FNB App Academy Week 1 Lesson 2: App Strategies

Summary

In the second episode of the FNB App Academy, host Kaba Muhalla guides viewers through a rich journey of app development strategies. Throughout a 9-week digital voyage, participants are not only equipped with the tools to unlock their tech genius but also prepared for the fast-evolving digital world. The session emphasizes the importance of strategic planning before diving into coding, highlighting the decisions around development paradigms—native, web-based, or hybrid. Additional focus is given to thinking about an app as a business venture, stressing the necessity of addressing real-world problems and identifying target markets. Guest speaker Talaha, General Manager at IT Varsity, shares insights on the prerequisites for successful apps and the monetary models to sustain them. With insights from seasoned developers and real-world examples, this lesson is an invaluable resource for budding app creators.

Highlights

• Stay active on social media and use the hashtag #FNBacademy to win prizes! 🎉
• Catch up on previous lessons through the Learning Management System if you missed them! 📖
• Explore the development paradigms: native apps using Java/Swift, web apps using HTML/CSS, and hybrid apps using frameworks like React. 🛠
• Apps should be treated as businesses, with thoughtful planning and strategic decisions made upfront. 📊
• Highlight the importance of addressing real-world problems for app success. 🚀
• Learn about revenue generation models such as paid apps, freemium models, in-app purchases, and advertising. 💸

Key Takeaways

• Engage actively on social media with #FNBacademy for exciting engagement opportunities! 📱
• Leverage the Learning Management System to catch up on past lessons. 📚
• Decide on the right development paradigm before coding: native, web, or hybrid. 🤔
• Apps are businesses! Make strategic decisions before launching. 📈
• Prioritize solving real-world problems with your apps for better adoption. 🌍
• Think early about monetization strategies for your app. 💰

Overview

In this engaging second episode of FNB App Academy, Kaba Muhalla walks budding app developers through essential strategies to harness their digital skills for creating successful applications. The focus lies on the importance of being well-prepared before starting the coding process. Kaba emphasizes that understanding the core development paradigms—native, web, and hybrid—is key to setting up an app for success. Each option offers unique advantages and challenges, and the right choice can significantly impact the app's adaptability and functionality.

Guest speaker Talaha brings profound insights into viewing app development from a business perspective, urging developers to consider apps as entrepreneurial ventures. He discusses how solving real-world problems and identifying precise target markets are crucial steps in the creation pathway. Additionally, the idea of reinventing solutions with a fresh perspective is encouraged, underscoring that many apps can coexist by offering unique value.

Further discussions dive into financial sustainability, highlighting various monetization strategies. From paid downloads to freemium models and leveraging advertising, the presenters delineate the myriad ways developers can ensure their applications are financially viable. Throughout the session, real-life examples serve to inspire and guide developers on their path to crafting market-ready, impactful apps.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Welcome The chapter "Introduction and Welcome" seems to be incomplete or contains placeholder text, as indicated by the repetition of the word "Heat." Without additional context or content, a detailed summary cannot be generated.
• 00:30 - 02:30: Overview of FNB App Academy The chapter introduces the FNB App Academy hosted by Kaba Muhalla, marking its second episode. It's a 9-week program designed to help participants build successful apps while enhancing their digital skills and preparing for future technological advancements. The focus is on unlocking tech potential and personal growth within the digital landscape.
• 03:00 - 06:00: Interview with Su Rad In the chapter titled "Interview with Su Rad," Kar Mahorn discusses the themes of innovation and entrepreneurship. He encourages engagement on social media platforms with the hashtag #FNBacademy, mentioning opportunities to win prizes. He also provides a recap of the previous lesson, which covered the orientation and the learning management system, reminding participants of the continuity of lessons.
• 06:00 - 07:30: Social Media Engagement In this chapter titled 'Social Media Engagement', the focus is on the opportunities for those who missed previous lessons to catch up using resources available in the learning management system. The chapter sets a tone of excitement for the ongoing learning process at the FM App Academy. It also introduces a video session with Su Rad as part of the lesson content to enhance learning engagement.
• 07:30 - 08:30: Introduction to App Strategies with Talaha In the chapter 'Introduction to App Strategies with Talaha,' Sior K, a 20-year-old from Elons Park, Johannesburg, shares his journey into app development. Starting his programming passion at the age of 14, he utilized YouTube tutorials for self-learning. His skills advanced further after joining an app academy, which culminated in participating in a hackathon and competing for app of the year, significantly enhancing his expertise.
• 08:30 - 14:30: App Development Paradigms In the chapter titled 'App Development Paradigms,' the speaker discusses their experience with learning app development through App Academy. Being self-taught initially, they highlight the benefits of attending a structured program like App Academy, which provided in-depth knowledge beyond what is available on platforms like YouTube. The program covered various aspects of app creation, including business, design, and coding. The speaker is currently an Android developer involved in full stack development, working on websites, web applications, and cloud-based projects.
• 14:30 - 20:00: Business Decisions in App Development The chapter titled 'Business Decisions in App Development' emphasizes the importance of utilizing the latest technologies in app development. It encourages passion and self-motivation as essential components for success in the field. The transcript includes a segment from an individual named Su, who shares his inspiring journey and involvement in a prestigious app, referred to as the 'beautiful app of the year.' The chapter concludes with a transition to explore more insights from Su.
• 25:00 - 35:00: Examples of Successful Apps The chapter discusses the importance of remaining active on social media and the potential rewards, such as prizes, for engagement. It highlights the excitement around FnB Academy, emphasizing collaboration with like-minded individuals, learning from experts, and applying skills to real-world challenges.
• 35:00 - 43:00: Monetization Strategies for Apps The chapter titled 'Monetization Strategies for Apps' focuses on the importance of enhancing coding and programming skills, specifically in Java, to develop innovative applications. This is linked to creating solutions for real-life problems through apps, particularly in the food tech sector. The chapter aims to inspire innovation and contribution to the future of technology, facilitated by the FnB app academy.
• 43:00 - 45:00: Conclusion and Social Media Engagement The chapter emphasizes the importance of staying engaged on social media platforms and communicating the lessons learned. It encourages consistency in interaction on socials and hints at a transition to the next lesson featuring Talaha in the studio.

