Outsourcing mobile app development to any company needs a full-proof plan. One mistake and your thousands to lakhs of dollars are gone.

Whenever there is a new app idea comes up and you don’t know whether the latest features or functionalities have been utilized for your mobile app or not, The excitement increases to a level that we want to have it developed ASAP before it is developed by somebody else.

Thanks to the competitive technology and startup era.

Each day, you hear some random app idea is evolving and a startup has raised some funds. In such a competitive world, we also need to take care that we don’t make mistakes while speeding to become successful.

The most crucial portion is to find the right mobile app development company to outsource your app idea to be designed and developed.

And, here most businesses make some or the other mistakes due to which their app idea is scrapped or not being developed appropriately, timely, and efficiently. Finally, there is another company who gets it developed right and become successful.

So, how to avoid your competitor to become successful for your app idea? By not making the following 13 mistakes while outsourcing your mobile app development.

1. Poor audience & market research

The first and the foremost mistake is the poor audience research. You start looking at outsourcing mobile app development to the top-notch companies without identifying the audience of the app.

You are not aware of your audience, their demographics, their needs, your competitors and then, you end up hiring a company who helps you develop the app as per your requirements.

But, when your app idea fails, you realise that you had wasted a lot of your time, energy and money while outsourcing it.

So, what should you do to avoid this?
To guide the app development outsourcing companies about your requirements, you need to understand-

• For whom you are developing this app?
• Whether this kind of app is already developed?
• If yes, then what are its features?
• If yes, then what the audience think about those apps?
• What are the loopholes in the similar app?
• Do you really want to develop one?
• How important is it to develop this app for your audience?
• How successful or failed is the already existing one?
• Does your audience really need another app?

Based on the answers that you receive after researching the audience and the market of the app, you can actually understand what your requirements are and how you want your outsourcing app development company to work on.

2. Lack of app requirement analysis

Another mistake you do while outsourcing mobile app development is the lack of understanding and analyzing the app requirements.

When you don’t know what your app should have and what your audience is actually looking for, in your app, you end up-

• Researching the app development companies in a wrong direction
• Choosing the wrong one
• Spending more
• Losing thousands of dollars
• Wasting your time and efforts

So, what should you do to avoid this?
Follow the below steps to avoid this mistake-

• Work aggressively on competitive analysis
• Find out what features the similar app has
• Find out where is the competitors’ app lagging behind
• Identify what other features the audience might be looking for
• Look for competitors’ app reviews
• Try to prepare the scope of your app
• Map the features that you would want in your app

All these steps will help you in avoiding this mistake while outsourcing your mobile app development.

3. Look for the same solution as competitors

Yes, it would be a mistake if you don’t look at the app idea, that you are planning to build, already exists in the market or not.

But, it is equally a mistake if you are looking to develop an app that is exactly similar to what your competitors have developed.

This is what most companies want to do. You want to develop an app because your competitor has developed without knowing whether your customers or audience are looking for a similar app or not.

You choose an app development company and ask them to develop the exact similar app as of your competitors. And, what will be the end result?

You have another app competing with the existing ones and that too, without any research or marketing plan. You’ve wasted a hell lot of dollars in developing that.

And, what is the guarantee of your app becoming successful with no solid strategy?

So, What should you do to avoid this?
Let’s consider that it is not a mistake as you really want to develop the app with the similar app idea.

Look for the app development company who would not just help you develop the similar app, but would also come up with the features or functionalities that you would add to your app which would prove helpful for the audience.

Also, you can work on the app requirements analysis. This helps you in understanding what features the competitors’ app is missing and what all things the audience might require in such kind of apps.

Hence, don’t go for developing ditto apps, go beyond what already exists.

4. Look for the top mobile app development companies

Just imagine-

You just saw an app and while looking at that you’ve got a brilliant app idea. You started looking for the similar apps in the play stores and investigating about who have developed similar apps earlier.

