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The 5 Biggest Mistakes First-Time App Founders Make

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App Masters15:35Open on YouTube
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The bottom line

First-time app founders succeed by launching a minimal app that solves one problem well and earns money from day one. Overbuilding, chasing downloads and going big too soon burn money and time before anyone uses the app.

Key takeaways

  • An app should start by solving one simple problem. 1:48
    • Facebook began by giving ordinary people a profile page, and Google began as a better search.
    • Gmail began as plain email with 100 MB of storage, and a clear single problem also makes the target audience and keywords easy to find.
  • The M in MVP means minimum, so fewer features save time and money. 5:45
    • Too many features means too much time and too much money, and releasing features slowly gives users new reasons to return.
    • One app grew from $1,000-2,000 to $8,000-10,000 a month by changing only its pricing and paywall, with no new features or downloads.
  • An app should earn money from the first minute instead of chasing downloads. 9:25
    • Only 17% of apps make at least $1,000 a month, according to RevenueCat.
    • One app grew from $250 to $1,000 a month with just 15 downloads, by working on its paywall and onboarding.
  • Starting small with a plan and a marketing budget keeps an app alive. 10:40
    • Big gaming companies soft launch in another country for about six months before spending millions on a worldwide launch.
    • A great app that nobody knows about is the same as an app never published to the store.
  • Product and marketing work best as alternating steps. 13:45
    • The best marketing can't fix a bad product, and great products still need some marketing.
    • The cycle is to fix the product, run marketing, read the data, then fix the product again.

Ideas are cheap but execution is crucial.

Chaim, B7 Dev

Chapter summaries

0:00 Launch simple, not perfect

A first app should be a rough MVP that solves one problem, because polish means nothing without users.

  • First-time founders wrongly expect their product to look like a blue-chip company. 1:37
    • Big apps today are complex because they have had about 20 years to grow.
    • A new app is just being born, so it should not copy that whole environment.
    • Before Facebook, most people had no way to open their own page in two or three steps.
    • Today the same idea lives in Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok.
  • An ugly launch is fine if it has a paywall, onboarding and the core problem. 3:51
    • One test launch had plain screenshots, a decent icon and an unpolished paywall.
    • Users pay more for an app that does one thing well, and they accept several single-purpose apps.
    • A fitness client missed the January peak season because he kept building gamification.
    • His advice: be embarrassed by your MVP, get users first, then add on top.

5:28 Too many features

Extra features cost money and time, and they confuse the users the app needs.

  • Cutting features is the way to cut both cost and development time. 5:45
    • Many founders read the M in MVP as maximum.
    • The app should solve the original problem, then be tested again and again before anything is added.
    • Money and time are the two limits, so the feature count is the lever to pull.
    • A founder should sustain a business, not throw everything out at once and hope it sticks.
  • A big batch of features at launch leaves users unsure where to start. 6:38
    • Users who don't understand the app say no.
    • Features released over time are easier to digest and to market.
    • Each new release gives a reason to re-engage users and market the app again.
    • The goal is to survive as a business, not to build everything and fail.

7:48 Downloads are not a business

Chasing downloads is a way to dodge the harder work of improving the app and earning from it.

  • Downloads do not turn into money on their own. 9:00
    • The myth says a big download count will one day attract investors or money.
    • Surviving with an app is already a success.
    • The advice is to earn from the users you already have instead of entertaining many people for free.
    • Perception matters: the paywall and onboarding text shape whether people pay.
  • Developers default to downloads because execution is the hard part. 9:47
    • The hard part is finding the one simple big idea and reading the data.
    • More downloads are not needed to grow. The app itself needs attention.
    • The data questions are where people fall off, who does not subscribe, and what they do in the app.
    • Developers who skip this just ask for more downloads.

10:20 Too big too soon

Going big early wastes money unless the plan, budget and marketing are settled first.