FNB App Academy Week 1 Lesson 2: App Strategies Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Heat. Heat.
• 00:30 - 01:00 Hey, what's popping everybody? Welcome to the FnB App Academy. This is the second episode and I am your host Kaba Muhalla. Always thrilled to be walking this beautiful uh journey with you guys. If we talk about the FNB app academy, this is a perfect place to get you guys started on building that winning app of yours. And obviously, I'll be part of this 9week digital journey that is all about unlocking your tech genius, but also leveling up on your digital skills and preparing you guys for future of
• 01:00 - 01:30 innovation and entrepreneurship. As I said, I am Kar Mahorn. I'm always thrilled uh to be walking this beautiful journey with you. All right. So, please do make sure that you guys are active on social media platforms. Don't forget to # FNBacademy. Please do stay and remain active and you guys can win some amazing uh prizes that are up for grabs. And of course, just to give you guys a reminder of the previous lesson where we guys took you through the orientation and the learning management system. So you guys must bear in mind that all lessons are
• 01:30 - 02:00 recorded. So if you guys missed the previous lesson, you guys have an opportunity to refer back uh to the learning management system and catch up on the previous session. I am truly truly excited for what today has in store for all of us that are part of the FM App Academy. Let us take a look at a video with Su Rad as we catch up with
• 02:00 - 02:30 him. I'm Sior K. I'm 20 years old and I come from Elons Park, Johannesburg. Having a passion for programming, I started making apps when I was 14, pushing learning on my own. YouTube was the best teacher for me. Then I entered the app academy. So they said app academy, you learn how to do an app and then you join into the hackathon where get entered into app of the year. So that really um pushed me to
• 02:30 - 03:00 actually like attend learn some things that I don't know since I'm selftaught. App Academy also taught you different things that you didn't actually see on YouTube. They were more um in-depth with different topics in creating an app from business to design to the actual coding of the app. Right now I'm an Android developer and I do full stack development. So from websites to web applications to cloud. Attend app academy. App academy
• 03:00 - 03:30 does teach you a lot. Um, they also do make sure they teach with the latest technologies. So, I'd say go for it. Just be passionate and push yourself because you can definitely do it. Wow. Awesome stuff from Su. Always exciting just to hear his story of how he got himself involved um in the beautiful app of the year. Now, that was it from Su. Now, let us take a look at
• 03:30 - 04:00 some of you guys as you guys remain active on social. So, please don't forget uh to # FMBacademy. Remain active on socials. You guys can stand a chance to win some awesome prizes. Right now, let's take a look at your guys' engagement on social. What excites me most about the FnB Academy is the opportunity to collaborate with likeminded individuals, learn from experts, apply my skills to real world challenges. This is an
• 04:00 - 04:30 opportunity that will assist me on improving my coding and programming skills which is a very important aspect in the course that I'm doing. I'm looking forward to sharpening my Java skills, creating innovative applications that solve real life problems, learning more about food tech development. I'm looking forward to innovate. I'm looking forward to contribute to the future of technology with the FnB app academy.
• 04:30 - 05:00 All right, awesome stuff, man. It's always amazing to see you guys uh remain engaging on our socials, remain active, um engage with us, let us know what each lesson um has taught you, and also please remain consistent on the social media platforms. Uh that was it by taking a look at you guys being engaged on the platform. But now we're going to transition to our very next lesson as we have Talaha in studio.
• 05:00 - 05:30 All right. So, awesome stuff, guys. Right now, I'm joined by Talaha, the general manager at IT Varsity. Uh, Talaha will be taking us through the strategies uh to look forward to before developing your apps. Talah, how are you, brother? Man, I'm good. How are you? I'm good, man. Thank you so much for being part of this beautiful uh program for being right here in studio. First and foremost, um let us know who Talaha is and where do you come from? Cool. So I'm born and raised in Durban. Uh it was a a bit of a journey to come
• 05:30 - 06:00 here today, but entirely worth it for the app academy just to be a part of of this uh this event. Um yeah, I am the general manager at IT Varsity. I have been in the edtech space for about six years now. Wow. Uh yeah. So what was that 20 2018 2019 so it's it's it's been a a journey. Beautiful man. So let's talk about the importance of uh you know the app academy. What does it mean for you know obviously beginners, advanced and intermediate developers to be part of the app academy? I mean I am just so
• 06:00 - 06:30 thrilled that we are part of it because of what it means. Uh I mean this event on this scale is not something that is is very common and it's not something that's been around very long. I mean I wish when I was studying there were such opportunities around but there simply wasn't. You know you were for the most part of it you were alone just with the people in your immediate area and and that was it. But now you know with the app academy there's tens of thousands of people and you apart from the lessons you get an opportunity to network with
• 06:30 - 07:00 all of these guys and the potential for growth just alone there is insane so yeah I mean I think that it's a privilege to be here myself and I am just so glad that all of these students get to be a part of it as well. Listen Tala awesome stuff thank you so much for joining us and for being part of the app academy. Tala said it uh he wishes that there was more opportunities and platforms like this uh the past couple of years you know and you guys have the privilege of um utilizing mentors and facilitators and getting as much knowledge from them to help you guys
• 07:00 - 07:30 build that amazing app of yours. Salah without any further ado please take us through strategies for you guys to look forward to before building those beautiful apps. The floor is yours. Thank you. Right. So as Karabo said today we're going to be talking about app strategies right so these are the decisions that you need to make as a developer before you start coding before you write a single line of code there are things that you need to consider right so it's
• 07:30 - 08:00 important to think about an app as a business especially if you are looking to get into development to be an entrepreneur right to have your app be a source of revenue for you need to consider that that app is now your business. And just like every business, there's important decisions you need to consider. Right? So, today we're going to be going through some of those. Uh, and we're going to go through the logic you can use to answer some of these questions and that's going to set you up
• 08:00 - 08:30 and put you in a much better place for success as a developer and it's going to ensure that your apps that you put out into the world have a much greater chance of success. So before we get into those, the very first decision you need to make is on the development paradigm that you're going to be using. Now what I mean by this is it's either going to be a native or a crossplatform app, right? And this is a decision you're going to have to make. So when we're talking about
• 08:30 - 09:00 development paradigms, right? There's generally three. You have your native apps, you have your mobile web apps, and you have your hybrid apps. Right? So, in the first part of the lesson, I'm going to go through each of these, and I'm going to break down what it means, what each of these means, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each of these. And that's going to help you to then decide for yourself which is right for you for the specific app that you are working on or intend to build. So
