If you're looking to build a mobile app, you will need to have diverse knowledge about various areas that are involved in this often complex process. This includes numerous steps from ideation to marketing your first mobile app, you will need to do plenty of research and make some tough choices. 

That's why we've decided to walk you through this process of building your very first mobile app to make it fun and creative for you, instead of frustrating and expensive. Regardless of whether you're one of successful mobile applications developers or a passionate person with a great app idea, everyone needs to take the same path.

Develop Your Game Plan

Before you rush into building your app, you will need to spend some time thinking about the problem your app is going to solve, how you'll create that solution, and research how others are delivering their solutions to your target audience.

You will not be able to craft a quality strategy if you haven't prepared yourself first. For instance, not being aware of who your competitors are might end up with you creating an app that has nothing new to offer to its potential users. 

Illustrate Your Vision

Now, when you have a better idea of what you'll create and the value it will bring to its target audience, it's time to start illustrating your vision. Start planning your mobile app UX and user journey. How will users interact with your product? What will be the end goal? How long will they need to use it to obtain what they need?

Start developing the product roadmap to illustrate how the overall app experience will be for those who will be using it. This will also come in handy for developers or designers who will be working on the app development with you. 

Bring The App To Life

Once you have your product roadmap, you will be able to start developing your app. One thing before you start creating your first mobile app is to decide on how many platforms it will function. This is important because working on iPhone and Android app development is not the same thing. It differs significantly and if you decide to develop for both iPhone and Android, keep in mind that this will increase your costs significantly. 

In the meantime, you will also need to consider pitching your app idea to investors or internal execs. After all, the process of developing and marketing a mobile app is quite expensive, so having resources at your disposal might be beneficial for you. 

Launching & Marketing Your App

When your app is almost finished, whether you're building it on your own or with a team of professionals in development and design, you will need to start working on your launching and marketing strategy. How will others learn that you are preparing to launch an app that might change their lives or at least one aspect of it? 

Which marketing activities will you need to inform everyone about your app? Will you need a strong social media presence or maybe partnering up with another brand to reach out to their audience as well? Think about all the things you will need to do and write down how much all of this is going to costs you as you'll need to prepare a budget for this. 

Don't Forget Testing

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a perfect app. That's why each app needs to be tested at all times, and this means before, during, and after the launch. Test how it looks on each device, browser, how it loads with a slower Internet connection, etc. This is also a good moment to also think about the PWA vs native app benefits as you'll need to consider both options.

If you've researched your target audience well in the first step, it will be easy to determine which devices they are using, how they interact with the app, and so on. The more information you have before you start building the app, the fewer optimizations and updates it will require later. Yet, even if you spent months and months on research, ignoring the importance of testing might turn your app into a complete failure.