How can I justify my opinion about app release?

Question

I've started a new project with a college classmate. We wanted to develop a mobile app, which we thought wasn't invented yet. Doing some research, we found out that the idea already existed; and it was exactly the same as what we had created.

After some thought, we decided to do it anyway but add more functionality and cover more countries than the app that already existed.

But here is where the conflict started: he thinks we should keep it small and after gaining some profit, then we can start expanding it. In my opinion, we should release the app with all the features working, because, if we release an app that already exists, without any new features, why would users pick our newly created app over a 3-year-old app with a lot more clients and stability than ours?

I can't find a proper way to justify my opinion. I'd like to have any statistics or some knowledge of how this works, but I don't.

How can I convince him that my opinion is better? Or am I actually wrong?

Answer 1

First there's no way to know if you are wrong or right you need to release it to know.

So the real problem when developing something like that is that most of the time when it take a long time to make it happen, the partnership gets bored or demotivated to continue and so the project fails.

Something that helps with that is what your Classmate says, release it with basic features and then grow and update your app.

When you release simple but complete you get motivation and your mind is "dammmmmmn i got an app on the store biaaaachh" something like that especially when its your first. Also usesr see that you update the app and it gets constant support with new features every few months. They will stay just because of that and you will get revenues even more.

Regards.

Answer 2

Short Answer.. It depends

Something I discuss with many clients, is the importance of Minimal Viable Product. Ideally your initial release should be at a point where the core features are viably working. That being said, mobile apps can evolve based on user feedback. The upside of releasing early? Getting reactions from testers, information from your engagement analytics, and solving major bugs before attempting to release it internationally.

Which leads me to,

"if we release an app that already exists, without any new features, why would users pick our newly created app over a 3-year-old app with a lot more clients and stability than ours?".

Why would users pick your app in the first place? Shouldn't your core feature be something that separates you from your competitor anyway? If Facebook was your competition, then you shouldn't try to build a second Facebook nor attempt to build enough features to match Facebook.

Have you two written a business plan? Much of this decision could have been decided before hand as your marketing, growth, and sales strategy.

Finally while I can not offer any source of statistics to support your point of view, in my opinion, your app should take no longer than a full year to initially release. Much less if you are full time developing or have multiple developers.