But our goal is to go beyond pure implementation. We’ve overseen the launch of more than 250 successful products, and that experience has taught us what does and does not work in the mobile app market. Our mission is to build you a product that’s designed to succeed, and that means we’re constantly striving to ground the development process in your overall business objectives. Engaging Rootstrap for mobile app development means more than just hiring a bunch of great engineers – it means partnering with a team of business strategists you can trust.

We’re also militant believers in an Agile development framework. Agile is a methodology for developing software grounded in producing a working product as early as possible in the development process. Formed in the early 2000s, Agile development is best understood through the core principles outlined in the Agile manifesto:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

As a mobile app development studio, we’re committed to Agile because we’ve seen it work time after time. Agile allows us the flexibility to respond to new information we learn during development, but keeps us efficient enough to develop on a lean budget. And as always, we strive to make every decision with a keen eye towards overarching business objectives. Our goal is to create real, meaningful ROI for our clients – and we structure every part of our mobile app development process to further that objective.

So why do we go through the trouble of Roadmapping? Why not just start building a mobile app?

The power of Roadmapping is that it removes risk from the (significant) investment of mobile app development. Building a mobile app takes time and money – so you want to be sure that the app will fare will in the marketplace and provide a return on your investment. Roadmapping is a proven, comprehensive methodology for evaluating an app’s chance at success before we start writing code. It lets us identify target user demographics, core value propositions, market positioning, and all the other variables before we start spending big money, providing a low-risk way to hone your product and make sure it’s airtight for building.

But plenty of app developers in Phoenix offer some form of discovery service. What makes Roadmapping different?

The biggest difference is that we do not include Roadmapping as part of our development process. It’s a completely separate engagement: it has its own billing structure, it isn’t tied to development, and after roadmapping, you can take your deliverables to any Agile development shop – not just us.

We structure Roadmapping this way because it makes the process more honest. If you approach discovery as a precursor to development, you’re likely to find the answers you’re already looking for – namely, that yes, this is worth building. Offering Roadmapping as a separate, standalone engagement gives us the freedom to ask questions about the product in earnest. And, because the engagement is low-risk, there’s still time to pivot if we decide the product isn’t well-suited to the market.

But this is talk, and talk is cheap. We get that. Thankfully, our numbers back us up on this. Here are the real reasons we do Roadmapping:

• 18% of Roadmapping alumni raise at least $250,000 in pre-product seed capital.
• 8% of alumni raise at least $1,000,000 in capital.
• This means Roadmapping alumni are 2,600% more likely to get funding than the average startup.
• In all, Roadmapping alumni have raised $500 million of aggregate capital.

Roadmapping is the crown jewel of our mobile app design process, and the data say that it works. If you have an app idea, Roadmapping will hone the core concept, craft a feature set that serves core users, and help you design an app that makes real money.

And when we say rigorous, we mean rigorous. Our engineers and app developers can roll with the best one – we’re comfortable in just about any language, with just about any technology, and in just about any industry you can name. Our experience of more than 250+ products ranges from the standard to the cutting-edge, from Fortune 100 to solo entrepreneur, from web to mobile to everything in between. If you can dream it up, we can pretty much build it – and we’re happily fluent in all of the following:

• Ruby on Rails
• Swift
• HTML5 Mobile App Development
• JavaScript
• JQuery
• Sass
• Compass
• Android App Development
• iOS App Development
• Augmented & Virtual Reality
• API Development

When you partner with Rootstrap, you’re getting more than just an app development partner in Phoenix. You’re tapping into a global team of experts with a pool of experience that runs nearly a decade deep and encompasses literally hundreds of successful products. Beyond just building your mobile app, we’ll help you understand your target user, find the ideal market position for your project, and launch it the right way – so you’re set up for sustainable, long-term growth.

Furthermore, Apple dominates consumer technology in the most developed, mature, and lucrative markets. iOS reigns supreme in the US, North America, and Europe, which are some of the wealthiest areas (and consequently, the juiciest markets) in the world. If you’re launching your app in Phoenix, iOS is a good place to start.

That said, there are some downsides to only making an iOS app. Any way you look at it, the App Store is a less flexible platform for app developers. Apple retains full control over what goes on the App Store, which means they can reject your app at the last minute. They also require a review period of up to 2 weeks for new apps and updates, which can slow down the iteration process. These factors aren’t always important, but they’re good to keep in mind.

If you do decide to pursue app development on iOS, we’re one of the best shops in the business. Our app developers serving Phoenix are masterful in C+, C++, Objective-C, Swift, and any other language you want to write in, and we are militant about our code quality. We’ll build you an app that’s bulletproof down to the very last semicolon – because that’s how you create a product that’s ready for growth.

User acquisition is also cheaper on Android. This means new businesses can acquire a user base faster and for less money on the Android platform, which is a great thing if you need to show traction to potential investors. Often, we’ve seen startups have success by launching their app on Android, building traction, then raising more money for iOS development. If they can do it, you can to – and the Rootstrap team will stand by you and scale with you as you grow.

Thinking globally, Android is also better positioned for growth than iOS. While Apple dominates North America and Europe, Android is the major player in virtually every other market, including fast-growing markets like Latin America and China. Over the next 5 years, this puts Android apps in a better position for global growth than iOS apps – so if you want to build a global empire, Android might be your best bet.

At Rootstrap, we’ll help you build your Android app fast, launch it right, and keep it growing. We’ve built and launched countless apps on the Android store and we know what it takes to iterate and grow a product. Ready to get started?

So are we.