• 09:00 - 09:30 first things first right let's talk about native right native apps a native app is an app that is built in the native language of the device right so the manufacturers of a device and the device operating system have a native language right a language that it can easily understand without much translation right so for example in Android the native language is Java and if you want to develop for iOS so if
• 09:30 - 10:00 you're developing an app for an iPhone or iPad uh on any or any other iOS device, you will have to use Swift, right? Before it used to be Objective C if I remember correctly, but now Swift is the native language of iOS. So this app in essence is built in the same language uh or in the native language rather of the operating system. So the operating system understands it right off the bat with no need for a translation or conversion. it integrates
• 10:00 - 10:30 directly with the uh operating system itself. Next, you have your mobile web apps, right? So, these, as the name suggests, are web- based apps. Um, so development wise, it's most likely going to be a web based technology or a web technology. And the most commonly used are your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript most commonly abbreviated to HTML 5. Uh the nice thing about web apps is that you
• 10:30 - 11:00 can bring in other technologies and other languages to fill in gaps here and there but at the very base base level it's HTML, CSS and JavaScript and it's deployed through the web. And the final app uh type that you have is your hybrid apps. So as the name suggests these sit somewhere in between your native apps and your mobile web apps. Now back in the day uh you know even seven or eight years ago there
• 11:00 - 11:30 wasn't many options in terms of hybrid uh development um frameworks but today there are numerous um and unlike with native or with mobile web apps uh there isn't just one language or one set of languages that you use rather the language you use uh the coding the development language you use the programming language is going to depend on the framework you're using. So there are numerous frameworks available and each framework has its own language. Uh
• 11:30 - 12:00 and so you will develop your app in that language and have the hybrid uh the the framework uh translate your app for the OS that you want to deploy onto. And that's why it's called a hybrid because it isn't exactly native, but it does a good job of pretending to be native. And in all intents and purposes, it works and performs exactly like a native app. So here are some of the um the
• 12:00 - 12:30 frameworks that you have available. Uh as you can see, there are frameworks now available for just about all of the most common uh programming languages. Um some languages have multiple frameworks. So you have a lot of u choices to uh to work from. Uh obviously in the app academy we are working on the second of these which is react and the language uh of react is JavaScript. Um although we'll get into the details of these a
• 12:30 - 13:00 little bit later there are some differences here and there. So it's not exactly JavaScript or it's not going to be exactly Java but for the most part it's going to be the same. Now let's look at how each of these paradigms work. each of these development paradigm work right um when you have your native apps you'll have your operating system every single app needs to run on an operating system there has to be a device that you are deploying your app to so
• 13:00 - 13:30 always the uh operating system will be first and with a native app you're then going to have your app sit directly on top of the the operating system there's nothing in between the native app because it's built in the native language of the operating system. It integrates directly seamlessly with the operating system. So it's it's pretty straightforward and uh once you deploy it onto your device, you are good to go.
• 13:30 - 14:00 Now when it comes to mobile web apps, right, again you're going to have the operating system of the device you are deploying to, but on top of that you're going to have the browser. Again, as the name suggests, these are web based applications. And then on top of the browser, you're going to have your app. So the browser is the host for your app. Your app is running within the browser and the browser is displayed on your
• 14:00 - 14:30 operating system. Uh so that's the thing about mobile web apps. They are entirely browser based and we'll talk about this a little bit more later but there are some advantages and disadvantages to that and then you have your hybrid apps. So again you have your operating system but then instead of the browser you have a bridging technology. So the bridging technology is going to be the framework you are using to develop your app which
• 14:30 - 15:00 in our case is React. And on top of the framework there will be your app right. So your app is built on the framework. Your your code will integrate with this framework with the bridge right in whatever language the framework um the framework understands. The framework then does the work of translating those your code into a format that the operating system is going to understand and the framework
• 15:00 - 15:30 then integrates with the uh the operating system. So the bridge think about it as a translator of sorts right or think about it as a middleman between your code and the devices operating system. Remember the code that you're writing with a framework isn't the native uh language of the operating system. So it isn't going to understand it right off the bat. That's why the framework is there. The framework does the work of converting it into a
• 15:30 - 16:00 language that the uh the operating system can understand. And the beauty about this is that you can develop your app once, right? Whether you want to deploy it on one, two, or 10 different operating systems, the process is going to stay the same, right? You develop your app once and then you have the framework do the work of translating it and converting it into a format that's uh usable by the operating systems of all of these
• 16:00 - 16:30 devices. So let's look at these side by side and let's discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of each. Uh if you want you can save this slide uh and every time you are about to undertake a new project a new development project go through this and it'll help you decide which of these you are going to use whether you're going to go native whether you're going to go with a mobile app and whether you're going to go with a hybrid. So firstly right looking at the native apps the
• 16:30 - 17:00 advantages it's highly highly graphical remember it's built on the native language and not just the native language but it has because you are developing within the native language you're going to be using the native APIs and the native resources available for those devices. So it's going to be highly graphical. It's going to look like your app belongs on that uh device. So, you know, if you when you just buy an iPhone and you have some apps that came from Apple that are installed on
• 17:00 - 17:30 your device already, those uh apps have a look and feel. They look and feel like they belong on that device. So, when you develop a native app, you are using those same techniques. So your app is going to look and feel like it belongs on that device which you know it it adds another layer to the term native app right it simply it it integrates 100% not just technically but visually as
• 17:30 - 18:00 well. The other advantage is app store distribution naturally uh your app is going to be it can be uploaded uh and downloaded from the app store uh of the device. And thirdly, you have full device integration, which again means your app connects directly to the devices operating system. So you have access to all of the devices local APIs. So if your app needs to access the local storage of the device or the location
