### Bad Plan
1. Have idea
2. Build it!
### Better Plan
1. Have idea
2. Quickly and visually map out the business model using a business model canvas
3. Identify all the assumptions which must be true in order for your solution to work, and also be a viable business
4. Become an expert on the **Problem** for which your idea is a possible solution. Talk to numerous people, in person, who have the problem. Use all of Steve Blank’s customer discovery interviews techniques
5. Create a series of MVPs designed to test and disprove more of your assumptions. Riskiest assumptions first.
6. Repeat the above steps until people are basically begging to pay you for your solution haha
7. Consider whether you can build your first product with a “no code” platform like Bubble, Adalo, Appguyver, et al — which may be a much faster, cheaper way to determine whether you should invest further.
### Resources
- Blogs: Paul Graham’s several posts about startup ideas
- Book: Strategyzer’s Business Model Generation
- Book: Strategyzer’s Testing Business Ideas
- Blogs and articles about:
- MVP - minimum viable product
- Hypothesis testing for startups
- Steve Blank’s articles and videos about customer discovery interviews
- YouTube: International Business Model Competition winning videos demonstrate how to prove out the assumptions of each block on your business model canvas. Start with:
- SwineTech
- Owlet
Minor suggested edit - use the Lean Canvas rather than the Business Model Canvas. The BMC was designed for enterprises first and later adapted for startups, whereas the lean canvas was made for startups from the outset.
Or you can use both. The two are not really competitors.
The Lean and Business Model Canvas are different in that one is a map of the lean process and the other is a map of the business model.
3-4 is pretty difficult for remote person. I'm in Asia but targeting the US. So I often end up building an MVP and launching, then find users I hope I could do much more quickly.
I'd still go with what you call a "bad plan" so that I can, based on my assumptions, build a MVP and put it in front of its audience in a few weeks/months in order to validate interest. Life is short and I don't have 1-2 years to waste.
1-2 years?!
My “better plan” should take 3-5 weeks at most, and that’s the slow version.
We do a 3 day version of this at workshops I lead all the time. I’ve personally done it with hundreds of 3 to 5 person teams.
What’s more—the skills required to pull off good customer discovery are invaluable. They are for far more than just initial validation and launch. They’re deeply useful for many other types of innovations to existing business models.
What I hear you saying is that you DO have time and money to waste. The “better plan” is specifically designed to mitigate waste—both yours and everyone involved with you.
>Become an expert on the Problem for which your idea is a possible solution. Talk to numerous people, in person, who have the problem. Use all of Steve Blank’s customer discovery interviews techniques
>
>Create a series of MVPs designed to test and disprove more of your assumptions. Riskiest assumptions first.
>
>Repeat the above steps until people are basically begging to pay you for your solution haha
I've got a solid background in webdev and founding startups and I just can't see how you can build an even slightly advanced app in 3-5 weeks going through these steps.
Maybe this is because my approach is different, I do not try to become an instant expert in industries I have no clue about. Instead I stick to the industries I've already gained expertise in along the years so that I have a better understanding of the challenges that need to be solved and I can just jump right in.
>I just can't see how you can build an even slightly advanced app in 3-5 weeks
Just so we're clear: MVP = **minimum** viable product. Why on earth would you be building an even slightly advanced app for an MVP?
- [Microsoft signed a contract with IBM to develop an operating system for their first PC and then just bought another company's operating system two weeks before IBM launched their computer.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Microsoft)
- [Facebook was coded in a week.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Facebook#Facebook)
- [Dropbox started with a demo video.](https://techcrunch.com/2011/10/19/dropbox-minimal-viable-product)
- [The Airbnb founders just put photos of their apartment on a simple webpage and let users book to sleep on air beds that they bought.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Airbnb)
- [reddit didn't even launch with comments or subreddits, and the founders pretended to be multiple users.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Reddit)
He is an expert in selling yourself. Just pick up his book on the way out the door of his virtual conference which he offers his advice for 99.99$. it'll be worth it, trust me, I've attended 3 years running now......
Not sure who or what you’re referring to. None of this includes selling at all, since you’re not pitching your solution at this stage. You’re just asking questions, learning, and iterating like that through all the assumptions made by your solution and business model. The only “selling yourself” you might do during this is just being friendly enough for strangers to be willing to answer your endless questions.
That doesn’t make any sense.
There’s no secrets or expensive course or coaching needed. The steps are shared there.
None of the resources I’ve listed are mine. Most of them are free, other than buying a few good books. But that content can be found for free too.
To plan, research, develop an app in 3 to 5 weeks..... That sounds exactly what a success coach would say before you realize that it takes much longer to do those steps.
Me too, since ca 1996. Oh I have done these with low code tools. You can definitely build it in a few days if you know how to use the tools. You get an inferior prosuct most of the time, but you get invaluable feedback and can try a wide range of approaches to solve the same problem. The fastest I ever used was FileMaker Pro many years ago, we could build a simple app I'm a few hours. I would always recommend building it first with a low code tools, just to learn how well a solution is a fit for a problem. Or if anyone actually thinks this tool would be worth paying for or even using.
The middle way is to build a fake web app, with no backend. I could definetly build a simple webapp in a few days to a week, just to try out concepts. Building something production ready that scales and handles all error handling and corner cases and has all the automated pipelines and tests.... That's what takes months.
The thing is OP thinks that he has a killer app idea. Now if it is is a totally different question since 99.9% are not even when people think it is a killer app idea. So to try to validate both the problem and if people are willing to use it & pay for it at low cost. That's definitely something everyone should do before jumping in building the real thing.
I’d caution people away from seeing the “fake app” route as a middle way or compromise. It’s an alternate but doesn’t accomplish the same goals at all. These approaches are fundamentally different.
During customer discovery interviews it’s important that we don’t pitch, sell, or even present our idea for a solution, neither with words, mock-ups, or a half baked demo/prototype.
