Incredible idea but no programming skills. What would you do?

GordyR · 28 Feb 2011 at 14:58

This is a totally 'out there' post but i'll cut straight to the point... I had a dream last night.

In this dream I was using an app on my iPhone which was quite simply brilliant. It is such a good idea that I am certain it would become extremely popular in a very short space of time and is the sort of thing that believe it or not I could see being built in to future generations of phones as part of the OS.

I initially dismissed it and chuckled at myself for dreaming it up, however the more I think about it the more I am realising that it's only a matter of time before Apple/Blackberry/Google or whoever have the same realisation and develop it themselves.

Now, I believe the app would be totally creatable given most modern smartphones hardware and capabilities but the problem is... I don't have the first clue about programming, at all.

So the question I am posing to you guys is "What would you do?". Fabulous idea but no 'Know how'. Where would you go if you genuinely wanted to make something out of this and quickly?

Very strange post I know, but I am deadly serious about this.

hargi · 28 Feb 2011 at 15:12

You need to talk to someone that does know what there doing but you need to look into signing up to a confidential disclosure agreement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreement .

Either that or learn quickly

UK-AL05 · 28 Feb 2011 at 15:23

Some of the first things i do, before going into a venture is check

How big is the potential market? I.e Will only few individuals want this?
Are there any similar products?
How established are the competitors?
If you have competitors, can you beat them on quality(I.e They have crappy marketing, graphic design, crashy app etc)

Then you can start thinking about moving further. Then you have to get a developer on your side, which I have never had problem with since i am one. You can either pay the whole cost of application which can be very expensive, or be willing share revenue if the developer wants to take the risk on you.

Applications can range from £100 - £50000 in my experience, so there is a lot of variance on cost depending on complexity of the application.

Marketing is very important in the phone applications business. Getting mentioned on blogs, trying to get mentioned twitter, getting in the local news, social news networks like reddit, digg or others. The holy grail is getting featured on the apple store, which can quite literarily be a millionaire maker. Its very rare that happens though.

I used to work in a iphone dev company(Freelance now, so i can work whenever i want

), and getting your money back with apps can be a little difficult(70% Make a loss). So make sure assess the market throughly.

NDA's are used a lot, even without NDAs i've never seen development company take advantage of the client unless their complete morons. Rep is important.

Make a list of what blogs, news sites, or other marketing methods you would like to use. If you feel you might have problems getting your app written about, you might have market accessibility problems I.e No one will know about your app. Be prepared to be constantly emailing and marketing to get the word out. This is the biggest hurdle, even your app is great this can be very difficult. Use promo codes to get reviews about your application.

If you app gets very popular, it possible that companies would prefer to buy your company rather than compete. Have everything to do with the app tied to your company, to make it as clean possible to sell. This is what happened with the official twitter app, originally it was developed by a one man company than got brought by twitter.

Gullanian · 28 Feb 2011 at 15:48

Easiest way forward would be to patent the idea.

MikeHunt79 · 28 Feb 2011 at 15:57

Gullanian said:
Easiest way forward would be to patent the idea.

This isn't a bad idea, can you get a worldwide patent now?

UK-AL05 · 28 Feb 2011 at 16:10

Patents with software can be difficult. You also have to prepared to actually act on the patent. Usually in most cases nothing happens. Developing an application, gives you copyright.

Get a lawyer.

GordyR · 28 Feb 2011 at 16:16

Great advice so far guys... Thank you. Let me give you a little more detail...

I haven't even began to think of financing yet so lets just assume that revenue would be shared between myself and the programmer. If this was the case he/she would need to be 100% behind the idea of course. How hard is it to find people willing to develop an app with no initial upfront fee? Even if the idea is a brilliant one.

The idea itself (without giving too much away) heavily involves using social networking in a new and unique way and would link directly with the likes of facebook/twitter but without attacking a specific niche. In otherwords - It is something that everyone who uses facebook on their mobile phones would want if it existed. Almost a dramatic new functionality or extension of facebook-type technology that would supplement rather that compete with Facebook itself. Given the nature of the app and of course the viral nature of facebook itself I would imagine getting this thing to spread to be quite easy. (It is difficult to explain just how much so without giving away the idea itself).

Now I would have thought that something like this would be quite complex to develop. With this in mind I am unsure how to proceed as I doubt just any developer could complete the task to a satisfactory level. And if I was in discussions with a developer I would have course have to get them to sign an NDA. How would I know if a develop could complete the task without having explained the idea to them first?

Seriously, the more I think about this the bigger and better it becomes and the greater the potential for added features and/or add on apps is in the future.

Just so that everyone is clear and doesn't think this is just 'pie in the sky' thought spilling. I'm 29 years old and in a very high paying job. Given the possibilities I can see with this idea, it genuinely is something I would walk away from my career for, as I firmly believe the demand for this would be incredibly huge.

Beansprout · 28 Feb 2011 at 16:22

Pretty sure Tesco have an iphone app I'm afraid

Sorry, I couldn't resist

GordyR · 28 Feb 2011 at 16:26

Beansprout said:
Pretty sure Tesco have an iphone app I'm afraid

Sorry, I couldn't resist

Haha...

UK-AL05 · 28 Feb 2011 at 16:27

You have no idea how many people we had with social networking applications, so you really have to special in that area. We had social networking applications for dogs =P, applications that merged all social networks into one application etc.

