How to Monetize Your No Code App

let's talk about how to make money with your no code app how to monetize your app now I could give you a bunch of surface level tips and techniques that seem a lot easier than they really are it's implement but if you've spent any time watching our videos you know we like to be real with you so today we're gonna break this down in depth and talk about not only the pricing models and pricing strategies you need to understand but also what comes before that so that you can make sure you're charging or you're you're beginning to monetize your app at the right time because if you do this at the wrong time then you're gonna struggle to gain traction on the other side so we're gonna cover some of the fundamentals first but make sure you stick around until the end because we're gonna dive into those pricing models and pricing strategies afterwards so if you're new around here my name is Kristin and I'm the co-founder of coaching no code apps where we help business owners and industry experts build custom apps either start their app based businesses or grow their existing businesses all without coding so let's dive right in now before we talk about the pricing models and the pricing strategies I want to make sure that you're going through the correct stages so that you know when you should start monetizing your app in the first place and to make sure that you're not jumping ahead too soon and getting stuck because of that so we generally see two types of entrepreneurs who are deciding to build apps now neither of these is right or wrong these are just two types of people kind of coming into this scene and deciding to build an app for themselves so the first type of person is someone who's building an app for maybe their own business or businesses like theirs maybe they're building an app for their own industry so businesses and their industry people in their industry or they're building an app that solves a problem that they're really close to or that that is related to them somehow that they know a lot about now when this type of person is building an app generally what we see is number one they have easy access to test or beta users because they're so close to this problem or because it is related to their industry or even their own business by default they already have some users who they can reach out to in order to start testing their apps move into those testing stages and do their beta testing and so on and because of this they usually move into the monetization or they start generating that revenue a little bit earlier now the other type of person or entrepreneur entrepreneur we see coming into the space and building a no code app is someone who is creating an app based on just an idea they came up with it might not really solve a specific problem it's it's an idea that usually seems really cool or or unique or different and it's something that they just thought of throughout their day-to-day lives maybe something they did kind of sparked an idea and this is fine there's nothing wrong with this this happens a lot especially for really entrepreneurial minded people who are always looking for or thinking of ideas but with this type of entrepreneur who just has this idea usually what happens with them is number one they don't have those kind of default users who they can reach out to for their app because they might not even know who their users are going to be yet number one they need to make sure that there's you're gonna need for their app and that's gonna require them to figure out who their target market is you know who would even want to use their app they need to figure out what the app should even involve what kind of features it shouldn't so it's it's a lot different whereas that first person they generally know exactly what features their app needs they know the people who would be their users they have a lot of this information for this other type of entrepreneur who who's coming in just with this this idea this cool idea they had they're starting in a much different place and it's important to understand this because sometimes that that second type of entrepreneur who comes into this with a cool idea that they have they try to jump forward too soon and it leaves them either backtracking or feeling like their app idea just isn't good but the problem is is that that's often not the case often they have a really great app idea they just didn't go through the initial stages correctly and so they've run into a bunch of problems later on so first let's start with that entrepreneur what do you need to do now in order to get to the point of being able to monetize your app and then we're gonna talk about the other type of entrepreneur then we're gonna go into those pricing models and strategies so for this this entrepreneur who has this cool idea if that's you what you need to do first before you can start monetizing the app is you need to get that validation to make sure that there's a need for your app in the first place now this can involve you know market research having conversations and just talking to people to understand you know whether or not people would want something like this to kind of help yourself develop the the product in your mind a little bit or develop the idea and your mind a little bit and things you can do to help with this are you know number one this might be the stage where you come up with a really quick prototype know a prototype and an actual app or a Minimum Viable Product and MVP these are these are different things when you're just creating a really simple prototype this is generally just something to convey your idea it's not going to be an actual working customized scalable product you're not diving into that yet you're creating something really quick just to convey an idea to gauge interest in that idea or gauge a need for that idea so ways you might do this are creating a really simple landing page for example where you can just get email opt-ins for people who would be interested in hearing more about this you can purchase a a really basic template a no code template that will