Testing Android App Marketability

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Eladio Caritos

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May 15, 2012, 4:14:04 PM5/15/12
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Just wondering how you go about testing if an android app is worth building?
Is there some test that you run to see if the app will be in demand.
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Jim Ayson

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May 18, 2012, 12:08:15 AM5/18/12
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On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 4:14 AM, Eladio Caritos <ela...@caritos.com> wrote:
> Just wondering how you go about testing if an android app is worth building?
> Is there some test that you run to see if the app will be in demand.

Just chiming in - that's more of a marketing or product dev question
that is not easy to answer technically. You have to do your market
research to determine what the customers want. You can do internet
market research or you can go the old fashioned route and do surveys
and focus groups. The latter is old school - Apple is notorious for
not doing any market research - they just relied on Steve Jobs' tastes
:)

You can also just release your app and expect it to fail and fail
fast. If it does, learn from the mistakes and refine the app, even
pivot till you get it right.

There is a cool book out on Product Development called "Inspired: How
To Create Products Customers Love" by Mart Cagan that's worth reading
- it's on Amazon Kindle.

You can also look at ways of stoking demand - the Zynga and OMGPOP
mobile games stoked demand by making use of Facebook Open graph in
their apps - they scaled by piggy backing on Facebook's user base.

Marc Lester Tan

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May 18, 2012, 2:38:38 AM5/18/12
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I normally do #1 from Sam's list and if your idea is targeted to a very small niche, you might just want to quickly build your app with basic features and improve later on (or sell a premium version) if you feel you are getting a good downloads count.

Cheers,

Marc Lester Tan 




On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 10:07 AM, Samuel Lawson <samuel...@gmail.com> wrote:
I suggest 2 ways:

1) Search Google Play for similar apps and see how many downloads they
are getting

2) Imagine a group of 100 people from various backgrounds. How many of
them would be interested in your app? Does it appeal to all ages? male
and female? The more niche your app is then the lower your downloads
will be.

Then again for some niche areas users are willing to pay especially if
it solves some real world problem.

For example both these apps are well overpriced but still sell well:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.dslrcontroller

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dishpointer.dparpro





On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 4:14 AM, Eladio Caritos <ela...@caritos.com> wrote:
> Just wondering how you go about testing if an android app is worth building?
> Is there some test that you run to see if the app will be in demand.
>
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Eladio Caritos

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May 18, 2012, 10:31:27 AM5/18/12
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Thanks for the feedback guys.
I'm also just doing #1 from Sam's list. I'm building an app and
wishing it's an app that people are willing to pay for it.
After reading "The Lean Startup", I just wanted to get more feedback
up front before I waste 2-3 months building a product only one person
wants.



On May 18, 2:38 am, Marc Lester Tan <mail...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I normally do #1 from Sam's list and if your idea is targeted to a very
> small niche, you might just want to quickly build your app with basic
> features and improve later on (or sell a premium version) if you feel you
> are getting a good downloads count.
>
> Cheers,
>
> *Marc Lester Tan *
>
> http://marctan.com
>
> On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 10:07 AM, Samuel Lawson <samuel.law...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > I suggest 2 ways:
>
> > 1) Search Google Play for similar apps and see how many downloads they
> > are getting
>
> > 2) Imagine a group of 100 people from various backgrounds. How many of
> > them would be interested in your app? Does it appeal to all ages? male
> > and female? The more niche your app is then the lower your downloads
> > will be.
>
> > Then again for some niche areas users are willing to pay especially if
> > it solves some real world problem.
>
> > For example both these apps are well overpriced but still sell well:
>
> >https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.dslrcontro...
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