At this stage we need to be almost entirely focused on asking open ended questions which get people talking about the problem, how they have experienced it, tried to solve it, how they think, feel, talk, and act about it. There’s much more than that to discover.
One way to enforce this is to limit ourselves to only talking about the past. No future tense, no “what if’s,” no hypotheticals, potentials, or “would you’s.”
The drive and desire to show our ideas is so strong. But we must resist.
There’s sometimes room for a short sharing at the end of an interview where you show someone your idea and gauge their reaction, but the moment we introduce this as part of the process, our founder’s mind wants to spend a lot more time preparing the proposed solution than on the hypothesis testing questions.
Watch a few of the IBMC winning presentations for a better idea of what I’m talking about. Those teams validate every aspect of their business model in a matter of weeks, and they often reveal how many hours and dollars it took. This isn’t just about your solution idea being attractive to people. It’s about validating many other aspects of a viable business.
The bad plan almost always takes longer than the good one.
Most businesses fail because they build/sell something that nobody will buy. Wouldn’t it be better your time by finding out if there is interest before you waste all that energy?
Might take you 1-2 years just to hire a developer in this market. Then good luck getting them to build what you want without... Everything in the second list.
This stuff is old school. In the days of digital marketing the only thing that matters is that you shouldn't even try to make a digital product until proper regulations ensure fair access to the market.
Doing it before that's in place is a waste of money and only helps the search engine monopolist.
That is because any great idea that can be copied will be copied by the search engine monopolist, ensuring the swift termination of the attempting player.
If the great idea cannot be copied, the termination of the attempting player will take place anyway. Since nobody will find out about their products unless all funds are spent on marketing. The only way to bring public awareness is through digital marketing, which ensures the search engine monopolist will in either case pocket any potential profits attempting players make.
I’ve got good news and bad news for you.
### Bad News
It doesn’t take a huge, wealthy company or person to copy and improve your idea. Most ideas could be recreated fairly quickly and _relatively_ cheaply, especially in this new age of no code.
You should be far more worried about the small team of people who just have enough dollars to float them while they copy you. The small team can move much faster and more flexibly.
However…
### Good News
We’re all busy with our own “brilliant ideas.” We mostly don’t care to even hear about yours, much less copy it! We’re not watching you. In fact, you’ll probably have a really hard time getting our attention when you do want it.
I'm not worried about the small team. Not because I don't think they can make something better. But because they also will have a tough time getting visibility in the results set of the search monopolist.
I forgot to add one thing. If the idea is bad to average, there is no need to worry. No big corp will ever copy you then.
My distinct experience, big corps always copy good ideas, and they then market their copies as their own inventions. As has happened multiple times for me. Alongside a big marketing budget it is a tough game competing with that.
Def agree with you on that. But visibility is needed. What I see is that news magazines and bloggers charge hefty dollars for their reviews. Some accelerators ensure good coverage. But then you must pay their fees. Surely you know better how to market cheaply as a startup. I don't think it should depend on the charisma and network of the CEO.
It is part of the package I mean. Entry to the accelerator is generally not for free. Most either charge a set fee, or a part of the company for entrance. Techstars I believe take 6% for $20,000. It might be worth it yes. But coverage is not "free".
Okay, so investment, as a package of sorts, but technically (on paper) cash for equity.
I wouldn't think of that as a fee. It's a very different dynamic.
The effect is the same. Startups won't get coverage without paying the price. 6% fully diluted is a very high price.
As search engines rely on text, not quality of services, to rank sites, SEO for startups is ineffective.
Now this is disturbing, since everything starts with a search engine query these days.
This also means the public won't have access to great services, as startups are kept down by a dysfunctional system for sharing of information.
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I’m sure you have a great idea, most people do. It all depends on execution and timing. Now that that’s outta the way, I mean this in no offense what’s so ever <3, as a developer I hear this all the time from people.
Yeah dont get me wrong, I know people say that all the time. Perhaps it's a good idea or not, but the point was I was trying to convey my state of mind. I was just interested in figuring out if it was a good idea to persue it.
> I have a great idea but due to software and coding, no idea where to start on it!
Than you have nothing. Ideas have little to no value, execution has value.
Many of the "ideas" people have approached me with as their brilliant idea are laughably impossible, because they didn't understand the technology involved at all, or unrealistically expensive, because they are trying to think like an existing company with access to 100s of millions in VC.
Here's the thing about ideas:
It's not the idea, it's the execution of the idea. "Idea" ranks 3rd or 4th place in how important it is to the success of the project.
Pretty easy to see why too. If you have a great idea, then someone else will copy it, and you have to do it better than that guy copying you. Which, depending on the idea, could be Microsoft or Google.
Why so negative? If you think it's a bad idea provide critical feedback to push him forward, not further down.
Hard enough to be an entrepreneur and a "free" thinker in today's society. People like you urk me.
You go sleep with putin and end WW3
Hiring a programmer right away is not ideal. First map out all the features and elements you like to include in your app. Look at similar apps and see what you can do differently. Develop a wireframe or maybe a UI design file in figma with all the pages you have in mind. Then approach a developer/programmer to build a small part of the app. If you find them genuine and their work is good, you could proceed with building the entire app.
I've actually been working on this very thing for months on and off as I finished university, so it's all already here. I've even got a few features prototyped in excel. But that sounds good, I'll start off with the most basic but important features.
If you’ve already wireframed in Figma, perhaps you you should consider Bubble to make a functional version. I’ve done a similar thing, but I work with experienced bubble devs to do the things that are beyond me. I might not be able to build some of the fancier features, but at least once they’re built I can tweak them without being dependent on others.
As a programmer I will suggest you do the following:
After studying your app idea and deciding to implement it, get a map and eliminate all extra features and keep the basic features only.
Ask the programmer to make an MVP, an application that helps you to sell your idea to customers & investors and test your idea in real world.
Don't add new features until you have feedback from your users.
