I have what I think is a great idea for a cellphone app. Such a good idea, actually, that I’m a little nervous that it’s already been done and I’m just not aware of it. Or that it’s been done but is not nearly as good an idea as I think and it flopped. But I haven’t been able to turn anything up online, so…
My question is: how do I make the app a reality? I have no computer programming skills, not much capital to invest, and no business experience. Where would I even begin? Is there a company out there that can make apps to order? Would I need to make a pitch to someone? Is there a way to copyright the idea, or is that even necessary? Is this all just a pipedream, or could I actually make it work?
How, in other words, does a complete amateur make an entry into this world?
The rule of thumb is that in the tech world, an idea is one step above worthless. Successful apps don’t succeed because they’re really good ideas; the ones that make it often weren’t the first, or the best, or the most elegant. They were the ones who were able to get a somewhat workable product to market, generate buzz, and attract investors, in that order. To succeed, you need to dedicate a lot of hours, have good connections, and get lucky.
Your best bet if you really think you have a winner would be to teach yourself to write apps. Leverage one of the many app platforms like Parse to reduce the amount of code you’d need to write, get a workable prototype, and then start shopping it around to generate some buzz.
Your second best bet would be to announce your idea to the world and hope that someone builds it, and then you can at least live in a world where your products exists. Or you can post it here and let the dope tear it apart for you.
There are plenty of software development firms that will happily develop your app. How little capital do you have to invest? You’ll need something on the order of $50,000 - $100,000 - but it could easily be much more depending on what your app does.
Since you have no experience it would be wise to pay a lawyer to look over your contract with the development firm, but generally speaking you’ll have complete ownership of the software they developed for you.
Once you have your app you can either market it yourself or pay people to do that too. I certainly would not invest all that money into developing the app and then try to market it myself, at least if I were you.
If I were you I would definitely meet with a good commercial insurance agent before doing anything else, to evaluate what kind of insurance coverage you should have for your app.
If you have significant assets (like a home), it’d be worthwhile to pay the lawyer to organize an LLC to do your app business through. If you have aspirations of being bought out, organize as a corporation.
I was once in your place, and I had the capital. I designed a completely unique app, and had it developed professionally. It was $10,000, and they did a great job.
Here’s the rub - you don’t just have an app and release it. The app marketplace is huge and hard to crack into. Mine was released and dropped like a rock, even with my marketing plan in place and doing what I could do to advertise via social media, direct email, requesting reviews, sweepstakes for free copies, etc. it is a 99 cent app, and I have a well identified and understood audience with high turnover of new potential users for my very helpful app.
I have found its easy to make an app, just next to impossible to get it out there and be noticed.
As the others have said, the gold rush days for apps ended a few years ago. Now thousands are released every day and if yours isn’t tops in category you’ll simply be lost in the fog of the other million apps at the store.
The nature of the app store search facility means the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Or more precisely, the popular apps in a category become ever more popular and the unpopular (or never-popular) remain so.
Pushing up the search rankings is all about generating buzz.
Convince someone with the skills to form a partnership with you, and they make it.
The problem with #3 is that the person who’s actually making the app is supplying 99+% of the effort here, so why would they want to share with you? What do you bring to the table? Just the idea? Worthless. Do you have skills in promotion or business development or… something that would be relevant to starting a new business? It’s all about the execution.
Hire a developer. Established Android and iOS developers with a portfolio are pricey but smart kids with dreams come along all the time here and in other countries.
When you have a working app, pitch it to VCs if you want capital and have none (assuming you don’t have angel investors). Give them control; make the best deal you can; let them choose the rollout mechanism and channels.
If you don’t have capital, you can’t afford the patent process (which for most startup apps is not a manageable process anyway).
Even if your app is highly successful, you are risk all along the way of not being the one who actually gets rich. But the same could be said of those who did get rich.
It’s helpful to consider what you yourself actually pay for. I won’t even pay for a Weather app. So if you think most folks are as cheap as I am, it better have some other revenue generating model, which usually means ads which usually means lotta users which usually means a longshot combo of great app/luck.
Source for this useless advice: Friend who owns a highly successful biz developing mobile apps for others. He puts the round number for a new basic app at their firm at 250-500k US dollars.