help just convey your idea maybe you make a couple tweaks to the language or the wording and so on but you don't need to do a bunch of customization because really you're just conveying that idea so that you can present it to people and get feedback and make sure that you should then actually go into the stage where you're developing this full idea now when you're doing this you know you you might want to create a landing page with a couple of different really basic functions to help convey this you might want to you know get that template and make a few tweaks just to convey that idea for example just to generate that feedback so how do you do that well fortunately with no code tools this is easy easier than it otherwise could be you know you're still gonna have to do the work you're still gonna have to you know put this all together but you can do it relatively quickly you can purchase a template for example you can learn how to really basically use a no code tool you know we use bubble specifically you can learn the very fundamentals of bubble just to make a few tweaks and get something up and running just to get some quick feedback on it you can go through a course for example to learn some of those fundamentals you can go through something like you know a bootcamp for example that teaches you some really basic fundamentals just to get that really quick prototype up and running so that you can just convey your idea and I say up and but I'm talking like something really basic just to make sure that you should be building the app in the first place now when you do this you know you're still gonna have to invest some work upfront you can invest some money upfront by you know going through a course getting a template so that you can help yourself move quickly you know you're you're not gonna have to spend all of that much money on it you know you're gonna be able to do it really quickly in this case the quality is not going to be high right the quality of that prototype because you're not actually building something that you're planning to scale you're just building something that you want to validate now once you've done that you can now kind of catch up to where that other entrepreneur is okay so that's who we're gonna talk about now because they are one really big step closer to monetizing their app so when you're in the position of this second entrepreneur where they have that validation out now this entrepreneur has that easy validation they're solving a problem in their business their industry a problem that they themselves deal with they don't necessarily need to go through that prototype phase because they already have this validation they can simply you know talk to their businesses team they can talk to other businesses like theirs they can talk to their colleagues their co-workers people in their industry they can go off their own needs for the problem that they're solving and so on so there's a really big step ahead now what this entrepreneur has to do in order to start generating that revenue is instead of building that quick prototype they need to build their product their actual product so whereas you know that first off entrepreneur is building a prototype to get idea validation the second entrepreneur is building a product to get product validation now this isn't validation on whether or not the product is needed that goes back to the idea of validation this is validation on you know how the product should be built and how the product should be evolved we know there's a need for the product okay we already have these default users who we can start taking that product to that's when we can start generating that revenue but we need to build a product and we need to prepare it for them and we need to prepare it to be scalable so that you can actually start generating that revenue and you don't run into a bunch of hiccups down the road that we're gonna talk about so when you're building a product this is your Minimum Viable Product so you still want to build a core product you don't want to go too far you don't want to build out that full product because remember we're still looking for validation here it's just in a different way now we're validating all the little nuances of the product that we already know is needed okay so when you're building a product when you're building this MVP you want to make sure that you are number one building it correctly because this isn't something that you are just using to convey an idea this is something that you're gonna start bringing users onto it needs to be optimized for things like performance it needs to be secure it needs to be scalable because you are going to be turning this into a business you're going to either be using it to grow your existing business or to scale it into a business of its own so we're looking at product validation here get that product up and running you bring your your initial users on on board immediately you start getting feedback to help you refine that product this is more so when you start looking at charging for that product so in this stage you can still move through that that stage where you're you're creating that core product quickly it's not going to be as quick as the prototype obviously because you are customizing this product you're creating something that's optimized and scalable it's niche to your specific market industry business and so on so you know your speed it can still be fast if you're following the I process this is gonna depend on how you approach it obviously whether you kind of wing it throughout her if you do choose to follow some sort of a process you know you're gonna spend a little bit more money on this assuming that this is more of an investment for you and that you are you know looking at this as a scalable business or something that you're gonna scale into a business but the you know when you're in this stage you want your quality to be a lot higher you want to be building this core product so that when you do start bringing those users on you can actually start generating that revenue because you don't want to you know bring the