  • Your funding decides your pace. 10:40
    • Bootstrapped founders should be slow and cheap.
    • Funded founders can be fast and expensive, because that is what investors expect.
    • Game companies finish their homework in the soft launch, so the worldwide launch has nothing left to figure out.
    • The slow route has a price: too many features means too much time and money.
  • Plan and budget everything before you build. 11:16
    • Without knowing what to do next, an app will not survive.
    • Talk to people who already know the industry.
    • Planning to go big from the start burns money and time.
    • Marketing is the item most often left out of that budget.
  • Marketing starts before launch. 12:56
    • Pre-launch marketing validates the idea and finds early adopters.
    • Those users give the feedback an app needs to survive.
    • It covers both online and offline work.
    • Spending everything on development is the common mistake.

13:11 Execution beats ideas

Validating, planning and executing an idea gives far better odds than leaving it as an idea.

  • Everyone has good ideas, so only validated and executed ones count. 14:21
    • Validate the idea, do the homework, then execute.
    • Solving a real problem raises the chance of success.
    • Chance of success is somewhere between zero and one, and an idea left undone is closer to zero.
    • Execution means doing the work, not collecting ideas.

In the growth library

Steve P. Young and Chaim (Haim) of B7 Dev, Steve P. Young, founder of App Masters (app marketing agency); Chaim, founder of B7 Dev (app development firm, YouTube channel Rational Startup). Two app veterans, one from marketing and one from development, walk through five mistakes first-time app founders make: perfecting the MVP, piling on features, chasing downloads, going too big too soon, and treating marketing and product as separate. A paywall and pricing change took one app from $1,000-$2,000 to $8,000-$10,000 a month with no new features or downloads.

Lessons that draw on this:

More from App Masters · The whole library, and ask it anything

Transcript403 lines
0:00

coming up we're going to talk about the biggest mistakes that you absolutely have to avoid especially if you're a firsttime app founder stay tuned what is up app Nation it is Steve Pou young founder of at masters.com the YouTube channel the podcast the agency you go to when you want to increase your downloads and revenue and today I've got a topic that I think is so important it's one of the questions I get asked the most especially for first-time Founders look the app space is a very complicated difficult business to run and so really understanding how to operate especially in the early stages of your app is so critical and so joining me today is Heim from B7 Dev the app development firm that I've been working with since 2013 himim to break it all down some of the things from a technical standpoint because Heim has seen it for the clients he's worked with in building the apps and from the market

1:00

marketing standpoint that after heim's done building the apps for the clients they come to us to help with the marketing so we're going to break it down all for you today himim welcome back to the show hi Steve how are you thank you for having me I am good I'm all right let's break it all down look I'm the first we we put these together and I'm going to try this here with a little whiteboard with you guys but I'm this is what I feel like is too many times people are trying to perfect their MVP and not paying enough time just sort of like launch it I feel like you know you know and you talk about like trying to solve one simple problem like why did you build the app and trying to solve that problem too correct these are problem today about perception first time Founders they perceive that the product should be like a blue chip company so they forgot about the simple truth you need to solve one problem at a

1:51

time okay so your app your first time app or your second time app or any app what you need to do is to solve one simple problem use see today no my app is not that good because you know I use Facebook app and Facebook app is really complex correct but you can remember if we start to just mind about that what Facebook did in the beginning Facebook solve one single problem you as a mortal people you don't have I mean most of the people like 99% of the people of the world they don't have their own profile on internet okay before today we understand that you can open your own page anywhere in I don't know Instagram that also belongs to Facebook or into you know Pinterest or Tik Tok or whatever it is but in the beginning there was no way for you in two three things single steps to open your own page in Facebook in Internet sorry Facebook came solve that simple problem then you can relate with other friends

2:55

in order to stay connected and see what they are doing or what they like lives are up to one single idea Google Google is a very gigantic and huge company what they soled in the beginning the market or the people the user in general needed a better search no Google Drive no anything just and even Gmail is just one better idea there is a simple email with in the beginning 100 megabytes of storage that's it I mean it's not that complicated your idea should be really clear really simple but well executed forget about the whole environment that should be working like those company doing they have like 20 years of life and you are just being born so just focus focus stay focused on one single idea solve one single problem that the people has and you will make it big later I like it and I know what we've been trying to do too is H we'll launch an MVP and we'll just see and we're going to get to this point too but for

