We do all types of software product development and support
Whether you’re new to apps and software product development or your business has run such projects before, Tec Blu can help.
We find there are two main groups of customers that approach Tec Blu for software product development/apps – start-ups wanting to develop their first app, and established businesses wanting to enhance their offering by bringing part of their business (products or services) online.
For start-ups, we have the expertise in-house to offer everything from feasibility/technical advice, prototyping, business plan development, raising capital, building the minimum-viable product (MVP) and commercialisation. We work with you at every step to minimise commercialisation risk.
Not every app idea succeeds but with the right approach you can stage your development to allow you to test the market at a fairly affordable price and then only proceed with further development if the idea is well-received by the market. Beware any development firm that needs you to commit to the whole project up-front.
For established businesses, launching an app or software product often happens as part of a broader custom software project. For example, we may have built you a system that manages your workforce and provides an app to your workers to accept jobs, update the job status in real-time and close-out work for billing. You might then decide to add a customer-facing app that allows jobs to be created, tracked and accepted by your customers.
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Tec Blu builds its business systems and its apps using the same industry-standard technologies and tools. This ensures they are robust and interconnectable.
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All Tec Blu apps are workshopped and designed by specialist graphic/user-experience designers before being handed over to the development team. This ensures they are engaging and highly polished.
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Services we can offer
Workshops and online tools
If you have your idea but you’re a little light on details, we can help you flesh these out with online or face-to-face workshops. You should come out of these with a good idea whether or not your idea will work.
Business plan
For an app/product to make money, it needs a business plan. This defines the idea, team, market/entry points, monetisation model, costs, revenue projections, assumptions etc.
List in stores
Depending on the technology used, you may need to register your app in stores for people to be able to access it (i.e. Apple App Store, Google Play Store etc) – we can help.
Requirements analysis
and design
We work with you to understand the users, what they need to do with the software and what a minimum-viable product (MVP) might look like.
Technical/architecture advice
Will your idea work better as an online web-app or a native app? Does it need to “talk” to other services or devices? How will it scale? Do different options have different costs/benefits?
Prototyping
Sometimes having a prototype is a good idea – it lets users provide meaningful feedback early-on and it is also a bit more exciting for potential investors than a design document.
Build the idea
With everything decided and as many risks eliminated as possible, we build your idea. We can do this in a market-led/agile way or, if you’re 100% clear on requirements, we can quote you.
Support and refine
Most apps need some refinement when they hit the market (wider feedback, new opportunities). When they are successful you still need to continuously improve them to stay ahead of the competition.
Our process
When we design and build your app/idea, we can use a hybrid of waterfall and agile approaches. There’s more about each of these on the Custom business software page, if you’re interested.
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Initial workshopping can be quoted, as can pre-build services once they are fully understood and agreed to. When we move to the design/build stage, we’ll need to assess the maturity of your minimum viable product’s (MVP’s) requirements. Maturity, in this context, refers to how well the requirements can be known and described up-front.
For many projects with mature/known/unchanging requirements, an MVP can be fully planned, quoted and built using a waterfall-like methodology. Other times, our customers wish to work with user-groups and design “as they go”. For these projects we run a more agile-like approach, with multiple small iterations, each informing the priorities of the next.
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Regardless of the exact approach, it’s important to stay disciplined with your MVP. Don’t try and make it all things to all people otherwise you’ll waste money and lower your likelihood of a successful launch.
Initial workshop
We review the idea and determine how much work will be required to make it a reality. Will it need market research? A prototype? Capital raising? Help with the monetisation plan?
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This is an inexpensive way to identify ideas that aren’t practical and avoid wasting money. You’ll leave our workshops with a clear plan to proceed and the associated costs (approximate).
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Pre-build services
Depending on what comes out of our workshop, we’ll help you refine the minimum-viable product (MVP), create designs/branding, build a prototype or seek capital.
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After this stage you have everything lined up to commence development and all prices/timeframes have been firmed up knowing the scope of the MVP.
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Build the app/idea
In this stage we’ll build your app and give you regular opportunities to review it and provide feedback.
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This stage produces a commercially usable MVP. Assuming all market research is correct and users adore the product, it is ready to launch. If not, some refinement may be required.
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Launch and support
With any refinements complete, the MVP is launched out to the market. You manage your marketing and revenue as per the business plan and we’re there to support to as your virtual CTO.
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As with any software you’ll receive feedback and need to decide whether to expand functionality, look at launching into allied markets, scaling overseas etc. We’re with you throughout these decisions offering advice both for and against.
How else can we help?
