Please introduce your company and give a brief about your role within the company?
BrainMobi is a leading mobile app development company based in Noida, India. We are a team of 70+ mobility enthusiasts who work for one single goal, creating next-gen apps. Having developed and marketed 250+ apps for 40+ clients, we are an expert team. My role in the organisation is to manage everything that happens in the company.
What was the idea behind starting this organization?
When I started BrainMobi, there was a need for a major shift in the kind of apps that were being made. I needed the apps to be better; next-gen, if you may. That is what led to the inception of BrainMobi, and this is the goal which the whole team believes in.
What is your company’s business model–in house team or third party vendors/ outsourcing?
We have an in-house team of some of the brightest minds in the mobile app development industry. The apps that we make are made in our office by our own developers.
How is your business model beneficial from a value addition perspective to the clients compared to other companies' models?
There are a number of ways in which our business model is beneficial to the clients compared to other companies' models. We put in a lot of efforts to eradicate any communication gap whatsoever between our team and our clients. The amount we charge for developing apps is reasonable and appeals to our clients. We believe in retaining our clients due to which about 75% of our clients are recurring.
What industries do you generally cater to? Are your customers repetitive? If yes, what ratio of clients has been repetitive to you?
While we cater to all industries, here are a few industries we prefer: Kids, Education, Entertainment, Finance, Food & Restaurant, Logistics, Telecom, mHealth, Dating, Travel, Navigation, News, mCommerce, Real Estate, Social-Network and Sports. Yes, a lot of our customers are repetitive, the ratio being 3:1.
Mention the objectives or the parameters critical in determining the time frame of developing a mobile app.
A lot of factors come into action when mobile apps are developed, some of them being features and functionalities, complexity, research required for new and upcoming technologies, as well as the availability of the client. We allocate dedicated teams and assume the timelines accordingly. However, when things don't go as planned due to a delay in the feedback by clients, the time frame expands. We do try to compensate the delay by working extra hours at the office if need be.
How much effort in terms of time goes into developing the front end and back end of a mobile app?
It is difficult to say the time taken without having a situation at hand. So, if we consider an app which has a lot of processing happening at the backend, developing the backend takes a lot of time, else frontend takes most of the time. In most apps, the ratio is 3:2 interchangeably.
What are the key parameters to be considered before selecting the right platform for a mobile application?
One of the main factors to be considered before selecting the right platform for a mobile application is the market. Say, if you're in India, and you look forward to make an app, you would probably want to go for Android in order to reach the masses better since most people in India use Android devices. In many other countries, iOS is the right choice. Hence the market becomes an important parameter. Another important parameter is the feasibility of the features required. Say, if iOS doesn't support a feature, we would recommend the clients to go for Android (provided Android supports that feature).
Which platform do you suggest your clients to begin with when they approach you with an idea (Android or iOS) and why?
This largely depends on where the client intends to implement the app. If the market in which the app is supposed to be launched is more into Android, we suggest the clients to go for Android. If the market is more into iOS, we suggest iOS. We perform an in-depth research of the market to know what the best course of action would be.
Android or iOS, Native or Hybrid — which platform is best to use to build your app? What are your recommendations?
Depends, if the client has budget constraints, we would recommend them to go for Hybrid. Also, if the app is simple, we recommend Hybrid. But if the client doesn't have any budget constraints or if the app is complex, and is user-experience oriented, we recommend them to go for native.
What are the key factors that you consider before deciding the cost of a mobile application?
The key factors that we consider before deciding and quoting the cost of the mobile applications we develop are complexity, the estimated man hours, the technologies that we expect to use in the project, size of the application(this is one of the most important factors), and the time frame that the client quotes.
What kind of payment structure do you follow to bill your clients? Is it Pay per Feature, Fixed Cost, Pay per Milestone (could be in phases, months, versions etc.)
We follow all the aforementioned payment structures with our clients depending on what they are comfortable paying with.
Do you take in projects which meet your basic budget requirement? If yes, what is the minimum requirement? If no, on what minimum budget you have worked for?
We work on a basic budget requirement of $5000, but for our recurring clients, we have worked at a lower cost for minor projects of theirs.
What is the price range (min and max) of the projects that you catered to in 2016?
In 2016, for the projects we catered to, the lowest we charged was our basic budget requirement of $5000, and the highest that we charged was $60,000.
Which business model do you suggest to your clients enabling them to generate revenue from mobile applications? Why?
Most of our clients come with their own revenue models, but for the ones who don't have their own revenue model, we suggest freemium. Freemium has shown its worth in some of the highest revenue earning apps such as Clash of Clans. Our clients have used the model based on our suggestion and have seen great results.
