Thanks for joining us for Episode 10 of The Startup Chat with Steli and Hiten.  Today’s we're talking about effectively launching a mobile app.

Hiten and Steli received a listener email (which they love, by the way) from someone they met at Microconf. They gave him some advice at the time and he responded to what they said immediately.  Now, approximately two months later, the listener emailed to update on his progress and asked for tips on how to launch a mobile app.  Steli and Hiten were really happy to get the update and believe the best way to get somebody invested in your idea is to keep them updated.  In turn, the person you update will become a source of help for you because you’ve developed that relationship.  Steli and Hiten believe an email update should include what course of action you have taken and why, as well as what you plan to do and what you need from the person you are updating.  Hiten sent back tips on launching a mobile app and both guys asked the listener to keep them in the loop monthly.

Hiten explains it is extremely important to take you time in doing an app release.  He suggests you build an app prototype using something like TestFlight  and  HockeyApp as a way to get started.  Once you’ve started to develop the app, release it to friends or a target group and also use it yourself on a daily basis.  Ask for input and reviews from your users and respond to it and continue to add batches of people to test.  Steli adds that because of the competitive market, it’s important to make an app that people will actually use on a regular basis.  Hiten describes the next step as adding the polish and taking care of all the things such as onboarding, adding push notices and handling all the details before releasing it in an app store.

Episode Tips

Steli:  Determine if the people who have downloaded your app are real users instead of people who just downloaded the app.  Determine what you need to do to get people to use it daily before you scale it.

Hiten: Be aggressive in figuring out if you’re wrong about any assumptions you’ve made in regard to the development of the app.  Don’t assume that everything you believe about it is correct.

Tweet at us with questions and comments from the show today @Steli and @hnshah.

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