App development

[EarlOfHazard]

I have an idea for a new app. Now, I have zero programming knowledge, so would have to use a third party app builder to create it for me.

My question is, what's to stop this company from taking my idea and claiming it for themselves? Is it possible to patent an app?

[Hoofy]

Or even if they take your idea, let you have it then make a rival/copy? Nothing. Anyone could copy any app. Have you seen the market?

[Altrezia]

Only thing you can really do is get an NDA.

We can help with the dev if needed

[jammy-git]

I'm firmly of the opinion that NDAs are worth very little, and ideas are worth not much more.

Any app developer/agency worth their salt won't be able to sign an NDA because the likelihood is that if they haven't already spoke to someone about a similar idea, they will in future. Secondly, you then have to enforce an NDA and prove that the developer took your specific idea. And if you're idea isn't specific enough, or the developer tweaks it slightly, chances are you're not getting any compensation.

And so for the value of your idea - this image sums it up quite nicely:


An amazing idea (of which there are very, very, very few), is worth nothing without great execution.

Finally, a developer is not going to take your idea mainly because we don't want to. Most developers have a tonne of ideas of their own and we literally get approached every week by people with The Next Big Thing. If we stole all the ideas we'd not get anything finished.

[Altrezia]

jammy-git said:

Finally, a developer is not going to take your idea mainly because we don't want to. Most developers have a tonne of ideas of their own and we literally get approached every week by people with The Next Big Thing. If we stole all the ideas we'd not get anything finished.

So true!

[matrignano]

As a very rough estimate, what's the going rate for building a turnkey e-commerce iOS App with the following features:
- facebook login
- contact uploads from phonebook
- (group) chat functionality
- product catalogue and basket management
- payment gateway for debit/credit cards and apple pay
- delivery tracking via google maps

I guess there must be a number of (free) APIs that can be used?

[cdrx]

matrignano said:

As a very rough estimate, what's the going rate for building a turnkey e-commerce iOS App with the following features:
- facebook login
- contact uploads from phonebook
- (group) chat functionality
- product catalogue and basket management
- payment gateway for debit/credit cards and apple pay
- delivery tracking via google maps

I guess there must be a number of (free) APIs that can be used?

£20k

[Don]

Altrezia said:

jammy-git said:

Finally, a developer is not going to take your idea mainly because we don't want to. Most developers have a tonne of ideas of their own and we literally get approached every week by people with The Next Big Thing. If we stole all the ideas we'd not get anything finished.

So true!

Yep. Ideas have zero value. What has value is working, deployable code.

[andyb28]

I think for most people that the upfront costs are just too much for them to actually go ahead with the idea they had.

We have spent too many hours going through the concept and design only to find they cant afford to proceed. Even when offered a payment plan to help with the development costs.

I am sure people think its going to cost a few hundred pounds.

[jonamv8]

cdrx said:

matrignano said:

As a very rough estimate, what's the going rate for building a turnkey e-commerce iOS App with the following features:
- facebook login
- contact uploads from phonebook
- (group) chat functionality
- product catalogue and basket management
- payment gateway for debit/credit cards and apple pay
- delivery tracking via google maps

I guess there must be a number of (free) APIs that can be used?

£20k

Pretty accurate figure there

[Birkin1932]

Get a student to do it from a local Uni.

very talented guys are available.

shopify can be dropped into an App and give you most of what you listed

this is an interesting site

https://ecommerce.shopify.com/c/shopify-apps/t/new...

Edited by Birkin1932 on Sunday 13th November 23:22

[plasticpig]

cdrx said:

matrignano said:

As a very rough estimate, what's the going rate for building a turnkey e-commerce iOS App with the following features:
- facebook login
- contact uploads from phonebook
- (group) chat functionality
- product catalogue and basket management
- payment gateway for debit/credit cards and apple pay
- delivery tracking via google maps

I guess there must be a number of (free) APIs that can be used?

£20k

Is that UK based development though? I am guessing yes because it can be done a lot cheaper than that.