users on start charging them and then have a product that just doesn't work or doesn't scale it's not optimized it gives them a poor experience and and then you are left going back and rebuilding the product while they are stuck on the original product or just kind of in limbo with no product at all that's not the route you want to go down so those are kind of the the initial stages now I know we're talking about making money with your no code apps and I know we just covered a lot of the basics here but the reason is because I want to make sure you know what stage you're in if you're in that idea of validation stage you now need to get to that product validation stage okay but if you're in the product validation stage you're building that core product then you can start thinking about monetization and about growing that revenue okay so now now that you know which stage you're in and when you should be moving into the monetization that's what we're going to talk about so what I'm gonna do first is share my screen and we're gonna jump over to the whiteboard here so that we can talk through and draw through some of these strategies and tactics here so we're going to look at this on a spectrum and we're gonna talk about different pricing models and different pricing strategies so if we're looking at this on a spectrum and we're looking at price point for your app and this is going to help you decide where on the spectrum you should land on the left side over here we're gonna say we have the most expensive apps or the highest price point apps and on the right over here we're gonna have the cheapest apps okay so the ones that are gonna be at that lowest price point and then in the middle here we're going to have a kind of an in-between stage there we go right there so first how do you figure out where you should be and kind of what you should be charging for your app well on the left side here we generally see apps that are kind of almost like services in and of themselves so here's an example of that we have a client named Pierce and he was already running a successful business where he was helping other businesses grow and kind of streamline their own operations right he was already running a successful business doing that without having an app but he wanted to add on another revenue stream for his business and so he decided to create an app that still applied to the businesses he was already serving but it allowed him to kind of package his existing services in a new more scalable way now if you are in this category you're likely experiencing something similar maybe you already have a business but you want to scale further you want to you know maybe you are kind of capped out on your capacity where the only way to grow your business is to either just you know spend more time or hire more team members for example and kind of grow into an agency but instead you want to build an app because that you know you can start serving on a many model instead of a more one-on-one model okay so in this case we find that apps the apps themselves are either really close to those services that exhibit those existing business services or they're kind of a transition of those services so maybe they work hand in hand with the service that go right along with it or maybe they're kind of replacing it okay but it's it's still a higher price point generally you know for apps on this side of the spectrum you aren't going to have as many users or sometimes you might even just refer to these as your clients because they're maybe they might be existing clients so you're gonna have fewer users and I'm talking about you know your your direct users for your app your users might have many end users for example peers he has a smaller group of immediate users because he's you know serving his clients in a more custom ways we're kated catered to their business it's more of a service but those clients who are using his app they have lots of end users so while his app might have thousands and thousands and thousands of users he is working directly with only a small group of his actual clients okay so you might be in this same position now if this is you or if you're on this side you're generally going to be looking at more high ticket service offerings so maybe your clients for example are paying you an upfront more high ticket fee into thousands 5,000 10,000 more you know per year or just initially for this service but you're definitely looking at a more high ticket solution here now this could be an front fee or an upfront payment for an initial setup for example for initial services and then you could move to a retainer afterwards where there might be a monthly retainer or an annual retainer for example so again on this end of this of the spectrum this is more so for business focused apps you're generally working directly with clients you're charging at a much higher price point you have fewer direct users you can still have more end-users but you're gonna be at that much higher price point now on the opposite side we're looking at apps that are much more generalized these are general apps that serve a wide market of people of users and on this side you're going to have many users the reason being if you're charging at a really low price point you need a much larger user base to generate a decent revenue with your app on the other end you don't really need very many users if you're charging at this really high price point but on this end you're gonna need to need a large pool of users to really start making good money with your app now your app is going to be more general because it is appealing to a larger market base and with these types of apps we often see things like freemium models now this is where you know maybe the app starts out as free but in order to access certain features you have to pay for an upgrade for example they might be subscription based apps where you're just charging a really low subscription fee per month maybe per year you might even be monetizing the app via ads now in this case the app itself might be free to use but for that free use you're showing the