Have you ever thought it would be fun to make your own mobile app? Well you can actually have a mobile app side hustle. Whether you’re a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) looking for extra income or you want to expand on an existing business or project, developing your own mobile app opens up a world of possibilities. But where do you start? In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk you through the essential steps to create your own mobile app side hustle from scratch.
Step 1: Define Your App Idea and Goals
Before diving into development, it’s crucial to have a clear understanding of your app’s purpose, target audience, and goals. Ask yourself: What problem does my app solve? Who is my target audience? What features do I want to include? Defining your app idea and goals will serve as a roadmap throughout the development process. You can even create a wireframe, which is a mock-up of your app design on sites like Glide. Their AI app generator is great for helping you to get a clear picture of what you want.
Step 2: Conduct Market Research
Once you’ve defined your app idea, conduct thorough market research to identify competitors, understand user needs and preferences, and uncover potential opportunities. Analyze existing apps in your niche, gather feedback from potential users, and identify gaps or pain points that your app can address. This research will inform your app’s features, design, and overall strategy.
Step 3: Choose the Right Development Approach
When it comes to developing a mobile app, you have several options to consider, including native, hybrid, and web apps. Native apps are built specifically for a single platform (e.g., iOS or Android) and offer the best performance and user experience. Hybrid apps use web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) wrapped in a native container, allowing for cross-platform compatibility. Web apps run entirely in a web browser and are accessible across multiple devices. Choose the development approach that best aligns with your app’s requirements, budget, and target audience.
Step 4: Wireframing and Prototyping
Before diving into coding, it’s essential to create wireframes and prototypes to visualize your app’s layout, user interface, and navigation flow. Use wireframing tools like Sketch, Adobe XD, or Figma to sketch out the basic structure of your app and create interactive prototypes to test usability and gather feedback from stakeholders.
Step 5: Design Your App
Design plays a crucial role in the success of your app, so invest time and effort into creating a visually appealing and intuitive user interface. Pay attention to factors like color schemes, typography, iconography, and branding to create a cohesive and memorable user experience. If you’re not a designer yourself, consider hiring a professional designer or using pre-designed templates to speed up the process.
Step 6: Development and Testing
Once you have a solid design in place, it’s time to start development. Whether you’re building the app yourself or outsourcing development to a team of developers, break down the project into manageable tasks and set realistic timelines. As you progress, conduct thorough testing to identify and fix bugs, ensure compatibility across different devices and platforms, and optimize performance for a seamless user experience. Surprisingly, you CAN build the app yourself without knowing how to code! There are many online services that will help you to design it without code. The catch is, most have service fees, but depending on how you plan to monetize your app, it could very well be worth it. Before you get too far into designing with one of these platforms, check to make sure they support your desired monetization method. For example, if you want to monetize with ads you could use Google’s Admobbut not all programs support Admob integration. We find Glide to be the most user-friendly development tool, but in order to run ads on a Glide app you need another paid service called Zapier.
Step 7: Deployment and Launch
After development and testing are complete, it’s time to prepare your app for deployment. If you’re developing for iOS, submit your app to the Apple App Store, and if you’re targeting Android, publish your app on Google Play Store. Follow the platform-specific guidelines and requirements for app submission, including app store listing, app description, screenshots, and app icon. Once your app is live, promote it through various channels, including social media, email newsletters, and app store optimization (ASO) strategies.
Step 8: Monetize
There are multiple ways you can monetize your app. As we discussed, you can run ads through Google Admob or another service. You can also charge a price to download your app through the app store or to access certain features of the app. You can sell a product or a service through your app, or you can combine all of the monetization methods together to make your app a successful side hustle.
Step 9: Gather Feedback and Iterate
After launching your app, continue to gather feedback from users, monitor app performance metrics, and iterate based on user feedback and analytics data. Listen to user reviews, address any issues or concerns, and regularly update your app with new features, improvements, and bug fixes to keep users engaged and satisfied.
Creating your own mobile app can be a rewarding and fulfilling experience, but it requires careful planning, execution, and ongoing maintenance. By following these steps and staying committed to delivering value to your users, you can bring your app idea to life and make a meaningful impact in the mobile world. Good luck mama!
