How to Sell an App Idea in 6 Easy Steps

So, you have an app idea—now what? You know users will love it and how you’ll monetize it, but how do you sell it to potential investors? Here’s how you can do it in six easy steps.

Related: Funding Your App When It’s in the Idea Stage

1. Flesh Out Your App Idea

While you might have an idea for your app floating around in your head, the first step to selling it is to get it down on paper. Write down anything about your app that you can think of, like:

• What’s the main purpose of your app?
• What features are a must? Which ones are you curious about?
• What value will your app bring to its users?
• Do you have any ideas for your app’s name?
• What will the UI look like?
• How will you market and monetize your app?
  

Your answers don’t have to be very detailed at this point, but the more you get down now, the easier it will be when creating your business concept and selling your app.
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2. Research the Market, Competition, and Your Potential Users

Even if you have the best app idea in the world, it’s important to do plenty of research before taking it any further. This includes gathering data on the overall market, competing apps, and the people to who you’ll market your app. We’ll go over each of these three categories.

The Overall Market

The app stores are saturated with all sorts of programs—will yours stand out? Ask yourself these questions about your app:

• Are there other apps that serve the same purpose?
• If so, which app stores are they available in?
• How many downloads or active users do they have?
• Where are its users located?
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Competitor Apps

Find the apps that are most similar to your ideas, features, and target audience. Then, find the answers to these questions:

• How are they similar to & different from your app idea?
• What are their reviews like?
• How do they handle marketing?
• How are their apps monetized?
• How do they handle user retention?
  

Potential Users

You should know who your app will target, but what do you know about them? Find out these characteristics of your potential users:

• What is their age group?
• Are you marketing primarily towards males, females, or both?
• Are you marketing primarily towards adults, children, or both?
• Are there people with specific occupations that you’re targeting? Which ones?
• Where do they go to find new products?
  

3. Create Your Business Concept

Using your answers from the two previous steps, you’ll create your business concept—a document that shows your refined app idea along with a comprehensive business plan. This document should be able to answer any questions that your investors might have about your app.

Related: Develop Your App Idea for Less

Here’s what your business concept should look like:

• Your app project—A description of your app and its features, what value it brings to your users, and what makes it unique.
• Your users—An analysis of your prospective users regarding their demographic information.
• Market & competition overview—Show why that particular market is attractive and why it will continue to grow, list your competitors, how your app is different, and how it will compete with them.
• Marketing strategy—List what channels you’ll launch your app on, how you’ll grow your user base, and what locations you’ll focus on for promotion.
• Roadmap to growth—Write down how many downloads you expect in the future, how many active users you anticipate, and your plan for user retention.
• Monetization—How your app will make you and your investors money, whether it’s through subscriptions, in-app purchases, or anything else.
  

4. Start Working on Development

Even though we’re focusing on selling an app idea, it’s still a good idea to work on development—investors like to see a working product. There have been many times that large tech companies purchased a working project. The precedents are set, and if you want to see large figures when viewing offers for your app idea, you’ll need something to show those companies. An app development company like Strides can help you bring your app idea to life in a matter of weeks.

5. Launch Your App & Watch It Grow

Now, it’s time to launch your app idea (after thorough testing, of course), and the business concept document you created earlier should contain all of the info you need. After beginning development and thorough testing, you can implement your marketing strategy and start promoting your new app if you haven’t been already. 

Attracting investors means growing your app by increasing the new and active user count, introducing new features, showing that you can retain customers, engaging with your users, etc.

Do the best you can to maintain a good reputation for your app by:

• Adhering to the app store rules
• Being helpful to your users
• Responding to inquiries
  

Remember, when potential investors come looking, they’ll do their due diligence before investing in your app.

6. Look for (and Pitch to) Potential Investors

Here are some guidelines to follow for finding investors to buy your app idea:

• Make a List of Companies That Buy App Projects

To sell your app idea, you’ll need to find a tech company that’s willing and capable of buying projects. The best way to go about this is searching for tech companies with recent acquisitions and see if they align with your ideas.

• Find the Companies Relevant to Your App Idea

When deciding which companies to pitch to, analyze their acquisitions to see if your app would fit into their growth roadmap and overall business model. You’ll want to limit your initial list to the most relevant companies.

• Determine Who to Contact

Once you have your list of companies, visit each one’s website and see if you can find contact info for the person who handles business investments. If you’re unable to find it, you can usually find these people on LinkedIn and reach out to them through that platform.

Related: How to Successfully Pitch Your App Idea in 2021

• Get in Touch & Pitch Your App

Once you find out who to contact, it’s time to start pitching! This can be messages on LinkedIn, emails, phone calls, or even in-person meetings if the potential investor is in your area. 

Remember, when pitching your app idea, don’t give away too much information about your app, and everything you do disclose should be under an NDA signed by both parties.
Ready to turn your app idea into a reality? Reach out to Strides—We build, launch, and scale app projects for startups and business owners.