How To Get Traction for your Tech Startup with Progressive Web Apps
Having to launch a new product comes with many challenges. After several days, months or years working on it, you’re nervous & excited simultaneously about rolling it out. Several questions run through your mind. Will the launch be successful? Will people rush for my product? Will all the effort put in be worth it?
It’s possible to have some of the answers to these questions be YES! You can do that with a strategy for gaining traction.
Why have a strategy for gaining traction?
In business and startup terms, “traction refers to the progress of a startup company having a measurable set of users or customers that serve to prove to potential investors that your startup is going places”. Simply put, is having quantitative evidence of market demand for your product.
Traction is all about creating demand for your product in the early stages, even before launch. You have to anticipate the customers and users you believe are in for your product . Your market research should show you the outstanding problems and how your product will solve these issues.
Quick tips for building traction for your startup
Start Selling Before You Even Have A Product
Don’t have a full finished product just yet? No worries! You can start queuing up your potential customers rather than waiting to launch before you do. There are several free products like Launch Rock you could use to create a simple landing page. Use the landing page to announce and describe your product or acquire emails from interested parties before your launch.
Just like any landing page out there, optimize your page to entice users when they land on the page. For ultimate conversions, consider
- A clear value Proposition
- A single call to action
- Social Proof
- Hero Shot (snapshots of product/product in use)
Below is a clear example of an optimized landing page with all the elements mentioned above.
With an optimized landing page like shown above, you make users aware of what your product does, and the problem it solves. Interested parties fill in their emails and you are already building an audience.
Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox, famously launched a landing page and video for his now uber-popular file sharing service. DropBox’s main product, while now a mainstream tool that many rely on, didn’t even exist at the time Houston released this video. It didn’t matter. Houston designed his landing page to show what the service could look like when it did finally exist. After the video was live, Houston shared it with people in networks like HackerNews and began to build an audience. This initial marketing effort resulted in tens of thousands of potential users signing up to use the product when it launched. {Source: www.startups.com}.
Participate And Contribute Online
As a startup, it is very important to put yourself out there and take advantage of the many online platforms available to you. One way you can do so is by joining online groups and forums you are interested in and which relate to your startup product. Online forums allow people to explore niche subjects while belonging to a like-minded community and this makes for easier networking.
Try your best to contribute and answer questions during discussions and gain trust and popularity in the community. Do that consistently over some time and members tend to appreciate your constant contribution. You’ve now built enough trust to plug in your product discussions and review the engagement, feedback and questions members may have. Listen and don’t hold back on clarifications. At the end of the day, their contributions and questions help make your product better.
Use Progressive Web Apps
A progressive web application takes advantage of the latest technologies to combine the best of web and mobile apps. Think of it as a website built using web technologies but that acts and feels like an app.
” Progressive web apps are more versatile and once they are built they can work on the web, as a desktop app, and as a mobile app”. — Frank Kouadio (Web Design Lead — QodeHub)”
Why Progressive Web Apps?
- They load faster.
- They tend to still have some functionality even when offline.
- They are easier to maintain
- They can be cheaper, long term
Progressive Web Apps vs Native Apps
Speed
A study by “Gabor Cselle” has proven that on average, native apps lose 20% of its users along the line of every step added to the onboarding process. From a user’s initial contact with your app in the store, to download, install, create a profile, create content/test functions to sharing with friends, you are losing users along the line.
Alternatively, when a user finds a progressive web app, they can start using it immediately., Which eliminates the barrier of downloading and installing. The user can install the app at their own time. They only follow a prompt to install the app and upgrade to enjoy the full experience.
Integrated User Experience
When on a PWA, it does feel and behave like you are using a regular native app. They sit in a user’s home screen, send push notifications like native apps, and have access to a device’s functionalities like native apps. The experience feels seamless and integrated and this works great for startups as it helps reduce friction as your users gain quick access.
Capable Of Running Offline
Because PWAs can be cached by the web browser, they can function offline. Which brings a big advantage to your tech startup. Especially for businesses with product catalogs. t allows your customers to browse products even when not connected to the internet, increasing user engagement rates and potentially leading to higher revenue. Even when the internet is down or totally cut, your users and customers can still be active browsing your products.
The list goes on and on
- Low Data Consumption
- Platform specific features
- App store independent
PWA’s are a big boost to your startup business and can help you and your business in so many ways. With a good PWA you tend to have
- Improved conversion rates
- Reduced bounce rates for leads
- More returning visitors
You can read more on the benefits PWA’s bring to your business here
I’m sure you are beginning to see how a PWA will be a better strategy for building traction for your startup. To make you a complete convert, check out these popular apps.
Uber
Uber is a perfect example of a Progressive web app we can all relate to. On the left is the PWA version and on the right side is the iOS app.
Uber Web was rebuilt from scratch as a PWA to offer a comparable booking experience to the native mobile app. The Uber PWA is designed to make car booking viable on low-speed, 2G networks. Built around the concept of app-like experience which is accessible on all modern browsers, The PWA is great for riders on low-end devices, which may not be compatible with the native Uber app.
By bringing the native experience in a super-lightweight web app, Uber has enabled quick ride requests regardless of location, network speed, or device. The core app of only 50kB allows it to load within 3 seconds on 2G networks.
Just like the Uber app, Flipboard is the world’s most popular online social magazine. Flipboard allows users to select and keep up with news and topics they are interested in. Choosing to go with a progressive web app, they give the customer the choice of using the app of preference. In the PWA version, you get prompts to download the native apps, but it’s not forceful.
Flipboard is one of the best examples of PWA for online news. The PWA minimizes data usage to deliver a slick and fast browsing experience, in a beautiful interface. Until the launch of their PWA, Flipboard was a mobile app, which only worked on mobile devices. Now the PWA allows Flipboard to deliver a similar experience to their fully-featured native app on the web, making it available for desktop users as well.
Our goal is to help you gain enough traction for your startup to make it successful. The more traction you get, the more people know about your solution to the problem they have. Use the tips we shared to improve the chances of lower startup costs & increased traction — thus revenue.
As a digital product agency, we have worked on a number of progressive web apps for clients like PayPlux. Reach out and start a conversation about your business and how a PWA can serve you.
Have you interacted with other PWAs apart from those we’ve mentioned? Share your experience with us in the comments. We love hearing your thoughts!
Written by Ian Frank Hutchful — SEO & Content Writer
