Most app projects don't fail because of bad code. They fail before a single line is written. The decisions that doom them aren't made during development. They're made when teams rush into building without validating their fundamental assumptions.
The statistics are stark. Research from the Standish Group shows 70% of app projects fail due to misaligned expectations and market misunderstanding. McKinsey reports IT projects run 45% over budget on average while delivering 56% less value than predicted. And IBM's Systems Sciences Institute found that fixing an error after release costs 4-5x more than catching it during design.
The Planning Gap
When projects skip structured discovery, budget estimates routinely miss by 200-300%. With proper upfront planning? Accuracy improves to within 15%. That gap represents the difference between a controlled investment and an expensive gamble.
Consider this number: 45% of features in software projects are never used. Nearly half of what gets built, tested, and shipped never delivers value. Discovery helps identify and eliminate this waste before building anything.
Who Benefits Most?
Non-technical founders gain translation between business vision and technical requirements. Without internal expertise, choosing between native iOS, Android, Flutter, or React Native development is nearly impossible.
Funded startups need efficient feature prioritisation before burning through runway. After raising capital, the pressure to show progress can overwhelm the discipline to plan properly.
Enterprises launching new digital products require stakeholder alignment across marketing, IT, finance, and operations. 30% of project failures trace directly to poorly defined goals and stakeholder misalignment.
The App Gameplan
At Foresight Mobile, we built The App Gameplan specifically to address this gap. It's a fixed-price £3,500 engagement spanning four weeks, requiring only 5-7 hours of your time. You get technical feasibility assessment, interactive prototypes, prioritised roadmaps, and detailed cost estimates.
If you proceed to development, the fee is credited against your first sprint. If you don't, you keep all deliverables.
The 70% failure rate in app projects isn't destiny. It's the result of preventable mistakes made before development begins.
Read the full article on our blog: Why 70% of App Projects Fail Before Launch
Ready to validate your app idea? Get a Board-Ready Answer with The App Gameplan
Foresight Mobile is a Manchester-based Flutter app development agency with 21+ years of collective mobile experience. We've delivered 50+ apps for clients including Electronic Arts, Levi Strauss, Bodybuilding.com, and Bandwidth.
