These simple tips will help you document your brilliant app idea clearly and accurately. A well-structured document will allow you to gather multiple quotes and choose the best provider for your app development.

Many times, as a company focused on mobile app development, we’ve encountered various cases where individuals or organizations approach us with the intention of starting a mobile app project. During a call or meeting, they eagerly share their plans with us. However, what seems to be a smooth conversation suddenly becomes somewhat vague when we start asking basic questions such as:

If all these questions seem complicated, don’t worry. In this article, you’ll understand each point and be ready to start documenting your requirements.

To get started, we recommend being upfront with the provider and letting them know if you’re just looking for a general estimate of the investment for your project, or if you need a full and formal commercial proposal because you’ve already decided to purchase your app in the near future.

To obtain a budget estimate, it’s not necessary to create such a detailed document. A brief description given to the provider will suffice, along with a request for a cost estimate.

If you want to receive a formal and complete commercial proposal, it’s important to understand what an RFP (Request for Proposal) or SDP (Solicitud de Propuesta) is in Spanish.

As the name suggests, it’s a document you need to create with the purpose of outlining all the necessary requirements for the execution of your project. This document details various technical aspects that the service provider must consider in order to understand and craft an attractive and competitive proposal. This will allow you to gain a clear understanding of your options, closely aligned with your needs, helping you make the best decision.

Below, we provide you with 10 practical tips to help you solidify and document your idea, and streamline your requirements gathering process:

ABOUT THE PROCUREMENT ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS

1. Clearly define the objective of your project.

To address this point, the first questions you should ask yourself are: What business problem are you trying to solve? Or, what service will your consumers receive through your app? Will the app help increase your revenue? Will it make you more efficient and reduce costs? Is the investment in app development justified by the benefit of solving the problem?

Clarifying these points will help you pinpoint the purpose and rationale of your application and even determine if you really need to develop a mobile app.

2. Define the timeline for the procurement process.

Another important aspect of an RFP is clearly outlining the dates involved in the process. This includes the date of publication and distribution of the RFP, the period for receiving questions, the deadline for receiving proposals, and the date when the winner of the bid will be announced. This will formalize your procurement process and allow you to evaluate different providers on equal terms.

3. Specify the order of presentation of the documentation.

Consider defining in your RFP how you want the documents to be presented. This will help streamline the review process.

In our experience, we have participated in projects where potential clients request that the documentation be organized in a specific order within their RFP. This might include company documentation such as provider identification, RFC, articles of incorporation, and certifications, on one hand, and typically requests the technical and financial proposals separately.

It is advisable to present these two proposals separately when your company is significantly large and involves different departments, with different people responsible for approving the project. It is common for those evaluating the technical proposals to be the end users of the application with support from the IT department, while the financial proposal is usually evaluated by the procurement, purchasing, or even general management departments.

If multiple people in your company are involved in decision-making, it’s recommended to request separate technical and financial proposals. This allows for a decision that closely aligns with business needs without being influenced by cost and vice versa.

If the same people in your company will evaluate both the technical and financial proposals, you likely do not need to receive separate proposals and it may be simpler to receive a fully integrated document.

ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY REQUIRED FOR THE PROJECT

4. Do you have the required infrastructure for your app?

At this point, you should mention whether your company has the necessary infrastructure to host the content that integrates the mobile application, such as servers. Alternatively, if the implementation should be handled by the developer, you can request quotes for both options if you have any doubts.

5. Will it be for iOS or Android?

It is crucial to define from the beginning which platform you want to develop your app for. This will allow providers to consider costs as one of the basic factors and provide you with a budget estimate within the financial proposal. The most popular operating systems for mobile app development are iOS and Android.

Another factor to consider is whether you want the platform to be developed in native technology for each operating system or to implement a hybrid app development. A hybrid app allows a single codebase to be used to export and run the app on multiple platforms.

There are various tools on the market, known as frameworks, that facilitate hybrid development. Some of the most popular include Appcelerator, PhoneGap, Xamarin, and Ionic, among others.

Depending on the project, it might be more convenient to use or not use a framework. However, as app developers, we recommend that if your budget allows, you opt for native development. This uses technology specific to Android for the Android app and Apple’s technology for iOS development.