• 18:00 - 18:30 settings or you know any other of the device settings, it needs to use the camera, those uh APIs are open to you right out of the gate. So it makes it very very simple uh to integrate those features into your apps. But now the disadvantages of having a native app. First and foremost there is zero portability. Meaning the device or the platform you develop your app for that's it. That's where it's going to live. So if you develop an app for Android, that
• 18:30 - 19:00 app can only be deployed on an Android device, right? because of the level of integration between the native uh APIs that you're using in your app and the operating system, it simply cannot be ported over to an iOS device. Um so that's the major major drawback of uh native applications. The second disadvantage is platform instability. So if there's a major update on the platform um on the
• 19:00 - 19:30 devices operating system, you are going to have to keep up with that and release updates accordingly. If you don't, your apps are going to be outdated. They are not going to uh meet the regulations set by your Apples or your Androids and it could be pulled from the app store. So you're going to have to stay on your game with making sure that your apps stay up to date. The next disadvantages of native apps is uh the development cost and the
• 19:30 - 20:00 development time. Now remember, if you're developing a native app, there's no porting over from one platform to the other. So you're going to have to have multiple apps for each platform. You're going to have to have one app for iOS, one app for Android, and one app for any other platforms that you want to uh you want to uh deploy to. Let's for simplicity sake keep it to just iOS and Android. You're going to have to have two different teams who are familiar with Java and who are familiar with Swift to develop and maintain those uh
• 20:00 - 20:30 apps right because although it's to you it's the same app but as far as the devices are concerned those are two completely different app and any change you make on one you're going to have to make sure the team on the other side makes as well. So it it um the development time, the development costs all shoot up because of that uh and maintenance as well, right? So once you upload an app onto the app store, it's not a done deal. Uh even the most simplest of apps are going to need some
• 20:30 - 21:00 level of maintenance. Now you're going to have to keep these highly specialized teams around to maintain these uh native apps. And then finally, you have limited control of the app because it's built to integrate with the devices APIs. There's not uh you don't have an entire level of freedom of what you can do with the app. Now, moving on to web apps, right? The first advantage is that they are futurep proof, right? Um HTML, CSS,
• 21:00 - 21:30 JavaScript or HTML 5 family of languages, they're not really going away anytime soon. There are updates that come once in a while but for the most part they are not uh anything where you're going to have to go and rewrite sections of code to stay up to date. Uh it generally remains u the way you develop it. The second advantage and this is one of the biggest advantages of uh mobile web apps over native apps is that it is ent it's completely
• 21:30 - 22:00 crossplatform meaning you develop it once and you can run it on virtually any device because it's based on a browser. It's web- based. If your device has a browser meaning it can access the internet it can run your um your app. there's zero further requirements. It also has low development costs because the languages used is very sim uh simple and um you don't have to develop multiple versions
• 22:00 - 22:30 of the app. You're developing one and deploying everywhere. Maintenance is also relatively simple compared to your native apps. Uh updates are instantaneous, right? That's another major benefit because it's web- based. It's living on the internet. So, anytime you need to make an update, all you have to do is push it to the server that it is hosted on and anyone using the app automatically gets an update um and it'll be live on their devices. There's no need to go and download an update or
• 22:30 - 23:00 schedule an update from the app store. Uh because it's web- based, it's instant. And uh the final advantage or major advantage of web- based applications is that you have complete freedom of what this app can do. Uh you can code in just about any functionality you need. The only limit really is uh your skills and your resources that you have available to you. Other than that, the sky is the limit. But um onto the disadvantages,
• 23:00 - 23:30 right? mobile is sounding a little bit too good to be true. But there are some drawbacks um and reasons you should consider uh either native or hybrid over mobile web apps. And the first and the most significant of those uh disadvantages is you have almost zero device integration at all. Right? Uh your app for all intents and purposes doesn't even know what device it is
• 23:30 - 24:00 running on. Right? All it knows is that it lives on a browser. It's a web app, right? So, it cannot it has no way of accessing uh the um devices local APIs, the local storage or anything of that sort at all. Uh which is something to consider. Uh if you have an app in mind that does require some of those features, then most likely uh mobile web apps isn't the way to go for you. And the final drawback of mobile web apps
• 24:00 - 24:30 over native apps is that you the graphics are very very limited. The graphics that you can include in a web app is basically going to be what you put into it. Unlike with native where you are using the same assets, the same graphics of the native platform. So if you're developing for iOS, you're going to be using iOS's native icons and buttons. But on a web app, you don't have access to those. So, you're going to have to design those graphics
• 24:30 - 25:00 yourself. Uh, and you can get it to look like a native app, but it's very, very manual. You're going to have to get all of those native looking elements yourself and then upload them uh and incorporate them into your app. And if there's a major update where the the graphics of your um of your device changes, you're not going to get those updates automatically. you're going to have to do the manual process of reinccorporating, redesigning those elements unless you're working with a framework of sorts, right? But that's
• 25:00 - 25:30 now getting a little bit towards hybrid development. Now, moving over to hybrid, right? And you'll notice that um as we go through this list, a hybrid kind of sits in the middle of these two in terms of advantages versus disadvantages. So, first thing to note about your uh hybrid apps is that they look and feel like a native app, right? They in fact, if you put the two side by side in front of a layman, they're not going to be
• 25:30 - 26:00 able to tell the difference. Even a professional developer, depending on the type of app it is, won't be able to tell which is native and which is the hybrid without looking at the code first. That's the beauty of hybrid apps and that's how far uh hybrid apps have come. But unlike wood native, it doesn't have the same costs associated with it and it doesn't have the same time requirements uh related to it because you're developing once and then you're deploying across all of your devices. Then just like would your
• 26:00 - 26:30 native apps, your hybrid apps have app store distribution. So they can be hosted on the app stores across your devices and they can be downloaded by users directly from the app store which is an advantage that hybrid apps have over your mobile web apps. The third advantage of uh your hybrid apps is just like native apps they have full device integration. They can talk directly to the devices operating system. So again,
• 26:30 - 27:00 if you need to access local storage or location or weather or the camera, you can access those APIs from the framework, but you don't have to code in the native language of the the device because the framework you're using does that work for you. You'll just tell your framework, for example, uh I'm trying to open the camera. Then depending on which uh platform you are porting your your app to the framework will know how to
