One of the BIGGEST Mistakes Teams Make When Building Apps

Imagine this, you have a idea for the world’s next great application. 

You have raised the money you need, found a team, and developed a brand.

You are on your way to success, right?

Well… not exactly. 

Many teams find themselves overbuilding. What does this mean? Overbuilding refers to adding TOO many features to your product. What’s wrong with too many features? Doesn’t this assure that all of our customer’s needs are met?

No. 

Chances are somewhere within the customer journey their needs are lost. It is nearly impossible to always know what the customer wants without including their voice and feedback in on the journey. 

That is why overbuilding is one of the biggest mistakes teams can make when developing an application.

What are some of the problems with overbuilding?

1. It takes your product longer to get to market

The more time required to build an app, the more time elapses that the product isn’t providing value for your The more time required to build an app, the more time elapses that the product isn’t providing value for your customers. In addition, you are missing out on revenue which is one of the primary goals of any business. Your goal should be to provide the most value possible in the shortest amount of time. Although this concept sounds simple, many lose out on the speed required to keep up in today’s technological climate. By no means does this mean rush a product to market, however, tech companies must understand that the product does not need to be perfect and take care of every customer need in the first release.

2. It takes more time to get feedback

Customer feedback is one of the biggest pieces to a product’s success. Your customer’s feedback and opinions creates a compass for the direction your product is headed. The longer it takes to build an app or new feature, the longer it will take to get feedback on what the market thinks. 

There will be bugs in any digital product released to the field these days (it’s just a reality that we all need to deal with). To deal with this, make sure you ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you have channels for customers to give you feedback?
• Do you have a customer service team that is responsive to customer issues and feedback?
• Are you able to get feedback to your development team quickly?
• Can your development team release to production quickly by using CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Development)?
• Do you have a process for telling a customer when their feedback will be released?

3. You fail to prioritize work

When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. I’m sure you’ve heard this before. Every app has needs that are required for it to be competitive in the marketplace. Every app also has “nice to haves”. These are features that may not be the anchor to your bottom line and why customers choose you, but they are elements that enhance the experience for them.

Prioritizing work based on what will drive the most customer satisfaction and revenue is important. When building everything that comes to mind without a hierarchy of what should be built first, and what can be saved for a later date, is a highly likely way of missing the business objectives over time and being edged out by a competitor.

4. You waste resources.

Time is money. Or is money, time?

Whatever phrase you believe in, a few things are true; companies do NOT have an unlimited budget or unlimited time. 

Wasted resources cripple a company and lowers team morale. In an ideal world, resources are properly distributed and team members that feel empowered through the strategic delegation of resources.

Overbuilding creates a lot of waste through building unnecessary features, spending restrained budgets on expensive designers and developers, and creating more opportunities for something to go wrong. 

Budgets may be spent better in marketing, or hiring new talent to innovate as opposed to the heavy allocation of development and adding features.

What is the solution?

It’s simple, and often easy enough that anyone can do it.

The solution comes by using tools and methods that do not allow your team to miss out on the important conversations and perspectives necessary to build the right product. With online whiteboards that offer User Story Mapping capabilities you and your team can visualize a project from start all of the way to its finish. 

You can build out the intended customer journey, attach business goals, rank priority by having your team vote, set time goals, and update progress from start to finish.

This ensures that everyone has a shared understanding of what the business is set out to do, and how long they have to do it. 

CardBoard is an online whiteboard and user story mapping tool that teams can use from anywhere in the world. Check out our blog, User Story Mapping for Beginners, then head over to our FREE trial, sign up here, and start building products that your customer loves today.

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