Everyone knows that they have a great idea for a killer app that will revolutionize the world and make billions. Be that as it may, between the idea and the reality falls the shadow. Build a better FourSquare and the world will not beat a path to your door. The streets are littered with the corpses of Google killers and social camera apps. Let’s not be those guys.

So for this to work we have to begin our strategic design phase with four questions.

How does the app serve company goals?

In our case, designing in-house apps is our first love. We happily help clients develop apps with design of the highest caliber; and this is Tapity’s primary source of income. But we are starry-eyed entrepreneurs at heart. And as such we have to constantly develop products that we can call our own. We are parents who want biological children. This is one of the primary reasons why we are designing Languages.

How big is the market?

Not all markets are created equal. Steve Jobs recognized that creating products with universal appeal makes good business sense. Hence, iTunes, iPhoto, iLife, iPad, et al. So a message for Don Quixote: maybe it’s best that you stand down on that piano tuner app and start questing for some vast and untapped market spaces.

In the case of Languages, it turns out that the market is much larger than you’d think: Sonico Mobile has learned from its iTranslate success that there are millions of iPhone users clammering for translation apps. Globalization is on the rise. The world is flattening, and so forth. And in this environment of tightening digital, economic, and political networks, it helps to understand what the guy next to you is saying.

Who’s the competition?

Ideally, your app would exist in a blue ocean market—a market with zero competition. When we created Grades we were creating a whole new product category that had never existed before, like the iPad, but on a much humbler scale.

Sadly, in the case of Languages we do have myriad competitors. But the good news is that the translation dictionary domain really isn’t a red ocean. Although there is a glut of products, there are still huge openings for a new product in many fields: price point, design, real-world metaphor.

Consider it a pink ocean, I guess.

Is it feasible?

Can we make it happen? In the case of Languages, yes. Sonico has excellent programmers. They’ve also acquired the dictionary databases. We’ve got the gear and the wherewithal. Now we just need to get started!

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 17th, 2011 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Business, Tapity, iPhone App Design, iPhone App Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.