How to Write a Perfect Business Plan for Mobile App

Launching a mobile app without a solid business plan is like venturing into uncharted territory blindfolded. It might seem like a good idea initially, but you’ll quickly encounter obstacles that could derail your entire project. A well-defined business plan acts as your roadmap, addressing critical questions and potential pitfalls before you invest significant resources. It forces you to define your target audience—are you building a fitness app for health-conscious millennials or an educational game for Gen Alpha children? A business plan also helps you analyze the competition—what existing apps dominate the market, and how will yours offer a unique selling proposition (USP)? Furthermore, you need to map out your financial strategy—how much will development cost? What are your monetization plans? Without a clear financial roadmap, you risk running out of funds before your app even reaches its full potential. Finally, a business plan helps you identify potential roadblocks. By anticipating these challenges and outlining mitigation strategies, you’ll be well-equipped to navigate the complexities of mobile app development and launch a successful product.

According to statistics, founders who draw up a business plan have a 260% chance of achieving success. However, just composing a mobile app business plan will not automatically guarantee a competitive advantage. Still, it will help you avoid common mistakes and prevent some of the hidden pitfalls on your way. In this article, we’ll go over the importance of a business plan for a mobile app, discuss its structure, and learn how to check the viability of your idea.

Why Is a Mobile Application Business Plan Important?

Launching a mobile app can be an exciting venture, but without a roadmap, it can quickly turn into a costly misstep. A well-defined business plan acts as your blueprint for success, addressing critical questions and potential roadblocks before you invest significant resources. Here’s why a business plan is crucial for your mobile app:

1. Understand the Ins and Outs of the Market 

The mobile market is saturated. A business plan for a mobile app involves in-depth market research, competitor analysis, and target audience detection. The lack of knowledge about how the market functions, specifics of the mobile app industry, and competition can put your idea on the list of app failures. A business plan compels you to research existing apps in your niche. Analyze their strengths and weaknesses to identify gaps in the market. This allows you to develop a unique selling proposition (USP) that sets your app apart and attracts users.

Instead of a vague “everyone” approach, a plan forces you to define your ideal user, especially if it’s a mobile app startup. Who are you building this app for? Busy professionals seeking productivity tools? Fitness enthusiasts looking for personalized workout plans? Understanding their demographics, behavior patterns, and pain points allows you to tailor your app’s functionalities to address them directly.

2. Prove the Viability and Feasibility of Your Idea

A considerable part of a mobile app business plan is financial goals and projections. Calculating when and how your app will generate income will help you realize the actual feasibility of your application and estimate when your app will overcome the break-even point. Besides, to create a viable business plan for a mobile app, startups require a prototype or MVP. We’ll discuss MVPs in more detail further in the article and show you how they can prove or disprove the viability of your app idea. 

3. Calculate Financial Viability

Mobile app development can be expensive. From coding and design to ongoing maintenance and marketing, costs can quickly add up. A business plan helps you create a realistic financial model. It outlines development costs, potential revenue streams (subscriptions, in-app purchases, advertising), and projected return on investment (ROI). This allows you to assess the app’s financial viability and make informed decisions about resource allocation.

There are a few monetization strategies that app development companies can choose. Consider a mix of options like freemium business models with premium features, in-app purchases for valuable content or upgrades, or targeted advertising that enhances the user experience without being intrusive. This diversified approach allows you to generate revenue while catering to different user preferences.

4. Decrease Risks

Risk and opportunities management (ROM) is a vital point in every project. Professional and thorough ROM allows you to identify all the potential risks and calculate their likelihood and magnitude. Knowing the risks that might occur and their possibility and consequences can help you mitigate or even altogether eliminate them. A mobile app business plan template always includes a risk assessment in some form (ROM or SWOTanalysis) and increases your chances of avoiding risks. 

5. Work Out the Goals and Benchmarks

Measuring the success of an idea is impossible without concrete and clear KPIs, benchmarks, metrics, etc. Developing a mobile app business plan entails identifying the short-term and long-term goals and the metrics for measuring performance. Establish the most relevant KPIs for your app idea: active users in a given time, costs for user acquisition, ROI, retention and churn rates, etc. 

6. Calculate the Right Time for the Release

Timing your mobile app launch for maximum impact requires a strategic approach. Your business plan becomes a valuable tool in this process. By analyzing competitor release schedules and industry trends, you can identify potential windows of opportunity. Additionally, the plan’s understanding of your target audience helps you pinpoint seasonal peaks or cultural events that might heighten user interest. Finally, factor in internal development milestones and marketing campaign rollout to ensure a smooth and coordinated launch that maximizes your app’s potential for success.

