When you have made an app that has become viral, it’s vital that you don’t look back at its inception in regret. The number one thing you must worry about is the app being stolen. Whether it’s other companies making a copy of it, selling it illegally, or copying the features that you have spent years designing, testing, and implementing.
However, we have to think of apps very differently in order to fully protect them. They are an asset. Just like assets such as buildings, they need to be maintained, renewed and made sure that nothing is encroaching on their space. But how do we do this? By having excellent clauses in contracts and managing the asset.
Subscription-based style
Every new app has to be subscription-based. It’s highly irregular now to lock into an app, i.e. buying it as a product and being stuck with it until being able to buy another. Small businesses don’t want to have older apps on their machines with no hope of continued updates. That’s why you should make your app into a subscription-based service, which customers can opt-in and out of, once their contracts are finished. You can still have contracts that lock customers in for a set period of time, but eventually, they can always go off to another brand or renew their subscription.
Management solutions
When you have multiple apps under your creation, then you have to manage them. Using an IT Asset Management Solution you can do just that. The dashboard is very easy to use, giving you the ability to multi-task and manage your apps independently. They can store your assets on the cloud allowing them to be updated whenever you wish, by uploading a new version that has fixed bugs and has new patches to make it more optimal. The key is to continually know where your assets are, making sure that they cannot be hacked and stolen.
Copycat stealing
Many companies that make apps may download your app and start to reverse engineer it. This can be dangerous even if they don’t steal it. They can replicate the features, and try to offer them to your clients and customers, in their own product. You can avoid this copycat tit for tat clash if you put a copyright mark on your app, have automatic close features whenever someone is delving into the code and also, require consent in order to fix errors manually. This can be tricky to do but if you hire a good copyright lawyer and a good technical design lawyer, you can word your terms and agreement carefully enough.
Test app
Before a client signs up to use your app, give them a test version which they can use on their own and find out if they would really like to use it. The benefit of this is two-fold. You show confidence in the product and you also limit the amount of time a client has to use your app without paying for it. It helps to get them on board but not enjoy the full fruits of your labor until they have signed up.
Assets in the forms of apps are very lucrative these days, as long-term subscriptions are the new way to make large profits. These tips should allow you to understand how you can protect your app.