How to build a productivity app like Trello?

Updated on Jan 22nd, 2024

How to build a productivity app like Trello

Ready to learn about Trello’s workflow?

Well, we get it. It is not an easy job to execute projects.

A tonne of duties, meetings, reports, and more need to be handled, an immediate formula for tension and exhaustion!

To maximise the efficiency of their jobs over and again, individuals have reinvented many methods and concepts. When the way we work shifts, so does the way we do the job. The multi-platform team collaboration service is the new and greatest productivity technique that most businesses use today. Trello is one of the most popular tools providing this service. We will talk more about Trello later in this post, but in brief, it is a project and task management tool which uses lists, cards, boards, and many more in order to get users managed with everything.

For now, Trello is massive and it’s only growing wider. They recently revealed they have crossed 25Million users around the globe that’s up with just 19Million users in year 2019, making it among the most successful applications out there for team collaboration, product and project development.

Industry-dominating corporations such as Google and world-changing organizations such as the Red Cross are using Trello. It’s finally been able to help you and your company and business get much more things done quickly with global acceptance, right?

That’s exactly the question we are addressing in this blog. Maybe you are one the individuals who’ve considered making a replica of this famous application for your own business and company. You are simply thinking how to develop a Trello-like app and how much it would cost. Seeking answers to the both of your concerns, read on.

Note: This blog is NOT like any other post on the web that you are going to read.

Why?

Because, we’re writing this post on the basis of our experience and success in app development, in this blog you would get an answer to the following:

  • Quick overview on Trello.
  • Why should you use it for your business?
  • Benefits of such apps.
  • What sort of problems does it solve?
  • How to develop an app like Trello, including what to do and what not to.
  • Trello’s business model.
  • Tech stack and some key considerations.

So without any further ado, let’s dive inn.

What is Trello?

Trello-Productivity app

OK, in the own words of Trello, “It’s a collaborative software that provides you with a visual overview of what has been worked as to who is working on it and how far they have gone”. Trello is like Instagram of task management software. For each project in your business and life, it is a visual stream of every job and project. A new product can be prepared and implemented just as easily as a family holiday.

The finest part is that it was built for everyone to use, not just project managers, making it open to SMB’s of 250+ and small teams of 3 or 10 members. The simplicity of Trello implies that it is simple and easy to use. No wonder it’s being embraced by big and small companies.

Flexibility, familiarity, and collaboration make Trello different from other similar applications.

Moving on,

For whom Trello and such productivity apps for?

Trello addresses the needs of people and small to medium-sized businesses, often even big companies and enterprises, as a collaborative tool for organizing tasks and initiatives. A vast number of users in a range of industry realms have already embraced it like software development, marketing, advertisements, consumer products and many more. The Chartbeat, Adobe, The New York Times, TripAdvisor and plenty more are among the most noteworthy clients of Trello. Trello shows hundreds of sample use cases to offer you insights about how you can use this tool effectively and efficiently. It offers Planning conferences, organizing ideas, development board; vacation planning the list goes on and on.

If you question what else you might use Trello for in addition to handling work tasks, take a look at the below listed benefits of using these applications for your business or company.

Core benefits of these apps for businesses

Benefits for businesses

  • Easy collaboration with the team.
  • Searchable database.
  • Enhanced security and integrations.
  • Easy to organize anything.
  • Easy to track your time automatically.
  • Easy to organize your reading list.
  • Plan your day, week or even month.
  • Manage your money and project budget.
  • Tax paperwork can be easily tracked.
  • Manage your company and business from anywhere at any time.
  • Easy to record company’s and employee’s milestones.
  • Plan all your media on a single dashboard.

Apart from these benefits, it helps to remove common problems businesses have such as:

  • Campaign Management.
  • Product management.
  • Company management.
  • No time taken repetitive tasks.

As of now, we’ve covered almost everything about apps like Trello. Now you have an application idea, you know the market potential and audience, you also even know if developed nicely this app will make lots of money for you.

But,

The question is how to develop an application like Trello?

Being a leading app development firm, many of our clients and prospects ask the same. So here’s the answer to the question. However, developing an application or creating an application from scratch takes you to consider some important things like objective, feature, cost, tech stack, business model and plenty more.

Without taking much of your time, let’s get started.

productivity-app-development

How to Develop an App like Trello?

1. Start with defining your objective

App development is a lengthy and time-taken process. Businesses spend a massive amount of money to build and maintain their application. However, if your objective is not clear, then you would not get the benefit you are seeking for. In different ways, a successful application will assist companies and businesses like more returning customers, low prices, improved ROI, stronger efficiency, enhanced social presence, and better brand recognition.

Now that you have learned the basics, it is time to ask yourself the below mentioned questions.

  • What section of your business or organization needs enhancement?
  • How could the issue be solved by an application?
  • What is the predicted outcome?

The answer to these questions is very important and will definitely help you in further stages of the application development.

