Please introduce your company and your role within the company.
Vocso Technologies was started in 2009 with a vision to provide international level of digital asset creation to businesses and startups in India and as well as internationally. We started as a web application development company majorly and later ventured into mobile applications when we saw the shift happening. Because we did not essentially start as a mobile application development agency, we had a fair idea about the shift, how users are behaving on the web and how they want to transit from web to mobile platforms.
I am the CEO and the Co-founder of the company. VOCSO was co-founded along with my partner and COO Mr. Manoj Parashar. My role in the company is to develop new business opportunities, to make sure that we are up-to-date with the latest technologies, improving product delivery and actively participating in recruiting the right resources needed to work for the company. These are the three key areas that I handle myself.
Mention the objectives or the parameters critical in determining the time frame of developing a mobile app?
Every business is different, the very first thing we need to see, what exactly the value proposition is to be offered to the customers, who are the customers - B2B or normal consumers. Once we identify that, we ascertain what platforms we can target them on (just Android or iOS or both and may be some other platforms), how many resources needs to be deployed, then we add some overhead and then we calculate the overall time estimate.
How much effort in terms of time goes into developing the front end and back end of a mobile application?
Sometimes, it may be the case that back end be very huge or at times it may just be a supporting element. But in most of the cases, the back end takes a lot of work. I would safely add that there is no generic answer to this; it really depends on case to case basis.
What is your company’s business model?
We do not out-source any of our projects. 95% of our projects are done in-house from designing to planning and development. In some cases, where content is required, we have some partners who we outsource to.
What are the key parameters to be considered before selecting the right platform for a mobile application?
Most of our customers are start-ups so they do their fair bit of research about the audience they are targeting and we do help them in case of any confusion. If we are targeting academic students then it is quite likely that Android would be an ideal choice because majority of them would not be on the iOS platform. So the target audience plays a vital role. But if we talk about a shopping app then we would launch both versions of iOS and Android together. Sometimes, when we work with early stage start-ups who want to bootstrap the development, and keep the costs low, we suggest choosing only one platform to start with.
What are the key factors that you consider before deciding the cost of a mobile application?
We base the costing majorly on the time frame and how many resources go into, and then we add overheads and the profit margin that we want to make. The future support and maintenance is also taken into account while calculating the costs.
What kind of payment structure do you follow to bill your clients?
Most of our projects we undertake are on fixed cost basis unless the customer wants to work on an on-going basis where we assign them dedicated resources that work closely with them to take care of the on-going development needs. But in most of the cases because the requirement is clearly defined, we give them fixed cost and then we split that into milestones – there is an upfront payment, there are payments based on certain accomplishments of the milestones which are mapped with the functional development.
What is the price range (min and max) of the projects that you catered to in 2015?
The minimum project that we worked on was a Mobile Calendar app that summed up around between 10,000 US$ to 11,000 US$. The highest priced mobile apps development that we engaged in was in the range of 45,000 US$ to 50,000 US$.
Which business model do you suggest to generate revenue from mobile applications? Why?
It depends on the value proposition, the market and the customer segment they are targeting but one model that is catching up in India is the subscription model. When you can offer continuous value for customers, this model works best, because consumers do not pay huge sum upfront, they pay on weekly/monthly/quarterly basis. Although the subscription payments in India are not as smooth as in the USA, because of government norms, Wallets however add a bit of advantage. But when start-ups are not sure about how to generate money initially, then the basic method of monetization is used – the advertisements or sponsorship.
