Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Day (I’ve Lost count!) Report

There has been much focus on the application development over the last few days so I guess I have been overly quiet on the blog posts but the good news is that things are going well.

We have once again completely redesigned out back end and now have locked down the design for our back end accessible data points and have updated versions of the iPhone/iPad app & Windows 7 app working! Whoohoo!! We are just finalising the testing loop now. I expect that this will be finished in the next few days.

In the interim we have also been working on an updated PR piece that is way way way too long (who knew we had so much we could reference around our app that made for interesting stories – such as the projected increase in Childhood obesity, the increase in instances of Adult depression, the stats from the Cancer Council proving that (some) active time outside is actually really really good for you! ). We are now looking at consolidating that into an aggressive PR kit to use once the application is available on the iTunes & Zune marketplaces.

I also today attended a seminar held by Marcus Tarrant of https://www.businessplanninghq.com/  where we learnt about the value of a formal business plan and followed a surprisingly simple “wizard” that to be honest allowed me to create a much more professional and comprehensive Business Plan in the sessions than I did in the hours and hours I spent with my initial plan that was overly vague and missing massive chunks. I’d love to share the document with you – but I don’t think Marcus would overly appreciate that – so here is a snapshot of the sample document he provides to show what you get at the end… Well worth setting aside the time to do.

Beside the benefit of meeting other early stage companies and sharing the ideas, questions, businesses with each other (I cannot iterate enough HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS!) I picked up a few great tips for my app around adding a geocaching feature, creating a targeted app for golf courses and an introduction to someone looking to help with PR. Another valuable tip came from one of the attendees who shared during the lunch discussions a tip he was given which was that: “A good photo in your press kit can mean the difference between a page 43 listing & a page 3 listing! “. I am now thinking off all the interesting photos I can add to the press kit!

We have a finite timeline to work towards now with the upcoming Anthill Awards – so am not going to add too much more tonight – as we make our next milestone… you will hear about it!

I also want to say a special thanks to Gary Twomey of IMC for our recent Guest Post on the key Government programs for Startups! Check it out here: https://blogs.msdn.com/b/bizspark_au/archive/2011/11/16/launching-a-startup-mobile-app-in-australia-guest-blogger-gary-twomey-outlines-the-key-government-funding-programs-for-start-ups.aspx