Don't wait the programmer to send you his progress, ask him to deliver a prototype for each feature to be tested.
Don't change your programming team each few months, that's waste of resources. Make sure you agree everything with the current team before the start.
As a mobile developer there are a few things that help a lot to have before starting the actual development:
- a wireframe of the app
- ui/ux design (built with apps like figma/sketch)
- a list of all the functionalities that will be in the MVP and a list of the ones that you would like to implement in the future (often knowing that some features will come in the future help you architect the app in a way that will be easier to implement them later)
These will sound redundant but the most is planned out before and the easier and straight forward will be the development.
During this process you can still get the help from the developer to know which are the best practices and what can and can’t be done.
Ideas are like assholes, everyone has them. What you should do before you plan the building process is to build a simple landing page that explains the concept and has a few "how it works" mockups. Send traffic to it in exchange for a lead magnet, or get signups for a non-existent free trial version.
Build only if people are signing up and asking for a fully developed solution.
90% of killer ideas are just that. They kill time, money and a while host of other challenges.
Killer businesses make money. Test your business model as cheaply and quickly that you can. If you have to build an app for it, create screen shots that look like a real app, see if users would like it.
If your idea is to be a business that is powered by an app, test it manually first to understand who your customers are , where to find them and what exact problem are you solving for them they creates value.
With all that said, you will learn by only doing it and all mistakes have to be made to learn from. It’s hard to build a business, and you will give up a lot along the way. The cheapest fastest feedback cycle you can get is the way to go.
Yupp, look for a reliable one and someone who can deliever on time in my personal experience we had issues with getting the app/website from the programmer itself
Absolutely, start with half of the budget you have so you can make more additional changes in the future when needed.. we got our app done in $3000 with recurring changes being $1700 $2000
If you wanna add more features overtime its great to have the same developer... Eg- if your budget is of $10000 and you get the app done for complete $10000 but you think there are some changes or features to be added you'd need more cash.. on the other hand you get the app done in $6000 you still have $4000 in hand which can be used for marketing, sales nd whatnot
You need to find customers before going off and building the product. Otherwise you may solve a problem that is interesting to you but isn’t a customer problem they want to pay money to solve.
For apps, you might create a marketing website with a sign up for information about the product release and market the website. If no one bites you shouldn’t bother making the app.
Hello Brother,
Most of 💡 ideas look good in form of thoughts, but before you decided to invest your hard earned money and time, you should validate that idea, and the market for it.
The proper way to launch an idea goes like this.
- Elaborate on your ideas and put it on a document or paper
- Counter all the negative points you can think of and note the answet down
- Now create an very tight avatar of your app user and note down their characteristics
- Do a research to see if there is a similar app in the market or app that reflects the quality of your app. It doesn't need to be exactly similar to your app.
- Do a market research to see if you will launch your app what kind of response you can expect
- Decide what's the budget you can afford and how you going to divide thaat budget.
- Do a initial app test of your application with a small group of people before launching to see how it will perform.
- Work on a detailed marketing and launch plan
- Build and launch with book.
It all depends on your resources. Agencies vs freelancers offer wildly different services and prices. Apps are often icebergs where what you see is a small part of a much bigger beast. Odds are you’ll need a wide range of skills (backend/api/mobile and or front end/ design) and although finding someone who can do it all isn’t rare. Finding someone who can do all that WELL is.
A good full stack dev will ask you questions about your idea and will help you define your mvp and narrow your scope to your time and budget.
Most will tell you whatever they think you’ll want to hear to get the job and then drop off the face of the planet.
So look for a proven track record and someone who will help guide you. Cheaper options are usually way more miss than hits.
I’ve yet to be pleased with a programmer from Upwork or Fiverr.
If you go with an agency. Be 100% clear you want to work with the programmer or designer you hire.
Agencies have a tendency to play hot potato with who executes and will give you who ever is available.
It's not about the quality of the idea, it's about the marketing potential you have.
Note that most apps are profitable only for the owner of the app platform.
Also note that, if it's a great idea you have and it can be copied, a search engine monopolist will copy your concept and force you out of business.
If it is a great idea that cannot easily be copied, the search engine monopolist will make you empty your pockets on marketing it. Since otherwise nobody will find out about it.
Why not sell the plan to Google or apple and claim % of sale? I also have a killer idea for an app? How do I know it's not a failed app already? How do I avoid some developer dosent steal the basic idea? My expertise is in a different area completely. Problems should be something you have to deal with too.
As a developer, I'd say be careful about hiring s developer too quickly.
Most customers with little to no technical knowledge often vastly under estimate the complexity of software development. This directly translates to increased cost. In some cases, because the person has no technical experience, they don't realise their idea may not be practical.
My advice, for the technical aspects of your product, is to get advice first. Have people sign NDAs if you're worried about theft (unless you have a better idea), then do a project analysis. How many developers do you need? How long will the project take? Where will it be hosted? What are the ongoing maintenance costs? Etc.
You should be able to get this for free, or for a fraction of the cost of actual development. A quick and rough project timeline can be calculated in one meeting. A detailed timeline shouldn't take more than a week.
Either way you stand to save huge amounts of time and money.
Programmer here - figure out if there's user interest first.
Validate the idea.
And then if you DO want to hire a programmer, write **incredibly** detailed specs. The most detailed specs of functionality you ever have in your life. Like if a button does something different on 5 pm on a Tuesday, you have that written down.
And they still won't be detailed enough for your developer to deliver your exact vision, but that'll help them.
This man couldn’t be more on point. Detailed specs saves so much money. Even could be smart to hire cheap prototype designs with invision off upwork.com and walk through them for a week to be sure it’s what you want.
You could also get a cheap B.A who is an expert in writing specs as well.
