The Non-Technical Person's guide to building products & apps

Evaluate the feasibility of contracting out your app by asking three questions about budget, core technology, and first-in-technology status. Decide which parts to contract and which to build in-house.

Set a realistic budget by starting with an MVP, avoid expensive overbuilding, and price web and mobile apps by core value and platform costs.

Weigh the practicality of learning to code for a startup, noting it’s impractical for immediate ventures and may take three to five years to build a market-ready web app.

Learn to validate online ideas with hypothesis framing, quick pitch experiments, and minimum success criteria to test concepts beyond your own assumptions.

Select an example idea to illustrate validating your concept with customer feedback, page creation, and testing responses, using a pretend happy hour mobile app as your theory-driven practice.

Identify target users and benefiting groups through customer segmentation, map consumer and supply side pain points, and validate assumptions with rapid pitch experiments.

Learn to conduct offline qualitative analysis for customer validation by interviewing target segments, asking open-ended questions, and using incentives to gather complete, problem-based feedback.

Quickly validate your idea to see if it has legs, recognize the three outcomes, and apply one or two simple techniques from the five you can complete in 10 minutes.

Learn practical techniques for competitive analysis to identify competitors and validate your idea through targeted online searches, including quotation marks, minus operators, and niche search engines and blogs.

Analyze competitors and map their online position using SVM Rush to study traffic, keywords, and backlinks. Identify weaknesses and opportunities to inform a new entrant's strategy.

Learn how to use the five second test to get instant feedback on websites or business ideas, with concise prompts and quick responses.

Explore the proved echo paid online tool for idea validation, comparing its multidimensional feedback and reporting with the five second test, including pricing and sample reports.

Validate your idea quickly and cheaply with a simple email outreach. Reach friends and potential customers, ask for brief feedback, and evaluate feasibility.

Post a simple, honest idea in online groups like the entrepreneurship subreddit. Use Hacker News for quick feedback and validation; respond, iterate, and avoid salesy posts.

Use Launchrock to quickly create a simple landing page to gauge audience interest by collecting emails, validating ideas, and setting up a basic campaign before testing ads.

Explore using unbounce to create optimized landing pages and run multivariate ab tests for higher conversions, comparing it to launchrock and detailing templates, lead generation, text, fonts, colors, and images.

Launch and compare A/B test variants on Unbounce, set traffic splits, and measure conversions to validate design choices and improve page performance.

Learn to set up conversion goals, track button clicks and form submissions, and compare variations to gauge interest and optimize your page with dynamic text if needed.

Learn how to add a buy now button with PayPal to your landing page, test conversions, and validate product interest with button options and pricing variations.

Learn to collect payments quickly by embedding a PayPal buy now button in an email, validating your idea and testing sales with a simple link and image.

Discover a free method to get a logo for your landing page to boost trust and conversions during idea validation, using a logo generator with keyword input.

Learn to get a logo for five dollars on five viacom, compare designers by reviews, and use extras like faster delivery or vector to support landing pages.

Learn how to find and buy domain names to validate ideas and strengthen a landing page using tools like bust a name and instant domain search.

Learn to run a minimalist $20 Facebook ad test to gauge interest in your idea, using targeted audiences and simple visuals, linked to a Launchrock landing page.

Learn to validate a product idea by quickly creating Google AdWords campaigns (Express or full) alongside Launchrock, targeting specific locations and demographics, testing keywords, and reviewing results in analytics.

Learn how to obtain free Google AdWords, Yahoo/Bing, Facebook, and Amazon ad credits as a new advertiser and set up campaigns to test ideas with these credits.

Analyze a $20 Facebook ad test for a mobile concept, noting 13 clicks, reach nearly 2,000 people, and four signups at $1.50 per click, 29% conversion.

Learn how to decide when to repeat or refine experiments using conversions, channels, and AB testing. Iterate quickly to validate demand and pivot to a successful product launch.

Explore core terminology used in product design, including user interface, user experience, interactivity, site maps, personas, information architecture, and responsive design.

Explore the differences between wireframes, mockups, and prototypes, including a layout-focused wireframe, an interactive prototype, and flexible mockups used to represent the app.

Learn why wireframes and prototypes improve internal and external communication, provide accurate estimates and timelines, and help pre-validate ideas, secure approvals, and attract investors and clients.

Compare high fidelity and low fidelity mockups, define fidelity as accuracy to the final product, and explain when to use wireframes or prototypes.

Keep wireframes simple yet detailed enough to avoid clutter and miscommunication. Follow the KISS principle, but don't be lazy, and guide designers clearly.

Explore tools for prototyping and wireframing, evaluate criteria for tool selection, and learn to prefer feature rich, shareable, deployable options that support mobile and web feedback.

Follow the construction flow, five steps from strategy to surface, to turn ideas into wireframes and prototypes while focusing on user needs and essential functions.

Apply the five S's framework: strategy, scope, skeleton, surface, to turn a simple idea into a mobile app plan. Document on paper to clarify hypothesis, users, and goals for ROI.

Define the scope by listing core functions, exclude user accounts, and define a simple flow from a landing page to a nearby happy hours map with adjustable radius.