As a marketer, especially of new apps, I see projects fail constantly. Or if they don't completely fail, they burn up so much more money than they should in the beginning, just trying things out. Recently I saw a site shut down after they got 2 patents and were in business over 2 years. They could not find a buyer either. So much time, energy, emotion, and money, all down the drain! If you have a programming friend who made side projects for friends with "great ideas," just ask the your programmer friend how many of those projects succeeded. It's almost always zero. Yes, there have been tons of products that were built without taking the advice I'm about to give you, but there have been MANY MORE products that failed without having done so. You hear about the rare successes. But you don't hear about the MANY more failures. What is the advice? Do NOT build a new product without talking with a marketer! Even better... talk to a marketer in the niche your product is for. Even better... add a marketer in your niche as a business partner,if you can't afford to pay a lot of consulting fees. Even better... don't think your ideas are the greatest. If you're not going to invest time and money into making NDAs and doing surveys to test your idea, start with a marketers' idea instead of your own. Marketers have their finger on the pulse of the market. They are constantly listening to the market. They are constantly testing things to see what works. And.... they always have software idea they know their audience would like.