Just Eat has entered the FTSE100. What a meteoric rise via a business model based on a Website and App. On Dragons Den, Debra Meedham said to Hungry House that she thought ordering takeaways this way was not peoples thought process and declared herself out within seconds, as did Peter Jones. But on this occasion they were both wrong about the concept and this business is now worth an estimated £1.5bn.

Got an idea for a business app that maybe others have dismissed or said “that will never work”? Get in touch and see if Gooii can help.

Recent surveys suggest 42% of SMEs have built a mobile app.

That number is expected to grow to 67% by the end of 2017 and move higher in 2018. The fact is that we now spend more time on our smartphones than we do our desktops. This tide is not going to change and the gap between the two formats will exponentially grow.

Businesses cannot afford to ignore that change in tide. Otherwise not having a dedicated business app or at the very minimum a fully responsive website will hinder your business and give the competitive advantage to others.

Therefore if you wish to give your business a boost with your own business app for mobile trading, improve your brand awareness with customers and prospects then contact Gooii Nottingham today.

Spar Virtual Reality App

New virtual reality app. Celebrating their 100 year history, retail giants Spar and Blakemore Trade Partners present a concept ‘Store of the Future’.

This fully 3D rendered VR tour shows a glimpse of the future, transporting you forward in time. Spar VR has been delivered by the innovative designers and coders at Gooii Nottingham, with all design, 3D modelling and coding completed entirely in-house.

With drones flying overhead, holographic ordering points and displays, ‘Spar VR’ enables users to experience Spar’s vision years before it becomes a reality using Google Cardboard VR compatible virtual reality headsets and their phones.

The app was developed for Android and iOS. You can also view Spar VR on any compatible device via YouTube. This includes iOS, Android and desktop (Chrome Browser required for desktop viewing).

Amazing Google Cardboard VR headsets for our award winning app DriveVR.

Many people who discuss VR or AR projects with us incorrectly assume you need expensive headsets. Yes you can purchase Oculus Rift that cost many hundreds of pounds. You can also buy SamsungGearVR that are significantly cheaper. If you are presenting your Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality product to groups of delegates, then why not consider Google Cardboard headsets? These are even better value alternatives and because of their price they can take these home with them after the event.

One distinct advantage with these headsets, apart from the price point, are the possibilities of branding them with your corporate or app identity, like DriveVR.  This option can reinforce your brand awareness long after the initial engagement has ended. It also ensures the delegates have an opportunity to share your product with friends and spread the word.

A fantastic Augmented Reality architectural model project. The traditional printed drawings are laid out on a desk but by using a tablet, the clients can now see the houses start building on top of the drawings right in front of them, including the landscape growing out of the ground and gently maturing.

Couple this with a live link to a database to feed house specifications, interior views and their status to the model, this offers something quite unique to any construction company, architect or estate agent.

This technology can also be integrated into your current website so contact us today.

Safer Roads Humber commissioned a report recently that evaluated the psychological and physiological effects that take place when viewing differing types of content. The results included that the playing of a 3D film against a standard 2D did increased impact on their 120 students who took part in the study.

However the report also confirmed our opinions that playing a VR video on its own will not lead to the required behaviour change and could lead to participants detaching themselves from the scenarios playing to them. We believe the VR content must be delivered in a innovative way and be used as part of a wider intervention approach that includes quality education and possibly meeting the victims of tragedy to become effective.

Our award winning DriveVR road safety app developed with West Mercia Police has an innovate timeline approach so it can effectively communicate the adverse effects a decision can have on their own future life chances.

If you wish Gooii to help you increase engagement on your safety courses then please contact us today.

Before you engage with any potential development partner, you need to collate all your thoughts and aspirations for your app coherently ready for presentation. Don’t concern yourself with details such as what development language should be used, this is something the developers will manage and provide advice on. Your role at this stage is to provide a concise brief to communicate exactly what you would like to start the ball rolling. You don’t have to be technical to do this, just try to explain what you want your app to do.

Start with a simple requirement and expand on each descriptive within that requirement. For example your initial simple requirement may be:

I wish to develop an app that allows users to share their experiences skydiving.