[jonamv8]

plasticpig said:

cdrx said:

matrignano said:

As a very rough estimate, what's the going rate for building a turnkey e-commerce iOS App with the following features:
- facebook login
- contact uploads from phonebook
- (group) chat functionality
- product catalogue and basket management
- payment gateway for debit/credit cards and apple pay
- delivery tracking via google maps

I guess there must be a number of (free) APIs that can be used?

£20k

Is that UK based development though? I am guessing yes because it can be done a lot cheaper than that.

Yep - could be done cheaper abroad for sure but does OP have trusted overseas developers and experience project managing an international team?!

[Don]

jonamv8 said:

Yep - could be done cheaper abroad for sure but does OP have trusted overseas developers and experience project managing an international team?!

This. Outsourcing to India can be very cost effective. It can also be a right disaster. There are business-culture differences, you need to make sure of code quality, tie up warranty arrangements and so on. Will they do the ongoing support or will you? There will be bugs, how will they be dealt with? etc etc.

Then there can be issues with code quality, whether their management team are willing to put the right, expensive, resources on it.

This stuff is why there is still plenty of work right here in the UK. Lot to be said for the local service you can go and see (and kick if necessary!).

[jonamv8]

Don said:

jonamv8 said:

Yep - could be done cheaper abroad for sure but does OP have trusted overseas developers and experience project managing an international team?!

This. Outsourcing to India can be very cost effective. It can also be a right disaster. There are business-culture differences, you need to make sure of code quality, tie up warranty arrangements and so on. Will they do the ongoing support or will you? There will be bugs, how will they be dealt with? etc etc.

Then there can be issues with code quality, whether their management team are willing to put the right, expensive, resources on it.

This stuff is why there is still plenty of work right here in the UK. Lot to be said for the local service you can go and see (and kick if necessary!).

The guys who can do this on the cheap in India do it week in week out with a satellite office they've worked with for a while. They have also been burnt a few times getting to this point.

The guy who struggles is a one off working with India for the first or a relatively small number of times.

[768]

Don't worry about protecting it. The reality is it's likely a st idea which will be lucky to make any initial investment back and consequently developers just want paying for their effort. And if it is any good it'll be legally replicated very quickly if you'd need to rely on protection.

As for India (or Russia, or etc)... best of luck.

[Don]

jonamv8 said:

The guys who can do this on the cheap in India do it week in week out with a satellite office they've worked with for a while. They have also been burnt a few times getting to this point.

The guy who struggles is a one off working with India for the first or a relatively small number of times.

I agree with you there. The people making a big success out of Indian/Indonesian outsourcing are running software factories ("delivery centres") as part of their global enterprise. They have the management and oversight sorted.

[matrignano]

Thanks all this is very helpful.
Any recommendations for UK (London preferably) based developers I could have a chat with?

[Tuna]

Let's be clear that making money from Apps these days is very difficult. An app with tens of thousands of users can make pennies - you need to get it into the hands of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of users and that needs investment in marketing, promotion, advertising and so on.

Making an app successful isn't about having a good idea (though that's necessary), it isn't about great execution (also necessary), it isn't about ongoing development and support (pretty likely to be needed) and it isn't about promotion (yup, necessary) - it's about doing all of those things and having a great heap of luck on top. There are millions of apps out there calling for attention, why should anyone care about yours?

Like websites, you can get an app developed cheaper overseas. Assuming you have enough technical knowledge to get the thing written, tested and delivered according to your specs, you then have to consider whether you will be able to maintain the code, release updates or fix ongoing issues. If the app has a back end (some server or database, or relies on third party APIs) you're almost certainly going to need an ongoing contract to update and manage those services. Someone mentioned 20K, but an app could cost anything from 2K to 100K depending on what it did and how much support it needed.

Consider this - if making money from apps was easy, the many developers who are capable of doing it wouldn't be charging serious sums of money to do it for clients. They'd be writing their own apps and rolling in the money.

[jammy-git]

matrignano said:

Thanks all this is very helpful.
Any recommendations for UK (London preferably) based developers I could have a chat with?

Web app or mobile app?