Today’s App Developer’s Corner features Gregory Raiz, Founder and CEO of Raizlabs, a mobile software development company building “top selling, award winning” applications. The following is what Gregory shared with us about his business and his process.
Give us a quick overview about yourself–your team and company.
Our company is called Raizlabs. We’re located in Boston and have been building apps since the SDK came out. We do a lot of iPhone consulting for companies and we also build our own applications. Our focus is on creating great mobile experiences that fit in your pocket. We’ve built utilities, financial tools, fitness applications, music apps, games and travel products. We try to set ourselves apart by focusing on design and quality.
Why did you guys start to develop mobile apps and what was your experience coming into developing for the iPhone platform?
We had been developing desktop products and websites prior to the iPhone. We saw the iPhone as a catalyst for a change in how people would use their phones. It’s much more a mobile computer then a music device or just a phone. We wanted to get on this platform early. The transition for us was fairly quick. The iPhone is a fun platform to develop on. It gives us access to many tools and allows us to solve a new set of problems. In many ways it has a lot of the things we like about desktop applications and the benefits of web-based tools as well.
How do you come up with ideas for your products like Tip Calculator?
For us the idea of a Tip Calculator wasn’t a new one. It’s been done many times, in the same way. The real idea was for us to figure out what unique problems really needed to be solved. For us we focused on the scenario where everyone has a big meal while one friend has something small. We’ve seen this scenario in our own experience and splitting the check is always a problem. We wanted to build a tip calculator that would make this scenario easy and fun instead of a chore.
We try to bring this type of problem solving to all our applications. It’s not about the idea itself. Most ideas have been done before. The real trick is figuring out what unique thing you’re able to do to solve the problem.
Once you have an idea for an application, how do you go from concept, to creating an actual business?
Our business is creating great products. In general app ideas don’t turn into businesses, it’s the other way around. It’s much easier to take an existing business and develop an app to help that business grow. In our case our business is developing mobile software for other companies. Our tip calculator app isn’t our core business; it’s a tool to show off the type of work that we do. We’re not in the tip calculator business, our business is building great products.
Our process for turning ideas into products is pretty straight forwward. We do a lot of white boarding and sketching to create a compelling wire-frame. Using this foundation we can develop the core aspects of the application. While we’re doing this we also can itterate on the look and feel of the product. From there we do a lot of testing to make sure the app works the way we want. We test the application with users to make sure we got it right and ship the product. From there we listen to our customers and make sure we address issues that come up.
What would you say has been the most successful strategy/avenue for promoting and increasing visibility for your apps and your company?
Don’t build crap. It’s that simple. The best strategy for us has been to build products we believe in. Products that we care about and spend time on tend to do much better then products that are done quickly. If you care about every pixel it seems that customers notice and help socialize your apps to friends.
In terms of marketing we’ve had pretty good luck using PR channels to get the word out. We’ve also done fairly well using social tools like Facebook and Twitter to help spread the word. We’ve had less luck with advertising, especially for low cost apps.
How has Pinch Analytics helped with app development, promotion, and marketing?
We use analytics to answer questions about our target audience. This really helped us in the transition to OS 3.0. It has also helped us as we decided what languages to internationalize and how much time we should spend worrying about piracy. Pinch gives us data about who’s using our app and when it’s being used. It allows me to say things like: 72% of our tip calculator users are male. 50% are over 30 years old. There’s no other way we could have gotten that data. This tells me who I should target my message for and where I should be spending any advertising or PR budget.
Do you have any piece of advice regarding the development of a successful application or anything else that you would like to share?
We get a lot of companies that approach us about “building apps” and while we do build a lot of apps the real question companies should be asking is how to build their business. Apps are usually part of a larger puzzle and the companies that are doing really well at this are not building one-off apps such as Emoji, Flashlight or fart apps; they are building sustainable long term businesses. My advice is to focus on building a business and create apps that support the business.
Our website www.raizlabs.com has additional information on our philosophy and process as well as links to all of our apps.
If you would also like to keep tabs on user behavior, register for an account at Pinch Media and let us know if you have any questions getting started.
-Adit Shukla