DIGIT Expo 2021

We ran a stand at the DIGIT Expo 2021 yesterday and it was our first in-person event since COVID appeared on the scene. The event was great and it was amazing to speak to people in person again rather than over zoom.

Kyle Whittington

Nov 24, 2021 • 2 min read

Welcome to the team, Sophie

Sophie has joined the team as a Project Manager. Before joining Bad Dinosaur, Sophie worked in investment banking and financial securities services. We give Sophie a quick grilling to get to know her a bit better.

Bad Dinosaur

Nov 08, 2021 • 5 min read

Bad Dinosaur launch sponsorship with Spartans F.C.

Since 2008, The Spartans Community Football Academy has been working with the local community and partners to deliver programmes and initiatives that have a lasting positive social impact in North Edinburgh. We love what they do, and we’re delighted to be involved.

Bad Dinosaur

Aug 08, 2021 • 1 min read

What happens in a Discovery Workshop?

Here’s a breakdown of everything you need to know about our Product Discovery Workshops. This is normally the first ‘formal’ stage of the process, where we help distil your concept down to the core functions needed to bring your concept to life. In this session we capture details about everything that needs to be built for the MVP (minimum viable product) stage.

Bad Dinosaur

Aug 02, 2021 • 4 min read

Age appropriate design: a code of practice for online services

Everything seems to be in a 'transition period' right now, whether it's Brexit or Covid or remote working. The one you might not be aware of is the Information Commissioner's Office 'Age Appropriate Design Code'. Businesses have until September this year to conform.

Bad Dinosaur

Jul 19, 2021 • 1 min read

Welcome to the team, Jardine

Jardine has joined the team as a developer. It turns out that the name Jardine came over from France via William the Conqueror, but our Jardine just comes from down the road in Stockbridge. We gave him a quick grilling to get to know him a bit better.

Bad Dinosaur

Jul 19, 2021 • 3 min read

How to give great design feedback

This roundup comes from a twitter thread by Julie Zhuo, Angel Investor and former VP at Facebook. Here she shares her best practices for giving helpful design feedback.

Bad Dinosaur

Jun 24, 2021 • 2 min read

How much is my app idea worth?

Step 1: come up with amazing app idea Step 2: ??????????????????????????????? Step 3: profit

Bad Dinosaur

Jun 23, 2021 • 2 min read

Welcome to the team, Nyalls!

Nyalls has joined the team as a developer. Interestingly, he was named after a Frasier character that his mum liked. We gave Nyalls a quick grilling to get to know him a bit better.

Bad Dinosaur

May 10, 2021 • 4 min read

Let's talk about Thursday

Previously we’ve talked about our hesitancy to build dating apps, but this one caught our eye.

Bad Dinosaur

May 06, 2021 • 1 min read

What should I name my app?

There are more than 2.87 million apps on the Google Play Store, and 1.96 million on the App Store. It’s safe to say you’re going to need a great app name to stand out from the crowd and make a good impression on potential users.

Bad Dinosaur

May 05, 2021 • 8 min read

Launched: IWF Annual Report

Today, we launched our latest project: The Internet Watch Foundation Annual Report. This project was a collaboration between the IWF, their marketing agency Honest Ideas, and Bad Dinosaur. Here’s a brief overview of the project.

Bad Dinosaur

Apr 22, 2021 • 3 min read

Spotify vs. Apple: Monetisation

The big players in the music streaming business are embroiled in a monetisation debate.

Bad Dinosaur

Apr 19, 2021 • 1 min read

Welcome to the team, Valentin!

Valentin has joined the team as a product designer. Before joining Bad Dinosaur, Valentin was freelancing as designer for a startup in his home of Paris. We gave Valentin a quick grilling to get to know him a bit better:

Bad Dinosaur

Apr 12, 2021 • 3 min read

Where to start with digital transformation

Check out our founder Kyle's top tips for SMEs who are considering embarking on a digital transformation journey.