• 27:00 - 27:30 contact the the the operating systems API that handles the camera and unlock that feature for your app and for your users. So that is the advantage of uh native I mean of hybrid apps. And unlike native you don't have to write in multiple languages. It's one and done and you can uh distribute it on just about any device out there. Uh some of the drawbacks of um your hybrid apps is there are limited limitations in terms
• 27:30 - 28:00 of the graphics. Uh but it mostly depends on the type or or or the specific framework you use. Um I included it here just so you are aware of it. Hybrid frameworks have really really come a long way and for most use cases there is virtually no difference now between a native app and a hybrid app in terms of visuals. Um so just look into the specifics of the framework you you're using. For example, React uh
• 28:00 - 28:30 React incorporates perfectly with your iOS and your Android devices. So the graphics are going to look like one to one. Uh and the only other drawback to or major drawback to your hybrid apps is that it requires a limit uh an amount of familiarity with the framework you're using. So in the app academy we are learning how to use react right react is
• 28:30 - 29:00 you it primarily uses JavaScript. So if you are a proficient JavaScript developer, you're going to be able to get started with React very very easily. But it isn't just writing code in JavaScript entirely. The framework itself has requirements, has unique syntaxes, has ways of uh it requires you to write your code in a certain way that it can translate into a format that the the OS that you're deploying to can
• 29:00 - 29:30 understand. So you have to do a little bit of work just to familiarize yourself with how things need to be done with uh the framework you're using and once you have that sorted you are in business. So there is a learning curve even if you are familiar with the language of the framework uh but compared to now having to learn two different languages uh and master two completely separate development environments it's it's much much easier. So now that you have that in mind,
• 29:30 - 30:00 right, the three different types of uh apps that you can develop, um you are equipped to decide which of these you need to choose for your app. If you need a uh if you're developing an app that has a high amount of processing power requirements uh and it needs a tight integration with uh the operating system, a native app is going to be your best bet. uh for most other types of apps that need a moderate amount of
• 30:00 - 30:30 integration but that just need a native look and feel, there's no reason to overlook hybrid apps. And on the other hand, if it's an extremely lightweight app, you need quick development turnaround times, it's either a prototype or, you know, just an app you're throwing together for a certain organization that requires a small little lightweight app, a web app might be all that they need. So there's no need to go and incorporate all of the APIs of the framework uh and go through all of that trouble when you can throw
• 30:30 - 31:00 something together uh with a mobile web app. So that decision is entirely up to you. So once you've decided which of those is right for you, it's time to move on to more business decisions. Now remember, an app is a business, especially if you're doing it as an entrepreneur. for that app to be a source of revenue and income for you, right? You have to think about it as a business. Now, we've been in the app development industry for a long time and
• 31:00 - 31:30 after that we were into the education industry where we thought hundreds of individuals how to develop apps, right? And where the majority of them go wrong is they don't think about it as a business. So, they end up developing an app. Uh they put it out and it doesn't really go anywhere. Uh it it sits on the app store. They eventually end up bringing it down because there's just no one using it. Uh it's not going anywhere. It's not generating any revenue. They've just wasted a bunch of
• 31:30 - 32:00 time uh and effort and sometimes money on those developments. So there are decisions that you can make beforehand that's going to increase your chances of success and it's going to get you thinking in the right way. So the first thing that I would suggest you think about uh especially as South African or African developers is don't try to go beyond your own continent. Right? Uh I mean it's it's very appealing to look at
• 32:00 - 32:30 your and very exciting to look at your big international apps like your Instagrams or Ubers or or whatever it is right and yes there's a huge huge market internationally for those kinds of apps but there is also a huge market on the African continent for apps right so uh a survey that was done uh a study that was done a few years ago the stat has probably gone up since then revealed that uh Africa had a 67%
• 32:30 - 33:00 uh mobile phone penetration rate meaning 67% of the population which is roughly 2 billion people have access to mobile phones. Now that 2 billion is your potential um your potential market. So consider that when you get into app development when you when you want to think about what kind of apps you can develop to solve people's problems. Uh don't go beyond your own
• 33:00 - 33:30 continent first. And I highly suggest that every single developer in Africa should first consider um the African continent because it's a very unique place. It has unique problems and challenges and it needs unique uh solutions and who better to develop than uh those solutions than your Africans uh citizens. Um now with that there are six steps that you can follow to ensure that
• 33:30 - 34:00 your apps have the greatest chance of success. If you follow these three step steps, you consider them before you even start conceptualizing your apps, it's really going to put you into a uh a big space. And when you look at and you analyze apps that have made it versus apps that haven't made it uh in the in in the world, it usually comes down to one of these six steps. One or two of these they didn't uh acknowledge, they didn't address, and that's why the app
• 34:00 - 34:30 uh didn't take off. So the first and most important this is if if there's one point that you come out with from this segment of the lecture it's this solve a problem right don't develop for the sake of developing or because you think the the feature is is kind of interesting or cool your app needs to solve a problem right you need to look around you identify a problem that you yourself are having or people
• 34:30 - 35:00 in your community people in your country are having and develop a solution for that right people buy into solutions they don't buy into apps just for fun uh maybe in the early days of of mobile apps when smartphones just came about that was a thing right but today your app is only going to get as much attention as compared to the size of the problem it is solving and like I mentioned Africa has a huge amount of challenges and problems uh that uh need
• 35:00 - 35:30 solutions. An example of that is this app called ICO. So this app was developed by a Kenyan organization. Um so Kenya has a a huge community of subsistence farmers that raise cattle, but they also do uh crops of of all sorts. Now, anyone who's been into agriculture knows that it's not a simple field. It's very complicated. I mean you got to go to university and you can get
• 35:30 - 36:00 degrees in agriculture but poor farmers in the rural landscapes of Kenya don't have the luxury to go and study for four or five years at a university to get that degree. So uh a group of developers in Kenya realized that and they saw an opportunity right they saw a problem and they came up with an opportunity or with a solution which was iCal. ICAW is a training app almost for uh farmers in
• 36:00 - 36:30 rural areas of Kenya. It gives them insights and information relevant to them and it also has live feature live updates. So if there is uh a pandemic going around with the cattle in a certain area they will get an update about that and they will know how to they'll get information on how to address it. Right? So this is a very unique problem that uh Kenya had and these developers they found a solution. They designed it, they developed it and