Do you have a lot of friends who are expert app developers? If not, then there’s almost no chance for success based on what you said. The only realistic way for this to succeed would be if you had a very good and honest friend who agreed to do the work for free without screwing you over if it became successful. But they would have to be a really good friend to spend months doing the hard work of writing the app and then share the profits with you.
It is highly unlikely that you could write a successful app if you don’t have any computer skills. There are development environments that make it easier, but it’s still a lot of work and your app would likely not have the polish of a professional app.
On the plus side, it costs nothing to try to program the app yourself. You definitely should try to write it yourself. The only thing you’ll lose is time. There are many guides out there which describe how to write mobile apps. Take a weekend where you follow the steps to create a simple program. Maybe you’ll find you have a knack for it.
DO NOT SPEND ANY MONEY! Don’t pay someone to do this. If you’re not a savvy business person, you will likely be taken advantage of if you hire someone. That doesn’t mean they would scam you, but they may charge more or mismanage it if you’re not on top of it. Even if someone agrees to partner with you for free, they will likely take advantage of you in the end.
What? That’s nonsense. Developers are professional people who are in the business of professionally developing applications based on specs from clients. We’re not in the business of stealing dumb ideas or taking people for a ride.
Do you trust a mechanic to fix only what’s needed on a car, and not steal it for a week of joyriding? Do you trust a waitress not to steal your credit card number and not to spit on your food? Do you trust an architect to apply their skills to translating your designs into professional to-code blueprints and not just charge you a ton of money for no work?
Of course you do, because they are all professionals and competent professionals do their jobs properly or else they find themselves without jobs.
A person doesn’t need to have a friend do their coding or do it themselves. If that were true there’d be nothing but Geocities as fat as the eye can see.
Just because something costs more to have a professional do it doesn’t mean you’re getting ripped off, either. It means that is what it costs to have a competent professional do your work.
I’ve been a software developer since the '80’s and even the best run projects can have overruns. If he doesn’t have the capital, he can’t afford to get a quality project made. If he doesn’t have business experience, he won’t be able to stay on top of the project to ensure it gets delivered.
You may be an honest developer, but that doesn’t mean they all are. There are plenty of people out there who will take money and produce shoddy work. If he doesn’t know software development, he won’t be able to sort through the companies to find the quality ones. Remember how much money was spent on the Obamacare signup website and look at the problems it had.
Consider his situation. Since he doesn’t have tons of money to blow on this project, he should not spend any money on it. There would be no point in scraping together thousands of dollars to pay a company to produce it. There’s no guarantee the end product would be any good, and even if it was, there’s no guarantee it would make any money. So rather than having a very large risk of losing all his money, he should try to make it for free.
OP: In other words, “I’ve got this great idea for a car. I have no automotive or engineering education or experience and no money. But it’d be an awesome car! How do I build it so I can drive it around and sell it?”
If you think building an app is much easier than the analogy above, I’ve got sour news for you…
OP here; sorry for the late reply. Thanks for all the answers and input - it is very sobering, and appropriately so. I still think I have a good idea and I may suggest it to a friend who knows more about these things, but no, it’s not something I’m going to take out massive loans to try to accomplish. Anyway, thank you all!
I’ve done a little work within the Android developer community and if it’s something that isn’t terribly complex, a lot of the independent devs that haven’t teamed up with a larger group with the intentions of making money would be willing to do it just because it’s what they enjoy doing. If I hadn’t let life get in the way and continued pursuing it as a hobby, I would be willing to take a crack at it. Unfortunately I haven’t done any work beyond modifying what others have made since ICS so I wouldn’t be much help as far as building it, but I could possibly point you in the right direction as I’m still in good standing with the community.
If you’re looking to build a full scale paid application that makes you millions of dollars then that’s something you’re going to have to pay a lot of money for. But there are plenty of people that just love working on Android and do things for donations only if you just want an app you can use.
On another note, unless your idea is truly that unique, chances are there’s already an app that does it. It may not be the sole purpose of the app or what it’s marketed for, but there are a lot of apps geared toward more savvy users that are extremely complex and can do almost anything you could imagine.
