Like it or not, we are faced at a point in our lives with either having to provide quotations for projects or having to provide budgets for app developments. If you seek the former head off to this article I did earlier. Budgeting is perceived to be a thing for the finance people but what if you are tasked to get it done? Just a few pointers to get you headed in the right direction.
If budgeting for an app seems over the moon, replace ‘app’ with a house and I bet the picture will get clearer.
If you've ever had to build a house (not as the mason) you'd note it is very possible to know exactly how much money will be spent on the building just by having the plan. The blueprints can inform you on exactly how many bags of cement are required for the foundation, how many blocks in total will bring the building up to roofing level etc. The same applies with budgeting for an app.
You need to clearly define ALL the features of the app NOT an overview or a press description, a comprehensive list of features that need to exist in the app. Once you have done this you now need to
1. Get the actual cost of developing the app.
This is solely money to be chopped by the software development company. Nothing to do with logistics. You’ll need to get a few developers and/or software development companies to submit proposals. This will give you an idea of how much on the average you need to allocate to the building of the app based on the different rates you received.
2. Are there any non ‘software development’ related costs involved?
Think training. Not the software development company training your staff BUT you training the end users on how to use your app. Apps meant for general public use don't all the time require training. Most specialised project-based (NGOs) apps require training of the intended audience. If your app falls in this category, slap training costs into the budget. Mind you a lot also goes into training. Do you need to hire someone to prepare training material? Do you need to rent a venue for the training? Do you need to print material? Do you need to hire projectors, get food for the trainers and trainees? Do you need to fly facilitators down from Mars? Which space shuttle will you go for, how much, how many facilitators? All these are cost components that fall under just training. There could be more. For training-the-trainer kind of sessions where trainees are required to come from different regions, do you intend to reimburse them for transport? Think holistically of everything required to make the training a success.
3. Other logistics that complement your app.
There are apps that require third party integrations to make them complete. Maybe integration with a 3rd party SMS platform. You need to cost that. Will you require a team on the ground constantly collecting data? You need to cost that. Will you need a third party company to complete transactions on your behalf, say a payment gateway that does profit sharing or per transaction billing? You'll need to include that also in the budget. Does your app require heavy advertising to make it a success? Budget for it. Decide if you are doing TV, social media or radio ads (maybe all three).
That's pretty much the basic requirements to project or app budgeting. Every multi million project or app goes through these basic steps of identifying all the cost elements that make up the millions.
Please note.. don't dream up the amounts. You need to get out there and obtain real going market costs. Doing this ensures you don't end up with not enough money to get your app completed. It is also good practice to upwardly adjust real market amounts by a small margin especially if your app development isn't taking off immediately. Inflation can make you look incompetent in front of your boss.
There are times when you are given a specific amount to work with regardless. In those cases you need to work backwards and make your cost components fit the amount available to you.
In both cases it is important to keep a spreadsheet of your budget with one extra column for actuals to give you an idea if you overspent or underspent and how to improve on your subsequent budgets.
No comments:
Post a Comment