Radio Plus: Our Journey to the App Store and Beyond

Last week we were invited to be guests on the Radio Plus Talk Business show hosted by Mark Sephton. With a lot of nerves and excited energy we arrived at the studio ready to talk about being entrepreneurs and creating our very first lifestyle app, Countdown Keeper.

The first part of the radio show focused on us as individuals, the journey that led us to meet each other and how we find life as entrepreneurs. Mark asked some thought-provoking questions including what makes each of us happy and what we feel our purpose in life is! We weren't informed of the questions before and being one of life’s planners I’m not the best at ‘off-the-cuff’ answers to questions of such significance but I answered with sincerity. As friends and business partners Jane and I share the same goal to reach the end of our lives and look back at all the places we’ve been, experiences we’ve encountered, products we’ve created and people we’ve inspired along the way by making things happen.

Mark also asked us to discuss our strengths and how we complement each other as business partners. Something that we already knew about our partnership is that, between us, we have a good balance of moving forward but keeping focused on the present. We are both impatient out of excitement and eagerness to explore different ventures within our business but between us we try very hard to dedicate our focus to one thing at a time (well three things at a time as opposed to ten!)... we're working on it!

Mark also touched upon what makes us happy and apart from Jane’s beautiful dog Beau (now my adopted friend too!) we highlighted the roller-coaster that is the life of an entrepreneur. Something all business owners have to be prepared for are the lows that can be really tough, challenging, stressful and with a lot of beating yourself up, but then the come the highs! The highs are the reason Saturday and Sundays become working days, they are the elation felt at even the slightest issue being overcome, highs are hearing that a new client loves what we offer and how we do things differently, and a high certainly is cracking the HTML code over on our blog! These happy moments are everything to us and are so much more meaningful than in any job we have ever had before because we're achieving these milestones all on our own.

We like to meet as many entrepreneurs as we can to share their advice when starting out in business and find out what keeps them striving forward, you can read our interviews with them here. 

After a brief business round up, where I shared a somewhat fumbled view on Bill Gates (I was caught off guard!), we got onto the interesting stuff… all-things apps!

We were asked to explain the vision for our app business which is to create meaningful lifestyle apps with a purpose, solving problems and enhancing everyday life. We must have, between us, nearly 100 app ideas and we, like everyone else every couple of days will be inspired by an experience and note down ‘we could create an app for that!’. 

Mark asked us for tips on creating an app and so far in our small journey, through extensive research we have realised that the most important steps you can take before you even decide to go forward with an app idea are the following principles – and they take time!

*Please Note: we are by no means experts (yet!) we are just sharing our findings with you!*

1. Research everything you possibly can about the app industry
2. Track the App and Android stores to find out what types of apps are downloaded and why over a period of 6-12 months
3. Find your audience – where are they? Do they even download and use apps?
4. Establish your app’s purpose – why are people going to love it and need it every day?
5. Find people to work with who get you, the concept behind your idea, who you trust and tell you how it is (this step is very hard!)
6. Plan your marketing – this is the most important step, how are you going to get people to find your app?

To listen to our thoughts on these points head to this link where you can hear the interview in full. We hope to write an eBook after the launch of Countdown Keeper where we will share what we’ve learnt about the journey with others, including the good, the bad and the ugly!

On a final note we talked about how we wanted to inspire other women to create a business, specifically in the tech industry. Next week, October 15th will mark the fantastic Lady Geek’s first 'Her in Hero Day' where schools are encouraged to celebrate Ada Lovelace, recognised as the first computer programmer in the 19th Century. The campaign highlights past and present female tech heroes and aims to inspire girls to change the world through technology. It's something we're proud to be helping to spread awareness of and have encouraged our local Alderbrook School to be involved. To find out more about Lady Geek, Little Miss Geek and their campaigns head to their Facebook page to be part of the conversation.

We look forward to appearing back on Radio Plus to share more insights into the world of apps soon and in the meantime you can find out more and sign up to be the first to hear about Countdown Keeper, released in November, here.

Katie x