In a world where time is limited and the pursuit of information is constant, developing an app like Blinkist has the potential to be game-changing. Blinkist, a renowned application, has garnered tremendous recognition by providing simplified summaries of non-fiction books. Users of Blinkist can comprehend key insights in a fraction of the time it takes to read a full book. This idea is popular with current readers, emphasizing the necessity for an easy and time-efficient method of acquiring knowledge and improving one’s grasp of numerous academic fields. Talking about the popularity, as of July 2019, Blinkist has a 4.85 Kununu Score, making it the most popular startup out there. The graph below shows you the 10 most popular startup employers in 2019:
Image Source: Statisa
This creative method has not only made reading more accessible, but it has also tailored to the demands of persons with hectic schedules who want to increase their knowledge efficiently. If you’ve ever wanted to create an app that bridges the gap between books and time restrictions, you’ve come to the correct place. Creating an app like Blinkist opens up new avenues for satisfying the ever-increasing demand for concise and insightful information acquisition. In this detailed guide, we will walk you through the process of developing an app similar to Blinkist, breaking it down into practical steps.
This guide will provide you with the knowledge and insights you need to embark on this fascinating endeavor, whether you’re a prospective entrepreneur, a tech fanatic, or simply someone with a love for making knowledge more accessible. So, let’s get started on learning how to make an app like Blinkist.
Do a Market Research Idea Validation
To build a successful app like Blinkist, which offers summaries of insights from non-fiction books, it is essential to first conduct extensive market research and idea validation. Through studying the market, you can learn about your ideal customers’ likes, dislikes, problems, and hopes. By evaluating the competition and seeing opportunities, you can fine-tune your app’s features and value proposition to better serve your target audience. Idea validation further verifies the need and possible success of your app by surveying potential users and learning whether or not they are interested in using and paying for it. The success and widespread acceptance of your app in a crowded app store will be greatly improved if you put in the time and effort to ensure that it meets the needs of your target audience.
Define Your App’s Unique Value Proposition
If you want to make a platform like Blinkist that stands out from the crowd, you need to define your app’s distinctive value proposition. When it comes to summarising books and delivering content, Blinkist is the gold standard. Your app will have to stand out from the crowd by providing something truly useful. For your app to stand out from Blinkist’s, you’ll want to give it some unique features, advantages, and ways of doing things. You can also target your marketing to specific demographics.
Consider adding tools that allow users to discuss the subject matter they’ve read in real time, including chat rooms or online study groups. Incorporate cutting-edge AI algorithms to generate truly personalized reading lists by taking into account each user’s reading tastes, interests, and educational objectives. To further enhance the reading experience, it would be great if visitors could also access associated multimedia content, such as videos, podcasts, or interactive tutorials. Bringing these features together will set your app apart from Blinkist and make it the go-to platform for those looking for knowledge by providing a more dynamic, engaging, and customized approach to learning.
Define Technology Stack
- Building an app with the features and reliability that Blinkist has would necessitate a well-organized technical stack. JavaScript is a good choice for front-end development, Python or Ruby is good for the back-end, and Swift or Kotlin is good for developing mobile apps for iOS and Android. Database management systems like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB can help you efficiently manage your databases and deal with your data.
- The use of frameworks and libraries is crucial while creating mobile applications. Web front-end frameworks like React and Angular are useful for creating dynamic and adaptable user interfaces. Node.js’s event-driven, non-blocking I/O features make it a flexible platform for server-side development.
- To reduce the time and effort spent duplicating code across iOS and Android versions, you can use a cross-platform mobile app framework like Flutter or React Native for the development process. As a whole, having the appropriate technology stack is crucial to creating and maintaining an app like Blinkist.
Design User Experience
When creating an app like Blinkist, it is crucial to emphasize the importance of a user-friendly design by paying close attention to key UI/UX (User Interface/User Experience) best practices and concerns. To boost the app’s chances of being downloaded and used regularly, it should be designed with the user in mind. Easy navigation, consistent branding, and a streamlined interface are all cornerstones of good user interface and user experience design. In addition to making sure the app is running smoothly on a wide range of devices, it must respond quickly to user input and load.
By emphasizing usability testing and collecting user feedback, we can refine the design iteratively to better suit the needs of our target audience. You can increase its marketability and chances of success by paying close attention to UI/UX best practices and taking them into account when designing the product.
Development Process
Creating an app like Blinkist involves multiple stages, from concept to deployment, let’s know what development process you need to follow:
1. Market Research
It is vital to know the market for book summaries and related apps, your intended audience, and the current trends in this field. Conducting market research is essential for developing a compelling value proposition by gaining insight into customers’ wants, needs, and expectations. By studying the market share and features of competitors like Blinkist, one can figure out how to give users a better experience and how to charge more prices for higher-quality content while still making a profit.
