A personal view about mobile application development.

1. Why my apps failed?
Presented by VU KHAC TIN
SoICT, HUST
tinvukhac@gmail.com

2. My background
- Previous: Mobile developer (for 2
years)
- Current: Backend engineer (System &
Storage, beginner).
- Future: Researcher, Entrepreneur.

3. My projects (game)
Fear Forest
Funny Hexagon
Poker Viet Nam
Edu4Kid

4. My projects (app)
- Edu4Kid (Windows 8, Samsung SmartTV),
Wala, iCompanion, Shoppie, Plus (all of them
are available in app store).
- Co-owner of 5 apps in Google Play Store.
- Some private projects.
- Future: project X.

5. This topic will talk about
- Popular mistakes in a mobile project.
- What should we do to realize a successful
app?
- App Store Optimization.

6. Popular mistakes

7. Human resource management
Teammate, very talent but:
- Undisciplined
- Irresponsible.
- Pride.
Management:
- Authority.
- Responsibility.

8. Tech & engineering
- Complex system for small demand.
- Bugs.
- Crash.
- Excessive resource.
- Battery.
- Very active: Facebook autopost, notification
spam.
- Many ads.

9. Tech & engineering

10. But...

11. Product development mindset
- “We are the best! Competitors are trivial”.
- Build app for wrong target users.
- Too many redundant features. Lose core
value.
- App flow too complicated.

12. Product development mindset
- Fall in minor problem.
- Final goal is not clear: brand, users for
ecosystem, money or ???
- Focus to product, but forgot what user needs.

13. What should we do?

14. The goal: analyze and strategize
- Something like that: population, internet
users, active Facebook user, smartphone
users, blah blah… WTF! We don’t need the
data that children know how.
- We need: specific demand for a specific
market, payment behavior, competitors, market
share...

15. The goal: analyze and strategize
- A complete plan: from beginning to achieve
the goal.
Some popular problems:
- Bussiness model (*)
- Human resources.
- Project management.
- Marketing plan.

16. Who are our users?
- Not sit in office and imagine about your users.
- Accurately determine the user set.
- Choose niche maket to increase the likelihood
of success.

17. Device and platform choices
- Paid, in-app purchase application: iOS,
Windows Phone.
- Advertising: all platforms.
- If you are creating a game: choose a cross
platform (Unity, Cocos 2d-x, Mono…)
- Clone hot app from others: Windows Phone
(guaranteed to hit in 2011-2012, but now the
potential is still high).

18. In-house or outsource
- In-house: a long plan for team and products.
- Outsource: in the contract, need a support for
a long time (very important).
- Normally, in-house products have higher
quality.

19. Approach
- Start right now.
- Keep moving.
- Risk management.

20. App Store Optimization

21. Ranking factors
Developer side:
- Keyword in title.
- Keyword tag.
- App updates: app with more refresh - cycles rank higher.
User side:
- Click through rate.
- Usage.
- Discard rate.
- Ratings
- Conversion rate.
Others:
- Social signals.
- App age and speed.
- Brand trust.

22. Search behaviors
- 5% specific function: crop photos, block call.
- 5% specific brand: Angry Birds, Candy Crush.
- 10% simple: game, app, fun, news…
- 80% general interests: social networking, education.
- Most of user search app in app store.

23. Stores: same and differences
- Google Play: indexing by description, show
app by list view.
- Apple Store: indexing by keyword tag, show
only one app in screen.
- Windows Phone Store: show app by list,
feature app.

26. Optimize keyword for iTunes

27. Tips and tricks
- Clear name (brand).
- Name is also a keyword.
- Easy for read and remember it: Class of Clans, Hay Day,
Gà Chiến, Đại Minh Chủ, Big Kool.
- Visualization: Angry Birds, Bad Piggies.
- Simple : Tap the Frog, Draw Somethings.
- Don’t share your ideas (about name of your app) with
anyone.
- Short keyword.
- Using tools: MobiledevHQ, Google keyword planner.

28. Thank you!

29. References
- Slideshare: http://goo.gl/OlG9Af
- Bussines Insider: http://goo.gl/TxNlZH
- http://lamgame.vn/
Many thanks to :
- CTO of Dotoh Software Solutions (
http://www.dotohsoft.com/en/ )
- Mr. T, Software Architect of Dotoh Software Solutions.
- Mr. Cong Tran, iOS team leader of Wala JSC.
(*) This presentation is only my personal views.