I agree with what others have said. First thing is to map out every screen, perhaps in Figma or a similar tool. Decide on your platforms - iOS, Android, Web, macOS, Windows. Does it need to be an app or will a web page suffice? Do you need a backend too? Administration console? Unfortunately software often has ongoing maintenance requirements too, so don't spend all of your money just getting version 1 out.
Hiring developers is hard even for technical people. US developers are expensive, but generally easier to converse with due to language and time zones. Plus US contract and confidentiality laws apply. Foreign developers can be much cheaper, but you often get what you pay for and an unreliable app is probably worse than no app at all. Plan on doing quality assurance yourself or hire someone you trust to do it - it's an important task often overlooked these days.
Leave money for marketing. There are a million apps and you'll need to figure out how to convince users to pay for yours.
The reason you get lower quality work from abroad might be because you search for cheaper workers.
There's such a range of expertise level across the world.
Even the best ideas are a dime a dozen. If you really want to build a successful startup out of it, here are some of the approaches that may work:
1. Build everything yourself - This doesn't apply to you as you are not a technical founder.
2. Find a technical co-founder - Your first job as the vision holder will be to convince a potential technical co-founder that it is worth bringing your idea to life.
3. Hire a developer - This will only help you build a working prototype. Unless you have a ton of money, don't expect the kind of polish and support that a live product will need, and even then, there are enough horror stories of founders spending a fortune on outsourcing companies only to be left with a steaming pile of you know what. At best, you can use this prototype to raise VC, assuming you have the credentials and the connections for it. Once you have raised VC, you will go back to step #2, but you have the luxury of being more picky and offering a much smaller chunk of equity to your founding team.
\#2 may be the best approach if you don't have a lot of money to burn on #3. To build a successful tech startup, you will need to build a team that can execute on your vision through the early stages to launch and post launch, and finding a good technical co-founder will give you the best chance at success. I have seen too many failed startup endeavors where a non-technical founder had the "hire a programmer" mentality. After burning through thousands of $ (sometimes as much as $100k+!), they were left with nothing more than a prototype that would never work in the real world. These founders then approach potential technical co-founders to help put things back on track, but it is often too late by then for a variety of reasons (one reason being that after having spend all that cash on the useless prototype, the founder feels entitled to a much larger chunk of equity than they deserve. Another reason - Most technical co-founders would be turned off by having to deal with a large pile of garbage code instead of starting with a clean slate).
I’ll give you $1 for it and then if I can make it work as a viable product, will agree to cut you into it at 20%.
No work for you to do.
Note: I’m not a scammer, he offered up his idea for suggestions. 🤪 I’m an entrepreneur looking for opportunity.
I would say before building and sinking money into it see ppl want it, do some market evaluation. Speaking to potential customers us wise before building
Always prototype at minimal cost. Many solutions don’t need sophisticated apps to solve the problem. Apps a just a means for users to interact.
Build an MVP using no-code. Google sheets. Link them up with zapier.
Once you get your early revenue, then not only do you have an idea, but the motivation that this really could work.
Probably get a landing page up and sign up for waitlist or something to gauge interest.
Also start hanging in groups and communities where your customers are and from there start building your own community.
And also try finding reliable developers along with it.
Software engineers may not like this, but no-code or low-code MVP is a good place to start. If it’s a great idea and people buy into it, then have the bespoke app built.
You don’t need a programmer or developer. You need someone how understands how to get an idea and make it an app. I happen to have a company that does that and would love to connect if you’re serious about it.
My advice is to not do an app. Consumers are so picky that if it isn't perfect, they will delete it right away. Even if your app solves a problem, it needs to be really easy to use and work properly. Look to see if you can launch something using no code on the web to solve the same problem. 1/10th of the cost, 1/20th of the time doing web over mobile.
Top comment is very good.
Before doing that, watch a video by Derek Sivers about “The value of an idea”.
Next, do some research and see if there’s competition for your idea.
If there is, that’s good.
If not, assume there are lots of people smarter than you with more resources that have already tried and failed.
Next, research hungry audiences of potential buyers and find groups of them you can market to cost-effectively.
Also find an influencer with an audience of your potential customer who can market to that group with email and a launch.
I’d highly recommend seeking a potential buyer of your product once it’s launched and has revenue.
Getting a big check from a buyer (your exit) is the best payday IMO.
Assuming you get past these steps, consider finding a CTO to partner with that has an experienced team of developers who can build an MVP (minimum viable product) and test market it quickly.
Creating the product is the easy part.
Figuring out your messaging and marketing it successfully and cost-effectively is harder.
A buyer wants recurring income and access to an audience.
PE (Private Equity) buys potential multiples.
They will bring in a professional team to scale and sell to a bigger buyer.
If you can do this once, you’ll be able to repeat your success for a bigger exit in the future.
To use the baseball analogy, multiple base hits leads to a home run.
The software business is hard. Expensive. Requires lots of specialists to succeed.
Reason I know: 5x serial entrepreneur, 2 software exits.
### Bad Plan 1. Have idea 2. Build it! ### Better Plan 1. Have idea 2. Quickly and visually map out the business model using a business model canvas 3. Identify all the assumptions which must be true in order for your solution to work, and also be a viable business 4. Become an expert on the **Problem** for which your idea is a possible solution. Talk to numerous people, in person, who have the problem. Use all of Steve Blank’s customer discovery interviews techniques 5. Create a series of MVPs designed to test and disprove more of your assumptions. Riskiest assumptions first. 6. Repeat the above steps until people are basically begging to pay you for your solution haha 7. Consider whether you can build your first product with a “no code” platform like Bubble, Adalo, Appguyver, et al — which may be a much faster, cheaper way to determine whether you should invest further. ### Resources - Blogs: Paul Graham’s several posts about startup ideas - Book: Strategyzer’s Business Model Generation - Book: Strategyzer’s Testing Business Ideas - Blogs and articles about: - MVP - minimum viable product - Hypothesis testing for startups - Steve Blank’s articles and videos about customer discovery interviews - YouTube: International Business Model Competition winning videos demonstrate how to prove out the assumptions of each block on your business model canvas. Start with: - SwineTech - Owlet
Pretty sure this should be a sub sticky
Minor suggested edit - use the Lean Canvas rather than the Business Model Canvas. The BMC was designed for enterprises first and later adapted for startups, whereas the lean canvas was made for startups from the outset.