About the NDA, and explaining the application. This can be a little tricky in involves trust, and I've known some developers flat out refuse to sign NDA's

These articles explain why vcs won't sign them, some of them apply to programmers. Most will sign NDA's if they think you have a serious chance.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/05/why-vcs-wont-sign-your-nda.php

http://mixergy.com/why-i-wont-sign-your-nda/

When you have signed NDA's from different parties both for similar ideas, you can understand this can get little tricky. When you sign hundreds of them, its gets messy.

Also ask about there previous work, and don't let the app get released if its not built as good as you want it. Throughly test the application.

GordyR · 28 Feb 2011 at 16:31

UK-AL05 said:
You have no idea how many people we had with social networking applications, so you really have to special in that area. We had social networking applications for dogs =P, applications that merged all social networks into one application etc.

It really is nothing like any of this. it is not just another social networking app. I knew that by mentioning the social networking nature of the app that this would be exactly the kind of thing that would jump to mind. But please let me assure you that this is something completely new and something that absolutely everybody who uses facebook would want to supplement their mobile facebook experience.

The idea would not compete with facebook but interlink directly with it, adding one extremely simple yet incredibly powerful feature. Currently facebook on a mobile phone is just that... The same experience as you get on a home PC but on a mobile device. This idea expands upon the whole point of using Facebook on a mobile device. I'm genuinely shocked no one has done it yet and even more shocked that phone manufacturers and/or Facebook themselves haven't dont it yet. I am absolutely certain they will as soon as someone else has this lightbulb moment.

UK-AL05 · 28 Feb 2011 at 16:40

You can also list the technologies involved. Does it use geo-location, game technologies etc This should give better understanding of whats involved. For example would this require an Facebook application as well? Because then you are going require your own host.

GordyR · 28 Feb 2011 at 16:42

Thinking about it... I'm good with photoshop and graphic design and will mock up the UI this evening. This way I should be able to explain and engage any potential developers I contact.

A good 'next step'?

UK-AL05 · 28 Feb 2011 at 16:44

GordyR said:
Thinking about it... I'm good with photoshop and graphic design and will mock up the UI this evening. This way I should be able to explain and engage any potential developers I contact.

A good 'next step'?

Pretty much the standard way clients contact developers/companies. Usually once they have analysed your idea from your documents, they attempt to put an estimate on cost on it or some other revenue share agreement. Usually you can pay extra for a graphic designer to pay for graphics and customisation(Such as custom ui controls).

GordyR · 28 Feb 2011 at 16:47

UK-AL05 said:
You can also list the technologies involved. Does it use geo-location, game technologies etc This should give better understanding of whats involved. For example would this require an Facebook application as well? Because then you are going require your own host.

It would not require a 'facebook' type application to be built as long as there was someway of integrating it with Facebook itself (by that I mean having it connect with Facebook I suppose). Something which I imagine would be do-able given the expandable nature of Facebook. Please correct me if I am wrong.

The other technologies that the idea uses I would rather not state. The idea is that simple that it's seriously like an 'Oh my god, I can't believe they haven't done that yet' experience once it is explained. And due to it being that simple, if I list the technologies it genuinely could spark someone else off on to the same thing.

Snooble · 28 Feb 2011 at 16:48

Lets talk business. Trust me - I programme for iPhone & Android.

EDIT: Also, I'm very curious as to this idea; possibly even sceptical. I fail to believe that the application you're thinking of hasn't been attemped. Possibly tech limited?

Very interesting to me. Firstly you should be searching for a pre-existing application. Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist

Chaos · 28 Feb 2011 at 16:48

You could try posting in http://www.freelancer.com/ and developers will bid if they can do it and you can check there previous jobs to see if they are up to scratch, however you would need to describe some of the features you want implemented.

UK-AL05 · 28 Feb 2011 at 16:50

GordyR said:
It would not require a 'facebook' type application to be built as long as there was someway of integrating it with Facebook itself. Something which I imagine would be do-able given the expandable nature of Facebook. Please correct me if I am wrong.

The other technologies that the idea uses I would rather not state. The idea is that simple that it's seriously like an 'Oh my god, I can't believe they haven't done that yet' experience once it is explained. And due to it being that simple, if I list the technologies it genuinely could spark someone else off on to the same thing.

Yes there is an Facebook Iphone API. Any data that needs to be stored off the phone though, needs a server. You can do all the general facebook interaction via the API. The user usually needs accept an agreement to allow the application to access their data however. You have probably seen it if have ever used third party iphone application with facebook integration.

GordyR · 28 Feb 2011 at 16:57

Snooble said:
Lets talk business. Trust me - I programme for iPhone & Android.

EDIT: Also, I'm very curious as to this idea; possibly even sceptical. I fail to believe that the application you're thinking of hasn't been attemped. Possibly tech limited?

Very interesting to me. Firstly you should be searching for a pre-existing application. Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist

I've been searching all day and so far haven't been able to find anything even remotely along the same lines. I almost can't believe it myself. Drop me your Email in trust with some links to apps you have developed. I will mock up a UI this evening and we can talk soon.

Snooble · 28 Feb 2011 at 16:58

Been thinking about your idea.. seems you think it's specific for mobile communication.

Assuming it involves geo-location?