Nothing is built in a Day - Chat with Anubha Goel
Missed today’s facebook chat with Anubha Goel? Fret not; you can catch up with it now on the blog. Aubha an IT professional worked in software industry for nine years and quit the job for her kids. Later on she founded Arni Solutions, an application development company focused on designing educational applications for kids and make learning fun. Read on to know what she had to say.
Getting started:
Within a few years of leaving her IT job Anubha embarked on the entrepreneurial journey with Arni Solutions which had always been her husband’s dream. He was the one who pursued her into creating something new. Arni Solutions is currently focusing on building educational applications for kids. They have fourteen phonics and mathematics apps based on Android and Apple App Store, designed for kids from kindergarden to grade four. Very soon they will be coming up with apps on science and general knowledge. You can find these great apps for your kids here.
Comeback in the software world
Anubha feels it isn’t hard for moms to get back into software development after a career break. She says, “A software programmer will not take much time to get back because the skills will always be there. Tools and softwares are all available online. Lot of help is there on technical forums. Just have the passion to create something new.” According to her one should never lose touch from programming, be updated about the updates and learn consistently. If one is good at the basic skills and updated with current scenario, the things go well. She was passionate about teaching her kids, which led to the creation of the apps Arni Solutions now builds. Her first app took almost a year to be approved by Apple, she feels one should never fear rejection.
Product design:
Many entrepreneurs, who are making a product, also get stuck with product design. According to Anubha’s experience teaching her own kids helped her a lot. She always tried to find the best way to teach concepts to them. Then she went through as many books as possible and researched her competitor apps as well. This is what led her to have a good and user friendly product design. A developer should regularly test their design and make it a regular process. Anubha’s beta testers were generally kids of friends and relatives.
Marketing the right way:
To make sure that the apps are well marketed and reach the right customers one should ensure that the content is well researched and user interface is very good. Apple itself sets very high standards on design, app content and user interface. For her educational apps Anubha tried to put best screenshots, nice description and content forward. She says, “Our very different and descriptive content was what was liked by most parents and word of mouth helped us lot in spreading wide.”
How to make an app profitable:
According to Anubha as far as educational apps are concerned free apps, they mostly offer in-app purchases or are not of much use. Their apps were very well researched and the concepts they covered were unexplored when they launched them. Today also Arni Solutions try to create apps which don’t waste kids’ time and give them the best. One cannot decide whether they will make profit from an app but they should always try to serve their customers the best.
Last piece of advice:
Things take time to take shape. Don’t ever stop trying and keep making efforts. Anubha adds the place where she is standing today took her five years. Nothing came out in one day. So keep trying stay passionate about your goal.