This, in a nutshell, is a statement of what you would like. Now we need to expand on each of the key points in this statement:

‘App’ – Would this be Android, Apple or both? Do you need a website too? Would the website allow anyone to view skydivers and their experiences?

‘Users’ – Would these users need to be registered? Do we need to allow registration of those users and allow them to create a profile? Then take a selfie?

‘Share’ – Share with friends and/or other users only? Would this be on social media or just within the app? Could people follow you and get notifications of updates?

‘Experiences’ – Would this be text only or take/upload pictures? Upload video? Would be need a blog running up the event?

‘Skydiving’ – Are they doing this simply or pleasure or is it for charity? Do we need to reference a donation site? Do we accept donations?

So now we have asked these questions the updated requirement would look like this with the original text in bold to illustrate how we have expanded it;

I wish to develop an Android and iOS app that allows users to create an account with their main details in it including a photo via the app or a website to share with their friends on social media, via the skydiving website or app with their experiences posted via blog updates leading up to the event containing video and pictures of their  skydiving experience and give then links to their donation page if they are  doing this for charity.

We can see this is a lot more detailed than the original version and you need to carry on like this expanding and refining the detail where you can up to a point where you think you have added as much as you can think of. If we now analyse this last version of the requirement, it is probably one very long sentence with a few grammar issues but it does not matter. You now need to edit this text and you will find you have a clear initial brief of your app that any potential development partner would be pleased to receive as an initial starting point. You will also find that some information is duplicated but that is also fine and expected – remember the software developer will be creating a formal specification, pathways document and wireframes for you.

From our skydiving example you could have something like the following:

I wish to develop an Android and iOS app with accompanying website for the skydiving community to come together and share their experiences.

The app and website will allows users over the age of 16 to create an account with their main details such as Name, Address, email, gender, DOB and personal statement. They could also register using their social media or Google Account. They can assign a profile photo taken by the camera on the phone or uploaded from the Gallery. If they are doing a skydive for a charity they can register this date, give the event a description, enter a donation page link and their financial target. They can search for and follow other app users who could be there on the same date for the same reason and join their event, therefore when creating an event they need an alert if one already exists so they can join it. Once they follow another user or join an event, that users blog updates will be shared with them or followers. The user can also be notified of any other users who log that they are skydiving that same date, the same event and follow them if they wish.

To share their experiences with their friends who are not using the skydiving app, the app will allow connection to their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts either upon account creation or at a later stage. When linking their account to social media, the app will post an update to those accounts saying this user has downloaded the skydiving app to let their friends know they are taking a skydive, what date and if it’s is a charity event the links to the donation page. 

Their experiences can be recorded using the apps own blog containing text, emojis, video and pictures. When a post occurs on the blog this can update other app users who are following them or the event via notifications and an email too. The users who see these posts can also respond once again with text, emojis, video and pictures. Their linked social media accounts can also be updated from a blog post but this could be disabled on a post by post basis.

When leading up to their skydiving date, app users who follow them and social media can be reminded at 7 days and 1 day to give generously for their good cause with links to their donation page if they are doing this for charity. Once they have completed the jump they can flag the charity event as being complete and send a message to all app users who followed them and their social media pages thanking for their support.

Coming in Episode 6: How to choose the correct developer partner.

If the development costs of your app are currently beyond your budget, and an MVP approach as discussed in episode 3 of this series is not a viable option, then building of a prototype with a Market Analysis Report to present to your board or chosen funding provider could be your best approach.

It is also worth considering that even if you have the funding in place, the prototype route can also be used to obtain valuable information from your target market users. Create a user group of potential clients who can provide constructive feedback on the prototype; its look, feel, navigation, functionality. This can provide you with valuable feedback that can be incorporated into the development process early on in its lifecycle. As a general rule within the software development community, the further down the road you are in the development process when you add a new a feature, the potentially greater the cost of that feature because you may have to go back previously completed stages and make a change to that coding.

