How to Build a Billion Dollar App Like Instagram

By    Valerie Oon

Forget fairytales. With eyeballs on successful exits in mobile application ventures, building an app is the newly beaten path from rags to riches. Suddenly, “we will build an app” is a legitimate business plan for the man on the street. We laugh at their naiveté.

But the good news is, building a good app is not entirely out of reach for the average business. If you have a compelling idea or mobile strategy, here are 3 important principles to make sure your app does not suck. (Just don’t expect it to sell for $1billion tomorrow.)

Your app in one phrase

All-in-one is tempting. People love the idea of all-in-one. They think it’s value for money, convenient and efficient. But they don’t buy into all-in-ones.

When you see an ad, how many “that’s not all”s can you hear before tuning off? The reality is this: if people don’t understand what your product does, they can’t be sold on the idea. And the easiest way to make your product understandable is to do one thing well.

Here’s how Instagram positions itself in the app store: “simple way to make and share gorgeous photos on your iPhone.”

Can you summarize what your app does in one phrase? If you can’t, it’s too complicated. We can’t stress this more. That leads us to…

The 80/20 rule

The ubiquitous Pareto Principle applied in app development says you prioritize 20% of the functions used 80% of the time, or by 80% of users. Make this 20% beautiful, intuitive and formidable.

How do you know which 20% to perfect? Go back to your one phrase and make it impossible for your user to fail in that.

How to “make and share a gorgeous photo” with Instagram:

1. Launch app

2. Take a photo by tapping the middle button

3. Make it gorgeous by tapping on the bottom left button to add filter

4. Share

Made for user

It’s nice to make something you like. But if you want your product used, make something your users like.

How do you know what users like?

Transparent playing cards may be cool, but completely useless for poker. 

Consumer research, though the obvious answer, is always flawed. We can’t prescribe a tried and true method except to say, be critical about the type of consumer research you choose for specific objectives and don’t believe everything you hear. The most effective research tool in many cases is mere observation.

I first heard about Facebook as this “cool Friendster thing that picks up faces in photos”. As we moved into the mobile era, this photo function stumbled clumsily along in the form of a 6-step* process today.

Instagram did not have to conduct elaborate consumer research to know photo-sharing had an important place in people’s hearts; the proof is in Facebook’s growth. Observing that, they found opportunity in its deficiency and simply created a better iteration around a function that users valued.

Any important mantra you personally follow in app development? Share with us by commenting here!

*From “Take photo” button to “Post” – excluding friends and location tag (version 4.1.1, updated 02 April 2012)