• 36:30 - 37:00 it has huge scale adoption not just in Kenya but in across several African countries now uh and they've managed to grow as a business. Their app has multiple new features compared to when it first launched. Point number two, reinvent the wheel. Right? That's not a typo and I know that it runs contrary to what you've been told, you know, don't reinvent the wheel. Um, but in terms of app development, if you've thought of of an idea, chances are someone has thought
• 37:00 - 37:30 about it already. Um, and just because someone else is doing something doesn't mean there's no room for anyone else. What you instead need to focus on is coming with a unique value proposition, a unique way of addressing people's problems. An example of that is another Kenyan company known as Cindi, right? Cindi is basically a clone of Uber. It works in the exact same way. There's an app, you
• 37:30 - 38:00 call a a vehicle, uh you pay upfront, a vehicle comes, you give them your goods, and they take it to where you need it to be. It does the exact same thing as Uber. It's very, very similar. But what made CI so successful was that it addressed a unique problem. Right? So in Kenya in the capital city especially Nairobi it's one of the most congested cities in the world in terms of traffic. Um and so to get from one block to another even though it's you know not that far it's just 2 or 3 kilometers
• 38:00 - 38:30 sometimes it can take a really really long time. And so that's what CI came to do. Ci primarily hired small bikes. So if you needed to send a parcel over to uh the other side of the city you call someone via CI. They'll come, they'll pick up your product, and they'll take it directly to where you need to be. And because of the the way bikes can maneuver around traffic, it cut the travel time down significantly. Uh, and that's why Cindy became so popular. Although Uber was around, it didn't
• 38:30 - 39:00 address people's specific problems. But Cindy, because it was developed by people from Kenya, addressed their problems more directly. Point number three, target your market. When you get into development, when you're developing an app, you need to have a very good picture of who this app is intended for. Far too many people make the mistake of trying to develop an app for everyone that everyone is going to use. It's not going to work out like that. Uh, and if you try to target
• 39:00 - 39:30 everyone, you're going to end up targeting no one. So, you need to be specific on who you are targeting. And an example that I can give you is the Facebook as it was previously known. This might look somewhat familiar to you. Yes, it is the same Facebook, right? Today it's known as, you know, just Facebook, but when it first launched, it was the Facebook. Um, and it was born out of a need that the founder Mark Zuckerberg had. So, he was a nerd, right, in college. He he had
• 39:30 - 40:00 trouble making friends and specifically he had trouble talking to girls, talking to women. Um, and so in a very stereotypical nerd fashion, he decided the best way to address this was to develop this app or this website back then is what it was. Uh, and on this website, he's going to create a profile for himself and he's going to list some of his details as well as some interesting facts about him. he's going
• 40:00 - 40:30 to have a picture of himself uh and you know he can then send that around to people and they will be able to you know come and view his profile and maybe make some connections after that. Some of his friends saw this and they thought that that was a good idea and they wanted profiles too, right? Because they had the exact same problem. So he developed uh an ability for them to add their own profiles and from there it grew and grew and grew and the rest is history.
• 40:30 - 41:00 So first point, it addressed a certain problem. But more importantly, why I brought the Facebook in here was that Mark Zuckerberg knew exactly who his target audience was. It was himself and others like him, university students who had trouble making friends. And although now Facebook has grown into something far far beyond that, the initial adoption was those guys. And that's what allowed it to grow into what it was today. today. Sure, there's something
• 41:00 - 41:30 for everyone on Facebook, but if it started off like that, it probably wouldn't have gotten very far at all. It would have had a little limping start and would have collapsed. Point number four, go to market yesterday. Right now, this is especially meant for you perfectionists out there like myself, right? When you're working on something that you're so passionate about, it's never going to be perfect to your eyes. So stop trying to make it perfect to your eyes and make
• 41:30 - 42:00 it perfect to the audience, right? In fact, it doesn't even have to be perfect to your audience before you go to market. What you do is you develop a minimum viable product and you put that out there and from there you can then go and develop and make changes because the changes you might think are necessary could turn out to be completely wrong. Uh there's no better feedback in terms of what new features or what you should do differently than user feedback, right? An example for this is this little guy, right? Most of you probably
• 42:00 - 42:30 are familiar with him, although it was a long time ago, so you probably forgot, but this is Flappy Bird, right? And it's probably still today one of the most popular games on mobile apps ever, right? It completely exploded uh and became world famous. Flappy Birds, believe it or not, was developed in two days by one guy, right? And when you look at the Flappy Bird app, it's not a very good app, right? Think about it from a technical perspective. It's very
• 42:30 - 43:00 fun and entertaining and that's why it was successful, but in terms of the specifications, it's very, very simple, right? A lot of people who develop something like this might think it's too simple to put out there. But the guy who developed it, he didn't have that notion and he put it out there and Flappy Bird became what it became. In fact, uh, at its peak, Flappy Birds was earning $50,000 a day in ad revenue. Think about that number, right? Um, in today with
• 43:00 - 43:30 today's exchange rate, that's just under a million rands a day from ad revenue, not even purchasers or sales, just ad revenue, right? And that wouldn't have happened for the developer if he thought that this app wasn't good enough to release and left it on his uh on his uh computer. But he put it out there and the rest is history. So even if you don't think that your app is good enough, others out there might disagree with you, right? And that is ultimately who you are developing your app for. So,
• 43:30 - 44:00 put your uh your fears aside, stop uh procrastinating, stop present uh hesitating and get your app out there as fast as possible. Point number five, think money early. Especially if you're getting into this as an entrepreneur developer. Um don't reach to the point where your app is done and now you got to think about how we can make money off of this, right? Uh yes, it's good to do
• 44:00 - 44:30 things for the passion, but ultimately revenue is what's going to allow you to grow and keep your app and sustain that app of yours. So think money earlier rather than later. And the final point, do it yourself as far as you can, right? There's too many too many scary stories of someone hiring a foreign developer or a foreign development firm to de build this app for them and there's a number of terrible terrible scenarios that
• 44:30 - 45:00 happen. A they get the app but it's full with bugs. It's only half complete. The developer disappears with the money that was paid over and you can't get in touch with anyone on that side. Uh and the thing is though, you know, we've been approached by a number of people like this, but the quality of code is so bad that nobody wants to touch it. You will not be able to find a local developer in a hurry to touch some of the code that comes uh from some of these firms. Uh so you can avoid this by doing it yourself.