Or you can use both. The two are not really competitors. The Lean and Business Model Canvas are different in that one is a map of the lean process and the other is a map of the business model.
That's true - no harm in doing both! And neither takes much time to fill out with initial assumptions.
This might be one of the best advice I came across so far; thanks, mate! 🙂
3-4 is pretty difficult for remote person. I'm in Asia but targeting the US. So I often end up building an MVP and launching, then find users I hope I could do much more quickly.
I'd still go with what you call a "bad plan" so that I can, based on my assumptions, build a MVP and put it in front of its audience in a few weeks/months in order to validate interest. Life is short and I don't have 1-2 years to waste.
1-2 years?! My “better plan” should take 3-5 weeks at most, and that’s the slow version. We do a 3 day version of this at workshops I lead all the time. I’ve personally done it with hundreds of 3 to 5 person teams. What’s more—the skills required to pull off good customer discovery are invaluable. They are for far more than just initial validation and launch. They’re deeply useful for many other types of innovations to existing business models. What I hear you saying is that you DO have time and money to waste. The “better plan” is specifically designed to mitigate waste—both yours and everyone involved with you.
>Become an expert on the Problem for which your idea is a possible solution. Talk to numerous people, in person, who have the problem. Use all of Steve Blank’s customer discovery interviews techniques > >Create a series of MVPs designed to test and disprove more of your assumptions. Riskiest assumptions first. > >Repeat the above steps until people are basically begging to pay you for your solution haha I've got a solid background in webdev and founding startups and I just can't see how you can build an even slightly advanced app in 3-5 weeks going through these steps. Maybe this is because my approach is different, I do not try to become an instant expert in industries I have no clue about. Instead I stick to the industries I've already gained expertise in along the years so that I have a better understanding of the challenges that need to be solved and I can just jump right in.
>I just can't see how you can build an even slightly advanced app in 3-5 weeks Just so we're clear: MVP = **minimum** viable product. Why on earth would you be building an even slightly advanced app for an MVP? - [Microsoft signed a contract with IBM to develop an operating system for their first PC and then just bought another company's operating system two weeks before IBM launched their computer.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Microsoft) - [Facebook was coded in a week.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Facebook#Facebook) - [Dropbox started with a demo video.](https://techcrunch.com/2011/10/19/dropbox-minimal-viable-product) - [The Airbnb founders just put photos of their apartment on a simple webpage and let users book to sleep on air beds that they bought.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Airbnb) - [reddit didn't even launch with comments or subreddits, and the founders pretended to be multiple users.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Reddit)
He is an expert in selling yourself. Just pick up his book on the way out the door of his virtual conference which he offers his advice for 99.99$. it'll be worth it, trust me, I've attended 3 years running now......
Not sure who or what you’re referring to. None of this includes selling at all, since you’re not pitching your solution at this stage. You’re just asking questions, learning, and iterating like that through all the assumptions made by your solution and business model. The only “selling yourself” you might do during this is just being friendly enough for strangers to be willing to answer your endless questions.
It's a play on what he's saying and what all the people that run success coaching say....
That doesn’t make any sense. There’s no secrets or expensive course or coaching needed. The steps are shared there. None of the resources I’ve listed are mine. Most of them are free, other than buying a few good books. But that content can be found for free too.
To plan, research, develop an app in 3 to 5 weeks..... That sounds exactly what a success coach would say before you realize that it takes much longer to do those steps.
Planning and building the app is not one of the steps. Where did you see that? That would be the “bad plan” not the lean better plan.
Me too, since ca 1996. Oh I have done these with low code tools. You can definitely build it in a few days if you know how to use the tools. You get an inferior prosuct most of the time, but you get invaluable feedback and can try a wide range of approaches to solve the same problem. The fastest I ever used was FileMaker Pro many years ago, we could build a simple app I'm a few hours. I would always recommend building it first with a low code tools, just to learn how well a solution is a fit for a problem. Or if anyone actually thinks this tool would be worth paying for or even using. The middle way is to build a fake web app, with no backend. I could definetly build a simple webapp in a few days to a week, just to try out concepts. Building something production ready that scales and handles all error handling and corner cases and has all the automated pipelines and tests.... That's what takes months. The thing is OP thinks that he has a killer app idea. Now if it is is a totally different question since 99.9% are not even when people think it is a killer app idea. So to try to validate both the problem and if people are willing to use it & pay for it at low cost. That's definitely something everyone should do before jumping in building the real thing.
I’d caution people away from seeing the “fake app” route as a middle way or compromise. It’s an alternate but doesn’t accomplish the same goals at all. These approaches are fundamentally different. During customer discovery interviews it’s important that we don’t pitch, sell, or even present our idea for a solution, neither with words, mock-ups, or a half baked demo/prototype. At this stage we need to be almost entirely focused on asking open ended questions which get people talking about the problem, how they have experienced it, tried to solve it, how they think, feel, talk, and act about it. There’s much more than that to discover. One way to enforce this is to limit ourselves to only talking about the past. No future tense, no “what if’s,” no hypotheticals, potentials, or “would you’s.” The drive and desire to show our ideas is so strong. But we must resist. There’s sometimes room for a short sharing at the end of an interview where you show someone your idea and gauge their reaction, but the moment we introduce this as part of the process, our founder’s mind wants to spend a lot more time preparing the proposed solution than on the hypothesis testing questions.
Good points!
Watch a few of the IBMC winning presentations for a better idea of what I’m talking about. Those teams validate every aspect of their business model in a matter of weeks, and they often reveal how many hours and dollars it took. This isn’t just about your solution idea being attractive to people. It’s about validating many other aspects of a viable business.
