If you are already a mobile app developer, you must have heard of the term. Mobile app flipping refers to the process of creating positive returns by working on an existing app or the latter’s framework. Also known as re-skinning, it is one of the fastest ways to get into the app market without expending excessive time, budget and effort. All you do is find an existing app that caters to the needs of your target audience, and use it to create a new program that caters to the same needs in a better and more efficient way. Naturally, this quick way to generate positive ROI is one of the most popular ones among mobile app developers.
Why is Mobile App Development Flipping Profitable
Costs of an app framework – With app flipping, an existing app can be spun into a new one by using an app framework, which developers refer to as the source code. When you compare the costs involved in this, the price of a source code is less than a fraction of the money needed to develop an original app from scratch. The only effort need to expend is that needed to browse and select the best source code, and use it in the best way possible.
Higher Returns on Investment - If you have ever created an app or planned to do so, you would be familiar with the costs and effort that goes into it. Naturally, if you are not a professional developer, you will have to hire someone to create your app from scratch. If you are one or believe that you can create a basic app, you will still have to spend money on the creation process and then the marketing. This is especially true if your app caters to a new idea that needs to be introduced to smartphone users. With app flipping, however, most of these costs are eliminated. For one, the money expended on developers and designers is lower, since you can already provide them with the detailed idea as well as the framework, with an outline of the additional features or polishing needed. What’s more is that marketing and advertising may be unneeded, since your app will automatically be categorised with other similar ones in the area, and reach the potential customers automatically. With the low costs needed to complete the process, even an initially low profit will generate higher returns on investment than creating an app from scratch.
For instance, a developer spends £5,000 on creating a game from scratch and earns £40 a day from it. With much effort and marketing, the returns may increase to £60. On the other hand, another developer may take the same game, buy a source code worth £500 and spend an additional £500 on improving the app. The costs of this second developer will be a mere £1,000 compared to the original £5,000 and, with more or less the same profits, the ROI will tend to be much higher and a lot more rewarding.
Lesser time and effort – When an app is created, the final product is not only defined by the costs that go into it, but also other factors that make it existent. In fact, even coming up with a unique initial idea takes more effort than you may imagine. Think of an idea for a mobile app right now. It is highly probably that several apps on the same idea have already been created and successfully sold. If you set out to create a unique app, you will realise that the endeavour is almost unachievable. The idea way to go on about making profits, therefore, is through minimising this effort and simply expanding and improving on an additional app. Naturally, when you spend merely a couple of days on creating an app as compared to months of futile hard work, the first £1,000 will be worth a lot more.
Countless apps – App flipping does not cater to one app being created out of another. You can, in fact, create dozens of apps out of that one. This is extremely beneficial for new developers, who can keep re-skinning an app at extremely low costs until they get the exact product they were looking for. A minor initial investment can, therefore, turn into a huge business opportunity.
The Ideal App Development Process
So how do you go on about making the most out of this useful process? Initially, it may seem like a mess that you cannot make sense out of. It may seem to have too many steps with many details that may be difficult to get a hang of.
However, all you need for this is the BIG picture. What you need is to overview the whole process in a systematic order and framework, and start right from the beginning gradually working your way to the top. The key here is to make yourself known and to stand out among a crowd of thousands, where everyone looks the same.
How do you make yourself popular and compete with countless others who are aiming to achieve exactly what you are looking for? Here are the steps to making the best use of mobile app development flipping, and eventually overthrowing your opponents in a systematic fashion.
While mobile app development flipping does not need as much effort as an original app does, it does need the intellect and the mental expertise. The first step, in fact, is the most crucial. If you are to use an original app, the one you use can greatly determine your success.
Spend your time in going through search engines and app stores. Which are the apps that are most willingly paid for? Which are the apps that have spent a lot of money on marketing and succeeded through it? Which apps have immediately made it into the market and which are the ones that have worked their way to the top? Which apps have the most competitors, and which have ones that are the easiest to overthrow? Go through all of these details and answer every related question during your research, before picking out the best app.
