My friends know that I make apps and they’re always suggesting ideas. “We will split it 50/50 if you make this or that app” they say. Most of the time the ideas are terrible or apps that would take many hundreds of hours of development.
“Oh yes, ofcourse we can make a Photoshop level app over the weekend and release it by Monday morning! No problem!”
Better: do it for free !
You should answer:
That is a fantastic idea fro an application.
We should start a new company to hire a developer to make it and then sell it.
How about each of us invests 50000 €/$/£ into this endeavour?
Because it’s only serious, if they want to put their money into the idea.
You mean that they have the idea, then expect you to implement it and split the profits 50/50 with them?
…or, please write a book with all the programming knowledge I would need, with example programs.
Anytime next week would be good. 
better.
tell chatgpt to write the app for you ?
People (even many who should know better) have no idea. I wrote a > 30,000-lines-of-code app for a client who last week asked me “How do you make these apps? Do you actually write code, or do you just drag graphic objects around?”
Yes, I had to clarify to someone once, that “object-oriented” did not mean “drag-and-drop”.
I think people think mostly everything is automatic and programming is just selecting options and hitting “make app”
I have stopped saying I do programming for quite a while.
That’s because they watched Richard Pryor do it in “Superman III”–starting with overriding all security just by typing “override all security.”
I usually answer: “You never wrote a single line of code, you have no idea how a computer work, but you know how many time I should spend to write a Photoshop like application?”
Most of the time I try to explain that in old game the head of person was colored for the hair. Years after the hairs were drawn, and for years ago hairs move. In fly simulator game like X-Plane, you go thru some buildings because it’s to complicate (and processor cost) to detect collision.
Most of the things which seem normal in real life are hard to program.
Those people are consumers, simple consumers.
As a real-world example, I once dealt with a prospective client who wanted to update a 2007-ish RB project. He seemed to think it would be simple. Of course, it took a <= Mojave VM to run the existing built 32-bit app. But even with what I thought was a sufficiently old version of Xojo, I couldn’t run the project. I remember it being full of 32-bit declares, that were Carbon to boot. Still, he was in hurry, the vintage of the existing project notwithstanding.
I hope he found someone who could do it. At the very least, I was the wrong guy.
For the past 20 years I don’t say I know anything much about computers - never mind software - I was sick of being asked by people to fix theirs, and of course they want it fixed for free.
This is a great topic on so many different levels.
I tell people “unrealised ideas” are virtually worthless - the old 1% inspiration (in a world of ideas what makes you believe I would be interested in yours?).
I then explain that ideation alone does not make you a co-founder, unless you are willing to dedicate the time, or invest real money in the business and possess the appropriate skills and experience to support success. I’ll ask them how resilient they are for a long fight.
I then ask whether they are passionate enough about their idea to commit themselves to the business without reward for say, 2-3 years.
I then test this by inviting them to give up their weekend to start wireframing the concept (on the basis we would need to provide a walkthrough for potential investors).
At which point I can pretty much guarantee my weekend is free.
Occasionally, I’ll get to a point where I’m critiquing an idea in a walkthrough sense with someone, knowing that once you break down (evaluate) the concept the business case invariably becomes problematic. If they maintain their passion under fire (and the idea is sound), it’s usually a good sign, if they don’t they are not ready for the journey.
Kind regards, Andrew
“You only have to change the company name and logo”… (and give it with no cost)…
make a game with them and say alternating a belonging word about programming.
everytime you have more words you win and get a coin.
they will see how complex a “app” is.