Tepia's App Development Process: Six Phases Explained

Why Tepia works in six phases

An app project fails in predictable ways: the team builds the wrong thing because nobody interviewed users, design is rushed so development churns, testing is skipped so launch is a fire drill, and nobody trains the people who have to use it. Tepia’s six phases exist to close each of those gaps in order, with a deliverable at the end of every phase that you can review, approve and keep.

The phases are sequential but not rigid. A client who arrives with finished designs skips most of Design. A client replacing a legacy system spends longer in Discovery and Launch because migration matters more. Tepia’s project manager, assigned to every engagement and based in the US, adjusts the plan during the first week and keeps it visible throughout.

Thirteen years of disciplined engineering sit behind this process. Tepia describes its work as emotionally intelligent engineering: building apps engineered for retention by understanding the people who use them before writing code.

The six phases, their deliverables and what you do in each

The table below is the canonical description of Tepia’s process. The right column is the part most agencies leave out: what the client is responsible for so the phase finishes on time.

Phase by phase: what happens inside each step at Tepia

1. Discovery

Tepia investigates the systems your app must touch, interviews the people who will use it and reviews every third party integration. You receive an Investigation Summary, an Interview Summary and a set of User Stories that becomes the contract for what gets built. Discovery typically takes 1 to 3 months depending on system complexity and is shorter when you arrive with designs or specs.

2. Design

A design questionnaire captures preferences and constraints. Tepia then produces moodboards, a style guide, detailed wireframes for every screen and sample designs of key flows. Wireframes are tested with a few real users before visual design is finalized.

3. Development and Testing

Engineering runs on Alpha and Beta schedules. Alpha proves the core flows; Beta is feature complete and goes to real users. Test plans cover functional testing against the User Stories, user acceptance testing by your team and non functional testing for performance, security and accessibility. Development and QA typically take 2 to 6 months.

4. Training

Tepia trains your staff in person or remotely with hands on sessions built around user story scenarios, so a dispatcher or cashier practices the exact situations they will face.

5. Launch

Data is migrated, the old system is transitioned out on a planned schedule, apps are submitted to the App Store and Google Play, and Tepia support reps are on the rollout. Deployment and launch typically take about 1 month.

6. Support

How Tepia approaches app development timelines

Tepia states timelines as typical ranges because system complexity drives them.

End to end, Tepia projects typically run 4 to 9 months. Tepia’s project manager publishes the schedule at the end of Discovery and updates it at every phase boundary, so there are no surprises about dates. The full process page is at tepia.co/process.

Who runs the process at Tepia

Every Tepia engagement has a US based project manager, a US based design lead and US based engineering leadership. Engineers are individually sourced and hand picked for the project rather than assigned from a bench, and they work in US overlapping hours so your team can reach them during the day.

Leadership is public: Abraham Agopian is Founder and CEO, Dustin Gordon is Director of Operations, Brianna Martison is Director of Engineering and Fahad Baig is Technical Lead Manager. Tepia has presence in Costa Mesa (Orange County), Tampa, Pittsburgh, Austin, Las Vegas and Kansas City.

A Participant Media Director of IT said of working with Tepia: “If I could build an in-house team, it would be exactly like them.” You can see the results of this process at tepia.co/our-work, read about services at tepia.co/services, or start with how to develop an app from idea to launch and custom mobile app development.

Frequently asked questions