2. Planning and Design
When starting the process of developing a similar app to Blinkist, it is crucial to place an emphasis on careful planning and well-considered design. In order to allocate resources effectively and keep the project on track, well-defined goals, a thorough road map, and a solid plan are required. Equally important is the design phase, when the focus should be placed on the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). User engagement and retention can be improved by making the app’s layout, navigation, and aesthetic easy to understand and use. Developers can lay a solid groundwork for the app’s creation by giving careful attention to planning and design.
3. Frontend Development
As the user’s first impression of the app, the front end must be engaging and intuitive. This entails choosing a frontend development technology stack including React Native, Flutter for cross-platform, or Swift/Java/Kotlin for native). For a consistent experience across devices, responsive design is essential. To retain consumers, smooth navigation, attractive design, and engaging components are essential. The front end should match the app’s goal, reflect the brand, and improve user satisfaction.
4. Backend Development
A strong and organized backend is the foundation on which an app like Blinkist can deliver on its promises and satisfy its users. To ensure that everything in the system runs well, backend development is crucial. It entails designing the system that runs the program, such as the server, databases, and application logic. Using the appropriate tools and architectures for data storage, retrieval, and management is essential. Handling an increasing number of users while keeping performance stable requires a system that is both scalable and reliable. Safe data storage, user verification, and individualized service provision are all essential features.
5. Database Setup
Implementing a database setup that can support the demands of a Blinkist-style app is essential. All user data, content, and interactions are stored in the database, making its design and administration crucial. Efficient data storage and retrieval requires careful consideration when choosing a database management system, schema design, and indexing algorithms. As the database expands to accommodate more content and users, scalability becomes increasingly important.
6. API Integration
Integrating APIs is essential for app development. Start with a clear API specification that defines endpoints, request-response forms, and authentication. It organizes app communication. Next, API integration must be smoothly connected with the front end to enable interactive components that fetch book summaries, user data, and reading progress. This integration connects the user interface and backend services, allowing users to easily access app features and content. A good API integration strategy improves user experience and data retrieval and processing, boosting the app’s functionality and appeal.
7. Testing
The mobile app development process isn’t complete until testing has been completed. An in-depth analysis of the app’s features, performance, and user interface is required. Unit testing ensures that individual app elements perform properly; integration testing ensures that all parts work together smoothly. and user acceptability testing (UAT) gathers user comments to improve the product. In order to guarantee the app’s consistent functionality and high-quality user experience, thorough testing is essential.
8. Deployment
Deployment is a crucial phase in bringing the app to life and must be meticulously planned to ensure a successful release. It is the last step in a long and careful process of development. Making an application available to users entails getting it through the final stages of development and testing. The deployment process involves sending the app to the servers where it will run for the target users. To ensure that the app can handle varied amounts of user traffic and maintain high availability, a well-structured deployment plan must be in place, taking into account scalability, load balancing, and disaster recovery.
Deployment
Deployment is a crucial phase in bringing the app to life and must be meticulously planned to ensure a successful release. It is the last step in a long and careful process of development. Making an application available to users entails getting it through the final stages of development and testing. The deployment process involves sending the app to the servers where it will run for the target users. To ensure that the app can handle varied amounts of user traffic and maintain high availability, a well-structured deployment plan must be in place, taking into account scalability, load balancing, and disaster recovery.
Content Acquisition
Since quality content is a core component of an app’s value and appeal, it is essential for attracting and retaining users. It entails the deliberate procurement or licensing of a wide variety of content types, including books, articles, and educational resources. Dealing with publishers, authors, or content providers to get the permissions required to offer their content within the app is a common part of this process. Partnerships, subscription structures, and content production strategies may also be used to maintain a comprehensive and regularly updated collection of materials.
Monetization Strategies
It is important to think about a mobile app monetization strategy to gain a wide range of potential revenue sources to secure the long-term profitability of your app. So it is crucial to consider a wide range of potential revenue streams. As per Statista in the United States, 8% of applications generate revenue from in-app purchases by July 2023, but only 3% of apps worldwide do the same. One-fourth of apps in the United States monetized themselves through advertising. This percentage is significantly lower than the global average of 35% of apps with advertisements. The following graph illustrates the most common app monetization strategies employed by American publishers in July 2023:
Images Source: Statisa
However, the “freemium” model is the efficient monetization strategy which offers a free “basic” version with more advanced “premium” upgrades. In addition, you can achieve monetization through strategic ad integration that does not detract from the user experience. Blinkist, for example, uses a subscription-based business strategy in which they give away a free trial in the hopes of attracting customers and then charge them for access to all of their material. They also provide a one-time payment option for a lifetime membership. By dissecting Blinkist’s implementation of these models, you can learn how to create a profitable business plan for comparable software that takes into account the needs of its target audience.
