you forgot the most important step: be realistic! programming that app is gonna take months away from your spare time (if you really are starting from scratch) and your chances of actually producing a killer app are marginal. you gotta be aware that there are countless hours of unpaid work ahead of you, for which the revenue of your app is not going to account for.
I don't wanna sound like a disgruntled developer (I really am not), but it's important to know that most likely your expectations on this app are heavily biased - especially when you lack developer skills. when you decide to enter the app business, you have to be aware that you are competing in what is probably one of the most competitive markets in the world, with very smart people from all over the world trying to monetize their apps. if this doesn't curb your enthusiasm then have a go at it - godspeed!
You are right on. 3 months for me to go from no ObjC experience to app store, another 5 months to get to 50K users, still no revenue, still no "seed" round. You need to be in it because it's what you really want to do.
Your own desire (financial or otherwise) is absolutely key. It's an extremely competitive landscape, but the barrier to entry is low compared to other industries. You can do quite a lot on your own with an investment of mostly time and energy.
I'm all for people learning to program so they can build something they're excited about, but this seems disingenuous. For most people it'll take months or more to go from zero coding experience to building an MVP of their 'killer app' idea. Posts like this make it sound like it's just working through a checklist.
If someone's not excited about the actual process of learning to code, a)they'll probably get discouraged quickly and b)there's probably a more efficient way for them to get a prototype of their app than learning to code from scratch.
I can't disagree with your points, but if someone is motivated and wants to learn, getting started can be overwhelming, especially if you don't have any programming experience. This post is intended to help guide people at the very beginning of their learning, though it's totally valid to point out that it's a journey, not a quick fix.
At Treehouse our mission is to make software development approachable to all, and our courses are designed to teach people from the ground up. Of course it will be harder for people who have never written a line of code, but with desire, determination, and the help of the supportive community we're building then hopefully they can accomplish their goals more efficiently and cost-effectively than before.
I donno but I think this is Question one:
Does something like this exist already and are people actually paying to use it? (Unless of course you're selling a (great looking) service for all the other questions).
Sometimes your "killer" idea might be selfish or for a really small niche, too. It may not be a successful business venture, but it could be the killer app for you, friends and family, or specific types of users. For example, in another blog post of mind somebody older commented on his desire to have an app that simply uses the camera to automatically enlarge what he's looking at to help him read. And if you're interested in learning or building things then perhaps working on your own personal project will be super rewarding.
Lots of people do not know what they want. Hardly anyone knew they "wanted" FB because nobody actually thought they'd be needing it. Less alone pay for it.
If it's really "killer" (not as in: "I'm creating a social app where people hunting cows with bows can use their smarthpone to share videos of arrows piercing bows in real-time") then people may not know they'll actually want this.
I don't disagree that having other buying apps using your idea is good in that it shows there's a market.
But then you don't "Have a great idea". Because you're idea simply is "My idea is to copy another product".
Not that I have anything against it: it's what I do for a living : )
Start doing something is definitely the most important step, but unless you know whether a) the idea will make money and b) how you're going to market it, chances are your effort will be wasted.
Part of me thinks that the ideal is if you have any idea in an already busy market. That way you know that the core idea makes money, and you can pick up marketing ideas for your future competitors.
I'm a huge advocate for the Lean Startup approach, which is more often than not the best approach for deciding whether or not to develop a mobile application. That being said, I think it's a bit of a stretch to expect a blog from a company that provides training for learning coding to write about the customer development process.
For anyone who actually wants to build an app -- This guide is very long winded. For iOS, the easiest way is to download xCode and try to build it.
I would suggest Aaron Hillegass' Big Nerd Ranch Guides for ObjC and iOS programming. I read those books over a few days to get started and felt as though they provided a great foundation for all ObjC things to come. Stack Overflow fills in the blanks.
You don't have to take my advice, but it's been 8 months since I started "building my killer app", it's been out in the app store for almost 5 months, and since then we've been featured by Apple, and have over 50K users. Just plan to start what you've finished and you'll force yourself into having a killer app.
I love the Big Nerd Ranch! That's definitely a great way to learn, but if you want more than just a book to work from, that's where Treehouse is here to help (Big Nerd Ranch has AWESOME bootcamps, too). It's so exciting to have so many great resources available cheaply or freely.
I saw somebody paste an image of an iPhone into a PowerPoint slide, and draw all the screen elements using copy and paste or the PowerPoint drawing tools.
He used inter-slide hyperlinks to link all the screens together and some simple transitions, and the end result was just like running a real app on the simulator to the untrained eye.
I suppose the next step is to just find some foreign devs to actually build the thing.
I don't wanna sound like a disgruntled developer (I really am not), but it's important to know that most likely your expectations on this app are heavily biased - especially when you lack developer skills. when you decide to enter the app business, you have to be aware that you are competing in what is probably one of the most competitive markets in the world, with very smart people from all over the world trying to monetize their apps. if this doesn't curb your enthusiasm then have a go at it - godspeed!