How much does it cost to start a app from scratch?

This is a very wide spread on the internet a good article, from a practitioner's point of view of the real analysis of an app from the development to the full cost of the whole process, it is worth referring to and reference. The publication of this article has been granted by the original author.

As an Internet practitioner, the question most asked by friends outside the bank is "how much does it cost to make a website?" or "How much does it cost to make an app?" As a complete Web site project and app, today, from the product manager's perspective, figure out what the small and medium app needs to do from scratch and how much money is needed to make a mission.

The following is the premise: Shenzhen, mobile internet direction. Some of the common tasks involved in developing a new product are not perfect.

Let's start with the assumption that we have a mature team before we do the app (it's a very fortunate premise, one of the reasons for the slow progress of many product development is the ongoing recruitment in the process, the structure of the team to architect and backstage development of 1 + Android 1 + iOS Development 1 + Product Manager 1 + Front-End development 1 + Designer 1. You may also have found that the staffing is a single point, once someone is sick or leave, a position will be missing, the project progress will be delayed, so we have about 2 floating places, that is, the initial team of about 8, we assume that the team average wage of about 13000 (to be surprised, Shenzhen needs this number, or relatively low ...), you need to pay five insurance for employees, as detailed in the table below (assuming we are honest and good company, Provident fund according to the minimum standard payment):

In addition to the wages of the part, but also for each employee to pay more than 3653 yuan for five of the cost of a gold, the staff part of the expenditure is (13000+3653) *8=133224 yuan/month.

Well, with the team, the next step is to solve the workplace problems, 8 people can choose the entrepreneurial incubator (if you can find the incubator) or low-end office space (this kind of office space, Shenzhen is about 120 yuan/㎡, about 100 square meters). Here it is necessary to mention the following incubators, the incubator will be cheaper (or no money), before the admission of the entrepreneurial team will generally sign an agreement, the need to use the site as a replacement for equity, or preferential investment rights, whether cost-effective, the entrepreneurial team to weigh their own. Calculate the water and electricity, the property, one months about 15000 compared to the province.

With the site and the team, next replacement office supplies, broadband and so on (assuming the computer itself), the ordinary ergonomic chair price of 150 yuan or so, if not to buy an engineering chair can also, with ordinary chairs, plus table cost, tables and chairs need about 200 of the cost, this is a one-time pay. Shoot your head, 6000 bucks can do it.

Well, people, venues, crime tools are alive, start to get to the point.

　　First, product positioning, wrangling, early work preparation stage.

You usually have a boss before you do the app, the boss probably know what they want (yes, the boss generally do not know what to do, what the demand is, what is the product positioning), the product Manager to the horse, with the boss of all kinds of wrangling, clear demand, find product positioning, here about two weeks, Persuasion will put the product positioning, the first phase of the requirements to be clear (during the architect can begin to conceive the technical framework of the product, not officially started).

After the product positioning and early requirements were identified, need to think of a product name, demand research, competitive product research and analysis, registration of domain names, acquisition of servers and the surrounding basic capabilities (such as CDN Storage, SMS services, message push, etc.), trademarks (unregistered trademarks, many teams are eating this loss), register domain names, Design logo, here in the boss does not change the idea, change the product needs and positioning of the premise, at least a week, at this time the prototype of the product, technical structure of the embryonic also out of the basic can enter the real thing work. This step assumes that the domain name does not need to pay a large price to buy, the full cost of the head 10000 yuan/year can be done.

　　Second, the product version planning, architecture design phase.

When everything seems to be ready, the product begins to organize the requirements and plan the version according to the requirements priority. The architect begins to enter into the development environment, production environment deployment, basic code development phase according to the product development direction conception.

It is necessary to mention that the two common ways to do the app has native native and WebView way, the pros and cons of these two ways is not the scope of this article, generally in order to ensure the experience, the primary way of life, WebView way supplemented. It is particularly important to develop in a native way. First, after app development is complete, you need to put it in the App Store (assuming we're only on iOS and Android), and the iOS App Store has a lengthy application review cycle that you have to plan ahead of the next few iterations to get out of the loop; When your app is installed on the user's phone, you're sure to expect him to run the latest version most of the time, and if your version is updated too often, users will be annoyed.

Looks like the process seems to be very smooth, the product manager after the product's thinking clear, began to prepare product V1.0 planning.

New products from scratch common work:

Product official website, product website is the face of products, companies, team, so that users can enter the fastest speed to understand your positioning and product characteristics, that is, what kind of people in order to solve what kind of problem, what kind of things.

User Agreement. Yes, if the user wants to register and use your product, you have to draft your user agreement and keep in touch with the lawyer or legal affairs.

The seed user. Well, you have to think about where your first batch of seed users come from, how they organize, how they manage, they are the first group to test your product, and are critical to verifying your product positioning, discovering product issues, and improving your product experience.

Basic data escalation planning. You need to know what data to optimize, adjust your product design, and think about the direction of your product once the product is released, in the case of ignorance of the user's behavior.

UI design and interaction standard formulation. There is no guarantee that the UI of the product, as well as the interaction on the line, will make the user feel stunning, but it is important to ensure that the ui/interaction is not a problem with consistency.

Background management system. If you are looking at the data or content management, the background management system is the effective support of your work, and can not be less.

APP. This is the most important of your product, watch and follow closely.

......

If all goes well, then in 3-6 months, your first version of the app should have the first prototype.

　　Third, internal testing, grinding stage

At this stage, you need to keep in close communication with design, development, and seed users, collect problems, identify problems, optimize, and solve problems, and perhaps release 1-3 beta versions during the period. At the same time, you have to find ways to keep the seed users active and cooperate with the passion, which is a difficult job for who to know.

　　Iv. Release phase

When released, do not calculate the channel publicity costs, not advertising, online iOS APP Store needs to register the developer account, purchase certificate, also need to spend a certain amount of money, not much, also 99 dollars/year.

If you do a lot more and find a security team to help you with your safety assessment, it's going to take some money here. As for load balancing, acceleration technology, your app just came online and shouldn't be used.

6 months, calculate fast, an app from scratch the cost is probably so calculated:

Labor cost: 133224 yuan * 6 months ≈80 W.

Venue Rental: 15000 Yuan * 6 months = 9w.

Office supplies + tables and chairs expenditure: 1w.

Server, domain name, surrounding it base cost: 2w.

About the calculation, not the marketing costs, the first version, you need to prepare 100w.

Yes, when someone has a question about how much money to do an app, you can answer a less complicated app that comes from scratch, and the first version comes out in half a year, requiring 1 million.