• 45:00 - 45:30 The other risks of getting a foreign firm to develop or some other company to develop your app for you is that they could steal your idea. Uh that's has happened before. Um, and they also are just going to be doing it to do a job, right? They're not going to have that same passion. So, they're not going to put the same amount of effort into it, right? You could give them your full specifications, but they'll never be able to bring your vision to life as much as well as you would be able to do it. It's like Dainci with the Mona Lisa,
• 45:30 - 46:00 right? It took him four years, but he didn't outsource it. He did it himself. Until today, it's a testament to him as the the artist to put it together. And just like that, your apps are a work of art from you. So, as far as you can do it yourself, right today with uh AI tools to help you with coding, to help you with asset creation or conceptualization, it's it's easier than ever. And if you still can't do it yourself, you're better off partnering with someone who can take some of the load off of you, right? Don't hire
• 46:00 - 46:30 partner. If you hire someone, of course, there's upfront costs, but again, with an employee, they're not going to have that same vision and passion as you. They're going to be doing it as a job. So, it may sound scary taking on a partner and signing away a percent of your company. But, you know, as someone once told me, you rather be 50% owner of a 10 million rand company than be 100% owner of nothing of an app that's just some code on your computer, right? So do
• 46:30 - 47:00 it yourself as far as possible. Now very quickly let's go through some examples of successful apps who have we'll go through these six steps and we we can see we can observe how each of them has addressed each of these um uh these points. up first. Everyone knows this one. Instagram, multi-billion dollar company, uh one of the most popular uh uh apps and social media
• 47:00 - 47:30 platforms out there. In fact, if you are watching this and you have a smartphone, I can almost guarantee that you have Instagram on there. That's just how widespread it was. But it didn't start off like that, right? It had very very humble beginnings. So, let's look at these six points, right? A or number one, did Instagram solve a problem? Yes, you might not think about it as a very significant problem, but it it's it's a vanity problem. It's a social problem.
• 47:30 - 48:00 People like to share what they up to. People like to share vid pictures and videos of themselves. You know, you go out with your friends, you want to snap a selfie, uh you go to a restaurant, order a nice expensive meal, people want to share that, right? It might not be a problem in the in the typical sense, but it's something that this app addressed. Number two, reinvent the wheel. Believe it or not, Instagram was not the first of its kind. There were a number of social media uh already around at that time and they were specifically social
• 48:00 - 48:30 medias for sharing images. Instagram just came with a unique way of doing it that was more appealing, right, to their target market, which is point number three. Instagram knew who they were trying to target, right? which is young individuals who like to socialize and share things with their friends. Right? So till today if you look at the Instagram uh page on the app store, look at the type of pictures that they choose, right? Although again Instagram
• 48:30 - 49:00 has grown huge and now you got celebrities and you got brands, you got companies big and small that have Instagram accounts. That wasn't the original audience that Instagram tried to attract. It was this small group of young individuals who liked to share um pictures with their friends and with the world. Uh you know the selfie culture and the way that Instagram attracted them was so successful that it became so popular and then all of these other apps uh all of these other accounts came
• 49:00 - 49:30 about. Right? Go to market. yesterday. Point number four, Instagram had a uh short development window and then it went live, right? I believe developments was around the 2010s uh the early 2010 and then by October of 2010 it went live. Uh and it wasn't anything that you see today. The logo was different. The look and feel of the app was completely different. Most of the features you're familiar with with the app uh today like reals or group chats or stories didn't
• 49:30 - 50:00 exist, right? It was very bare bones. In fact, when Instagram first released, it wasn't even available on Android. It was exclusively iOS, right, for Apple devices, but they put it out there. They saw the demand for it, and the revenue that they made allowed them to grow it and develop it into what it is today. Um, point number five, think money early. Well, advertising was always built into the DNA of Instagram. Fortunately, there were other uh social media platforms out there. So, they knew
• 50:00 - 50:30 the model that they were going with. If we get 100,000 users, we can pay good money or companies would pay good money to advertise to those people. So, that was always in the DNA of Instagram and do it yourself. Today, it's owned by Meta, which is a company that owns Facebook. Uh, and there's teams of hundreds of people probably that work on Instagram. But initially it was developed by two people, two friends who got together, who had this idea and they put out this app. Next case study we'll look at is
• 50:30 - 51:00 Uber, right? And again, point number one, solve a problem. Uber solved a very big problem, which was call in a ride. In fact, the founder of Uber and the first developer of Uber got the idea when he was having trouble hailing a taxi in Paris. Uh this was in I think 2009 or 2010. Um and so you know he's running up and down the streets. You know in uh in some cities the way you you you hail a cab you walk to the edge of the road and you put your
• 51:00 - 51:30 hand up uh and you hope that someone stops by you. So he's running up and down the road and nobody's stopping. He's having trouble. And so he thinks to himself there has to be a better way of doing this. And so the idea of Uber was born. Reinvent the wheel. Again Uber wasn't the first of its kind. There was an app called Sidecar that was around but it didn't have the same kind of appeal. Uber just came did it better and today you don't even know what sidecar is right Uber is the the Uber has dominated that industry. Target your
• 51:30 - 52:00 market again because of the developer's own experience because he was a develop developing a solution for himself he knew exactly who to target it. It was individuals in big cities who had trouble hailing taxis. When Uber first came out, it wasn't uh and this is point number four, go to market yesterday, right? It kind of bleeds into this one. When Uber first came out, it wasn't a global app, right? Uh it targeted specific cities, big cities in North America and Europe that had this kind of
• 52:00 - 52:30 problem, right? And that's where it stayed for a while and then eventually it grew and became a global company and now it's almost every country in the world has Uber. But that's not how it started off. That's not what they intended. They they built it small and they went to market and based on the feedback and the the kind of users they were getting. They uh they managed to develop it further and make it what it is today. Think money early pretty
• 52:30 - 53:00 straightforward. You call a cab, you pay up front uh and your cab comes. A percent goes to the driver and a percent goes to the company. So that was built into the very DNA of uh Uber as well. and do it yourself. Again, two people developed Uber, the first version of Uber. Today, team has grown significantly, but it had very very humble beginnings in that sense. The final example I want to use is Xander, which is an education app uh company that it owns.