2. Do research on your competitors

Before you build and evaluate your application, never underestimate the significance of testing and seeking insights. It is essential that even before you dive into the production of the application, you must know the answers to all these questions.

  • What is the objective of your app?
  • Target users of your application?
  • Do app users are seeking for an application like yours?
  • Who all are your competitors?
  • Drawbacks of your competitors.

Through all of this, you can get an idea of the market for the application you are creating and help fill the holes left by your rivals.

3. Define features and functionality for your Trello-like app

In order to build an application, let’s switch to the third stage. The third vital thing that comes into play after determining the goals is designing the functionality and features of your application. We know features plays important role in app’s success. Below we’ve mentioned features which you can consider in your Trello-like app:

Must Have Features

Core Features

Advance Features

  • In-line editing.
  • Progress tracking.
  • File attachments.
  • Data filters.
  • Deadline alerts.
  • Customer Support.
  • Discussion Forum.
  • Create a team.
  • Due dates.
  • Activity log.
  • Individual/ group task assignment.
  • Easy upload.
  • Developer API.
  • Real time sync.
  • Email notification.
  • Create a board.
  • Create list.
  • Create cards.
  • Checklists.
  • Push notifications.
  • SSL encryption.
  • Create Poll.
  • Multilingual Support.
  • Calendar commands.
  • Me Mode.
  • Click up comments.
  • Assign Comments.
  • Custom Status.
  • Reports tracking.
  • AI integration.
  • Chatbot integration.
  •  Subscription.

4. Design Wireframes/Mockups

You have described your goals, expected features and functionality, and done the research on competitors in order to get information and observations. Now it is time for you to learn how to design an application. Offer it its first backbone and add the elements together through wireframing.

But wait,

What is Wireframing?

Wireframing is the graphic illustration of the architecture of your application and of the flow between the various screens. This is among the best strategies free of distraction where you don’t have to think about multiple visual elements. The wireframe will be focused on us cases, the particular tasks performed on the application by your users, before you start to build an application; a wireframe is just a link between you raw ideas and the finished product.

You can create wireframes in two ways:

  1. Offline – You may easily and simply use a pen and paper or templates for printable sketches.
  2. Online – There are so many tools available in the market which you can use to do wireframing like NinjaMock, Mockflow, Fluid UI, and plenty more.

At the earlier point, concentrating on wireframing might save your lots of dollars and hundreds of hours of development later on.

5. Choose the right tech stack

The most critical part where you have to select the team and tech stack comes when you finish the wireframing. We know that addressing app development platforms and tech stack is not easy for all individuals. But this is not that difficult if you are consistent about your app’s criteria, budget, and target users.

Roll your sleeves. It’s time to be creative in choosing the right technology stack.

  1. For android – Java, Kotlin, Node JS, ROR, Laravel.
  2. For IOS – swift, Node JS, ROR, Laravel, fabric IOS.
  3. Database – MySQL, MongoDB, Redis.
  4. Payment gateways – PayPal, Stripe, Braintree, Mangopay.
  5. Cloud – AWS, MS Azure.
  6. Push notifications – Twilio, Amazon SNS, MAP.
  7. Analytics – Gleam IO, Google Analytics, Spark.
  8. Other – RSpec, Phantom JS, PUMA server, PhoneGap, C++, Xcode

Choosing the right technology stack doesn’t mean who won the race. Developing an application by all alone seems very difficult. You’ll also require a team, who helps you to build applications as per the way you want. Following roles were necessary:

  • Business analyst.
  • UI/UX Designer.
  • Front-end developer.
  • Back-end developer.
  • Product manager.
  • QA engineers.

That’s why experts say it’s always good to partner with the best app development company, because they know what to do and what not to.

How much does it cost to develop an application like Trello?

Well, the cost of application development depends on various factors like,

  • Which platform you were going to use.
  • What features and functionality you are supposed to add in your app.
  • Geo-region of app development firm.
  • No. of hours invested while designing UI and UX of your application.

Keep this in mind, the more features you add in your application, the more complex application becomes, the more it becomes the more it will cost you. On a rough basis, the app with basic features will cost you in-between 35K to 45K dollars. And the application with the best feature will cost you nearly 50K to 90k dollars.

Never compromise with the features, remember the app industry is very competitive, so go with the best features and model by partnering with the best app development firm.

Note – By the time writing this blog, the cost mentioned above is the actual development cost of an app like Trello. It may vary so don’t quote us on this.

productivity app developer

To sum up

By now you have hopefully gotten a clearer image of how strong the potential is and how to develop an app like Trello. If that is indeed the case, feel free to share this blog with other people who might not know about it.

We hope you find the blog helpful and have a response to your questions about how to develop an app like trello. As your brand new app-idea has just begun to gain momentum, it is time to build an app and disrupt the market.  Even so if you need some guidance from a competent app development firm, you can contact us, as we’ve already created tons of apps for all different platforms, which our clients consistently praise and enjoy.

Proof?

Here it is www.matellio.com

Thanks for reading, cheers.

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