Tech Stack, Team, and Constructive Criticisms
It is important to choose the right tech stack in advance. Check whether it will be scalable and whether it will be easy to find an expert to support it in the future. When you start to grow and the specialists change, there may be problems.
You have to focus on the team. That’s the most important thing. First, you invest in the team, then it produces results.
You must not be afraid to say no to those you doubt and wait for the right experts. Hire only those who are really passionate about their work. The end consumer will feel that love.
Cherish your reputation from the very beginning. You have to nurture and defend it. It’s a crucial investment. If the reputation is bad, it will be difficult to clear it. We don't have such experience, but I know projects that have dealt with it.
It happens if you forget about users and think only about money. First of all, you have to focus on the users who bring you that money.
The first 2-3 years of the project are the most intense. It’s like with a baby. At first, you don't sleep at all. Then the team starts to get involved more, you delegate more tasks and get some free time. But even at the start, you have to take care of yourself to avoid burnout.
Learn to think critically about your ideas. This can be as much about creating a new product or feature as it is about an ad campaign or building a new department. Ideas turn our heads, and we can lose sight of a lot of things.
For example, it may turn out that the market does not really need your idea. You have to test ideas, ask for feedback, and not take things personally.
Make friends among similar startups. Do not neglect networking, and this concerns every member of the team. It helps to broaden your horizons and find new partners and customers.
Analytics, Priorities, and a Q&A Engineer... ASAP
It is essential to implement analytics ASAP. This will allow you to instantly see where you are losing users and how the new features meet your expectations (the number of users and money attracted).
If there is a drop in sales, don't rush to cut prices. You have to think about how to increase the value of the product for users.
If you don't know something, there are three ways to solve it. The first one is that you can wait for an expert who knows. It’s not a fact that it doesn't take much time. The second one is to dig deep into the issue, but don't bury yourself. The third one is to ask an outsourcer. It’s scary and complicated in terms of legal elements, but it can pay off well in the end.
Some of our four-legged colleagues. Here's another recommendation: In any unclear situation, pet your doggies.You have to prioritize. On the one hand, users will complain about bugs. On the other hand, you have to quickly release the features. Immediately, we take only critical bugs into work. If the user can solve the problem another way, we tell them how to do it. It may seem like a 5-minute activity, but it throws off your entire focus.
Define what’s the most important right now: That everything works flawlessly or that users' needs are met? After all, when you make a product you need to catch up with the competitors, differentiate yourself from them, and provide users with basic features.
Hire a QA Professional ASAP. It is better to hire an experienced tester, who would be able to point out where there might be difficulties during the development of a feature, rather than post facto.
Estimate the cost of the features from the start. At the development stage, there can be arguments about whether to expand or limit a feature. And during the retrospective, it may turn out that the costs were enormous, but you didn’t get the result you wanted. You could have done less functionality, spent less time and money, and gotten the same result. Plus, the cost of the feature also affects your priorities.
Code Review, Technical Documentation, and Interchangeability
It is essential to grow a code review culture from the beginning — best with two approvals. This will help create a "code style" that the entire team will adopt and allow a common pool of solutions to be developed — it will be easier for new people to join projects.
Therefore, there will be more interchangeability. A fresh look will allow you to find flaws and avoid suboptimal decisions made with the excuse that "no one will see it anyway."
It is better to keep technical documentation right from the start. Even if the code is clear, things are much easier with documentation. This makes it more convenient to track down controversial issues. Some decisions may seem irrational, but they can be explained by business logic. This, too, becomes clear from the technical documentation.
This is our Design Director Abbi, he would have shared a lot of insights too, but he got ill while preparing the post. We were worried about him, but he's fine now, yay!
Technical documentation will reduce unnecessary communication during onboarding of future employees. Otherwise, you'll have to spend your own time explaining things. But the text can be reread. It’s worth implementing this routine right away. Later it becomes more difficult, because there are so many projects, and everyone in the team always has the most urgent tasks. You can’t delegate to a new person either, because he's not informed.