7. Check the Legal and Regulatory Challenges

Your mobile app business plan isn’t just about market fit and revenue – it also acts as a shield against legal and regulatory hurdles. By outlining your target market and app functionalities, the plan helps you identify potential legal issues early on. For instance, handling user data might require compliance with data privacy regulations depending on your target region. The plan also prompts you to consider intellectual property (IP) protection for your app’s unique features. Furthermore, by researching the app stores you plan to launch on (e.g., Apple App Store, Google Play Store), you can ensure your app adheres to their specific guidelines and avoids potential delays or rejections. This proactive approach minimizes legal and regulatory risks, paving the way for a smooth app launch.

8. Identify Your Marketing Promotion

Your mobile app business plan doesn’t stop at development – it charts your marketing course as well. By defining your target audience in the plan, you can tailor your marketing strategy to reach them effectively. Whether it’s leveraging social media platforms popular with your demographic or partnering with relevant influencers, your plan guides these decisions. Additionally, the plan helps you explore paid advertising options like targeted app store ads to maximize user acquisition. Furthermore, you can factor in public relations (PR) opportunities to generate buzz and establish your app as a thought leader within your niche. Ultimately, a well-defined marketing roadmap outlined in your business plan ensures your app doesn’t get lost in the vast mobile landscape, attracting users and driving downloads.

9. Attract Co-founders

A strong mobile app business plan can be your magnet for attracting talented co-founders to your mobile app venture. It paints a clear picture of the app’s vision, outlining the target market, the problem it solves, and the USP. This shared vision excites potential co-founders who believe in the app’s potential to make a difference. The plan also showcases the financial roadmap, including projected costs and revenue streams. This transparency fosters trust and demonstrates your commitment to building a sustainable business. Ultimately, a well-crafted business plan positions you as a serious and prepared leader, making you a more attractive partner for co-founders seeking a promising mobile app project.

10. Attract Investors

A well-defined business plan is your secret weapon for attracting investors to your mobile app. It acts as a comprehensive document showcasing the app’s potential. By outlining a clear target market with a defined pain point, you demonstrate a strong understanding of the problem your app solves. The plan then details your USP, highlighting why your app stands out from competitors. Additionally, the financial projections showcase the app’s potential for profitability, giving investors confidence in your ability to generate a return on their investment. This combination of market opportunity, innovative solution, and financial viability makes your app an attractive proposition for potential investors.

10 Components Your Mobile App Business Plan Template Should Include

The importance of writing a business plan for a mobile app cannot be understated. A professional business plan is a blueprint you’ll be using for years and years to come, not to mention the investment potential you’ll gain from it. In this part, let’s dive into the most imperative sections of a business plan and learn how to make a mobile app business plan that will spike investors’ interest. 

Executive Summary

The executive summary is your mobile app business plan’s elevator pitch, captivating readers in the first few pages. Here, you’ll succinctly introduce your app, highlighting the problem it solves and the value it offers users. Briefly explain who your target audience is and why they need your app. Don’t forget to showcase your competitive advantage – what makes your app stand out from the crowd? Wrap it up with a teaser of your market opportunity and potential for success. This concise summary should pique the reader’s interest and encourage them to delve deeper into the details of your business plan.

Company Description

Your company and team description is the heart of your mobile app business plan’s credibility. Introduce your company, its mission, and the inspiration behind the app. Next, showcase your dream team. Briefly introduce key members, highlighting their relevant experience and accomplishments. Don’t forget to differentiate yourselves! Explain what sets your company apart from competitors – is it a unique development process, access to cutting-edge technology, or a team with deep industry knowledge? By establishing your expertise and passion, you convince readers you’re the perfect team to bring this app to life.

Market Analysis

Market analysis includes research on the current state of the target market as well as forecasts. To provide market forecasts, you need to identify influencing factors that drive the market. You can determine the factors based on extensive market research and analysis. The goal of market forecasts is to measure the spending potential as well as patterns that occur in this particular industry. As a result, you’ll understand your place in the market and develop business plans and strategies using actual data and not your assumptions. 

This part also includes identifying your target audience and researching their needs, interests, requirements, pain points, etc., to come up with potential solutions. In the software development realm, the target audience is often referred to as the user persona. Describe user personas: their occupation, gender, hobbies, challenges, interests, behavioral patterns, and more. The more you learn about your potential customers, the easier it will be to reach out to them. 

Product Description

You should showcase the core functionalities of your app and highlight the user experience (UX), explaining how they solve a specific problem or address a user need. Don’t forget the “wow” factor! Mention any innovative features that set your app apart from competitors. This description should make your app come alive in the reader’s mind, generating excitement and leaving them eager to learn more about how it will benefit users.

