A Step-by-Step Roadmap to Build & Launch Your First No Code App

if you have an idea for an app but you're not sure how to take it from where it is now to actually bringing users on board this is the actual process and road map I want you to follow it's what hundreds of our own clients have used to build and launch Their Own no code apps and I want to take you through it as well now first off we're talking about building no code apps so why is this so difficult it should be easy right but the reality is even though you're not coding you are still still programming a custom application It's Just Happening visually so there's still a lot to know plus everything you're doing as you build and launch your app is probably very new to you so it feels like a lot of guesswork is involved and that's why I want to help simplify things for you so let's walk through a four-stage process for going from idea to app assuming you already have your app idea in mind the first thing we need to do is strategically scope out that idea in to different development and launch phases now the key word here is strategically and here's how I want you to approach this so the very first launch you go through with your app is going to be your pilot launch and this is where you are essentially validating what is technically a theory up to that point that a certain set of features will solve a problem that you have identified now no matter how certain certain you are that your app is going to solve the problem it is still technically a theory because you haven't put it to practice yet so your pilot launch the the very first launch you'll go through is to validate that you are just making sure that the product you've come up with can solve the problem you've identified in the way that you've envisioned now from there you're going to go into your beta launch now your beta launch is a little bit different this is where your test users can come on board the app and consistently use it in real life applications to solve that problem on a recurring basis so your pilot launch is just for the product validation but you're not you're not necessarily rolling it out to your users but your beta testing is where you do have a group of users come on board and take it and run with it and make sure that the product is adoptable now from there you're going to go into what I just like to refer to as the roll out stage and I call it roll out because it's kind of like you know you're going from beta testing where okay you you have confirmed that the product is adoptable and now you're just trying to kind of work out the Kinks release it to your wider market and just make it better you're looking at user retention usage and all these things just trying to kind of hone in on that product and from there you're going to enter the scale phase and this is where you know your your product has been refined enough to where it's it's working it's working consistently you are retaining your users the the usage is high and consistent and now you're just trying to make it even better roll it out to more people maybe add on different um feature sets that would appeal to different segments you are just uh simply put you are scaling the product so if you take the app idea you have now and think of all the features that you have envisioned it having you need to place all those different features into those different stages and kind of put them where they would be most applicable based on the different goals of each of those stages okay so here we have those same four stages let's dig into them a little bit more so you can start start to separate your features into those different stages so with the pilot stage remember we're looking for product validation essentially what you want to do here is take the single problem you've identified and solve that with a single core app so all you want to do is make the app work in a way that will solve the problem it's pretty simple you just want to to make it work now these are what we call must have features you must have them in order to solve that single core problem all right so that is your pilot app and that's like your MVP app so let's move on to the beta version now with the pilot app you you were putting features into place that will make the app work and with your Beta app you are adding features that will make it work consistently so we're going to say consistent here and these are what we call your should have features because with your pilot app you're putting features in place that must be there to solve the core problem the should have features are just like some minor add-ons that should be in place to solve that core problem consistently so let's say for example with your pilot test users you were doing manual onboarding and having you know one-on-one conversations for feedback so like a closed test group for example while maybe one of those should have features would be an onboarding that's hands off for you so more automated for example okay so that is our beta stage which brings us to that roll out up stage now this is where we want to take that app that we've made work consistently and we want to make it work consistently better so these features that you are adding on at this stage of your development and launch these are what we call could have features they are not they're not necessary to solve that core problem and they're not even necessary to solve it consistently but they could make the user experience better in some way maybe more efficient more convenient more enjoyable for example so remember in this roll out stage we are really looking at increasing that user retention increasing the usage rate and just rolling out and kind of fine-tuning the already adoptable app as as you continue to move toward that scale stage now with that scale stage we're really looking at your app and your business as a whole now with the product itself you are making it work consistently better for more people in this stage so we're just going to put more down here and we call these your won't have features now we call them won't have features because technically since you are currently focusing on this stage they are won't have for Now features there are ones that just will not be relevant until you have met each of the goals of the previous stages okay so scaling your app means scaling your company as a whole it means making your app work consistently better for more people and those features are ones you won't have for now and realistically you might not ever have them so in this stage where you are scoping your app you still want to put features in that category if that's where they should go but you have to keep an open mind and understand that as you go through all those previous stages you may pivot in a direction that means those features aren't going to be in your road map anymore just based on the feedback you get as you work your way there and that's okay that's why we put them in that later stage so that you don't spend too much time on them now and then realize well they need to change completely from how you'd initially envisioned Okay so we've gone through stage number one the scoping stage of the overarching idea to launch process or road map so let's go into Stage number two which is actually building that pilot version of your app so there's a certain sequence you want to follow when you are actually developing in the app within your no code tool so for example with our clients we use bubble and the specific cycle the development cycle they follow is to build their database first because your database is really the foundation of your app as a whole the database is what is going to influence the overall performance of the app the scalability um and so it's a really critical aspect to get right and this is really what you want to start with from there you're going to work on the page structure and this is just like the overall uh navigation of your app the different flows the different pages and screen so just kind of like if you think about building a house for example and the database is like the foundation well the page structure is like the framing of the House of the rooms and all of that now after that you want to focus on the user creation aspect of your app you want to make sure that a user can be created and can come on board and actually um you know start to make use of the the database and go through all of the navigation now of course