2. Source Code
Buying a source code may not be as simple as you think it is. Take your time in researching and determining the best source code for your app. While there are several popular app frameworks in the market, you can decide on one by picking out the best combination of affordability and need fulfillment.
3. Redesign
Sure enough, you have borrowed the idea from another app. However, the key here is to achieve uniqueness despite the similarities that are bound to be there. Come up with a unique design for your new app. Ideally, you can change everything from the menu to the images and from the audio to the text. The best part about working with an existing framework is the room for improvement. Look for glitches and disliked features in the existing app, and come up with a new one that has all the good features of the existing up, new features that improve upon it and none of the aspects that the app did not need.
4.Monetisation
New developers often fail to understand that the key to creating the best app is not by selling it at a high price, but using it as a tool to generate money indirectly. With your app, there are several ways you can generate cash. For one, you can look for other apps, programs and even websites that want to be promoted. Once your app is up and running and has had a considerable number of downloads, you can add a moderate amount of ad banners within it. However, you must realise that advertisements within your app can make or break it. You must keep some factors in mind to ace this part of monetisation: • Do not go overboard. Loading your app with advertisements right from the very beginning will immediately earn you a very low rating, causing the number of downloads to fall.
• Go for related ads. Your users do not need to see completely unrelated ads. Go for something that might interest them, or something that falls in the same category as your app.
• Wait for your app to be slightly popular. Do not load it with ad banners right from the beginning, but introduce them as updates after a considerable number of downloads.
• Keep changing them. Replace the ad banners from time to time to keep users interested and to keep generating money from them.
• Heck it! You do not need ads in order to monetise. Read on.
5. Testing
The last thing you need your new app is to have operation glitches or errors. Before publishing it, run it through a testing process to ensure smooth operation of the new design and features installed. Refer to Resources at the end.
6. Publishing
Now that you are done with making your app, it is the time to publish it. Ideally, you should make multiple version of the app, and upload it on both iTunes and Google Play Store. The process is simple, and all you need is a developer profile. Your app will be up and running in less than 24 hours for Google Play but for iTunes it will take about 7 working days.
7. Marketing
Now that your app is up and running, there is no limit to how much you can improve it. The more you market it, the better your returns will be. But wait, before you spend your money. Ideally, you can make use of social media to make your app popular. Whether by a well-managed Facebook and Twitter page or through paid advertisements on these platforms, you can reach out to your potential customers and make your app known. The key, therefore, is to understand the big picture. Here is a simple summary of everything you need to keep in mind during the app flipping process:
It is an established fact that app flipping is an effective and faster way of creating new apps on existing ideas. It does not only allow you to save time but also the effort that goes into building an app from scratch. Moreover, it allows you to expand on already existing apps, which allows you to bring in additional features that customers might like and to eliminate existing ones that are redundant or need updates.
However, the question remains: How do you go on about app flipping? Are you a programmer? If not, should you become one? If you are, should you work on your own or make a company to work with?
There are several factors that contribute to this decision.
Individual Programmer vs. Programming Company
Before you even initiate the research for your final app or indulge into the app flipping process, you need to decide on the path of action you will take on. First off, you need to decide whether working on your own will be better or will forming a company yield better results.
Size of the potential business - For one, you need to consider your plans in detail. Do you have a vague idea for a single app, or do you plan to expand it into a larger business? If your current idea is limited to one app, and if it is your first experience with this, it would be ideal to be an individual programmer. If, however, you have previously developed app and now plan on app flipping on a larger scale, you might consider forming a programming company.
Remote vs. fixed working arrangement
The choice also greatly depends on time availability. Naturally, if you form a programming company, you will have to invest a fixed amount of time every day into it. It takes time and effort to build a company and to run it consistently enough to make profits. If you already have another job and you are merely working in your free time, which is not fixed, ideally you should stick to being a hobbyist programmer. Only if you have a lot of time to spare and a fixed amount of hours to dedicate daily should you consider forming a company.
