How We Used Market Analysis to Come Up with a Killer Feature

The success of Yo, once a viral app with $1.5 million in funding, was short-lived. The messaging application was incredibly simple — it allowed users to say “Yo” to their friends. When the novelty factor wore off, the founders failed to offer any compelling functionality, causing the product to lose popularity quickly. Who knows… if Yo had conducted market analysis to identify user needs, they might have been able to stay competitive on the market and deliver real value to their fun-seeking audience beyond just the novelty factor.

One of our recent clients, a startup from the Netherlands, avoided Yo’s mistake, using market research to build an app that stands out in a crowded market. In this article, the JatApp team would like to share how our market analysis helped the client come up with unique functionality and aesthetically pleasing user interface, giving them a strong competitive advantage.

A startup from the Netherlands wanted to stay competitive in a plant identification mobile app market

Our client is an entrepreneur from Western Europe, who had an ambition to become a leader in the plant identification software market. Given the sector’ saturation with similar solutions, he didn’t want to add one more to the clutter. Instead, he aimed to create a software product that would offer users a genuine value and beat the main competitors, like PictureThis and LeafSnap.

To achieve this stretch goal, the client needed to come up with a unique functionality that would effectively tackle unresolved problems faced by users. As this work required lots of planning and creative thinking, our client decided to play safe and ask professionals for help.

A plant recognition app functionality

At JatApp we have been developing applications just shy of eight years, so we knew that there was no way to start a new project without thorough market research. When working with our client, the main goal of market analysis was to gain a clear understanding of the user problems to be able to discover unique functionality that would give them a competitive advantage.

Failing to plan is planning to fail: Why market analysis is key to building a winning product

As an entrepreneur, you may be tempted to get straight to software development without conducting comprehensive market analysis. After all, you’ve got a brilliant idea, so why waste more time? But let’s hold our horses here, because skipping this important step may lead to catastrophe, and here’s why.

Without market research, you may develop features that neither meet user needs nor solve their problems. As a result, you’re likely to see the lack of users’ interest in your app, which may force you to pour more money to make changes to your software or even start all over with a new product. Investing more resources in the project may cause a serious financial burden on your business, making it harder for you to stay competitive in the market.

To save our client from this scenario, our team analyzed current industry trends and identified user needs as well as major pain points, making sure the product wouldn’t be scuttled once it gets to the market.

How our market analysis gave our client a competitive edge

In reference to our case, the primary objective was to identify methods for our client to gain a competitive advantage and establish themselves as a leader within the industry. Here’s how the detailed market research let us outshine the competitors.

Analyzing competitors to come up with the killer feature

A software solution without killer functionality is similar to an Army knife: an ordinary knife, awful scissors, lousy screwdriver, and marginal bottle opener. Apps without killer features end up being lost in the sea of similar products. People don’t recommend them to their friends and don’t write rave reviews about great user experience.

So, what exactly is killer functionality? Simply put, it is an innovative or unique feature that makes a solution stand out in the crowded market. It could be anything, from a simple but much-needed functionality to a groundbreaking technology.

If you fail to find compelling features, your app isn’t likely to excite users or make them eager to continue their subscriptions in the next months. It would become difficult to compete with other solutions in the same category, which can force you to lower your price. This, in turn, can lead to reduced profits and even business failure.

Lastly, customers may perceive your solution as mediocre and not worthy of their attention, which can severely damage your brand image. Even if you later try to revise your product, you’d need to put way more marketing efforts than if you had released standout functionality from the start.

To find killer functionality for our client, we needed to figure out what was bugging plant lovers and which of their problems remained unsolved. User comments showed that it was hard to identify a specific reason why a plant was dying or not growing. Even though there were solutions that let users diagnose the plant’s disease or fill in the form to email a botanist, customers didn’t seem to have much trust in app algorithms and often wanted to ask many follow-up questions.

To address this problem, we suggested the client added the chat feature. The functionality we built enables customers to get assistance from professional botanists in real-time. This way, users are no longer risking the life of their beloved plants or wasting their time on endless email conversations.

Receiving professional tips via chat

Conducting market research to discover UI design winning formula

People expect a visually attractive user interface (UI) that’s intuitive and easy to use. Anything short of that is likely to end up in the trash bin.

If you fail to make your product easy to navigate, your users may feel overwhelmed, unengaged, or even frustrated. So, the app design that seems more like a nuclear physics book that needs to be explained by a professional may easily repel clients, forcing them to seek help from competitors.

Social media analysis and user reviews gave us valuable insights into how we can make our client’s app both user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing. It allowed us to understand what design elements users gravitated towards and what components they shied away from. For example, we found out that users preferred a minimalist interface that didn’t distract them from their main goals — explore the green world and take care of their plants. Meanwhile, interfaces that have too many elements on the screen were a no-no for most users, as they made it challenging for them to quickly find necessary functionality.

The app interface free from clutter

After studying users’ reviews, our designers came to a conclusion that the lack of contrast made it difficult for older users to navigate through similar solutions on the market. For this reason, we advised the client to create a high contrast interface for their app. With the white background, black font, and deep violet buttons, users could complete their tasks in the app much faster.

The plant identification app interface

Intuitive UI, smooth user experience, unique functionality

Market analysis helped our client differentiate their application from competitors. With its chat feature, the app lets users quickly and easily solve their biggest concern, which is plant care. So it’s no wonder that the product received a rating of 4.3 out of 5 on the AppStore.

Our client was impressed with our approach to market research and left a positive comment on Clutch:

“We have talked to many IT companies before choosing JatApp. Smooth communication with the development team was the very necessary thing for us, because we had an idea of what we needed and a lot of research. JatApp structured everything from the very beginning and offered some interesting functionality. It was done on the so-called pre-sale stage and it impressed us a lot. In the first months after the launch of the MVP, we saw a large increase in users.”

Don’t gamble on business success. Conduct market analysis

When starting a new software project, businesses — both small startups and well-established companies — may tend to skip market analysis. But the truth is you shouldn’t skip it by any means. Even if you’re 100% sure that your product idea is fantastic, without competitor and user needs analysis, you can’t guarantee that your product will be able to face off against other market players. So after the release, you might not see many people rushing to buy a subscription. Trusting your gut feeling may prove beneficial in certain situations, but it is certainly not recommended for software development. So, before you dip your toe into product development, you should always analyze your competitors and explore your user problems.