Build and Launch an App: Our 7-Step Strategy

Building a digital product is fundamentally risky. At mmtm, we don’t shy away from this or set expectations otherwise. Instead, we embrace this risk and build it into our process.

We've carefully refined this process over our eight years in business into the following seven steps.

1️⃣ Idea Exploration

Before starting any development work, we’ll facilitate a Discovery Workshop to analyse your idea, your business, and give you ideas on the art of the possible.

2️⃣ Prototyping & Validation

We’ll then storyboard solutions and develop a clickable prototype for you to present to potential customers. The goal is to launch something quickly and cost-effectively that ensures product market fit and early success.

3️⃣ MVP Development

With your app idea validated, we’ll then work together and write the code to bring the app to life. Stripping things back to only the essential features for now whilst keeping the code flexible for the future.

4️⃣ Quality Assurance

Before official launch, we’ll conduct a short but thorough quality control check to ensure your app is stable and ready for launch.

5️⃣ Official MVP Launch

The exciting bit! We’ll devise and implement a launch plan to get your app into as many people’s hands as you’re comfortable with.

6️⃣ Talk to Users & Iterate

Once you’ve tested the product idea, have paying customers, and know you’re onto a winner. We’re then on hand to develop and deploy new app features in response to your customer demand.

7️⃣ Support & Maintenance

Longer-term, our service plans then act as a partnership service. Allowing us to proactively look after and improve the app and freeing you to focus on building your business.

At mmtm, we’ve carefully refined this Lean MVP methodology with clients over the past eight years.

To maximise your chances of long-term success (and to keep things cost-effective), it's essential to launch quickly, get customer feedback, and then iterate 🚀.

Martin Dick

Co-Founder, mmtm

Planning to build an app?

For more than 10 years, we've helped founders and growing teams turn early ideas into bespoke web applications, from discovery and prototypes through to launch and ongoing support.

If you're shaping up an app idea or trying to reduce risk before committing to development, I'd be happy to talk through the options!

Schedule a call

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the first step to building an app?

The first step to building an app is usually discovery. Before writing code, you need to understand the problem, the users, the main workflows, the commercial case and what a sensible first version should include. A good discovery phase helps turn a broad idea into a practical app development plan.

How do you validate an app idea before development?

You can validate an app idea by testing the problem, the proposed solution and the market before committing to a full build. Useful methods include user interviews, clickable prototypes, landing pages, early demos and feedback from potential customers. The goal is to learn quickly before spending too much time or budget.

What should be included in an MVP app?

An MVP app should include the smallest set of features needed to solve the core user problem and test whether the product has real value. It should not try to include every future feature. The best first version is focused, usable and clear enough to generate useful feedback from real users.

What happens after an app is launched?

After an app is launched, the work shifts to support, maintenance, user feedback and iteration. You’ll need to monitor performance, fix issues, keep the app secure, improve workflows and decide which new features are worth building next. Launch is an important milestone, but it is not the finish line.