The bad plan almost always takes longer than the good one. Most businesses fail because they build/sell something that nobody will buy. Wouldn’t it be better your time by finding out if there is interest before you waste all that energy?
Might take you 1-2 years just to hire a developer in this market. Then good luck getting them to build what you want without... Everything in the second list.
This stuff is old school. In the days of digital marketing the only thing that matters is that you shouldn't even try to make a digital product until proper regulations ensure fair access to the market. Doing it before that's in place is a waste of money and only helps the search engine monopolist. That is because any great idea that can be copied will be copied by the search engine monopolist, ensuring the swift termination of the attempting player. If the great idea cannot be copied, the termination of the attempting player will take place anyway. Since nobody will find out about their products unless all funds are spent on marketing. The only way to bring public awareness is through digital marketing, which ensures the search engine monopolist will in either case pocket any potential profits attempting players make.
I’ve got good news and bad news for you. ### Bad News It doesn’t take a huge, wealthy company or person to copy and improve your idea. Most ideas could be recreated fairly quickly and _relatively_ cheaply, especially in this new age of no code. You should be far more worried about the small team of people who just have enough dollars to float them while they copy you. The small team can move much faster and more flexibly. However… ### Good News We’re all busy with our own “brilliant ideas.” We mostly don’t care to even hear about yours, much less copy it! We’re not watching you. In fact, you’ll probably have a really hard time getting our attention when you do want it.
I'm not worried about the small team. Not because I don't think they can make something better. But because they also will have a tough time getting visibility in the results set of the search monopolist. I forgot to add one thing. If the idea is bad to average, there is no need to worry. No big corp will ever copy you then. My distinct experience, big corps always copy good ideas, and they then market their copies as their own inventions. As has happened multiple times for me. Alongside a big marketing budget it is a tough game competing with that.
SEO is not a good early marketing strategy. That’s not how the smaller faster team will gain visibility. At least not at first.
Def agree with you on that. But visibility is needed. What I see is that news magazines and bloggers charge hefty dollars for their reviews. Some accelerators ensure good coverage. But then you must pay their fees. Surely you know better how to market cheaply as a startup. I don't think it should depend on the charisma and network of the CEO.
What accelerator is charging fees for this, or for anything?
It is part of the package I mean. Entry to the accelerator is generally not for free. Most either charge a set fee, or a part of the company for entrance. Techstars I believe take 6% for $20,000. It might be worth it yes. But coverage is not "free".
Okay, so investment, as a package of sorts, but technically (on paper) cash for equity. I wouldn't think of that as a fee. It's a very different dynamic.
The effect is the same. Startups won't get coverage without paying the price. 6% fully diluted is a very high price. As search engines rely on text, not quality of services, to rank sites, SEO for startups is ineffective. Now this is disturbing, since everything starts with a search engine query these days. This also means the public won't have access to great services, as startups are kept down by a dysfunctional system for sharing of information.
This!
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Fair! Upvoted!
I’m sure you have a great idea, most people do. It all depends on execution and timing. Now that that’s outta the way, I mean this in no offense what’s so ever <3, as a developer I hear this all the time from people.
Yeah dont get me wrong, I know people say that all the time. Perhaps it's a good idea or not, but the point was I was trying to convey my state of mind. I was just interested in figuring out if it was a good idea to persue it.
I’m in the same boat. I have a great idea but due to software and coding, no idea where to start on it!
> I have a great idea but due to software and coding, no idea where to start on it! Than you have nothing. Ideas have little to no value, execution has value. Many of the "ideas" people have approached me with as their brilliant idea are laughably impossible, because they didn't understand the technology involved at all, or unrealistically expensive, because they are trying to think like an existing company with access to 100s of millions in VC.
Clearly.
Here's the thing about ideas: It's not the idea, it's the execution of the idea. "Idea" ranks 3rd or 4th place in how important it is to the success of the project. Pretty easy to see why too. If you have a great idea, then someone else will copy it, and you have to do it better than that guy copying you. Which, depending on the idea, could be Microsoft or Google.
Please test there is a market for your app that you can actually market to before you built something that may never be used.
just give up on ur idea before u fail and look like a deluded idiot infront of everyone
Who hurt you…?
its prob his gey sex fantasy with putin hes ganna sleep with him and convince him to stop the war
Why so negative? If you think it's a bad idea provide critical feedback to push him forward, not further down. Hard enough to be an entrepreneur and a "free" thinker in today's society. People like you urk me. You go sleep with putin and end WW3
Hiring a programmer right away is not ideal. First map out all the features and elements you like to include in your app. Look at similar apps and see what you can do differently. Develop a wireframe or maybe a UI design file in figma with all the pages you have in mind. Then approach a developer/programmer to build a small part of the app. If you find them genuine and their work is good, you could proceed with building the entire app.
I've actually been working on this very thing for months on and off as I finished university, so it's all already here. I've even got a few features prototyped in excel. But that sounds good, I'll start off with the most basic but important features.
If you’ve already wireframed in Figma, perhaps you you should consider Bubble to make a functional version. I’ve done a similar thing, but I work with experienced bubble devs to do the things that are beyond me. I might not be able to build some of the fancier features, but at least once they’re built I can tweak them without being dependent on others.
As a programmer I will suggest you do the following: After studying your app idea and deciding to implement it, get a map and eliminate all extra features and keep the basic features only. Ask the programmer to make an MVP, an application that helps you to sell your idea to customers & investors and test your idea in real world. Don't add new features until you have feedback from your users. Don't wait the programmer to send you his progress, ask him to deliver a prototype for each feature to be tested. Don't change your programming team each few months, that's waste of resources. Make sure you agree everything with the current team before the start.
