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Posted by on Jun 17, 2013 in Apps, Mobile | 0 comments

5 Ways To Scale Your App Like A Big Brand

5 Ways To Scale Your App Like A Big Brand

This article is a summation of insights derived from VB’s interview with CTO of Evernote Dave Engberg. Needless to say, Evernote is one of the most poular Mobile Apps in history, having made its way well across most iOS and Android devices, and even moving in on Blackberry and Windows.  Below are 5 Tips from the CTO of one of the App Ecosystems most successful apps.

Let’s do this.

1) Be Different.

Not just think different, be different. This is especially true if you were thinking of making an evernote-like app. Engberg suggests,
“99% of startups should be in a cloud environment,”

Services like: Amazon Web Services, Windows Azure, and Rackspace Cloud can all help with just that.

When thinking about how to spin off an original creation that’s not doomed as inviable from day one, you can take a glance at the market and ask “what can be done better?”. Remember, inefficiency = opportunity. With that in mind, there is plenty of opportunity in the App Ecosystem, BUT – users aren’t going to be impressed to see a one-off of something that’s been around for years.

 

2) Ask not,: “What can I do for the cloud, but what can the cloud do for me?”

As most would guess, having things based in the cloud is the ideal environment for any up-and-coming internet company.

““The cloud is fantastic if you have certain types of problems. If your bandwidth is really spiky and varies from day to day, cloud services let you pay just for what you’re using. Same goes for storage and processing demands,”

says Engberg.

However, for a company that takes in as much data as Evernote – using a cloud service for storage would be a nightmare.

 

3) Build Your API First

Engberg stresses the importance of building your API then app interface which is contrary to what most startups are doing these days. Adding,

““At Evernote, we knew from the start that we were going to have multiple applications. We also knew we needed to design for synchronization at scale, so we built our API first and used that to build interfaces as opposed to what web companies would have done,”

This is especially true if you want to go cross-platform and be able to scale rapidly (I would assume you do).

 

4) Focus on Talent Then Infrastructure

While this one is certainly debatable, Engberg suggests having an emphasis on acquiring the right talent, especially if ifrastructure overhead is minimal.

saying,
“Hardware is cheap, so you should be innovating on it as little as possible. Startups should focus on the most established stable commodity infrastructure and then focus on their core businesses and people,”

With an app that has 60+ Million users, and 330 person workforce, only 14 of them are on the technical side. That’s saying something.

 

5) Go for the Low Hanging Fruit.

When a new platform launches you wan to be there on Day 1. The story of how Evernote designed the iPad version of their app before even having one to work with is quite an interesting one.

“Phil (Evernote’s CEO) made a cardboard copy of the iPad just so we could get a sense of how the thing would feel,” Engberg said. That’s a long way to go just to be on a new platform at launch, but it’s that kind of tenacity that has helped Evernote get to where it is today.

The big challenge on the horizon, Engberg says, is iOS 7, which is going to force developers to revamp their apps to suit all of its new features. “iOS 7 is going to cause some upheavals.”

So the real question is then, are you ready for iOS 7? You can bet Evernote will be; although I don’t think they have much to change as far as the UI is concerned given the design is relatively flat as it is.

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Kevin is an Online and Mobile Marketing Strategist who has worked with companies of all sizes over the last 6 years. You can follow Kevin on any of the social platforms below.

 
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