49 min
140 - How To Have A Mobile Application Built Even If You Know Nothing About Programming Social Media Business Hour with Nile Nickel
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- Business
Tom Tancredi has worked (alongside twin brother Dominic) on the successful launch of over 250 digital products while building their digital agency, DOM & TOM into an Inc. 500 fastest growing company two years running. Tom is a resource on anything startup related including mobile strategy, onboarding a technical team, finding a cofounder or structuring a fundraising deal. Tom has built high profile applications for Fortune 500 companies and is an expert on intrapreneurship in large organizations.
What is “Intrepreneurship”?
Take Steve Balmer with Microsoft. He’s a great example of Intrepreneurship. One of the first employees of Microsoft (he was employee number 30) – Steve was really the right hand man for Microsoft founder Bill Gates. He negotiated himself 8 percent of the total company, which is really incredible, considering there were 29 employees who were hired before him. Steve helped build Microsoft into the huge company it is today. With over 90% internet using Microsoft products. Steve Balmer was not the entrepreneur. He didn’t come up with the product – he did however, see the potential for the product, understood the strengths of the team and had the vision to take the product (Windows) to the marketplace in a scalable way. Although Tom is not the entrepreneur for his company (his brother Dom is the entrepreneur) – Tom found himself in the unique role as the “Intrepreneur”. In 2008/2009 he saw a unique opportunity to learn all that he could about the Apple iPhone. Since no one was the expert on that platform, Tom realized that if his company could be the subject matter expert for iPhones, they could create demand for their mobile software development services.
How can a mobile application boost retail sales?
70% of all retail “research” is done online, on mobile devices – before products are actually purchased. This makes for an incredible opportunity for any retailer who is open to (or already using) flash sales, deep discount offers or impulse point purchases. In fact, if you’re not using mobile, you’re going to miss a TON of sales, especially around the holiday season, with so many consumers making last minute purchases for gifts. Likewise, if you’re interested in year-round sales, mobile is equally as important. Before creating an application though, you really need to ask yourself what benefits and features your application will offer to consumers. Tom recommends that you don’t even bother with creating a mobile application if you haven’t clearly thought through the features and benefits of you application. Whatever you do, don’t just go copying some other larger corporation’s application. Large retailers for example, the money and resources to “get it wrong” many times before they get it right. As small business owners, we don’t have that luxury. As a small business owner, you must play to your strengths. One of the things that you can do, that larger corporations have a hard time with is – you can be face to face with your customers much easier. This mean, you can solicit feedback, answer questions and solve problems much faster than a larger corporation. If for instance, you can think of features for your mobile application that can help you do that, then your customers will find great benefits with that. Anyone you touch in that regard, will find more value doing business with you, than anyone else. In the hands of your customers or prospects, your mobile application may just be the first time they research what you have to offer and who you are. For a great example of how NOT to create a mobile application, you only have to look as far as the banking industry. It doesn’t matter who you’re banking with, just about all of them have one experience online and a completely different experience on their mobile applications. When you go to their website to do any kind of online banking, most of the time, they have really thought through what features,
Tom Tancredi has worked (alongside twin brother Dominic) on the successful launch of over 250 digital products while building their digital agency, DOM & TOM into an Inc. 500 fastest growing company two years running. Tom is a resource on anything startup related including mobile strategy, onboarding a technical team, finding a cofounder or structuring a fundraising deal. Tom has built high profile applications for Fortune 500 companies and is an expert on intrapreneurship in large organizations.
What is “Intrepreneurship”?
Take Steve Balmer with Microsoft. He’s a great example of Intrepreneurship. One of the first employees of Microsoft (he was employee number 30) – Steve was really the right hand man for Microsoft founder Bill Gates. He negotiated himself 8 percent of the total company, which is really incredible, considering there were 29 employees who were hired before him. Steve helped build Microsoft into the huge company it is today. With over 90% internet using Microsoft products. Steve Balmer was not the entrepreneur. He didn’t come up with the product – he did however, see the potential for the product, understood the strengths of the team and had the vision to take the product (Windows) to the marketplace in a scalable way. Although Tom is not the entrepreneur for his company (his brother Dom is the entrepreneur) – Tom found himself in the unique role as the “Intrepreneur”. In 2008/2009 he saw a unique opportunity to learn all that he could about the Apple iPhone. Since no one was the expert on that platform, Tom realized that if his company could be the subject matter expert for iPhones, they could create demand for their mobile software development services.
How can a mobile application boost retail sales?
70% of all retail “research” is done online, on mobile devices – before products are actually purchased. This makes for an incredible opportunity for any retailer who is open to (or already using) flash sales, deep discount offers or impulse point purchases. In fact, if you’re not using mobile, you’re going to miss a TON of sales, especially around the holiday season, with so many consumers making last minute purchases for gifts. Likewise, if you’re interested in year-round sales, mobile is equally as important. Before creating an application though, you really need to ask yourself what benefits and features your application will offer to consumers. Tom recommends that you don’t even bother with creating a mobile application if you haven’t clearly thought through the features and benefits of you application. Whatever you do, don’t just go copying some other larger corporation’s application. Large retailers for example, the money and resources to “get it wrong” many times before they get it right. As small business owners, we don’t have that luxury. As a small business owner, you must play to your strengths. One of the things that you can do, that larger corporations have a hard time with is – you can be face to face with your customers much easier. This mean, you can solicit feedback, answer questions and solve problems much faster than a larger corporation. If for instance, you can think of features for your mobile application that can help you do that, then your customers will find great benefits with that. Anyone you touch in that regard, will find more value doing business with you, than anyone else. In the hands of your customers or prospects, your mobile application may just be the first time they research what you have to offer and who you are. For a great example of how NOT to create a mobile application, you only have to look as far as the banking industry. It doesn’t matter who you’re banking with, just about all of them have one experience online and a completely different experience on their mobile applications. When you go to their website to do any kind of online banking, most of the time, they have really thought through what features,
49 min