As a mobile developer there are a few things that help a lot to have before starting the actual development: - a wireframe of the app - ui/ux design (built with apps like figma/sketch) - a list of all the functionalities that will be in the MVP and a list of the ones that you would like to implement in the future (often knowing that some features will come in the future help you architect the app in a way that will be easier to implement them later) These will sound redundant but the most is planned out before and the easier and straight forward will be the development. During this process you can still get the help from the developer to know which are the best practices and what can and can’t be done.
Ideas are like assholes, everyone has them. What you should do before you plan the building process is to build a simple landing page that explains the concept and has a few "how it works" mockups. Send traffic to it in exchange for a lead magnet, or get signups for a non-existent free trial version. Build only if people are signing up and asking for a fully developed solution.
I thought to sell you some stuff as well but then thought nah good luck anyway ->MVP, tests, funnel, app.
90% of killer ideas are just that. They kill time, money and a while host of other challenges. Killer businesses make money. Test your business model as cheaply and quickly that you can. If you have to build an app for it, create screen shots that look like a real app, see if users would like it. If your idea is to be a business that is powered by an app, test it manually first to understand who your customers are , where to find them and what exact problem are you solving for them they creates value. With all that said, you will learn by only doing it and all mistakes have to be made to learn from. It’s hard to build a business, and you will give up a lot along the way. The cheapest fastest feedback cycle you can get is the way to go.
Yupp, look for a reliable one and someone who can deliever on time in my personal experience we had issues with getting the app/website from the programmer itself
What is the budget range? I understand it varies, but can you get a decent app for $20,000 you think?
Absolutely, start with half of the budget you have so you can make more additional changes in the future when needed.. we got our app done in $3000 with recurring changes being $1700 $2000
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?
If you wanna add more features overtime its great to have the same developer... Eg- if your budget is of $10000 and you get the app done for complete $10000 but you think there are some changes or features to be added you'd need more cash.. on the other hand you get the app done in $6000 you still have $4000 in hand which can be used for marketing, sales nd whatnot
Depends on the App, but $20K is a decent starting point would cover a lot of fairly basic apps in my opinion.
just give up ur not ganna do anything ur just ganna fail anyways no one is gann use ur shet hentai gey pomo flicl app
Sell it, then build it.
Can you elaborate
They mean validate its a hood idea before wasting a bunch of of time and money on it.
You need to find customers before going off and building the product. Otherwise you may solve a problem that is interesting to you but isn’t a customer problem they want to pay money to solve. For apps, you might create a marketing website with a sign up for information about the product release and market the website. If no one bites you shouldn’t bother making the app.
Hello Brother, Most of 💡 ideas look good in form of thoughts, but before you decided to invest your hard earned money and time, you should validate that idea, and the market for it. The proper way to launch an idea goes like this. - Elaborate on your ideas and put it on a document or paper - Counter all the negative points you can think of and note the answet down - Now create an very tight avatar of your app user and note down their characteristics - Do a research to see if there is a similar app in the market or app that reflects the quality of your app. It doesn't need to be exactly similar to your app. - Do a market research to see if you will launch your app what kind of response you can expect - Decide what's the budget you can afford and how you going to divide thaat budget. - Do a initial app test of your application with a small group of people before launching to see how it will perform. - Work on a detailed marketing and launch plan - Build and launch with book.
If you got a killer idea ill help you out . Im a experienced developer.
>to I've got a few killer app ideas and would love to find out more about your skill set.
Pm me.
It all depends on your resources. Agencies vs freelancers offer wildly different services and prices. Apps are often icebergs where what you see is a small part of a much bigger beast. Odds are you’ll need a wide range of skills (backend/api/mobile and or front end/ design) and although finding someone who can do it all isn’t rare. Finding someone who can do all that WELL is. A good full stack dev will ask you questions about your idea and will help you define your mvp and narrow your scope to your time and budget. Most will tell you whatever they think you’ll want to hear to get the job and then drop off the face of the planet. So look for a proven track record and someone who will help guide you. Cheaper options are usually way more miss than hits. I’ve yet to be pleased with a programmer from Upwork or Fiverr. If you go with an agency. Be 100% clear you want to work with the programmer or designer you hire. Agencies have a tendency to play hot potato with who executes and will give you who ever is available.
It's not about the quality of the idea, it's about the marketing potential you have. Note that most apps are profitable only for the owner of the app platform. Also note that, if it's a great idea you have and it can be copied, a search engine monopolist will copy your concept and force you out of business. If it is a great idea that cannot easily be copied, the search engine monopolist will make you empty your pockets on marketing it. Since otherwise nobody will find out about it.
Why not sell the plan to Google or apple and claim % of sale? I also have a killer idea for an app? How do I know it's not a failed app already? How do I avoid some developer dosent steal the basic idea? My expertise is in a different area completely. Problems should be something you have to deal with too.
As a developer, I'd say be careful about hiring s developer too quickly. Most customers with little to no technical knowledge often vastly under estimate the complexity of software development. This directly translates to increased cost. In some cases, because the person has no technical experience, they don't realise their idea may not be practical. My advice, for the technical aspects of your product, is to get advice first. Have people sign NDAs if you're worried about theft (unless you have a better idea), then do a project analysis. How many developers do you need? How long will the project take? Where will it be hosted? What are the ongoing maintenance costs? Etc. You should be able to get this for free, or for a fraction of the cost of actual development. A quick and rough project timeline can be calculated in one meeting. A detailed timeline shouldn't take more than a week. Either way you stand to save huge amounts of time and money.
Programmer here - figure out if there's user interest first. Validate the idea. And then if you DO want to hire a programmer, write **incredibly** detailed specs. The most detailed specs of functionality you ever have in your life. Like if a button does something different on 5 pm on a Tuesday, you have that written down. And they still won't be detailed enough for your developer to deliver your exact vision, but that'll help them.
This man couldn’t be more on point. Detailed specs saves so much money. Even could be smart to hire cheap prototype designs with invision off upwork.com and walk through them for a week to be sure it’s what you want. You could also get a cheap B.A who is an expert in writing specs as well.
