Behind every good project is a well-designed launch plan and budget. Course Assist is no exception to this. I've spent quite a lot of time, literally months😅 thinking of how exactly I'll go about launching Course Assist and how much money I'll be spending on it. Let's break it down.
The launch plan🚀
The Course Assist launch is going to take place in a phased manner. I've opted for this because it is my first actual project and a huge investment also😅. I'd like to take the time to set everything up correctly. At the moment both apps are probably crawling with bugs, mostly the ones that are less obvious so because of this the project will launch first as a closed beta with only the Course Assist Expert app Android version. The diagram below lists the stages of the launch;
Expert app BETA launch (Android): The Course Assist Expert app beta will be launched first to facilitate the registration and vetting of experts. There is no Course Assist without experts so I need to get as many experts as possible into the app before the User app launch. It's also very important that these experts registering are vetted to make sure they're genuine and are fit to answer the questions posted. Experts who pass the vetting process and are added to the app will also have to go through an orientation process to get familiar with the guidelines on how to use and act on the platform.
User app BETA launch (Android): The Course Assist User app beta launch will happen after the Course Assist Expert app beta launch. Again this will be a closed beta with only a select few people, this will be done to get as much feedback as possible to see where suggestions not only technical but also general will be made to make improvements to the app in preparation for the full launch.
Full Course Assist Launch (Android): Once the beta stages have been wrapped up and a good amount of feedback has been obtained and necessary changes made, the apps will be made open for all app experts and users to sign up💃🏿. Experts will still have to go through vetting to determine their credibility. Orientation will be done to get them up to speed.
Full Course Assist Launch (iOS): The full Course Assist iOS launch will come last because of 2 main reasons. First I'll be paying the Apple App Store registration fee a little later because I don't have the $100 charge at the moment and second the iOS app clearance process could take months from what I've heard so I'll have to wait till that's complete to launch on iOS🙄. But the plus side of this is that because the Course Assist apps are built in React Native which is just one code base for both iOS and Android whatever changes I make during the Android beta will automatically be implemented in the iOS version therefore the iOS version will have minimal bugs at launch😁.
All the above stages will feature a lot of marketing and advertising to attract a lot of experts and users for the beta and full launch.
The budget💰
Course Assist is a budget project therefore I've adopted an ONLY SPEND MONEY WHERE NECESSARY APPROACH❗️. I wrote a list of the things I have to spend money which includes everything from hosting to advertising. But because I'm only spending where necessary I broke down the list further and removed items that weren't necessary costs such as building a landing page and creating a logo which I can do myself😅. Fortunately for me, there are also some things that I don't have to pay for right away such as hosting because my provider Digital Ocean gives $200 free credits for 2 months🥳. This budget is based on what I'll be spending in the first month of the Couse Assist launch and is as follows:
Google Play Store registration fee - $25
Apple App Store registration fee - $99
Business email charges - $2
Meta ads - $5 to $20
Twitter ads - $5 to $20
ESTIMATED TOTAL: $151
Now this budget is just an estimation of what I can think of at the moment and also the information I gathered from the Internet and is subject to change, some costs such as advertising are just estimated ranges of which I've taken the mid amount and added that to the total. What I've gathered here is purely for estimation purposes and just to give an idea of what the immediate project costs are.
With a launch plan and budget mapped out I'm now a step closer to getting Course Assist out into world🌍. Stay tuned to the blog to see how I'll continue running Course Assist. Thanks for reading and see you in the next one🙏.