users ads you're making money based on those ads you need a large user base to really make a good income from that or generate a good revenue from that these can also be one-time purchases or one-time fees where you just pay a really low fee one time and then you can use the app from there on out so neither of these sides of the spectrum is right or wrong there are tons and tons of apps that can fall anywhere on this spectrum you know on this right side of the spectrum for example we have a client named Alex who is creating a health-related app and it appeals to a much larger market anymore a general market then you know our client peers who would be on the opposite end of the spectrum neither is right or wrong this is just the direction that they are going but again on this in on the right end where you're charging that low price point you're gonna have to generate a larger user base to build up that revenue with your app now right in the middle here and again we can have apps that fall anywhere on this spectrum but right in the middle you'll find lots of apps that are kind of like SAS products for examples over software-as-a-service where you're using a platform maybe in your business you're using it consistently maybe you're using it daily to run certain business operations for example this doesn't have to be a business-related but you usually find that you might find this with certain project management tools or productivity tools or or things like that okay so you you're using the app on an ongoing basis usually these are gonna be a little bit more niche think of things like email marketing platforms you know you have things like MailChimp which is really basic you know it serves a a wider market because it's really general and it's more basic but its niche down enough that you know you're using MailChimp generally for business purposes to send business emails but then you have platforms like infusions or keep and you know that's much much much more robust and it serves a really specific audience within that same kind of category so you know the different types of apps here can differ but that's the type of app that we're usually looking at now an example of this would be our client Brian who he built an app to help physical businesses run their business operations on a day-to-day basis now because this is something that they use consistently in their business daily this is something that you would choose a pricing model that is probably something like a subscription fee so a monthly subscription maybe an annual subscription you might even do this on a contract basis depending on your app your market who you serve and so on um the other type of kind of model you might see here and you've probably seen this before is more like a per task fee so maybe the app itself is free to use but the volume at which you use it dictates how much you pay so maybe it's free you know at a certain level but then once you use it so much you have to start paying so zapier for example you can use zapier for free but once you run a certain number of zaps per month then you you have to start paying for example you'll see this with some email service providers to you know you can send a certain number number of emails for free once you reach a certain point you start paying for each email you send a really small fee but if you're using this in a business setting usually it's going to add up so those are kind of the pricing models you can look at when you're in this in-between section with your app ok now to be clear not one blanket statement for every type of app so you don't have to try to fit yourself directly into one of these you're not limited but I just want to give you a general overview of what we generally see and what might be the easiest tactics for you to go to go with now on this side of the spectrum here we typically see b2c apps so these are apps that are being created directly for consumers ok so again you're reaching that wider market the app is gonna be a little bit more general you need more users because the app is that a lower price point so you need that larger user base to generate that revenue now on this side we usually see more b2b apps so these are apps that are being created specifically for businesses so again we're looking at that higher price point or those higher ticket services that might be bundled with an app or an app that's kind of taking over those original business services for example those higher priced or higher tiered or more niche down and customized SAS products for example so these are gonna be more b2b so this should give you a really good overview of where your app might fall because we've covered a lot of different factors and aspects here the user base size you know who your market is whether that's other businesses or whether that's direct to consumers the different price points the different examples of apps that you might find on any you know one point of this spectrum but there are a couple other things I want to go over in terms of pricing and more specifically in terms of your revenue and your profit margins and what you can expect depending on where on this spectrum you yourself land so over on this left side where we have those apps that are a higher price point right we have the fewer users these are gonna be more b2b apps what you're gonna find is that these apps are going to generate for you a higher revenue okay your revenue is going to be higher naturally because you're charging a lot more okay now keep in mind that when you're when you're operating an app that's kind of like a service generally your profit margins right are going to be a little bit lower now the reason for this is because this type of app is generally more catered to each individual client or immediate user you serve so you are likely working one-on-one with your clients or your customers in this capacity you might be including other services alongside this app right this app might kind of come in combination with those services and so you're going you're gonna need to spend more time on this you're generally going to need a larger team