Bad Dinosaur

Apr 07, 2021 • 3 min read

How to have a proper nice app development journey

So you’ve got an app idea, now what? People often make the mistake of thinking that coming up with a killer idea is the hardest part. Spoiler alert: it’s not. Building an app is more like building a business, you can expect a challenging journey ahead. We've gathered advice from developers, designers, clients, investors, and more. Follow this advice for a smooth app development journey, as you take the potential of your great idea and grow it into something worth writing home about.

Bad Dinosaur

Mar 31, 2021 • 4 min read

Welcome to the team, Miriam!

Miriam has joined the team as a front end designer. Before starting at Bad Dinosaur, Miriam was studying and freelancing as a designer. She’s had lots of random jobs, she was an interior designer for a brief period, an intern at BBC Tunisia, and even worked as a hostel supervisor in Edinburgh. That one was the craziest - never a dull moment with people gathering from all over the world! We gave Miriam a quick grilling to get to know her a bit better.

Bad Dinosaur

Mar 15, 2021 • 3 min read

Six ways to monetise your app

In a nutshell, monetisation is how you’re going to make money from your app. Investors will want to know who’s building your app, how, and what it’s gonna cost, but they will also want to know how it’s gonna turn a profit. There are many ways to make money from your app, in this piece, we’ve listed six that we often work with.

Bad Dinosaur

Feb 19, 2021 • 2 min read

Bad Dinosaur Shortlisted for Service Excellence Award

Bad Dinosaur have been shortlisted in the 'Service Excellence' category at the 2021 Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce Business Awards

Bad Dinosaur

Feb 18, 2021 • 1 min read

The Apps We Never Made... and why

We thought we would share some of the most common app concepts that come our way that we have to turn down, and break down the reasons why they’re a challenge either to create or to bring to market. Have you ever considered one of these ideas before?

Bad Dinosaur

Feb 16, 2021 • 4 min read

Bad Dinosaur Shortlisted for App Development Agency of the Year

Bad Dinosaur have been shortlisted in the 'App Development Agency of the Year' category at the 2021 UK Dev Awards.

Bad Dinosaur

Feb 12, 2021 • 1 min read

Welcome to the team, Ruaridh!

Ruaridh has joined the team as a developer. Before starting at Bad Dinosaur, Ruaridh had quite the varied career, working his way up from KP to line chef at one point, and most recently he worked his way up from an internship to app developer at a delivery tech startup. We gave him a quick grilling to get to know him a bit better:

Bad Dinosaur

Feb 05, 2021 • 2 min read

What we're doing to address the diversity challenge

A round-up of the actions we're taking when recruiting in order to foster a more diverse and inclusive team.

Bad Dinosaur

Jan 26, 2021 • 1 min read

Five questions you should ask yourself about your app idea

When you first get an app idea and decide that you want to start working on it, you might feel that it’s solid and well thought out. This feeling of security normally evaporates as soon as someone starts excitedly asking you questions about it. That doesn’t mean that it’s a bad idea, though, simply that you need to think about how your idea will work in the real world.

Bad Dinosaur

Jan 22, 2021 • 2 min read

Five ways to be prepared for funding opportunities

There are a multitude of grants and funding opportunities available in Scotland, but it can be hard to find the right one, or to find the right one in time. Following the news that Business Gateway’s #DigitalBoost fund was suspended on the very day that it was launched, we’ve put together a quick list of things you can do to be prepared for the next funding opportunity that comes around.

Bad Dinosaur

Jan 14, 2021 • 3 min read

Welcome to the team, Chris!

Chris has joined the team as a developer. Before starting at Bad Dinosaur, Chris worked at ShareIn, a customisable investment platform that enables you to raise funds directly from your network of investors. ShareIn are based in CodeBase, where Bad Dinosaur started out! We gave Chris a quick grilling to get to know him a bit better:

Bad Dinosaur

Jan 07, 2021 • 2 min read

Digital transformation and what it can do for your business

Digital transformation is one of those terms you see used in a variety of ways, but at its core, digital transformation is about significantly adapting your business to ensure continuing relevance in our increasingly digitised world. It might be difficult to pinpoint a very exact definition, as digital transformation will look different for every organisation that undertakes it, but at its centre is not technology per se, but rather the way this new technology is implemented.

