I have often wondered why there are so many app development companies, how do they find clients, how are they different, should I open my own mobile app development studio? This is what I learned as a mobile development freelancer.
- Mobile app development companies can be regional – Some companies love to hire teams and companies that are found in their city or even found next door. They love face to face meetings (pre-COVID19), they feel like it is a a good way to support local businesses and are sometimes part of the same business chapters in the community.
- Mobile app development companies can be niche – Some agencies specialize in special niche from a technology perspective such as building custom maps, or being eCommerce or payment focused, to name a few. The list is endless usually there is 1 or 2 agencies in the world specializing in a very niche market segment, they typically build customized solutions for a specific sector and a specific widget. These agencies may also sell their APIs to other development agencies.
- Mobile app development companies can also be based on industry – Some agencies are strictly building apps for gamers, others focus on financial apps or retail apps. They attract group of clients who are part of the industry, making it easy to market.
- Marketing agencies that offer mobile app development. It maybe surprising but a lot of marketing agencies offer mobile services, at first I was not sure on the correlation between a technical product and let’s say an ad strategy. But think of all apps that are built from a marketing perspective. It can be a game with product placement from a food company or a short term promotional app. It can be an eCommerce solution with in app promotions run by the marketing agency for their client. It also helps to have a marketing budget to get your app to be found by users.
- Huge corporations who offer mobile app development as part of large offerings. Think IBM or Accenture, these are major consulting companies that offer technology services to typically enterprise level customers. They have big marketing dollars and multi million contracts with the Fortune 500 companies. They also come with huge teams found globally.
- Mobile App Freelancers – final group which is the oppose of the huge corporations are the freelancers. This is programmers, typically senior developers who have decided to build apps or help others build apps. This is the group that I belong to, having over 15 years of experience in building technology with 10 years spent on app development, I thought I needed a change from being just a corporate employee to becoming a mobile app freelancer. I work with multiple industries, in multiple locations, utilizing different technology from native iOS to multi platform Flutter and usually focusing on the front end development. Freelancers can help solve a small problem such as a bug fix, or build a full app by themselves or with a small team.
Finally, the main reason there are so many different mobile development agencies is that the world is going mobile, more and more shopping and transactions as well as time is spent on our mobile devices. Every business is trying to go mobile, therefore, requiring many programmers of various strength and knowledge of technologies to get us there. Finding the right mobile agency for your project can mean the difference between a successful app and an app which needs major re-engineering to get it to a good quality product, so choose carefully!