App Developer’s Corner: Amro Mousa Co-Founder of Return 7
Today’s App Developer’s Corner features Amro Mousa, Co-Founder of return7, a small team of iPhone Developers charged with creating “simple, inexpensive, and feature rich apps.” The following is what Amro shared with us about his experiences with the whole process of building a successful iPhone Application.
Give us a quick overview about yourself–your team and company.
Drew and I are both 20-something year old recent grads from Georgia Tech. We saw an opportunity to do something different and fun when the App Store hit, so we gave it a try. There are two of us working on iPhone “full-time” (in addition to day jobs) plus a friend who has just come on part-time.
Why did you guys start to develop mobile apps and what was your experience coming into developing for the iPhone platform?
We both had internships for mobile tools developer AppForge before they were purchased by Oracle. That coupled with the generally good form factor and SDK for iPhone drove us to develop for the platform.
How do you come up with ideas for your products like BillMinder and PlaceTagger?
We try to think of problems we need solved and write apps we would like to use. So far they have all been useful. We’re about to throw a fun app into the mix, though.
Once you have an idea for an application, how do you go from concept, to creating an actual business?
We whip up an ugly prototype, get it working, then ask our artist to rework the UI. They improve the UI from a UX standpoint as well as aesthetics. After that, we put it on the store and hope it’s a success. It’s pretty competitive — mainly marketing is difficult.
What would you say has been the most successful strategy/avenue for promoting and increasing visibility for your apps and your company?
First and foremost is making a great product. We also frequent forums like MacRumors to get feedback from users. Asking blogs like TUAW for feedback helps but they get so many requests that it’s unlikely to get their time.
How has Pinch Analytics helped with app development, promotion, and marketing?
Pinch has been critical to our success. It told things like how many recurring users we had and what features were used most so we could focus our limited development resources.
Do you have any piece of advice regarding the development of a successful application or anything else that you would like to share?
Yes, make a quality application and listen to your users. Most of our features are user suggested features. Design is just as important as development, in our opinion. Don’t skimp — pay a good designer for their time as it’s well worth it.
Anything interesting you would like to share?
Since we started using Pinch Analytics (version 1.5), 44,726 unique users have used BillMinder for a combined time of more than 12 years 79 days 4 hours.
Take a look at return7’s website or read their blog for up to date information about about their products and their findings. 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