to handle this to handle the fulfillment now having an app is going to allow you to increase that capacity and not have to hire as many team members in order to make that higher revenue but the profit margins are gonna be generally again no blanket statement here but generally a little bit lower because you're gonna have to start thinking about the more customized fulfilment that you're going to be going through and just the amount of time that you're gonna be spending with each individual client now on the other side here where we have those lower cost apps we have that larger user base generally these are gonna be more b2c apps you're gonna find is usually initially upfront your revenue right so your revenue is going to be lower up front because you're gonna have to spend time growing that larger user base now you can do this in a couple of different ways you can invest your money in marketing and running ads and you can grow your user base that way you know whichever way you do this you know you can go through the organic traffic route the cold outreach route however you want to do this initially your revenues gonna be lower because you have to spend time doing that you have to get to that larger user base in order to really start generating that that higher revenue level but generally again no blanket statement but generally your profit on the other side of this right once you have that user base your profit margins are usually going to be a little bit higher because the app is more generalized that means that you're not catering to each specific user each specific client your your app is usually you know when you make updates it's not going to be one on one client focus it's going to be up wide and because you have a wider market that's more generalized you can make these more broad updates that can apply to everybody so you know it's a little bit less niche it's a little bit easier in terms of management you're not gonna be looking at all those costs for fulfillment that you might see on the other end of this spectrum and so generally if you do this really well your profit margins are usually going to be a little bit higher on the other side of this right once you have that user base alright so we've covered a lot here and the next thing you need to ask yourself is what do you need to do right now what is your next step towards you know diving into these tactics and these strategies and really starting to monetize your app well this is going to go back to those initial two stages that we talked about right either validating your idea and you know making sure there's a need for it or starting to build out that scalable product making sure it's optimized making sure that it really can support those initial users that you're gonna bring on board you got to figure out which one of those that you're in now if you're in that initial idea validation stage then you know you can start thinking about these different monetization strategies right now but you're not gonna want to jump straight into them yet because you don't want to find yourself skipping too far ahead running into these obstacles and then having to backtrack okay you don't want to jump right into developing out your full product yet you need to just start with making sure there's a need for your app okay if you know there's a need for your app right if you're that that type of person who you're building an app that solves a problem in your industry maybe your business maybe it solves a problem that you yourself have you know there's a need you know generally which core features are needed you have a really good base from where you're starting now you just need to kind of develop that product so that you can start bringing on those test users and start charging right so when you start testing your app that's usually when you start monetizing it when you start bringing those beta users on board there are lots of different ways that you can do this more than we can cover in one video I already covered a ton here but know that you know when you're in that product validation stage where you're just getting that core product up and running you're one step away from being able to start monetizing it you just have to get that step right so that it's going to support your users and support that scale as you start monetizing and as you start growing from there so those are kind of your next steps either validate your idea or get that product built and then move into this monetization and start getting those later stages of feedback expanding your app fine-tuning the pricing and so on now if you're in the stage where you need to just build the right product so that you can get to the point of monetizing your app and you want our help we take a small group of entrepreneurs who are in that specific stage they know there's a need for their app now they need to build their product build it correctly in an optimized way so that it is scalable if you're in that stage and you want our help we take this small group of entrepreneurs through a 12-week process where we we take them from you know having this idea that they know they need to build out to having their Minimum Viable Product that they can start testing if you want to learn more about that you can head to coaching no code apps comm forward slash apply you can schedule a free strategy call you can send over a few details about what you're trying to accomplish that we can see if we can help you get there so again head to coaching no code apps comm forward slash apply and we can start the conversation from there all right I know we went through a lot today hope this was helpful thanks so much for watching and we'll see you in the next one

Channel: Coaching No Code Apps

Views: 4,302

Rating: 4.5686274 out of 5

Keywords: Bubble, bubble app builder, build an app without coding, apps without code, visual programming, no code app development, bubble.io, monetize your app, app business, make money with your appp, app pricing models, pricing strategy

Id: X22JuFt6NlM

Length: 37min 9sec (2229 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 15 2020