22 year old graduate. Launching an app.. Living the dream?
My app idea actually came to me in a dream as cheesy as it sounds. My first thought was get funding so I put together a list of reputable investors and asked them what stage a business would have to be at before they were willing to look at my business plan. Naively, I hoped one of them would see the brilliance of my idea and give me a shed load of cash to put together the best development and marketing teams possible. They all came back and said roughly the same thing — you need a minimum viable product with some traction in the market already. So that’s what I’m doing. Problem is, I don’t know how to code. And this isn’t your average app idea, it’s going to cost to develop. Quitting my job would be counter-intuitive, mainly because I can’t afford to go it alone until I’ve saved enough money.
So what do I have? Why do I believe my app will rise above the 1000 AppStore entries every day? Well I do believe I have a great idea for an app. Everyone with a phone will have a use for it and My business model means I can offer it completely for free. There’s nothing else like it at the moment and it’s such a simple idea I don’t know how no one has thought of it already. It’s just offers a better way of doing things. So how do you go about delivering something of this potential with the quality and exposure it deserves? I don’t know is the answer I haven’t figured it all out yet but I’m sure going to give it my best shot. I’ve been successful in everything I’ve done so far (baring in mind I’m only 22) so why shouldn’t this be any different?
What else do I have? Nothing tangible, but having nothing to lose is also one of my greatest strengths. The annoying bit for me is that to some extent, things are out of my hands for the moment. I can’t code so I’m forced to pay a developer and affording this is proving difficult. I have had several quote estimates from various developers, most of them in the region of 30-50k.. Not really in my price range seeing as I graduated from university earlier this year. Where do I go from here?
Well one of the estimates I received seems to be just within my price range (vastly lower than 30k) so I’m currently in negotiations about the final quote. Trouble is, to afford even this quote in having to stay at my current job for the next four months leaving me little time to dedicate pre-launch marketing.
This process is long and having a third party develop the first version of my app isn’t ideal as I have little control over the process. And this all takes valuable time which is frustrating. It’s working to my advantage in some ways though, I’m constantly thinking of ways to improve my app and it’s best I get these into he brief before any final quotes.
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