Budget
Even though app flipping does not actually take as much money as app building from scratch does, it still needs a certain amount of investment. You need to pay for an app framework, and for the features you need in your app. You might also have to pay for uploading your app into an online store. Your budget, however, will be a lot greater if you plan to open up or run a programming company.
This is because a large amount of your revenues will go into paying your employees and programmers. You will also have to manage a lot of other business costs, which may lower your profit. Whether you make more money as a programmer or a company depends on the nature and the popularity of your app, and the returns you get from it.
Need for money - There are several programmers out there who flip apps only to make a moderate amount of quick money. They merely need some extra cash and app flipping, with its convenience, is a good way to get this. If you are one of these people, being a programmer is the best option for you if your app turns out to be good enough to generate profits. As a programming company, however, you will need to understand that profit making takes time. Initially, your revenue will only be barely covering your costs. Due to higher marketing and management costs, you may find very less money to spare for yourself. However, with effective marketing strategies, you can begin to make profits overtime and make your company known to mobile app users.
Whether you operate as an individual or as a company also majorly depends on the part of the popular that you are targeting. If, for example, you develop an app to make mathematical calculations, it will only be limited to students of a certain age group, which makes your target market smaller. This eventually gives you an idea of the maximum revenue you can make if you operate at your optimal level. If, however, you make an app on weight loss or a game suitable for all age groups, your market will be a lot bigger. The project, therefore, will be large-scale and will also require wider marketing. In such a case, operating as a company will be more useful. While exceptions are certainly there, you simply need to determine whether your app will be simple enough for you to manage alone.
Aims and future plans
All in all, the decision depends on where you plan to take your project. It is often possible to start off as an individual, and form a company later on if your app gets an exceptional response and needs wider marketing and more complex management and updates. If, however, your current plans are limited to making and managing a small app, the best would be to be an individual working on a sole app.
The Right Motives
There are several people out there who are skeptical about mobile app development flipping. They quote examples of how app flipping yields very low profits and one rarely gets any recognition. However, this is where the flaw in your motives comes in. Why exactly are you flipping an app and what are your goals? The answers to these questions can almost wholly define your potential rate of success.
For most developers, the goal is to come up with something that will be approved on Apple’s iTunes store or Google Play Store. They work, right from the beginning, to make an app that conforms to the rules of these platforms, and eventually upload their final product on these to reach out to potential customers. However, are these platforms really that beneficial? While they might be great for making small profits, can an app really succeed exceptionally on these? Sure enough, there are apps that have gained immense amount of appreciation. However, considering the number of apps uploaded on these platforms – which is in hundreds every day – the rate of successful apps is very low.
How, then, do you make your app successful? Here is how.
Forget About iTunes and Play Store
This may sound absurd. Surely, these platforms are the best way to market apps, right? Wrong! The fact is that your app, unless it is an exceptional one, has a very low chance of reaching out to a lot of people if it is marketed solely through these platforms. Here are a few reasons for this:
Extremely busy marketplace
If you think your app is amazing, you need to look around. Play Store probably has hundreds of other apps that provide exactly the same functions. The simple fact is that your app needs to stand out. Simply uploading it on iTunes or Play Store does not guarantee downloads or any profits. For all you know, users may never even get to see your app in the crowd.
Active users
Mobile and internet users today are highly adept at making decisions. They are also very fast at it; research suggests that an average internet user spends just about five seconds when deciding whether to browse a certain website or download a certain app. Therefore, if your app does not stand among the top few and does not have exceptional reviews, it will probably fail in the market very soon.
Rare usage
So, your app looked attractive and therefore it got downloaded. Does that guarantee success? No, it does not. Research suggests that 95% of the total apps that are downloaded are opened only once. This means that unless your app is amazing and keeps the user hooked, you will probably not make any profits and your app will not be in use after a month.
Build Your Own Branded App
Now that we have established that mere existence on Play Store or iTunes does not guarantee the success of your app, let us look into what does make a great app. The fact is that no matter where your app is uploaded, whether on a popular platform, on a small website or your own well-marketed site, it needs to be highly efficient in order to be successful. When flipping an app, therefore, what you need to focus is not to meet the guidelines of Play Store but to come up with a branded app that will stand tall on its own and attract users regardless of its downloading platform.
