How to Choose the Features to Include in Your New App – Lean Pirate Framework

How to Choose
the Features to
Include in Your
New App – Lean
Pirate Framework
Puneet Yamparala, App Entrepreneurs Association

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In 2009 when I was working on my first app as the mobile
product manager for a San Francisco Bay Area based
startup, one of the first questions I had to answer was …

… “what features do we add in our new app?”
This is a very important question and the first version we
developed at the startup took us 14 months to …

… complete and when we released it in the app store, it
got hammered. For the first 6 days we got nothing but
negative feedback and our best rating was a 3 star!

This experience really shook us up. Based on this
experience, we decided to overhaul the complete app and
start from scratch. This was the toughest decision of …

… my life – having to throw away 14 months of work and
to start again. On Retrospection, I am glad that we started
from scratch again. The second version of the app …

… did a lot better and you know the only difference in
how we developed the two apps?
For the second app we used the Lean Pirate framework
to decide what features to add to the app.

We created the Lean Pirate framework based on the
concepts in the Lean Startup movement and the pirate
metrics for mobile apps.

Lean Pirate Framework – What Features to Develop
in a New Mobile App

The lean startup movement suggests that before you
build anything you must validate your hypothesis. More
uncertain a hypothesis is, more is the importance of
testing the hypothesis!

While Pirate Metrics for mobile apps require that an app
focuses on 5 key metrics, which are Acquisition,
Activation, Retention, Referral, Revenue.

So by combining Lean Startup Movement and Pirate
Metrics for Mobile Apps, we came up with the Lean
Pirate framework whose core principles are:

Your app should do just one thing really well
You need to identify the ONE killer feature in your app and
only develop that. Any additional features should not …

… be developed unless they are required as per the other
principles in the framework. E.g. if you are creating an
invoicing app, your app should do just core invoicing …

… really well, you shouldn’t add any features which you
imagine will make the app useful. So adding project
management or CRM functionality into the app will …

… just make the app more bloated and non-user friendly.

Quick path to value
Your app should demonstrate its value easily and as
quickly as possible. Unless the user experiences the value
of the app …

… there is a large possibility that the user will get busy
with something else and never come back to your app.

Retain users and make the app sticky
The difference between retention and stickiness is that
retention refers to having your users come back to the
app and use it frequently, whereas stickiness …

… refers to your app’s ability to prevent users from
moving to a competitor’s app. An example of a feature
which helps with retention is – contextual push …

… notifications such as being notified when an invoice is
paid or when you have some new items available for
purchase in an eCommerce app .

Next, an example of sticky feature is – in an invoicing app
storing client information for all the invoices which have
been sent so far. This helps in creating …

… invoices quickly and when a user wants to move to a
competitor, he needs to start loading customer info on
the new app from scratch.

Growth
Both the lean startup principles and pirate metrics require
that the app have functionality, which supports its
growth. So features which create virality are necessary …

… in every app. Viral functionality can start with something
as simple as sharing on Facebook, which most apps have to
complicated invite functionality like we see …

… in some gift card apps.

Monetization
It is extremely important that you chart out your funnel
for monetization before building your app. It is just not
enough to say that I will slap a few ads on my app and …

… make money. It is also not enough to just have a few in
app purchase options. You will need to clearly think
through each step, which a user goes through …

… before making a payment. Once you have the funnel in
mind you need to make sure that you put in the analytics
to figure out the conversion rate for …

… the funnel, which will help you optimize the funnel in
your future version.

Don’t hesitate to ask for help
Sometime I am surprised when app entrepreneurs do not
ask for advice and assistance when developing their app.
These entrepreneurs repeat the same mistake, which …

… others have made. So instead of taking advantage of
people who have developed an app earlier, they waste
time and money learning things the hard way.

Let me say this –
I can help you. Actually, I want to help you!
If you have an idea for an app I can provide you with the
necessary guidance and advice to create the best possible
app.

Should you need any help or advice, please drop me an
email at:
Puneet@appentrepreneursassociation.com

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How to Choose the Features to Include in Your New App – Lean Pirate Framework

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