Andrew Gazdecki is the founder and CEO of Bizness Apps, a do-it-yourself mobile app & mobile website platform for small businesses and Bizness CRM, a CRM designed to make selling to small businesses easy.
Mobile Is Disrupting Every Industry (and You Should Get In It)
Standing outside in the rain like a jerk, hoping for a cab to come by? Thing of the past, thanks to Uber, the speedy, inexpensive car service ordering app.
Milling around and browsing the floor mat selection while you wait for your car to be cleaned at the car wash? Never again, thanks to Cherry, the app that sends someone to clean your car, wherever it is.
Calling ahead on your sweet rotary phone to reserve a spot at your favorite restaurant? Ancient history, thanks to OpenTable’s mobile apps that allow you to easily book restaurant reservations in a matter of seconds.
These examples, and many others, prove that lots of industries are ripe for a mobile disruption as device penetration and usage reach critical mass (check here for a wealth of stats). And, as described previously by others, savvy developers have been thinking this way for a while, and have even adopted the “mobile first” strategy as a way to get ahead of the trend (and the competition).
Hell, even savvy, industry-leading developers like the team at Facebook, who had their own heavily trafficked mobile app, experienced some disruption from a mobile startup upstart: Instagram. And longstanding juggernauts like Amazon and Electronic Arts are even being disrupted by social marketplaces and the popularity of mobile gaming, respectively.
Is no one safe?
Is nothing sacred?
How many more times are we going to use the word “disrupted?”
Only a few more.
And no, no one is safe and nothing is sacred in the tech space. So how should developers leverage this boom in mobile? While our wisdom is infinite limited, we have a few tips that cover both native apps and mobile web:
Simple, fast, easy.
You’d think a tip like this would go without saying by now, but no. We’re reduced to having to remind people that simple, fast, and easy are good things.
Some companies, which shall remain nameless, (sorry, couldn’t resist) offer a mobile user experience that makes it obvious that their full website was essentially thrown into a garbage compactor and compressed, and then was covered in lubricating oil and painfully shoved into a mobile device by the whole team pushing at once.
#FAIL.
Please don’t “go mobile” that way. Instead, streamline your offering and focus in on its core functions, or even a single core function. We live in an extremely noisy, and busy time where users are constantly asked to learn how to use a new tech tools. Make sure that yours is simple, easy to use, and works speedily. If you can get it down to a single push of a button, you’ve done well.
The real key is to test, test, test. Find out what your biggest use cases are and tailor everything to suit them perfectly. Throw away everything else. Seriously.
It’s a very small screen. Don’t expect people to do massive data entry through a touchpad. Adjust your offering accordingly.
Beautiful Design.
This is a no-brainer.
But let’s recap: the average consumer has no idea what internal differences might make an Apple computer different from the rest, but they can damn sure pick out that pick out the prettiest product and will want to pay to have it.
Get a professional designer and ask him/her to work closely with the team to make sure your app or mobile site is easy on the eyes. Then fire that person and hire the Apple people (note: may require additional funding).
Intelligent.
This is a bit harder, but worth it.
Read the user’s mind, and deliver what they want before they ask for it. Using an example from above, Uber shows nearby cars that are available before you query it. Perfect for those that want a ride, now.
If you don’t have emerging mind-reading psychics on staff, just follow people around going, “What do you want from me? What do you want from me?” over and over again until they crack.
Actually, don’t do that.
Just pay close attention to actual usage behaviors and analytics, and tailor the mobile experience to be one step ahead where you can do so unobtrusively.
Native App or Mobile Web?
¿Por qué no los dos?
Don’t just focus on building an app. Get your mobile website up and running at the same time, if you can. Do both, and you’ll have a hugely expanded user base along with a key differentiator from your competition. Optimize your offerings for all platforms and you’ll soon be conquering the world.
Want some hard facts instead of opinions and tomfoolery? Here:
- It’s been predicted there will be nearly 2 billion HTML5 enabled smart phones by 2014.
- When it comes to mobile apps, its been shown some people really do prefer to use apps over websites, and advertisers are spending billions via mobile apps. Utilizing apps to encourage deeper engagement, loyalty, and to drive commerce is just smart marketing.
What’s that you say? Doing everything at once is a huge amount of work and your development team is comprised of a burned-out developer, his parakeet, and a mini fridge full of freezer-burnt hot pockets? Fine, fine. You don’t have to do everything at one if resources are tight and the hot pockets are freezer-burnt.
A great place to start is on iOS. Why?
- The UX is easy to design
- The iPhone is extremely popular
- The iOS SDK is very helpful
- It’s easy to port to other platforms
- You’ll have a chance to refine your product and avoid having to correct the same mistakes a number of times across a number of platforms.
From there, you can take on other devices as you see fit.
In closing, every tech startup should look through the lens of mobile.
Why? Because that’s where the opportunity is, and that’s where you can do the most damage to traditional entities that have strangleholds on industry structures.
By putting mobile first, you can disrupt any industry in existence today.