Development Plan

The development plan outlines key milestones, like feature completion deadlines and beta testing launch dates. This transparency builds trust with potential investors and partners. Briefly describe the technologies you’ll use for development (programming languages, frameworks) and any specific resources needed (cloud computing, design tools). Crucially, address the concept of Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Explain how you’ll prioritize core features to get a usable version of your app in users’ hands quickly. This data-driven approach allows you to gather real-world feedback and iterate on features based on user behavior, ensuring you build an app that truly resonates with your target audience.

Risk and Opportunities Assessment

Anticipate potential roadblocks with a Risk and Opportunities Assessment in your mobile app business plan. Identify external factors that could impact your app, like changes in industry trends, competitor actions, or unforeseen technological advancements. However, this isn’t just about problems – it’s about possibilities too! Consider emerging technologies or market shifts that could create unexpected opportunities for your app. By outlining both risks and opportunities, you demonstrate a proactive approach and showcase your ability to adapt and navigate a dynamic mobile app landscape.

Marketing Activities

Use your previous target audience research to plan marketing strategies that will help attract them to your product. Also, as a part of your marketing plan, identify the channels you’ll use to reach your users, such as email marketing, referral programs, SMM, etc. Finally, calculate the customer acquisition cost of various channels to decide which methods are the most cost-effective. 

It’s also recommended to create a landing page for your product to give users an idea of what it’s about. Landing pages don’t require a lot of funding or deep technical expertise and act as a perfect way of reaching out to your target audience. 

A marketing strategy also entails a list of metrics you’ll apply to measure the success of your marketing campaigns. These could include conversion rates, app installs, click-through rates, and others. Make sure to set measurable, attainable, and specific KPIs to collect meaningful data for future marketing activities. 

Regulatory and Legal Considerations

This component can turn out to be quite voluminous—it all depends on your target audience and the actual business niche for which your mobile application is being developed. However, you cannot ignore it—otherwise, your application may not be allowed to be uploaded to mobile app stores. So, the main regulatory environment and legal considerations usually include the following:

• Privacy and data security rules. This includes widespread privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the United States. To comply with them, developers need to exclude scenarios of abuse of user data and also provide interactive forms where users can confirm their permission to use their personal data. Among other things, developers must implement strong security measures to protect private user data from unauthorized access, hacking, and cyber attacks. A special case of such measures is compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)—in particular, this is mandatory for applications that process user payment data.
• Intellectual property rights. Your development team must be sure that they don’t violate the intellectual property rights of others: that is, the design, functions, and content of your mobile application must be unique and not created by third parties unrelated to your project. Likewise, your team needs to think about how to protect their intellectual property—for example, this could be done through obtaining copyrights or patents.
• Terms of service and end-user license agreements (EULAs). You should provide your users with a comprehensive list of terms of service and license agreements regarding the use of your mobile software. They must include a description of the rights and responsibilities of the users and limitations on the liability of the development team.
• Accessibility compliance. Some types of mobile applications must comply with generally accepted user accessibility guidelines like WCAG 2.0. The main requirements include ensuring that your mobile application is compatible with screen readers, providing it with the ability to navigate using the keyboard, and the placement of alternative text for images in it. Additionally, note that in view of the mandatory compliance with these requirements for certain groups of software (including those representing government organizations), applications that do not meet them may be fined and withdrawn from public use.
• Advertising and marketing regulations. If your mobile application is equipped with advertising and marketing functionality, your team will need to adhere to the rules that control advertising content. The starting point for compliance with these rules are the guidelines of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the US and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) regulations in the United Kingdom.

Finally, be sure to obtain regulatory approval for your software if it belongs to the healthcare, finance, or transportation sector (in fact, this list is much broader, so this aspect should be further clarified with your lawyer). In addition, you may find it helpful to check the regional regulations of your app’s target markets to ensure its compliance with local laws, languages, and cultural standards.

Financial Goals

The financial part of our mobile app business plan example consists of two parts: funding required and monetization strategy. The former includes the costs of running a company, such as utility bills, emergency costs, etc. This part should also entail the costs of app development. 

The costs of developing a mobile application vary depending on the app’s complexity, several basic and custom features, platform choice, and location of the mobile app development company. Create a thorough breakdown of startup costs, including the discovery phase, coding, testing, maintenance, hiring costs, salaries, etc. 

The second part goes over the ROI estimates and describes your monetization strategy. Usually, investors expect three and five-year financial forecasts, including profit and loss, cash flow, valuation, etc. Depending on your app idea, you may use one or several monetization strategies to generate income:

• In-app ads keep your application free yet generate a stream of income. 
• Paid application is a strategy most suitable for iOS devices as iPhone owners are more willing to purchase mobile apps. 
• In-app purchases allow users to try out a free version of the application and upgrade for more features. 
• Subscription, i.e., monthly or yearly fee users pay  to get access to your application. 