Marketing and User Acquisition
To attract and retain users, app marketing requires a solid approach. Digital marketing plays a pivotal role as it helps you optimize your mobile app for maximum reach and helps it scale on search engines. You can encompass techniques like search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and content marketing to enhance visibility in online searches and attract organic traffic. Engaging with the target audience, sharing quality information, and running targeted ad campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn is other effective method.
With the help of email marketing, you can also build user relationships and propose content. Public relations, influencer collaborations, and app store optimization (ASO) can enhance visibility and reputation. For user acquisition and retention in a competitive market, a comprehensive marketing strategy that combines these digital methods with a compelling value proposition and user-centric idea is essential.
User Feedback and Iteration
User feedback is a great way to learn about the app’s strengths, flaws, and potential improvement areas from the user’s point of view. It helps developers find bugs, usability problems, and feature choices so they can change the app to meet users’ needs. This ongoing feedback loop encourages a user-centered approach and, in the end, makes the app better and easier to use. Also, as the app changes, incorporating user ideas and preferences makes users more engaged, happy, and likely to keep using it, which helps build a loyal user base.
This feedback-driven, iterative method not only improves the quality of the app but also shows a commitment to giving users a great experience, which is key to long-term success and growth in the competitive app market.
Challenges and Pitfalls
The app development process is packed with challenges and risks. A major challenge is the time and effort required to negotiate for and secure the rights and licenses to use high-quality content. To summarise large amounts of text while preserving the substance and value of the original information is a formidable problem in terms of algorithm development and content organization. Another significant challenge is finding sustainable ways to make money while still satisfying users.
Also, it’s a technical problem that demands careful design and development to make sure the user interface and experience are consistent and interesting across all devices and operating systems. In order to overcome these obstacles, developers need expert-level technical knowledge, a thorough grasp of the market, and a dogged dedication to serving their customers well.
Case Studies and Examples
1. Speechify
One notable example of an app that is comparable to Blinkist but with a unique twist is Speechify. While Blinkist mainly deals with summarising written content, The Speechify application is dedicated to transforming written language into an audible version. Text-to-speech technology, which can read digital documents, books, articles, and other forms of textual content, is one of the services that it provides. Individuals who prefer to learn through audio means or who require reading assistance due to disability can benefit from using this app.
2. StoryShots
Summary and essential insights from non-fiction books, podcasts, and videos are provided by StoryShots. It’s perfect for people who are short on time because they can get the essence of a book in a much shorter form. The app’s popularity comes from its intuitive design and the wide variety of content it offers. StoryShots offers a freemium subscription approach, giving customers a sample of the service before encouraging them to upgrade to premium for unrestricted access to a massive collection of summaries.
3. Instaread
Another app similar to Blinkist is Instaread, which has access to both written and spoken summaries of nonfiction books. Users can get the gist of a book in just 15 minutes, making it a viable solution for those who need to maximize their time spent learning. With the current trend towards optimizing learning and knowledge intake in our time-pressed society, Instaread serves the needs of the modern reader who appreciates concise yet thorough summaries of books.
4. getAbstract
On getAbstract, you can find summaries of several business-related books and articles. It’s helpful for people who want to read less but yet get the most out of their reading because they can quickly get to the meat of a book or article. The platform stands apart from others because of its exclusive concentration on business-related content, delivering insights that are tailored to the needs of professionals and corporate learners. GetAbstract’s focus on lifelong education exemplifies the need for summary apps in fields as diverse as business and personal development.
5. Snapreads
Snapreads is a noteworthy example of an app akin to Blinkist, specializing in providing concise summaries and key takeaways from non-fiction books. This app aims to distill the most important insights from a book into bite-sized portions that can be easily consumed within a short time, catering to individuals with busy schedules. Snapreads offers a user-friendly interface and a wide array of book summaries, ranging from self-help to business and personal development genres. By providing an efficient way to access the essence of a book, Snapreads appeals to users seeking knowledge in a condensed and accessible format, contributing to its success in the domain of content summarization apps.
Create a Blinkist-like App with Experts
It takes meticulous planning, thorough execution, and constant refinement to make an app like Blinkist. A successful app is one that stands out from the crowd by offering something no other app does while still being easy to use. Success in the app store might not occur immediately, but with hard work and regular updates, your app will eventually grow and thrive. This may seem like a lot of work, but if you hire professionals, you can get it done effortlessly and quickly. To succeed in the very competitive market of content summarizing apps, you can opt for mobile app development services from a reliable organization. Their knowledge and expertise will help you bring your idea to reality.
