondary properties may include visual properties, display data in a certain way, or even share it on social media. These properties may be anything you want and they are important, of course, but their importance is not equal to the importance of the basic application properties.

Note that designing the application programmatically is expensive, and to reduce the cost, at least in the beginning, you should focus on the basic features of the application only. Of course, later on, you can add all the secondary features that you want, whether through simple updates or comprehensive updates.

Also, defining the basic characteristics of your application will help you to present it to investors clearly.

Investors need to know the most important thing that your application will provide to users, this will help them during the process of making a decision to fund this application, but it can be considered as the final decision in the process of financing this application or not, as we will explain later.

8. Create a Business Team (or group of teams).

Let’s be honest, creating an app is a huge process. Can one person do it? Yes, but not easily, especially in the early stages of the application creation process

The stages of finding the application idea, its characteristics, and even its name may be completed by one person within a short period of time. As for the advanced stages in this process, such as market studies and marketing the application, a team is indispensable to complete it properly.

Marketing the mobile application alone may require an entire team. Note that you may be marketing a product that you want to publish globally and not just locally, not to mention that there are other factors that make the idea of relying on one individual to market the application almost impossible.

other than voltage distribution; Having a team work with you to help you manage and market the application is essential. Even after the implementation phase and launching the application to the user, you will need to launch updates and handle errors. In other words, you will need a technical team.

Of course, you can rely on the party that designed the application to carry out maintenance tasks and updates for it, however, it is preferable to have a technical team available to you, even on a part-time basis, to solve emergency or huge application problems.

Well, the purpose here is not to complicate things for you at all, but rather to clarify what you need for your application to succeed in its field. Now that we have explained the reasons for your need to have a work team or small work teams, we will help you on how to form these teams.

First: you will need to identify the tasks that need a team, which are often:

• Financial tasks (managing application funds and paying various expenses).

• Legal tasks such as usage agreements.

• Technical and software tasks (maintenance and updates).

• Public relations (communication with investors and companies).

Now dealing with all the previous tasks requires some intelligence. You can arrange and classify these tasks according to their importance according to each stage of the application.

For example, the financial tasks will exist at the beginning of the life of the application and continue thereafter. Marketing the application will not take place until after the completion of its design, or at least a short period before its completion.

You will encounter legal tasks once you receive application funding, especially if you rely on an angel investor, partner, and so on.

After following the previous method, you will have fewer teams that need to be formed.

Now we move on to the formation methods: Which team will take over which of the previous tasks, and its final management will be directly subordinate to you.

Remember this matter well when choosing your work team, because one of the team building methods that application owners may rely on is relying on their friends and acquaintances to be the basis of these teams, and this is an excellent method for forming these teams.

However, with regard to business management, you may face problems in communicating with some of your friends and acquaintances when it comes to issuing orders and instructions, but do not let this note keep you away from following this method of forming a team, but rather take it into account while following it.

The first advantage of this method is that it may be a great savings. We do not mean here that you save on the wages of your acquaintances and friends who will work with you, but rather that their wages (or part of them) can be saved in another way, such as shares of profits or shares in the application.

We are assuming here that your dependent friends are not experts in the areas they are going to undertake, but rather they have some knowledge and experience that qualifies them to take on these tasks.

In other words, the cost of their wages will not equal the cost of relying on companies or specialized teams to carry out the same tasks.

Of course, you can hire professional people to carry out these tasks, whether from self-employment platforms or through an agreement with a company. The appropriate method for forming a team is related to your personal opinions and your available budget in the first place.

9. Choose a Design Method.

How will you create your application will you depend on yourself? Or on others?

Anyway, there are several ways you can create your own app:

a) Design the app yourself.

b) Contracting with a Programming Company.

Hiring a programming company to create your own application is a practical and logical solution. Programming companies will save you time and effort to learn and train a programming language to create your own application.

Do a quick search for the best programming companies available in your country or even globally, and contact them to find out the cost of creating the application.

c) Hire a Programmer.

Do you think hiring a programmer to create an app is the same process as hiring a software company? Well that is not entirely true, hiring a programmer may be easier and cheaper than hiring a software company.

There are several ways in which you can hire a programmer to create your application such as:

• Seek help from a programmer you know (one of your friends or acquaintances).

• Hiring a programmer through Fiverr – Upwork.

Try to review the programmer’s previous work or resume before hiring him. Of course, it is preferable to seek the help of a programmer who has experience in creating applications similar to your application or even in the same field.

d) Using App Builder Platforms.

Application building platforms enable you to create your own application without the need to have knowledge of programming languages.

Here are the top platforms on which you can easily create your app:

The previous platforms have a low cost, and some of them are free and easy to use. There are a large number of world-famous applications that have been created through these platforms.

10. Post-Creation Tasks.

After creating the application, there will be some tasks left that you will have to do. These tasks can be divided into two types: the first type are tasks that are performed once, and the second are continuous tasks throughout the life of the application.

The tasks that you will do once is to upload your application to the application store of the operating system that your application is running on. Each store has different conditions for accepting applications. You need to read these terms carefully and know each shop’s software and hardware ID requirements.

As for the ongoing tasks, they are tasks such as marketing, maintenance, and updates, and most of them are tasks that began with you during the creation of the application. These tasks do not end, but their objectives change every period.

The task of marketing the application moves from the stage of attracting users to use the application only to marketing its new features that are added every once in a while. Maintenance tasks and updates work all the time to solve problems and improve the performance of the application continuously.

These tasks are the secret to the success of any application. Creating the application and uploading it to the store without marketing will not bring you users, profits, and so on.

Important note: The order of the steps to create your application that we mentioned in this article is indicative and not mandatory. It is true that there are always steps that will precede steps such as the idea selection step precedes the design step, but this is not the case with all steps.

With regard to generating profits, we have provided him with a special article in The Winners entitled Ways to Profit from Mobile Apps, which I advise you to review.

Conclusion

In this ultimate guide, we have tried to explain the steps that enable you to create your own application with ease. You do not need more than following this guide to become one of the owners of successful applications and achieve huge profits in a short time.

Do you have ideas on what to watch out for while building apps? Share it with us in the comments.