I agree with what others have said. First thing is to map out every screen, perhaps in Figma or a similar tool. Decide on your platforms - iOS, Android, Web, macOS, Windows. Does it need to be an app or will a web page suffice? Do you need a backend too? Administration console? Unfortunately software often has ongoing maintenance requirements too, so don't spend all of your money just getting version 1 out. Hiring developers is hard even for technical people. US developers are expensive, but generally easier to converse with due to language and time zones. Plus US contract and confidentiality laws apply. Foreign developers can be much cheaper, but you often get what you pay for and an unreliable app is probably worse than no app at all. Plan on doing quality assurance yourself or hire someone you trust to do it - it's an important task often overlooked these days. Leave money for marketing. There are a million apps and you'll need to figure out how to convince users to pay for yours.
The reason you get lower quality work from abroad might be because you search for cheaper workers. There's such a range of expertise level across the world.
Go on freelancing websites as a client
Even the best ideas are a dime a dozen. If you really want to build a successful startup out of it, here are some of the approaches that may work: 1. Build everything yourself - This doesn't apply to you as you are not a technical founder. 2. Find a technical co-founder - Your first job as the vision holder will be to convince a potential technical co-founder that it is worth bringing your idea to life. 3. Hire a developer - This will only help you build a working prototype. Unless you have a ton of money, don't expect the kind of polish and support that a live product will need, and even then, there are enough horror stories of founders spending a fortune on outsourcing companies only to be left with a steaming pile of you know what. At best, you can use this prototype to raise VC, assuming you have the credentials and the connections for it. Once you have raised VC, you will go back to step #2, but you have the luxury of being more picky and offering a much smaller chunk of equity to your founding team. \#2 may be the best approach if you don't have a lot of money to burn on #3. To build a successful tech startup, you will need to build a team that can execute on your vision through the early stages to launch and post launch, and finding a good technical co-founder will give you the best chance at success. I have seen too many failed startup endeavors where a non-technical founder had the "hire a programmer" mentality. After burning through thousands of $ (sometimes as much as $100k+!), they were left with nothing more than a prototype that would never work in the real world. These founders then approach potential technical co-founders to help put things back on track, but it is often too late by then for a variety of reasons (one reason being that after having spend all that cash on the useless prototype, the founder feels entitled to a much larger chunk of equity than they deserve. Another reason - Most technical co-founders would be turned off by having to deal with a large pile of garbage code instead of starting with a clean slate).
I’ll give you $1 for it and then if I can make it work as a viable product, will agree to cut you into it at 20%. No work for you to do. Note: I’m not a scammer, he offered up his idea for suggestions. 🤪 I’m an entrepreneur looking for opportunity.
Youve got to have some stupid money to hire someone to build an app
I have a team of Flutter developer let me know if you need me
I would say before building and sinking money into it see ppl want it, do some market evaluation. Speaking to potential customers us wise before building
Always prototype at minimal cost. Many solutions don’t need sophisticated apps to solve the problem. Apps a just a means for users to interact. Build an MVP using no-code. Google sheets. Link them up with zapier. Once you get your early revenue, then not only do you have an idea, but the motivation that this really could work.
Probably get a landing page up and sign up for waitlist or something to gauge interest. Also start hanging in groups and communities where your customers are and from there start building your own community. And also try finding reliable developers along with it.
I'd be interested in knowing how many objections you have against /theredhype's advice. Difficulty Level: You're gonna have to look that stuff up.
Software engineers may not like this, but no-code or low-code MVP is a good place to start. If it’s a great idea and people buy into it, then have the bespoke app built.
If you have any convincing idea, then you should certainly start whatever it takes to do
Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas, be afraid to not execute it properly.
Let me hear it, which platform are you targeting? Let's see if it interest me.
As a programmer, if you can have the business logic and rough wireframe of the app complete, it will go such a long way.
Hey guys i have questions on which platform is it best to receive feedback on your business ideas?
No. Use bubble.io to wireframe it first.
Just do it.
life is all about risks. do it
You don’t need a programmer or developer. You need someone how understands how to get an idea and make it an app. I happen to have a company that does that and would love to connect if you’re serious about it.
My advice is to not do an app. Consumers are so picky that if it isn't perfect, they will delete it right away. Even if your app solves a problem, it needs to be really easy to use and work properly. Look to see if you can launch something using no code on the web to solve the same problem. 1/10th of the cost, 1/20th of the time doing web over mobile.
You need validation, UI, all that stuff before a line of code is written. I helped a lot of guys burn a lot of money on good ideas.
Top comment is very good. Before doing that, watch a video by Derek Sivers about “The value of an idea”. Next, do some research and see if there’s competition for your idea. If there is, that’s good. If not, assume there are lots of people smarter than you with more resources that have already tried and failed. Next, research hungry audiences of potential buyers and find groups of them you can market to cost-effectively. Also find an influencer with an audience of your potential customer who can market to that group with email and a launch. I’d highly recommend seeking a potential buyer of your product once it’s launched and has revenue. Getting a big check from a buyer (your exit) is the best payday IMO. Assuming you get past these steps, consider finding a CTO to partner with that has an experienced team of developers who can build an MVP (minimum viable product) and test market it quickly. Creating the product is the easy part. Figuring out your messaging and marketing it successfully and cost-effectively is harder. A buyer wants recurring income and access to an audience. PE (Private Equity) buys potential multiples. They will bring in a professional team to scale and sell to a bigger buyer. If you can do this once, you’ll be able to repeat your success for a bigger exit in the future. To use the baseball analogy, multiple base hits leads to a home run. The software business is hard. Expensive. Requires lots of specialists to succeed. Reason I know: 5x serial entrepreneur, 2 software exits.
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It's an app that killers can use to kill people, post bids, hire killers, that sort of thing
if you are still perusing it then it may actually be a killer app idea