Turning App Ideas into Reality

AI has completely transformed the learning curve that was previously required to build useful applications. Nowadays you can simply explain your idea to a no-code tool like Replit (below) and watch your app come to life in minutes.

Of course, more complex applications will always be harder to create. But AI can still save you an incredible amount of time and expedite your learning curve.

I always tell people the best way to learn how to code is to simply get your hands dirty. Watch a few tutorials and build something useful for yourself. Try, fail, and try again.

Nowadays with AI tools like Bolt, Lovable, Cursor etc. you can create a MVP (minimum viable product) in a few hours or days, when it used to take weeks or months.

Many people simply launch with a landing page and a waitlist in order to first gauge interest before committing more time to a project. This is much more efficient than spending months or even years working on an app idea behind closed doors, only to launch and discover that no one wants what you’re selling.

If you can solve one specific problem for a niche group of people, you have yourself a potential business. So how can you begin?

It all starts with an idea. You can start by identifying the problems you have in your own work or life. Act as if you are your target customer, and your business must solve your own problems. What would you make?

• Creating new goals? 👉 Build a habit tracker to keep you accountable

• Hate marketing? 👉 Build tools for content generation and auto-posting

• Suck at a sport? 👉 Build an app that analyzes your form and makes corrections

I’m already building the first two ideas for myself 🙂 

Not passionate about any of those ideas? Try identifying problems for others:

• Use Reddit to discover pain points in communities relevant to your interests

• Browse freelance sites like Fiverr to find jobs/problems that could be automated

What about originality? Doesn’t your business have to be unique? Absolutely not. Truly unique businesses are few and far between. Why not just use a proven business model with your own twist?

If demand already exists, half your work is done. You just need to build something useful within that space. It doesn’t have to be groundbreaking, it just needs to make your target customer happy.

Much easier said than done of course, but as Pat said in the previous tweet, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Stop making it harder than it has to be! You can copy this exact workflow to build your first app:

• ChatGPT: explain your idea and ask it to generate requirements to build a MVP of your app with 1-2 core features

• Bolt/Lovable/Replit: copy and paste those requirements to get a basic version of your app (or just have it make a landing page with a waitlist as we discussed previously)

• ChatGPT: get some ideas for app names so you can buy a domain and connect it to your app

After that: make some noise online! Let people know what you’ve built and how proud you are of your project! There are so many outlets you can use, I’ll share some at the end of this article.

I love looking at these Starter Stories for inspiration, but I must caution that building simply isn’t enough. If you launch an app but don’t tell anyone about it, how will people discover it?

To gain visibility, you can:

• Launch on platforms like ProductHunt 

• Share your app on social media platforms like Reddit and X, especially within niche communities

• Cold DM people to try your app at a discount (or free) in exchange for their feedback

I aim to walk you through this project lifecycle multiple times this year as I deploy my own projects. The key test in my opinion will be in my marketing, something I always struggle with because I hate talking about myself.

But when you own a business, you don’t have much of a choice. You need to make noise. You need to be heard. Word of mouth only gets you so far, especially when you’re just starting out.

I encourage you to join me on this journey, even if you just make some cool stuff for yourself. Have fun with it, document your journey, and maybe you’ll end up making a few bucks on the side. What’s the downside?