Instead, you can come up with a great branded app by marketing it on your own website. This means that you can make yourself be known as an app developer, and come up with unique apps every now and then. This can be great because if you come up with one successful app, you can then use it to market your next app before its launch.
However, this process is intricate and you must go about it carefully. When creating a branded app, here are the things you need to incorporate.
This refers to all the features of your app that make it distinct from other apps and make users remember it with certain references. App branding is important in order to make a place in the mind of the consumer, and for them to be instantly reminded of the app if they see something similar. If you look at large corporations, all of them are recognised by features like icons, colours, names, etc. the key here is to come up with app branding features that will be different from the rest and will make you stand out. Here are the things you need to include in app branding:
Name your app
Developers often underrate this part of developing or flipping mobile apps, believing that any sort of name would become catchy if the app gains popularity. This, however, is not true. Naming you app is one of the most crucial points, and you must make sure you come up with something simple yet unique enough to be remembered. Think of app clones. They all often have the same names, and never stand out among the crowd. While these apps may be downloaded by being mistaken for the original that they are the clones for, this often earns them a poor reputation. Instead of coming up with a clone name, come up something unique that users will remember you for, which can ideally include the name of your brand.
Create an icon
This is another chance you have to stand out among the crowd, where everyone has a similar face. If you are flipping an app from a game that is very popular, do not use the same icon in, perhaps, different colours or slight changes. Instead, create an icon that is unique as well as attractive. To create a popular, well- branded app, you do not want users to think that your app is merely the clone of another popular one. Therefore, use an icon that is unique to you and something that has the potential to become popular without being related to others. Branded apps can often have the same icon, or those that are a variation of one primary icon.
Unique interface
Among mobile apps and games, there are many that use the same app development platforms and use the same templates. This means that there are very few apps that have a unique user interface. Otherwise, most of them use the same colour combinations, the same drop-down menu style, etc. In order to be remembered by users through good branding, you must avoid this. Even when flipping an app, come up with a user interface, like colours, that will be unique to your app. These small unique factors, in future, have the potential to become the defining factors for your app. Ideally, you can make this a simpler version of your website’s interface, by using the same graphics but in a lesser quantity. Using the same or somewhat similar interface for all your future apps will also give you better recognition.
App support
There are countless apps out there that have glitches, due to which they are simply abandoned. Users do not have the time to spend a lot of time looking for solutions, and since they have enough alternatives, they simply move on to something more convenient. In order to avoid this, you must have your unique app help and support. Incorporate an FAQ within your app that users can resort to if they face problems. Additionally, offer unique support and customer care through your website. These small features often go a long way to keep customers interested in your app instead of simply abandoning it after using it for a few times.
2. Efficient Features
The success of branded apps is not always limited to linking them with your website through names and logos. Often, you can make your app stand out because of other unique features it has. If you already have a website running or a company, you can make a branded app related to it. In order to come up with a better branded app, here are some things you can keep in mind:
Do not make it a marketing campaign
Often, mobile app brands are not recognisable because of the so many other brands they are advertising. You want your own company to be distinguishable from others, and not come across and someone merely trying to make money through advertisements. You should particularly avoid hidden pop-up ads, since most users block these anyway and those who do not are likely to delete the app if they come across these. In such a case, your future app sales will also be affected due to the poor reputation.
Focus on providing convenience
App and internet users do not like having to spend a lot of time finding what they need. Therefore, create easy navigation and give customers exactly what they are looking for. While you certainly want to make profits, they key is to not make this apparent to your customers and make them feel cared for. This will be great for your future apps, since users will want to keep coming back for newer downloads.
Avoid mediocre apps
When working with a brand, you cannot compromise on quality. This is because coming up with an inefficient app will greatly affect all your future campaigns. Users will not want to download another app from a brand that previously delivered mediocre apps. Therefore, remember that it is better to not produce a branded app at all than to produce a poor one.