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
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