Also, for your brilliant app idea, you would want to outsource to a mobile app development company who has a track record of developing apps for top-notch companies.

So, you would contact them and then, while communicating with them, you realize that they cost a bomb to develop your app which you can’t afford at the moment.

This is what happens with many entrepreneurs, startups and even with various B2C companies.

So, what should you do to avoid this?
Don’t rush to find the outsourcing companies that have developed apps for top brands. Rather, learn here on how to find out the best mobile app development companies in just 14 steps.

5. Change your mind to cheaper options

Well, what happens after you’ve checked the companies that charge you way more? You immediately change your mind to find the companies who would charge as minimal as possible.

Beware! Don’t do that. Because technology is an which is never going to be cheap and your app is a business for you. You cannot compromise on the quality of your mobile app being developed.

There is no guarantee that the outsourcing companies with cheaper rates would develop an extraordinary mobile app, with wow-some features backed by the solid marketing strategy.

So, what should you do to avoid this?
You shall look for the companies who have developed successful apps. Always look for-

• Quality over quantity of apps developed by them
• The time they take to develop the app
• What is the total cost they charge?
• Whether that fits into your budgeted and required timeline

Also, check out an article on how much time does it take to develop a mobile app before rushing on to finalize a company. This will give you a detailed information on the process of developing as well which can save you from the blunders by the cheaper solutions.

6. Inappropriate research of companies

Whenever you want to research anything, you would start with Google. But, you shall never limit yourself to any one method.

Google lists the top mobile app development companies based on their algorithms and not by your requirements. Don’t go blind on choosing the companies that are right in front of you. They maybe the great ones, but, may be not the right one for you. You know the consequences of choosing the wrong outsourcing company.

So, what should you do to avoid this?
You shall also consider other portions of those companies as well. Whether you choose any platform- Google, LinkedIn, Quora, Clutch, etc.

But, you should always look for-

• The experience and expertise of the people over there
• The case studies of the various projects
• The testimonials of the customers
• Their how-to blogs on their website
• Their social media accounts
• How technologically updated they are

All these will help you to better understand a mobile app development company and avoid losing time and money.

7. Avoid looking at different time zones

It happens to most of the companies that the time zones are being ignored while finalizing the app development companies while outsourcing. The only reason for ignoring it is, the quality the company is offering.

But, the problem never starts until you actually want to communicate with them. You shall receive prompt responses to your emails. But, how about looking to chat or discuss if you have some great idea or maybe want to change something?

You need to have a call or a chat to discuss anything in detail. But, due to the vast difference between your time zone and theirs, makes it impossible.

So, what should you do to avoid this?
You should outsource to a company which has a very little time zone difference to yours. This avoids any delays in communication and you feel secure about having your app development assigned to a trustful company.

8. Choosing a Company Not Updated with the Latest Trends

There are millions of mobile app development companies available across the entire world. It is obvious that not all those companies are the right fit for your outsourcing requirements.

While researching the companies, most businesses do not look for how updated a particular company is.

When you lack this research on whether the company is updated with the latest technology trends or not, your business can suffer here-

• You don’t know whether the latest features or functionalities have been utilized for your mobile app or not
• If the mobile app development team does not know whether there are new updates coming on a particular app development platform, it affects the quality of your mobile app
• This affects your budget in the coming days of your app development If the company lacks the latest updates on the technology front, your mobile app might skip such advanced features that strengthen your business in the long run.

So, what should do you do to avoid this?
To check whether the company is updated with the latest technology trends or not, you need to do the following:

Start following the companies’ social media accounts to see how they share updates on their profiles
Check out whether they cover the updates related to various platforms such as iOS trends,Android trends, etc.
Subscribe to their blog so that you could get to know whether they cover updates from the tech-based giants such as Apple’s iOS 12, Google events, etc.

These practices will help you understand whether your mobile app development is in the right hands or not.

9. Ignoring the Cross-Platform App Development Expertise

Mobile app development and maintenance is a long-term process. Once, you have your mobile app developed, you are going to update it and keep it new & refreshing as per the latest trends that ensure the amazing user experience.