3:57

the marketing side we'll just see if if it sticks so the screenshots weren't pretty the app icon was decent the pay wall was not pretty but we have a pay wall we have an onboarding and then we have the main problem we're trying to solve and the main keywords because what Heim said was if you're trying to solve that one simple problem your marketing becomes so much easier you know who that target audience is you know what that main keyword you're trying to go after is so makes everything else easier and guess what himim when you're trying to solve that one simple problem and you're doing it really well they're more likely to pay you anyways and that's what we've seen in the App Store like they're not we're not looking for apps that do everything yes there are some apps and maybe that's the future but right now we do have apps that are good for this thing good for this thing good for this thing that's what I've seen with a lot

4:44

of the apps that we work with too like they're okay with having five different apps that do that one thing really well the other story I want to say himim and I'm so glad you're saying it too because I think it means more coming from both ends you're the technical side I'm the marketing side we had one client that was in the fit space we work together in September October time frame I said we have to launch an MVP trying to perfect your MVP before January when the peak season for Fitness but he took too long he was trying to do what you said himim right he was trying to build all this gamification all this other stuff while important gamification doesn't matter if you don't have users so go get your users first be embarrassed by your MVP and then go ahead and add on top of that as well shall we move on to number two and number two I'm is sort of like number one I'm going to write this down

5:31

we're going to we're going to try something different so that's adding too many features yeah as I always say too many features too much time too much money okay you don't have anything of that so what you need to do again is to break this conception that you need to do it all the minimum features the M on MVP is for minimum and a lot of Founders they misunderstood it for maximum so the am is for minimum just limit you the what the app should do and do do it well okay otherwise just think about that you need a lot of money to develop a lot of stuff that will take a lot of time you need to reduce the money you need to reduce the time so you need to reduce the number of features again back to number one focus on solving the original problem and then solve it well test it and test it and test it but that works for this original solution and then you can add and even for marketing that and you're the expert on this field that the

6:30

more features that you release slowly over time helps you with the marketing a lot because you are engaging the users over and over again with new features that they will like just imagine if you prepare a very battery of features that they will say no because they don't understand the app because they don't know what to do first okay if you release it over time will be easier for them to digest and to understand and also to market the up you said it best too many features equals too much time equals too much money and your goal as an entrepreneur is to sustain a business not necessar throw everything all at once and hope that it sticks like you want to survive as a business not like just build this and then go and you know fail here's one app himim that I have experience with we bought this app anyways it was making about a$ th000 to $2,000 a month and was just changing the pricing changing the pay wall around we

7:26

were able to go from 1 to 2,000 all the way to $8 to $10,000 a month no additional downloads and more importantly to your point no additional new features the product was already that's why I wanted to buy the app was it was already ranking pretty well for some keywords so was getting organic downloads and just by changing the pricing and the pay wall around with no new features by the way we're able to generate one 1 to 2,000 to 8 to 10,000 just like that so all right him let me get into number three and my favorite topic and one of the things I'm most passion about is talking about this is a lot of times developers Focus too much on downloads it's too much like a lot of time we have this case study of a app that was making $250 a month so okay not big grew it to $1,000 a month and why that thousand is so important is only seven according to revenue cat only 17% of all apps make at least $1,000 a month

8:25

so there's a lot of graveyard in the app store that's why him in IR cre this video we don't want you to join that graveyard we don't want you to be a dead app and so he went from $250 to $1,000 a month with just 15 downloads that again is one5 15 downloads a month so really if you have some downloads start playing around with the pay wall the onboarding work with ham his team we can help you with what the onboarding should say but really pay attention to that stuff perception everything is perception I mean the people sometime they heard that you don't need to make money with your app or everything that you need is download Someday eventually Over the Rainbow you will get a lot of money because someone will say well wow you have a lot of downloads so I will give you a lot of money as an investor or the people will start putting your bank account with money just because you know you are nice and

