Using App Store Trending Keywords in Product Development
Posted on March 26th, 2015
The closer you get to the customer telling you exactly what they want and are willing to pay for - the less risk in building something that flops. There has always been risk in asking your existing users/clients and target markets what they want - where actual purchases represent only a fraction of the "I absolutely need this feature" crowd. This scenario, played out thousands of times over decades, has led to things like the Lean Methodology, MVPs, and even platforms like Kickstarter. One of the most fool-proof approaches to developing new products or new features is to offer a pre-payment at a significant discount, so clients can tell you what they want - with their wallets. For many mobile apps, however; the communication lines to the client are not as open as with other consumer or business products. Most likely - users of your apps pay Apple or Google directly. They may never know your company name despite daily use of your app. Prepaying for a feature is not a supported payment type in either Apple's App Store or Google Play. Hey - we are still waiting (in vain) for 30-day free trials. So - how do mobile app product managers and the development teams reduce the risk of creating features in their apps that no one is willing to pay for?
