MENA is one of the fastest growing tech hubs and offers financial to economic incentives to investors who take a plunge in technical entrepreneurship. The success however depends on two strong factors: a unique idea that solves a pressing problem, and its right execution. If you are an aspiring technopreneur, here are five technical product ideas to launch in this decade:
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1. SaaS
SaaS, abbreviated for Software as a Service, functions like a typical software program, but offers more utility because they are hosted centrally. The most common customers of a SaaS include business and enterprise users and they like to pay on a subscription model. Diverse freemium and premium packages are the ideal monetization strategies for SaaS.
If you’re up for launching a SaaS program, niches like videoconferencing, marketing automation and lead generation, AI-based content creation and business management are trending.
As far as development budgets are concerned, SaaS programs can cost anywhere from 100,000 AED to more than 400,000 AED for technical development. You can manage and optimize these development costs either by building and launching an MVP first, then adding advanced features in form of updates as your users request for more.
In any case, you’ll have to hire a custom software development company, with at least five professionals including a project manager, business analyst, front and backend developer, UI and UX designer and quality assurance tester.
2. Mobile game
Mobile games are also a financially rewarding technical niches. These games, whether you launch for Android, iOS or cross platforms, offer healthy monetization opportunities. You can choose to launch a free game that earns from ads and sponsored content, a premium game that earns from subscriptions, or a freemium with limited free features and premium advanced features.
The success lies in delivering diverse game content. You can choose from tens of game niches like arcade, real time strategy, role playing, sports, horror, wars and battles, historic and gothic etc.
Game development costs can range from anywhere between 70,000 AED to 300,000 AED for games with advanced AR and VR integrations, blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and Internet of Things. For optimizing and managing budgets, we recommend hiring locally a game app development company in UAE.
3. Healthcare app
These healthcare applications, whether in form of mobile app development dubai, traditional software or SaaS bridge the gap between healthcare services demand and supply. They allow easier access of healthcare to remotest areas, in form of telemedicine and online consultancy.
Unlike other niches, healthcare has a lot of diverse niches to offer, and so, you as an investor can pick subcategories of your application in areas that interest you. Two broad divisions include physical and mental health, and in both you can offer apps that work as reminders, billing solutions, symptom managers, disease managers, or online consultant and chatbots.
Cloud solutions are also getting trendier in the healthcare niche. These ERP systems automate billing and insurance procedures, reduce operational hospital costs, help with planning for supply of staff, services and equipment and improve overall HIPAA compliance.
4. Smartwatch app
A slightly different niche than mobile games and SaaS programs that run on browsers, smartwatch apps are for wearable devices as the name suggests. These apps have a minimal user interface and have to offer exceptional user experience to satisfy users who are on the go.
The best types of smartwatch apps work in niches like reminders, note taking tools, healthcare integrations like heart rate monitors and physical activity trackers.
Like mobile apps, you can choose to introduce smartwatch apps for Google’s Wear OS devices, or Apple smartwatches. Or, you can take a cross platform approach. In fact, smartwatches give you more options. You can choose to accompany your smartwatch code iterations with mobile app extensions or offer them as standalone apps that function only in smartwatches.
Smartwatch apps cost anywhere between 40,000 AED to 80,000 AED for development. highly advanced smartwatch apps that offer multiple services, features and functions can cost more than 100,000 AED.
5. Fintech program
Fintech programs offer an amalgamation of financial services and emerging technologies. Decentralized exchanges, play to earn games, online investment platforms, cryptocurrency trading forums, online banking, money transfer, forex functions are all examples of fintech programs.
Because of the user base, and the need for security and reliability in this niche, these fintech apps, whether for mobile, browsers or smartwatches open hundreds of ways for innovation and financial stability.
Your app, SaaS program or traditional fintech software can target diverse to specific customer segments depending on the features you provide. Fintech apps like PayPal, Square, Stripe, Wealthbase and Acorns take hefty development investments, and offer handsome paybacks with right marketing.
Wrapping Up…
After a unique idea and right execution, your technical venture also needs strong project management, timely launch, risk mitigation, stable cashflows, and effective marketing to kickstart, skyrocket and pay back as you had envisioned. Considering how the MENA region and the technical advancements are quadrupling, there is no time better than now to start building a technical venture of your choice.