Everyone on the team must be interchangeable. That's not what we had at first. We divided tasks into two types: "platform"-related and data collection and processing.
At first it was great, the folks stayed focused — everyone was doing their own thing. But then it split us into two camps. The problems that some dealt with were not clear to others.
As a result, all teams burned out: both from the same tasks and from internal conflicts. So we did a refresh and merged everyone. Now the newcomers have a new flow integration, they are gradually delving into new tasks. So, they understand how the entire thing works and they are able to switch between different tasks.
Try to create an easily scalable system from the start. To begin with, it is necessary to analyze whether there are enough qualified experts on the market.
Hiring those who know the most common coding languages is not always the best option. Specialists will cost less, but then the money will go to the hardware.
The code efficiency will also be affected. You will have to compensate for performance with money. In fact, small teams are more efficient in development. They have more solidarity, personal responsibility and commitment to the product.
In a startup, trust within a team is especially valuable. This reduces the red tape of the whole process. It is vital to choose the right colleagues, who are not indifferent, who have a high level of self-discipline. Just employees who go to work to do their 40 hours a week won’t do.
Scalability and a Newcomer's Perspective
You need to be ready for the product vision to change over time. At first, we made the platform for ASO specialists, because we knew from our own experience what they needed. Then it turned out to be too narrow an audience selection. There are a lot of people in our field who are not professionals but need intuitive functionality.
When developing functionality, you need to look at everything through the eyes of an ordinary user. You know the subject and you think it's quite obvious. But that may not be so at all. You need to keep this in mind and think about how to make people's lives easier.
Test and trust the data more if it’s possible. This will help save resources. Unfortunately, startups often don't have time for this, because they have to quickly catch up with competitors who have been in the market for a long time.
From the start, make "open" features so they can be easily expanded. Just in case it becomes necessary to elaborate things or add new functionality. Otherwise, you have to sacrifice new ideas or do double work redesigning a section. It's one of the trickiest things — to think a few steps ahead and to leave room for the future.
Learn to make prototypes that are as clear as possible, so that the discussion is not too long. A lot of time is spent on communication.
Develop a personal brand, because you will be associated with the product.
Discover the features that will make you stand out from your competitors while making life easier for users. For us, such a tool was the universal system of indexes.
It helps you quickly evaluate the different aspects of the app's promotion. It all started with ASOindex, an index that evaluates the quality of app home page optimization by many metrics. When we developed it, no one had a tool like that. And this functionality is perfectly clear to everyone.
It helps you quickly evaluate the different aspects of the app's promotion. It all started with ASOindex, an index that evaluates the quality of app home page optimization by many metrics. When we developed it, no one had a tool like that. And this functionality is perfectly clear to everyone.
Written by:
Kseniya Burn, CPO & COO at Checkaso
Evgeniya Baekenova, Product Owner at Checkaso
Vasily Mikhailov, Tech Lead at Checkaso
David Margaryan, Head of ASO at Checkaso
About Checkaso
In 2020 Checkaso experienced a major breakthrough in the mobile market.
We launched more than 10 ASO tools to improve the search experience and visual optimization, analyze competitors in detail, and track performance. This year we increased our user base from 7,000 to 20,000 users and expanded geography to 195 countries. Also, we launched the consulting service and helped over 560 companies all over the world.
P.S. We hope you enjoyed the tips based on our personal experience. Please feel free to share your insights in the comments.
Checkaso celebrated its 2nd birthday in December. Along with the development of our ASO platform, we have learned a lot about startups and we are ready to share our experience. Let us tell you what pitfalls we encountered and what insights we ended up with. The main one, of course, is simple — never start a startup. Just kidding. But now seriously.
Checkaso is an analytical platform that rates your ASO performance and gives you custom tips on how to improve it. It’s made by ASO specialists and fits users of any experience from beginners to enthusiasts with a lot of optimized apps behind. The platform's algorithms provide highly accurate data on keywords impressions and search volume, live search results, ranking history, competitor analysis for App Store & Google Play, and more.