there's still a lot more to come which is your custom features now this is the you know bread and butter of your app it's what makes your app unique but you want to develop in this particular order versus starting at the top for example and kind of jumping around which is what most people do when they're just starting out you want to start at the bottom because if you are working on your custom features for example and you're kind of like jumping around between the database the page structure different components of that feature number one you are jumping around and so it's just it's not an efficient way to develop your apps you're going to be spending a lot more time than you really should be but by building in this particular order you're actually able to test the app correctly as you go um and really just use what you've already built to inform what you will be building next to again make your development more efficient so for example your database structure is going to inform how you build your page structure and likewise you know being able to create a user on the app prior to actually working on those custom features is going to allow you to as a user go through and use and test those custom features as you go so you're just making your process a whole lot easier Easier by doing this now this is how you want to build your app from the start of the pilot version but as you add more features in your next versions um as you expand out you still want to follow this cycle so let's say you've completed your pilot version and then you're going to add a specific custom feature for that Beta release you're still going to follow development cycle Okay so we've gone through the first two stages of going from idea to app stage number one or phase number one is scoping the app strategically stage number two is actually building the pilot version of your app correctly and efficiently stage number three is Alpha Testing that pilot app that you've built so Alpha Testing happens right here after the pilot development and there's one other testing phase that we're going to talk about in a minute that actually happens right there but Alpha Testing is essentially when you are making sure that the functionality you've built within that pilot version works and that the app is usable and is intuitive enough for a user to go on board and and solve that problem and so to better understand Alpha Testing I want to kind of introduce the idea of user stories now you may have heard this term before and we're not not going to go too deeply into this in in this video but as an overview after you've scoped the features of your app you're going to take the feature set that you're building and break it down even further into user stories or user flows because there are multiple functions that are going to make up every single feature in the app so for example if we have your pilot app scope Where You Are um putting together the features that will make the app work right there those mus have features let's say you have four core features those are your musthave features well every single feature is going to have multiple actual flows so for a user to make use of feature number one for example they're going to go through uh one one kind of like micro flow within that feature then maybe another micro flow after that maybe another after that so maybe if they were um creating their user profile for example there are four micro steps for them to go through to create that user profile or maybe if we're talking about a job Board app where a company is going to post a job and that's one of the core features well they might go through a number of different micro Flows In order to post that job and so so those micro flows are the user stories and the reason why that's important is because when you are Alpha Testing the app you are solely looking at the functionality you're trying to remove every single bug and issue that you possibly can and to do that you are going to go through and test every single one of those individual flows or user stories and then you're going to go through and test each individual feature and then you're going to go through and test from start to finish the pilot app as a whole as you do that you are looking for any bug or issue that you can find and you want to make sure the app is navigable it is intuitive uh in other words a user is not going to get lost trying to get from point A to point B and when you've done that you have in theory a usable app that's what you are aiming for with this phase of the testing now to be clear that's the internal testing you are going to do as a developer but with Alpha Testing technically that's where you bring on external users to go through the functionality testing process as well but they are pretty much going to go through a very similar process except it's going to allow external eyes and hands to do to do it as well because you're the one who's built the app let's face it so you know how it should be used and when someone else comes onto the app maybe they're going to use it in a way that you didn't anticipate and so when an external user or a small group of external users come on board and they go through all of those flows themselves they go from point A to point B in the app themselves then they are going to pull up those bugs and issues that you might not have caught and they are going to also be able to determine or help you determine whether the app is truly as intuitive as you think and again all we're going for here is to make sure you have a usable app a usable app that functions and that's going to take us into step number four of the idea to app process or road map which is your pilot testing and that's what goes right into this section here so you have built your pilot app you've Alpha tested your pilot app and now you are pilot testing that pilot app this is when you bring on your first test group of users and you're actually looking for feedback on the usefulness of the app so with Alpha Testing you're looking to see whether it is usable and with pilot testing you are looking to see whether it is useful so Alpha Testing is just functionality pilot testing is actual usefulness problem solving so that you can expand into beta testing and make that um useful product adoptable so if we go back to this same Vin diagram that we used for Alpha Testing for pilot testing we want to make sure that the app solved a problem and that it is easy to implement because if it is or if it does those two things then it is useful and again taking it back a little bit bigger picture you are doing the functionality testing the usefulness testing and once you've gotten through this pilot stage here in full that's when you move into the Beta Testing you add those should have features that should be in place to make the app work consistently so again this is where you make the app adoptable with some minor adjustments to the app that you have now proven is useful now I want to point out that in this stage where your first major step is to correct scope and build your app it could be really easy to just focus on the scale just think big picture right to just think about rolling out and expanding the app because those are the most exciting pieces right this over here is the groundwork but this over here is the only thing that will get you to all of the exciting Parts over there now to us that that uh initial groundwork area that's where we help our own clients so we happen to think that is exciting too but when you have this big app idea it's easy to just think about all those later stages but you have to get these early strategic steps correct so that you even have a chance at scaling the app at all so look I hope you found this helpful and if you did you're about to see two other videos on the screen those are going to help you take the next steps from here [Music]

Channel: Coaching No Code Apps

Views: 1,025

Keywords: no code, no code app, no code app development, development roadmap, how to launch an app, how to build an app, how to turn your idea into an app, app development for beginners, startup advice, app entrepreneur, app founder advice, scoping, scope an app, user testing, beta testing, app development process, no code mvp, mvp launch process, first time founder, no code bubble, bubble no code, apps for beginners, no code for beginners

Id: TCPNLCgiH6Q

Length: 20min 41sec (1241 seconds)

Published: Wed May 29 2024