Product Vision: The Crucial First Step for Your Digital Kitty Expo App

How do you make a significant purchase you won't regret later? It's a common question, and the answer is straightforward: analyze the benefits and value you'll gain beforehand.

We see countless examples of regrettable purchases. Take buying a car, for instance. Advertisements and brochures showcase a beautiful, modern, and seemingly reliable vehicle. You might even take it for a test drive. However, if your purchase decision was based solely on criteria like "trendy, stylish, cool," you might later experience discomfort due to specific maintenance needs, additional expenses, or not knowing how to use some of its advanced features.

Now, if we consider an Expo-based native mobile app development project as a purchase, things are even more complex. You can only get a final app version that truly meets your needs and expectations if you provide the development team with clear requirements for the future software product.

In modern app development, these clear requirements often start with a Product Vision. This document helps forecast future functionality and consider the app in the long term, especially when partnering with a specialized agency like Digital Kitty, where we focus on building native apps with Expo.

How to Prepare a Product Vision?

At any well-structured development agency like Digital Kitty, a project manager or analyst is always on hand to help you draft this vision and clarify all project details for your Expo app. However, as the client, you should understand why this information is vital for us and be prepared for productive collaboration to ensure your project's success.

Based on the Product Vision, Digital Kitty provides an initial estimate of the effort required. This, in turn, allows you to understand the approximate budget for your mobile app, decide on its further implementation, or adjust the requirements.

When preparing a Product Vision, it’s important to answer questions that will later form the basis of non-functional requirements and the design of your future Expo app. Here’s a list of key questions:

1. What is the Core Idea of Your App?

Here, you need to elaborate on the main concept of your project, its central idea. Explain what your mobile app will aim to achieve, what its competitive advantages are, and what makes it unique in the crowded app market. This information will form the foundation of the overall project concept and its functional requirements.

2. What is the Goal of Your App?

A goal is what you strive for, what you plan to achieve by implementing your idea via a mobile app. In short, a goal is your desired outcome. When formulating your goal(s), we recommend using the SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound), as clearly defined goals are key to a successfully implemented app.

3. What Problems Will Your Expo App Solve?

Tasks are geared towards achieving your project's goals. Depending on your business sphere, these tasks might aim to increase company profits, enhance brand awareness through the mobile channel, boost user/client loyalty via the app, and so on. Properly defined tasks will allow us to outline the main requirements for the software solution.

4. Who Will Use Your Mobile App?

Your target audience (TA) consists of the potential users of your Expo app. Their needs should be the primary consideration when creating the Product Vision. To do this, you need to analyze the social and behavioral characteristics of your TA, such as gender, age, interests, marital status, mobile usage habits, etc. The results of this analysis will help correctly formulate the functional requirements for the app, ensuring it considers the TA's interests and needs.

5. What Are the Critical Success Attributes (Metrics) for Your App?

Metrics are set for each project according to its goals and business objectives. They will allow you to quantitatively assess the project's success. These could be:

• Metrics showing user loyalty (e.g., Net Promoter Score - NPS for app users).
• Metrics reflecting user acquisition for the mobile app over a specific period.
• Metrics allowing an assessment of the company's profitability increase after the app's launch.
• App-specific metrics like Daily Active Users (DAU), Monthly Active Users (MAU), session length, or conversion rates within the app.

6. Are There Similar Apps on the Market?

If you plan to create an app whose idea has already been implemented, it makes sense to study competitors. This helps identify the distinctive features of their mobile solutions and develop your own app with unique advantages. A competitive analysis and differentiation strategy will be helpful here. We recommend attaching links to similar apps to your Product Vision document, along with descriptions of features you like. This significantly simplifies further interaction with the Digital Kitty team.

7. What is the Desired Timeline and Budget for the App?

In this section, provide information about your desired project completion dates and any budgetary constraints. Remember the project management triangle: the quality of a project is directly proportional to an adequately planned timeline and budget. The better these two components are planned, the higher the quality of the Expo app you will receive.

What to Do Next?

The Product Vision is the starting point for any mobile app project at Digital Kitty. It provides an understanding of the proposed Expo app, its goals, tasks, and long-term perspective. Without a clear vision, the chances of creating a successful app decrease due to blurred project boundaries and priorities.

Often, many clients feel uneasy, sometimes even intimidated, by the term "Product Vision." However, there's no need to fear the complexities. Our project managers and business analysts at Digital Kitty are here to help you navigate all the intricacies of your project. They will analyze your market segment, share insights on the functionality of your future Expo app, and guide you on development technologies (specifically React Native with Expo), as well as budget and project timelines.

In our next article, we delve into the Technical Specification (TS) – what it is, who compiles it, and the benefits it brings to your Expo app development process.

If you have an idea for an Expo-based native mobile app, please contact Digital Kitty . We're excited to help you bring your vision to life! You can also send information about your project to our email: hello@digitalkitty.dev .