I'm at a crossroads with my app and I'm looking for some insight from those who've come before me.<p>I've spent most (OK...all) of my meager family investment seed money ($3K) on a very basic demo that essentially "secures" the most sensitive IP for my concept and demonstrates the core defining feature of the app. I know that coding something probably in no way protects a concept, but I felt like I had to have something real to show investors because I'm not a programmer and this is my first project/startup/attempt-at-something-awesome.<p>My question is what would be the best use of my time moving forward? Should I keep pitching friends and family for cash to add more power to my demo? Should I work on developing a great presentation for angel investors?<p>I feel like the window of opportunity for my app is probably 10-12 months from closing. If I'm not in the market by then, I'll be toast. I've been working on the idea for the past 14 months, I know what I want to do with it. If you were me what would you do?
If you can't code, and you can get funding, you probably want to try to get funding, then use the funding to attract talent.<p>Really, you want a technical co-founder, but if this is the first thing you've done and you don't have cash, that will be difficult. A business guy without money is like a technical person who doesn't have completed projects on his resume.
Don't throw money on an idea .. way too risky if you're not technical and you don't have a technical co-founder.<p>That's not how things work.<p>Programmers can afford to start startups because the biggest chunk of investments comes from their own talent; the fact that they can sit down and hack something.<p>Business guy + idea + money + employees? Can't imagine that working out very well. Unless the idea is simple enough and the technology is not in itself the main product.<p>I mean, seriously, you spent 14 months on the idea? How do you know it will work? Sounds to me like you're putting all your eggs in one basket.<p>This is another reason why programmers can afford to start startups: they can change the idea quickly, and they wouldn't be in a position where they invested a lot of money in the previous idea.<p>Where as, if you just hire developers to develop your idea, and then it turns out that it won't work very well, you'll be in trouble because you now wasted all that money on it and you don't want to just throw it away and try something new. OK, maybe you will be able to switch your idea once, but you can't do that all the time, you don't have this flexibility.<p>So get a technical co-founder. That's my only advice.
Do you need outside investment to continue development and launch your app or can you bootstrap the launch?<p>Create a list of wants/needs for your app. The wants is all the features and functionality of the app that you envision. The needs are the ones that get you to a MVP.<p>What is it going to take to launch this app? Does it require outside sales, an infrastructure build-out (servers, storage, offices), major marketing effort?<p>Assuming you have a MVP, I would start marketing the app to your target market. Get some traction and even some paying customers under your belt. Get feedback from these customers, reassess your wants/needs list based on that feedback. At the same time, begin working on a presentation for potential investors. You should treat your friends/family investment the same as you treat any angel investor. Make sure all the documents are in place, whether the investment is via convertible or straight out equity. Having your friends/family invested, a MVP, and some traction will make getting angel investment a lot easier. It proves you can execute on your idea and that there is a market for your product.