• 53:00 - 53:30 Um, and it's we have about 70,000 apps that are used across South Africa. And I like using this example because it it hits very very close to home. It's not some huge organization uh internationally that developed it. It's the small little group in South Africa that did it. Point number one, does it solve a problem? Yes, it's it's providing education, educational apps for kids. Whether they learning maths or languages or social skills, there's an
• 53:30 - 54:00 app for them. Reinvent the wheel. It's not the first of its kind. There's hundreds uh probably of these types of apps and websites, these education apps. But the unique thing about Xander was that it was specific to South Africa and the South African educational curriculum. So that's why it had a unique appeal. Target your market. Well, obviously it's kids apps. So we targeted parents and schools, especially those with younger kids. Um and we got them to buy into it for their kids. Go to market
• 54:00 - 54:30 yesterday. Although there's 70 apps in the catalog that cover several of South African South Africa's national languages and several uh of um the subjects required for schools. We didn't develop all of those at once. As the apps came about, we put them out there and based on the feedback that we got from users, we knew what direction to take the next apps. Uh so as they came up, we put them out and do it yourself. Okay. So this one uh not necessarily but
• 54:30 - 55:00 it was a very very small team that developed this completely local in the same city as the the founders and that way there was a very close uh relationship with the uh developers. Uh and today the maintenance team is made out of two people right um who again are based locally. Now the final topic right the money question very quickly right this is a whole topic right how to turn an
• 55:00 - 55:30 app into a successful business right the above guidelines that we spoke about those will give you an idea on how to develop a successful app um that is meant for people that is developed to address a certain problem and you know whose problem you are solving you know how to target them that's all well and good right but you still need a way of making revenue out of that. Uh because you've already developed the app, you know who it's going to go out to, but how can you monetize that? Um this is a
• 55:30 - 56:00 whole topic that we can probably go another hourong lecture about. But very very quickly, I'm going to walk you through four of the primary ways that apps can earn revenue. And these are your your straight up paid apps. You have premium apps. You have inapp purchases within your apps. And the most commonly used I think today is advertising. Right? So very quickly what do each of these mean? Paid apps very simple. It means your app
• 56:00 - 56:30 is not for not free to download. There is a price attached to it. Someone has to buy it to uh to to use it. This is uh a good source of revenue, but it is very difficult to achieve because it generally means that you're going to have to have a bit of a brand and your app has to be 10 out of 10 um you know professionally made uh because you need to convince people to take out their card, take out their money and buy your app, right? So generally big brands go
• 56:30 - 57:00 this way. For example, Procreate which is an illustration app for iPad. It's a very very good quality app. So they have a right to charge the fee that they do and there's no free version of it. So that is paid apps. The second app uh second type of uh way to earn revenue from apps is your premium apps which are free up until a certain point. You can download the app for free but some features are locked and if you want to unlock the rest of the fe those features you have to pay for it. This is nice
• 57:00 - 57:30 because it gives people a a way to trial your app, to try it out. And while they are trying it out, you then have the opportunity to woo them, to impress them, to convince them that your app is worth it, and they will then gladly take out their money and buy the rest of your app. The third way is inapp purchases. This basically means that you uh you have items within your app that are for sale. So, a lot of games use this where you can buy additional characters or
• 57:30 - 58:00 additional currency within the game with real money. Uh, and so the app is free to download. Uh, it's free to access to use, but if you want some of those additional uh items, you can then buy it. And finally, the most commonly used in my opinion is advertising, which is um basically means you get paid by companies to show their adverts in your app. And so if you develop a free app
• 58:00 - 58:30 that's getting tens of thousands of views every month, so it has tens of thousands of views uh every month, uh it's going to be easy for you to then charge companies uh uh advertising revenue to host their ads on your uh within your app. And you don't even have to approach companies directly. Your companies like Facebook and Google and a number of other have that facility for you. So you just uh sign an agreement with them and they will find the companies to advertise on
• 58:30 - 59:00 your app and you get a revenue share from that. And advertising is not to be overlooked as a viable means of income from your app. Uh again you can bring up the the example of Flappy Birds, right? One guy two days yet he was making $50,000 a day just from that app from advertising. And you look at other companies or other social medias rather like Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, their primary source of income is advertising. So advertising is huge. Uh
• 59:00 - 59:30 and you'll notice as well that many apps use two or more of these. So they'll have advertising, they'll also have inapp purchases uh or they'll have premium with inapp purchases and advertising is a combination. they they use two or more and that maximizes the revenue streams from your apps. So those are some things that you need to consider before you even start developing your app. Go through this list, right? First you decide uh whether you're going native web app or hybrid
• 59:30 - 60:00 approach. Then go through that checklist, right? Uh who you developing the app for? You know, solve a problem. What problem are you solving? Um who is your target market? uh what are you going to do in terms of earning money and earning revenue from that app? Ask yourself these questions. Make sure you have the answers and that's going to give you the direction that you need to go in when you start developing your app. Don't go in blind. Have these decisions made beforehand and I
• 60:00 - 60:30 guarantee it. It's going to make your development journey a lot clearer and it's going to greatly increase your chances of success when you finally put your app out there. Right. Yeah, that's that's about it. Beautiful stuff, Talaha. Thank you so much for stepping into studio and sharing some of those nuggets on how uh to utilize strategies on building uh that winning app. I hope all of you developers found uh the lesson with Talaha informative. That's it for
• 60:30 - 61:00 today's uh session. Please don't forget to hash FnBacademy. uh remain active on our social media platforms. Remain active on WhatsApp and also utilize the learning management system for any updates that will be sent out uh to all of you guys. Listen, I'm really excited to be part of the FnB App Academy 2025. This is where we make magic happen. I am your host Kab Mah. Really excited but sad that today has to end. But we also have more in store for the next episode. Cannot wait to see all of you guys there.
• 61:00 - 61:30 Peace. Heat. Heat.