So you want to build an app, start here
The questions we ask every client during a free discovery call. Steal them for yourself.
Every week we get a message that starts "I have an idea for an app." Some become products. Most don't, not because the ideas are bad, but because nobody asked the boring questions early enough. Below is the list we walk through on every free discovery call. You can run it on yourself in an afternoon and save a small fortune.
1. Who, exactly, is this for?
Not "small businesses." Not "busy people." Name a real person you know. If you can't, your audience is too vague to design for. "Sole-trader plumbers in the UK who hate paperwork" is buildable. "Tradespeople" isn't.
2. What do they do today instead?
Every product replaces something, a spreadsheet, a notebook, a WhatsApp group, a competitor, doing nothing. If you can't describe the current behaviour in one sentence, you don't yet know the problem.
3. Why now?
What changed in the last twelve months that makes this idea possible or necessary? New regulation, new tech, new costs, new behaviour. "Why now" is the difference between a timely product and one that's been quietly tried five times before.
4. What's the smallest version that's still useful?
Not the smallest version that demos well, the smallest version a real person would pay for or rely on. We call this the useful core. Everything else is a feature you can add later.
5. How will the first ten users find it?
If the answer is "we'll do marketing," stop. Name the first ten people. Where do they hang out? What would make them try a brand-new tool from a name they don't know? If you can't answer this, building is the wrong next step, talking is.
6. What does success look like in 90 days?
Not in a year. In 90 days. A specific, measurable thing: "50 paying users," "100 active workspaces," "a signed pilot with one council." Anchoring early is what stops projects drifting.
7. What can you not do?
Be honest. If you don't have a designer, plan for that. If you can't write copy, plan for that. The plan changes a lot when you stop pretending you'll learn everything in time.
8. What does it cost to run for a year?
Hosting, domains, AI usage, payment fees, your own time. A rough number is fine, but the number has to exist. "It's basically free" is almost never true.
9. What would make you stop?
Decide your kill criteria now, while you're still calm. "If we can't get 20 users in 60 days I will pause." Founders without kill criteria sink years into projects nobody wanted.
10. What would make this boring in a good way?
Boring means predictable. Predictable means scalable. Ask: in two years, what part of this product would I want to be running on autopilot? That's the part to design well from day one.
Use the list, then talk to us
If you can answer all ten cleanly, you're ready to build. If you can't, you're ready to talk, to potential users first, and then to a team that will actually push back instead of just nodding. That's what a real discovery call is for.
The best app projects we've worked on all started with someone who was slightly irritated by their own answers to these questions. That's the right starting energy. Keep it.