A prototype will basically be a ‘working’ model of your app but all the values shown (such as name and address, a profile picture or a product list) are hard coded into the app itself. You can navigate through a typical process but everything shown on screen will be pre-populated. There may be other functions and options within the app shown on screen but these will not function but they will be there for discussion purposes. This will convey the use of the app to any investor but it will not have all the coding and database in the background. Thus the cost of a prototype will be far less than the full development of the app and more importantly it’s not wasted capital. When you do obtain funding the missing coding and database can then be built and added to the existing designs

To accompany the prototype work, your developer should also be in a position to provide you with a Market Analysis Report. This would accompany your prototype and build the cornerstone for any presentation. It should contain information and data on your chosen target market, the market need, competitor analysis, barriers to entry and any regulations that may be in place that could have an adverse affect. Within this MAR you can also incorporate some of the findings from the prototype user group to further substantiate your case.

Coming in Episode 5: How to document your requirements for a developer

As the saying goes, this is the $1m question and in some cases a significant amount more! Lets consider Airbnb. A world famous app that at the current estimates cost in excess of £600m to develop increasing every day. This is excluding all other costs such as marketing, maintenance and support. Most companies or even entrepreneurs will not have this level of funds available to them when they wish to develop their idea or mobile services for their customers.

Some might say that a responsive websites are a good alternative solution. These are websites that automatically resize to the screen size the website is being viewed upon. If you are on a desktop the menus could be on the left, when the screen is made smaller (maybe on a phone) then the menu moves to the top and is accessible under a button. Responsive websites are not always the best solution for web or functional design. What works best on a desktop with a mouse and full keyboard is not what works best on a phone where a thumb is being used to navigate.

I don’t have £1m, so how can I start my app?

Most companies or private entrepreneurs start with smaller apps and grow their mobile presence over time. There are more and more smaller businesses starting with an app that is labelled as MVP. A Minimum Viable Product contains, as its name suggests, the minimal set of features to get it off the ground. Once revenue is being generated this is used to reinvest to add more features as their budget allows. You can also use this approach to your advantage where you can ask existing users to participate in a survey at each development stage and establish what new features would be more beneficial to them. This can then guide development and give your customers what they want and help you grow. Just remember the big players like Airbnb, Starbucks, Facebook and eBay all started off much with smaller apps than they have today from an initial limited budget. As they grew they added more features as budgets allowed.

Coming in Episode 4: How can I obtain additional funding?

What is iBeacon?

iBeacon is the Apple solution for location awareness that is integrated with a customers iOS device and opens up a world of mobile business opportunities. It’s relatively new technology and those who can adopt this new standard in mobile advertising can quickly can steal a march on their competitors.

The iBeacon hardware is a low cost, low power bluetooth device that broadcasts a signal that can, when combined with Apple location services, alert an app as you approach to listen out for a iBeacon signal. Once the app receives this signal it can trigger an action.

How can it work for me in my sector?

Museum, Heritage Site or Institution? If you are a museum you could alert your customers as they pass in the street of a new collection that has opened in the last few days. If they are already inside the museum you can alert them to additions to a collection that have been added since their last recorded visit. If you are a heritage site that has recently finished restoring an area you can remind visitors as they drive through the front gates not to miss a newly opened room and provide information on its history and contents direct to the phone.

School or University? Educators can use iBeacons to alert students when entering a specific educational area of the expected behaviour or help new students to navigate around the school. As a student is entering a classroom or lecture theatre, they can have the relevant syllabus materials delivered to the device.

Retail Store? If you are a retailer, you can broadcast an exclusive offer to your app users as they approach the door even if they were initially only planning on passing by. If they are already inside the store you can let them know of new products as they are passing the display unit or if they have a history of being a coffee lover then entice them to try the new exclusive brand available in the cafe.

Health & Safety? For restricted, dangerous or those areas that require PPE an alert could be displayed on the users phone as they approach the area and if they continue a notification could be sent to an authority to alert them of this danger.

There are so many possibilities with this technology. Combine the data collected on customer movements from these devices with buying patterns held in the app this can all provide valuable data on the behaviour of your customers.

Contact Gooii today to find out more.