Today we're going to discuss the five biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to working with an app development company. Some of these could actually cost them the future of their businesses. So if you're planning to engage a Mobile App Developer and want to potentially save yourself from wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars, make sure to keep watching so that you don't make the same mistakes. 

 

Now, you might be wondering. Who is this dude here trying to tell me what mistakes to avoid? As I've mentioned before, I run Upstack Studio, a digital product development agency in Kuala Lumpur.  We've been fortunate enough to be able to work with multiple clients over the past two years, helping Top Mobile App Development Company like Malaysian insight, I Wealth, and Tele me to build their apps from scratch. 

 

We've also worked on a few projects and we call them "Rescue projects", where the client came to us because someone or some other companies couldn't deliver. We've decided to create this video to generate awareness of the mistakes that people make when hiring an app developer. Just a quick reminder before we move on. Every single week, we're launching new videos to share with you, tips, and tricks on product development. 

 

So if you want to learn more about product development. I'll give you a couple of moments of silence so that you can go ahead and do that right now. Good. Now let's dive right in. Mistake number one that people make when hiring an app developer. Choosing an app developer that does not understand you and your business goals. This is a very common mistake that people make simply because it might be their first time engaging an app developer so they do not know how to differentiate the good ones from the bad ones. 

 

What I say next might piss some people off in the industry but because I want to make sure you know, I will say it the truth is there are a lot of developers or companies out there that simply do not care about your business or your goals. All they want is to get the project from you, get the job done, and get paid. 

 

If the end product is of good quality, then you're lucky. But what if it's not? And from my experience, most of the time it's not So the next time you meet the developer that only wants to get a project and be done with it, RUN. The biggest mistake that people make when hiring an app developer, is number two. Price over quality. Yes. I know. Businesses always want to keep the budget low in order to have a higher profit or return. 

 

So they tend to go with companies or vendors that can provide the same services at a cheaper price. But little did they know that they are embarking on a journey that might cost them more money than saving. Always keep in mind. A broken app even I fit cost me $20,000 dollars is expensive because you've wasted$20,000 dollars. On the other hand, a quality app that drives real business value and grows a company could be worth millions of dollars. 

 

Mistake number three. Work with a developer that overpromises. First, you have to understand that app development is a complex process. It involves multiple stages including requirement gathering, development, and testing. These stages will need designers, developers, testers, and clients to be on the same page in order to deliver a quality product. We have another video that explains more of these stages and how long usually each of these stages takes,  so if you want to learn more about that, you can check it out right here.

 

A common ploy that we see a lot is developers over-promising to clients that do not understand software or Mobile App Development Services in order to win the work upfront. The two most common ways are number one, the price too cheap, number two, they say yes to all features you are requesting. If an app developer promises to deliver your project we did some time frame that is too good to be true, it usually is. 

 

Or maybe they say yes to all the features that you are requesting, but if you do not have a strict review and testing process in place, the end product might not be anything close to what you expected. Another issue with overpromising that we've seen is a very slow turnaround time. We've spoken to multiple clients before that have experienced this. 

 

Communication is really fast at the beginning of the engagement but everything starts to slow down after some time. New features aren't delivered on time and bugs take them forever to fix. Have you heard of any stories like this before? Let me know in the comments below . Mistake number 4. They don't focus on building a world-class app. What do apps that we use every day like Spotify, Facebook, Instagram have in common? All of these apps provide great user experience UX with modern user interface UI. 

 

User experience plays a very important role in your product. If you're ignoring UI and UX, you're setting yourself up for failures. The average app out there loses 78% of its users after the first three days because most of them don't provide their users a good experience using their app.I remember there's this one company that came to us previously for help with UI and UX redesign because the app that they've engaged another developer to build did not go through the UI and UX design phase. So the app is pretty hard to navigate around and the design is pretty old school. 

 

Take away from this? Make sure you put the right amount of time, effort, and money into UI and UX design because that will make or break your product. Mistake number 5. People don't focus on building lean products. You might be asking, what is a lean product and why build a lean product? Why not build all the features I want into my product? The lean product essentially means you build a product with the only key features that solve a problem for your users. 

 

And here's why you should build a lean product. Number one, it cost less so less investment from your side while creating a bigger impact. Number two, you don't build bloated software that your users might not even need or like. We've come across many clients that want it all. They have a bunch of ideas that they think could be beneficial for their users but the problem is, they've never asked or interviewed their potential users before. 

 

So, that is the top 5 mistakes that we've seen in the industry. The purpose of this video is to make sure that you are aware of these common mistakes so that you can avoid them when you're engaging an app developer. I hope you like this video and if you've gotten some value out of it, make sure to give it like and share it to those whom you think will benefit from this content. See you in the next video.