+ I've got a great mobile app idea, bro, it's totally going to blow up. We just need a bit of money.
– Bro, where are we going to find the money?
+ We'll find an investor. We also need one developer; we'll give them a cut too.
– So what's the idea?
+ I can't tell you, they'll steal it.
– But will anyone use it?
+ Of course! We don't have anything like it here.
Maybe you've lived through this dialogue yourself — either as the person with the idea, or as the developer who's told “we'll give you a cut”. I've been on both sides and have heard dozens of conversations like this over the years. Let's unpack each line of the dialogue one by one, because each of them hides a mistake that sinks a startup.
“It's totally going to blow up”
The value of the idea itself is close to zero. It's hard to hear at first, but it's true. The same idea occurs to hundreds of people around the world at the same time. Execution makes the difference: who builds faster, sells better and understands the user better.
To say “it'll blow up”, you need proof. And the proof is users — not your friends saying “great idea”, but strangers spending time or money on it.
“I can't tell you, they'll steal it”
Nobody is queuing up to steal your idea. Everyone has their own ideas, and no time to make them happen.
On the contrary, the more people you tell about your idea, the more feedback you get. Talk to potential users, mentors and people in the field. Criticism is the cheapest market research there is.
“We don't have anything like it here”
Maybe there isn't because nobody needs it. Or there is a need, but people solve the problem another way — with a WhatsApp group, an Excel spreadsheet, a phone call.
Your competitor isn't always another app. Very often the competitor is people's existing habit. Downloading a new app, signing up, learning how to use it — all of that is a cost for the user. Your solution has to be worth that cost.
“We just need a bit of money”
You don't need big money for the first step. What you need is:
- to validate the problem — conversations with 20–30 potential users;
- a simple landing page or prototype;
- the real reaction of the first users.
You can do all of this almost for free or with a very small budget. And these are exactly the proofs an investor wants to see. An investor who puts money into an idea without proof isn't an investor, but a philanthropist.
“We'll give the developer a cut”
This is the line I hear most often, and the one that causes the most problems. The developer works for months, while the person with the idea waits for “the business side” to sort itself out. A few months later the product is ready, but there are no sales, no marketing, no users. The team falls apart, and everyone blames each other.
If you're offering a developer equity, you have to do at least as much work as they do: talking to users, sales, marketing, finances. A startup partnership isn't a relationship where one writes code and the other waits.
Agree on the equity split in writing in advance: who does what, who gets how much, and what happens if someone leaves halfway. That's the best way to protect the friendship.
So what's the right way?
- Start with the problem, not the solution. Not “I want to build an app”, but “people have this problem”.
- Validate the problem. Talk to at least 20 people: do they really have this problem, how do they solve it now, would they pay for a solution?
- Build the smallest version (MVP). Sometimes that's not an app but a Google Form, a Telegram bot or a simple web page. My posts “Website or mobile app?” and “PWA” will help with choosing a platform.
- Find the first 10 users by hand. Without ads. Talk to them personally and find out what they don't like.
- Measure and fix. What works, what doesn't — look at the numbers, not at your feelings.
- Only then look for investment. By now you have proof, users and a plan.
Failure is a result too
Most startups fail, and that's normal. But there's a big difference between failing and never starting at all. A startup that was built right, tested quickly and stopped in time gives you the most valuable experience — your next idea will already be stronger.
Next time someone tells you “it's totally going to blow up, we just need a bit of money”, send them this post. Or let's test the idea together in a mentorship session.