9:23

done and you have a lot of downloads the reality is very different you need to monetize from the f minute to survive just surviving with an app is is already a success okay so I will listen what the Steve says about downloads I mean monetizing the users that you already have and not trying to get just downloads for free I mean otherwise you are entertaining A lot of people for freak and you know kind like what you said too on top of this was execution is key right like and execution also means and sometimes time when I found with developers is they don't want to do the hard part that's why they default the downloads because the hard part is execution it's figuring out what that simple big idea that you wanted to build on and then looking at the data are people falling off are people like not subscribing what are they doing within the app and they don't want to do that hard part they're just like give me more

10:15

downloads that I'll grow and I'm like you don't need more downloads to grow you just need to pay attention to the app itself number four is too big too soon and you know a lot of this is what you kind of talk about too I'm is to do your homework right like I think what we found is we'll come up with the game plan because like you just said too many features too much time too much money so for me I feel like if you're a bootstrap you can be slow and methodical slow and cheap or fast and expensive right if you're funded go ahead be fast and expensive that's what they want that's why you got the funding but if you're trying to bootstrap it and use your own money well then be slow and a lot of the big gaming companies that we work with him they'll do a soft launch in a different country they'll do it for like six months perfecting it so that when we do a worldwide launch and they spend millions of dollars on a marketing

11:12

budget they've already figured out everything else so do your homework without knowing what you want to do and how you want to do and how much you want to do and what you want to do next or what you should do next you won't to survive a lot of time in in the app industry you need to plan you you need to know you need to talk with people that already knows this this is where when th and I jump in and then we guide you about what is the best next step to do another important point is you need to know and you need to budget beforehand everything that you will need to to do okay if you plan to go big from the beginning you know that you will burn a lot of money you will burn a lot of time and then maybe you won't take in consideration some important aspects or one of the most important aspect that is marketing okay it's not because Steve is here take my advice if you don't earn Mar money for marketing even if you have the best

12:13

app the coolest app the best in the world but no one knows that the app is out there anyone will use your app it's the same like having the best app and not publishing it into the store okay so you need to know that you will have to apply to use to work on some or invest in some kind of marketing wherever it is in my case first step I recommend to talk with the Steve okay but it's not just just a Ste you need to do Marketing Online offline it's another separate video to do about what you do as the few steps of marketing of course that you are a follower of Steve's podcast you will know very well where the tools out there to takeing notice but you need to take Marketing in account for sure pre-launch start to validating the idea okay start to getting early adapters in order to survive you need to also feedback etc etc and all that you get it through markeet thank you H for saying that that's why I like talking to you

13:14

about these type of videos because you see it from the tech side and sometimes they come to me like I spend everything on development I'm like okay how do I help you right and I I put in here the the product side too because obviously sometimes I'll have products I'm like again back to too many features are focusing too much on downloads and too big too soon obviously the way I like to operate this is H you did the product you did a great product right and so now let's throw in the marketing after we did the marketing let's focus on what is happening now that we have the downloads what's happening in the the app do we need to fix the product because look all the best marketing can't fix a bad product right all the greatest products need a little bit of marketing too right and so they go hand inand with each other and the way I like to do it is product marketing product marketing like a step-by-step process and pause in

14:02

between each thing so you fix the product you run marketing then you run marketing figure out what the data says then fix the product that's how I do it yeah all I think we covered a lot of great content here anything else you see that we're missing from this whiteboard that we have no just okay the the last thing I can say is another saying is ideas are cheap but execution is crucial so everyone has ideas good ideas but you need to validate the idea yes you need to work on them you need to do your homework the planning and then the execution should be really important here get to work on the idea get to solve a problem and then you will have a higher chance of of success that not doing it between zero and one chances of success I would say one all right guys that's it now if you want to work with himim and his team go check out his website bev.com bev.com it's the letter B the number 7 dev.com

15:01

and lastly himim has a new YouTube channel that he wants you guys to check out and he's going to talk more on the technical side of things and help you avoid the biggest mistakes that he's seen working over I mean I've only known you for 10 plus 11 plus years I'm but working with thousands hundreds of clients and the biggest mistakes that they see go check out his YouTube channel I'm going to link it up into the YouTube description as well but it is if you just want to search for it the rational startup the rational startup is his YouTube channel I'm thank you so much for coming on and doing this thank you