But, this often gets ignored by most of the businesses because of the two reasons- they don’t have future plans ready or they don’t have enough knowledge of technology requirements.

For any of those reasons, you ignore that the mobile app development company can develop your mobile app on any platform that you wish- iOS, Android, Windows, etc.

Maybe the company has an expertise in Android only and they have developed an amazing Android app for your business. What happens when you want to get it developed on iOS?

Here, the entire process of researching the right app development company will be repeated. More development time and definitely it will cost you a bomb.

And, if your existing development team agrees to do so, the quality of iOS app may get compromised.

So, what should you do to avoid this?
While researching the app development company, make sure you look for a cross-platform development company who has expertise in developing apps on any platform. This will save you costs and time as well.

10. Lack of you the communication

Communication is considered to be the crucial part while outsourcing your mobile app development.

If there is no clear communication between you and the developing company, you might end up-

• Being cheated
• Having a low quality mobile app
• Giving more money
• Having difficulty in communicating with them for after-development or maintenance issues
• Having your time wasted

So, what should you do to avoid this?
From the day one, you should observe-

• How the app development company communicates with you?
• What is the turnaround time for replying you back?
• What is the tentative time when you receive their response?
• How much do they bother to ask you questions?
• Do they talk openly or they confuse you most of the time?

All the above observations will help you understand how dedicated, committed, and interested the mobile app development company is, to work for you.

11. Undefined expectations

Humans always suffer when they make huge and unacceptable expectations and when they are not fulfilled.

This happens to most businesses as well. Businesses looking to outsource mobile app development forget that the people developing their apps are even humans. So, expectations are okay, but undefined and expecting something that is impossible for them to create or deliver.

There are two reasons that lead to undefined expectations- either you are new or maybe you don’t know the complexity behind the development.

So, what should you do to avoid this?
Communication is the key. Ask your development team to keep you in a loop in each of the stages. Also, talk to them about how they were able to develop some features in your app, how the entire mobile app development is taking place for you, etc.

If the outsourcing mobile app development company is professional enough, they will guide you with the entire process.

12. Lack of communication from your end

As we discussed, poor communication can lead to a bad relationship between you and the developing company.

When businesses, research about the mobile app development outsourcing companies, they are quick in communication. But, when they finalize a company and the development has been started, they stop looking at it or even they don’t give importance to responding back to the queries shared by the development team.

If you do this, you are sure shot to hit an end that has no appropriate mobile app and you’ve lost a huge amount of time and money.

So, what should you do to avoid this?
Keep your development team informed. Talk to them on a regular basis and even ask for the daily, weekly or monthly updates. Every business owner is busy. So, if you are busy, ask somebody whom you trust to handle the queries of the development team. But, make sure their queries are resolved so that you can get a mobile app more than what you’ve had expected.

13. Underestimating testing and quality assurance

Testing a mobile app is equally important as developing. Mobile app testing ensures your mobile app looks great, functioning super-great, and has no visual or coding issues.

While discussing the mobile app development scope, businesses tend to lessen the hours required for testing and QA. Because of the lack of technical knowledge, they miss out to understand the consequences of a bad mobile app user experience. A poor user experience leads to loss of money and even increases the time to make this alright.

So, what should you do to avoid this?
While discussing the mobile app development scope or required hours, it is mandatory to ensure enough time is allocated to testing and quality assurance (QA).

Testing the mobile app ensures that the mobile app has no bugs and QA ensures that the quality of the mobile app has been up to standards and expectations. So, spare enough hours to spend on testing and QA the app.

Learn From These 13 Outsourcing Mistakes

Most businesses have already made these 13 mistakes and due to which we were able to share these with you. And, if you are planning to outsource your mobile app development, beware of repeating these mistakes.

Also, to avoid adding another mistake of yours here in the list, connect to our experts before outsourcing your mobile app development to some random company.