Financials are the pivotal point of any business application as it is where investors make their final decision. If you’re unsure about the most suitable monetization strategy as well as app accurate development cost calculation, contact NIX. Our team will help you compose a business plan for the mobile app concept that will increase your chances of getting funding and help you foresee the most common pitfalls along the way. 

Appendix

Here, you can include in-depth market research data (charts, surveys) that strengthens your understanding of your target audience. Detailed financial forecasts with break-even analysis and projected revenue streams provide a comprehensive picture of your app’s financial viability. App mockups or user interface (UI) wireframes visually represent your app’s design direction, giving readers a glimpse of the user experience. Finally, consider including detailed team member bios that showcase their educational background, professional certifications, and relevant work experience. These elements enrich your business plan and provide a deeper understanding of your app, its potential, and the team behind it.

Evaluate the Viability of Your Application Business Plan

Learning how to write a business plan for a mobile app is not enough to convince investors of the viability of your idea. They need actual proof that your idea works and has demand on the market. How can you provide this? 

Building an MVP

Your business plan should prioritize building an MVP. This streamlined version focuses on the core functionalities that deliver the app’s essential value proposition. By prioritizing “killer features” that align with your business goals and user needs, the MVP allows you to gather real-world feedback early on. This data-driven approach ensures you iterate and refine your app based on user behavior, preventing wasted development time and resources on features that might not resonate with your target audience.

Monitor current mobile app trends on Google Play and Apple’s App Store. Catching and exploiting a trend could be very beneficial for your business and convince investors that supporting your business is the right way to go. 

Internal Evaluation

1. Objectivity Check: Take a step back and read your plan with a critical eye. Are you presenting a realistic picture of the market opportunity, development costs, and potential challenges?
2. Alignment Check: Ensure all sections of your plan are cohesive and tell a unified story. Does the marketing strategy align with the target audience defined in the market analysis? Do the financial projections reflect the development plan and chosen monetization strategy?
3. Clarity Check: Is your plan clear, concise, and easy to understand? Avoid technical jargon and ensure your value proposition is communicated effectively.
4. MVP Focus: Does your development plan prioritize building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with core functionalities? Will this allow you to gather user feedback and iterate quickly?
5. Financial Strength: Do your financial projections demonstrate a path to profitability? Are your monetization strategies realistic and aligned with industry standards?

External Evaluation

1. Expert Review: Consider seeking feedback from experienced mobile app developers, entrepreneurs, or potential investors. Their insights can highlight weaknesses or potential blind spots in your plan.
2. Market Validation: Test your assumptions about the market opportunity. Conduct surveys with your target audience to gauge their interest in your app’s functionalities and pricing model.
3. Competitive Analysis: Revisit your competitor analysis. Are there any emerging competitors or market trends you might have overlooked?

By following these steps, you can gain valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your business plan. This allows you to refine your approach, address potential challenges proactively, and increase your app’s chances of success.

Consider NIX Your Trusted Partner

NIX is a software development company with deep expertise in native and cross-platform mobile application development services.

We’ll accompany you during every stage of the process, from strategy and planning to development and testing, including ongoing support and maintenance after launch. During our 30+ years of operation, we’ve successfully built and launched more than 3,000 projects. Our team consists of 2,000+ professionals who use cutting-edge technologies to build advanced applications with a great level of performance.

Final Thoughts

Formulating your first mobile app business plan sample can be overwhelming and challenging. We hope our guide has clarified how to plan an app, so now you can create a business plan and dive into creating your dream app. 

The mobile app market is saturated and hard to penetrate, but NIX is here to offer you help and mobile app development services. We’ll be happy to answer your questions and help you build your next great project!

FAQ

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1. What Is a Mobile App Business Plan?

A business plan is a blueprint for many years to come. A mobile app business plan contains information about your company, market research, target audience, risk analysis, and financial projections. Check out our article to see step-by-step instructions.

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2. How Do I Write a Business Plan for a Mobile App Idea?

Writing a mobile app business plan includes thorough research into the mobile app market, calculating the costs of development, as well as choosing the right monetization strategy. Besides that, work out marketing strategies and conduct a risk analysis to create a professional business plan.

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3. What Are the Steps to Building a Business Plan for Your Mobile App?

First, create a thorough mobile app startup description and provide market research and forecast. Follow up by conducting risk assessment and planning out marketing activities for your product. Finally, deliver detailed financial goals, projections, and monetization strategy.