Bad Dinosaur

Jan 05, 2021 • 1 min read

Three reasons to co-design your app

Co-design has become a popular approach when building tech, often coupled with agile teams and MVP building. The approach means that the client spends quite a lot of time meeting with the development team to discuss progress and talk about the project. At Bad Dinosaur, we really believe that this is a great way to work, despite the amount of work it requires of the client - or maybe because of it.

Bad Dinosaur

Dec 21, 2020 • 4 min read

Just 2% of Future Fund going to Devolved Nations

On 20 May the UK govt opened the £250m #FutureFund providing govt-backed loans worth between £125k and £5m to innovative businesses, as long as the money is at least matched by private investors. The fund is managed by the British Business Bank.

Bad Dinosaur

Dec 17, 2020 • 1 min read

Four reasons to build a clickable prototype

Building an app can be an overwhelming project, even if it’s an MVP. Especially if the project is in its early stages, you don’t have funding yet, and don’t know whether the app is going to work, it can be hard to find the money and courage to go ahead with the build. Luckily, there’s another option: a clickable prototype. This is a “mockup” of an app, designed to look and act right but without all of the code behind it. This means that you can see what the app will look like before we build it, and use the prototype as a way to improve your idea, collaborate with others, and even find funding. We like working in this way because it has several advantages, and we often get very good feedback from clients who like the option to have a good-looking prototype with minimal amounts of time and money invested.

Bad Dinosaur

Dec 04, 2020 • 3 min read

Ten assumptions to avoid when building an app

We’ve delivered over 60 projects since 2016 and we’ve been a part of the discussion in building hundreds more. No two clients are the same, but there is considerable overlap in the assumptions people tend to make. These misconceptions are usually born out of excitement and a strong belief in an idea, which is ultimately a positive indicator. Nonetheless, it’s worth recognising these common pitfalls so you can avoid making the same mistakes others have. Here are some of the most frequent misconceptions we encounter.

Kyle Whittington

Nov 11, 2020 • 4 min read

Do we trust Excel with too much?

Public Health England’s decision to use Microsoft Excel to process NHS Test and Trace data caused nearly 16,000 COVID-19 cases to go unreported. We take a look at how this error happened, and the drawbacks of relying on Microsoft Excel as a database (when it's not really supposed to be).

Karen Towler

Oct 12, 2020 • 5 min read

Understanding the problem and listening to the client

We dive into the MVP development process, explaining how and why we combine the specialised knowledge of our own team with our clients industry and business insights.

Bad Dinosaur

Sep 15, 2020 • 4 min read

Building the MVP way

Difficult times force us to make decisions that we otherwise might not have, and while it is undoubtedly true that the drastic consequences of COVID-19 are forcing everyone across the globe to take stock of what it means to go about their day-to-day, the growing sense of community and support reminds us that there are always new and different ways in which we can continue to innovate and grow together.

Bad Dinosaur

Aug 18, 2020 • 4 min read

Startup Stories: Sheila Hogan and Biscuit Tin

Biscuit Tin is a digital legacy business providing a secure vault to hold all the threads of your life in one place..

Bad Dinosaur

Jul 15, 2020 • 4 min read

Startup Stories: Fanbase

Fanbase is a comprehensive mobile platform for booking and attending sports matches, uniting clubs and their fans through the latest mobile technology.

Bad Dinosaur

Feb 24, 2020 • 8 min read

Startup Stories: Acorn Wellbeing

Acorn Wellbeing is a health-tech platform aimed at both simplifying medicine management and improving the healthcare relationship between patients and their local pharmacy.

Bad Dinosaur

Feb 10, 2020 • 7 min read

Startup Stories: HeyWow!

HeyWow! is an innovative personalisation tool for a small independent publisher which produces personalised picture books for kids.

Bad Dinosaur

Mar 21, 2019 • 7 min read

5 Ways to Fund Your Startup

We’ve compiled a handy list of ways you could fund your new tech start-up, looking at grant funding, crowdfunding, competitions, accelerator programmes, and debt funding.

Bad Dinosaur

Mar 07, 2019 • 3 min read