6 things we learned scaling our app amid huge competitors

Photo credit: Pixabay.

We feared the competition. They were big and we were from Latvia (a country with a population of 2 million). Our competitor had a head start, as they had already established a strong brand in the world of trading apps. They had a couple hundred positive reviews and were on top of the search list.

After nearly three months of waiting in fear, we finally asked ourselves: Are we really going to surrender without even standing face to face with the enemy? Our answer was no, and that’s how we started building our trading app, The Trading Game.

Here are the lessons we learned.

Size does not matter

The size issue exists only in the mind. To deal with it, you have to change your mindset. Think of ways in which being small can be an advantage. In our case, it was flexibility and the willingness to take risks. The bigger player had a great app but they were playing safe.

We knew that we had to do something fresh and different. The market for school-like apps was already saturated. Frankly, we wouldn’t be able to get a piece of that pie, as all of the apps were great. We had to find a specific niche that wasn’t full yet.

We decided to cater to the needs of the younger generation by making the learning process fun and easy. We figured out that young people tend to get bored quickly, so we made the lessons in our app short and sweet. To top it off, it is a cartoon of Donald Trump that teaches users how to day trade, and like him or not, he certainly draws attention.

Forget about borders

We were ready to fight, but we suddenly discovered a problem. None of our team members were fluent in English. Our app was nearly ready, but we were still desperately searching for someone who could write our promotional materials. Don’t even get me started on how hard it is to find great English writers in Latvia! Fortunately, a friend of mine recommended searching online for freelancers, and that’s how we got the job done.

Remember that you are not tied to your country. There are virtually no borders now, as hundreds of skilled freelancers from all around the globe are waiting to help you. You don’t have to hire a full-time employee to get certain tasks done and you don’t have to limit yourself to your own country when finding resources.

Don’t be afraid to play in the big leagues

Let your users have some fun

Customize your audiences

Your country may be small, but your market is huge