Super App Development: A Guide for Entrepreneurs
Super app development has transformed our personal and professional lives. From ordering groceries to paying the mortgage, we have everything at our fingertips.
Let’s understand this with one example:
Assume it’s the end of the week, and your ideal target audience has their party plans ready. But here’s the twist: you need to pay the bills, book the movie tickets, and reserve a dinner table for your date. For all of these tasks, you need multiple applications.
What’s in it for appreneurs? App businesses like yours can capitalize on the gap here and introduce an app that solves multiple problems.
Sounds like a business plan? Let’s begin.
This article covers:
- What is a super app? How does it work?
- How do appreneurs develop super apps?
- What is the cost of super app development?
And all the questions related to building a scalable super app with high-end monetization possibilities.
What is a Super App?
Super app development refers to a smartphone application that has multiple micro-services and features. All of these services are integrated, creating a digital version of a street market.
The features offered inside the application are either developed internally, like Alibaba’s Alipay, or through third-party vendors and APIs like Uber Eats.
A 7-Step Guide To Super App Development
A super app can become a lucrative opportunity for your business, considering the fact that the trend is yet to take over the U.S.
Here is a short step-step guide on how you can develop a super app for your business.
1. Conduct Market Research
As an aspiring entrepreneur, there are a few things that you should consider before you start developing your super app. Here they are:
- Inclusiveness
Unlike standalone applications, super apps cater to all kinds of users – varying through gender, age, interest, etc): providing them with diverse services under one platform.
Partnerships
Tech giants like Amazon, Meta, and Tencent are dominating the industry in Asia and the United States. Why? Because they are partnering with third-party vendors to grow their daily active users. That’s also what we advise startups when they are starting out in the industry.
Secondly, when you partner with other third-party services, it enables you and your partners to grow together and create a long-term and profitable business relationship.
2. Identify Features And Functionality
When developing a super app, the features and functionalities play a vital role in its impact in the marketplace. And the way you figure out those features is through extensive market research.
Here are a few examples of some global tech giants that started out offering standalone services but are now pivoting towards creating an ecosystem of services with super apps:
- When Amazon was founded in the early 1990s, it was only used to sell books. Now Amazon has entered the streaming, fintech industry, and more.
- Facebook started out as a social media network for college students now, they are a marketplace for advertisers, SMBs, and SMEs.
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3. Design Interactive UI/UX Design
Because supper apps have multiple services in one single application, it’s important to have easy navigation for users. An interactive and structured UI/UX design enables the users to find the service they are looking for effortlessly.
Here are the most important UI/UX features you should have on your super apps.
- Color scheme
- Typography
- Smooth effects and transitions
- Placement of services according to demand and importance
4. Decide Which Technology Stack You Want For Development
When you are investing in developing a complex system like a super app, you need the right technical aspects to integrate all the services in one place. These can include:
- The amount of code space needed for consumption
- The level of complexity needed to develop that code
- Resource availability
- Total investment required
Here we have listed the best technology stack to meet all of your native and cross-platform app development requirements:
Front-end | ReactJS, VueJS, HTML, CSS |
Back-end | Node.Js, Python, Golang, Laravel |
Mobile platform | Swift, Kotlin, Java for native, Flutter, React Native for cross-platform |
Database | My SQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis |
Cloud Services | AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure |
Server | NGINX, Apache |
Payments | Paypal, Braintree, Stripe, EWallets |
Push Notifications | Push, Twilio, Firebase Cloud Messaging |
Find location | Google Places API, Google Maps, Core Location Framework |
Analytics | Big data, Hadoop, Spark, Apache Flink |
5. Run Quality Assurance Tests
After you have developed a super app, you need to take it through multiple tests to make it bug-free and crash-free before the initial release. A QA engineer will test your application from the ground up and improve the overall user experience.
Here are a few tests that you can run after your super app development:
- Functional testing
- Usability testing
- Compatibility testing
- Performance and load testing
- Security testing
- Installation testing
- Localization testing
- Manual testing
Once the testing is complete, the QA engineer will send a detailed bug and exception report to the application development team for fixing.
6. Remove Remaining Code Defects
Now, your super application is ready for release without any bugs or errors. The last thing you should always check is to detect any code defects remaining at the backend of the application.
This way, you can ensure the resiliency of your supper app architecture before you release it on public registries or hosting platforms like Google Play Store And Apple App Store.
7. Keep Updating Your Super App
Customer retention makes your business model sustainable. That’s why you need to keep your users satisfied by releasing new features, fixing bugs and security patches. We recommend you repeat this process monthly for optimal performance of your application.
How Much Does It Cost To Build A Super App?
Super apps typically cost between $10,000 – 58,000 depending on the scope of work, number of features and complexity of UI and UX design.
Note that the cost of your super app development depends on which phase of the process you are starting from.
For example, maybe you already have a UI/UX design ready and only need to develop the application. Or you have an application ready and only need to run the final tests before launching.
No matter what kind of super app development service you choose, as an entrepreneur, you need to get an estimated cost before starting the project.
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6 Factors That Affect The Cost Of Super App Development
- Project scope
- Development type: Native or Cross-Platform Development
- UI/UX design
- Team structure: Number of developers, managers, CTO, UI/UX designers, and QA engineers
- Application testing
- Application’s ongoing maintenance and support
FAQs on Super App Development
- How do super apps differ from conventional apps?
Super apps and stand-alone apps differ in a lot of ways. A stand-alone application is developed for one particular function, like Netflix for streaming and Zoom for video conferencing calls. Super apps like WeChat have multiple services in a single platform like eCommerce, banking, and entertainment.
- Are super apps profit-making mobile apps?
Super apps definitely provide value to the users. These applications are space and time efficient delivering all the stuff you need daily at your fingertips. Hence, having an application housed with in-demand features and services grows the user base which increases your ROI.
- What makes a super app successful?
Some of the super app’s success factors include User experience, the technology stack used in the development, and the availability of in-demand features and services (marketplace, digital wallet).
- How Much Time Does It Take to Build A Super App?
It takes almost 6 to 15 months to develop a super app. The time it takes to develop a super application depends on the organization you are working with and the team size needed for the project.
Wrapping Up
Super apps are taking over the world. With these convenient apps users have access to avail all of their favorite apps within a single mobile application.
Appreneurs can grab this emerging opportunity and get into super app development for their business.
