Hi, my name is Reif, you should listen to me.

Why? Because I have built 3 apps this year, living on (college student wage, aka...) minimum wage. It takes a wantrepreneur like myself to understand the real question you are asking: how do I get this idea built?

[***I wrote another, simple, step by step guide to finding the best talent per dollar devs in this answer: Reif Tauati's answer to How do I find an experienced iPhone app developer? ]

You got caught in the typical trap that the 'powers that be' want you to get stuck in, you thought, oh my I need a great WOZ engineer/designer/LAMP developer/ironman and I need to raise 5 million to get this off the ground.

But that is simply not true.

What you have to do is to start thinking differently. Everything that you learned about entrepreneurship is from the movies.

Here are my suggestions.

1) read THE LEAN STARTUP by Eric Reis. I got the audio book, it's my startup bible. You will learn that you can actually get customer validation for your 'bright idea' before you even touch code. So get out the building!

1a) Go talk to people, figure out really what they need, not what you think they need, find the themes that keep coming up, and go build a solution for that theme. (75%of the work can be done without code). I pitched a food truck yesterday using a prototype that I created using a cool service called flinto. You can make web based prototypes that look like native apps. It's awesome. (No coding required, common sense required)

2) make an account on digitalpoint.com. This is one of he best and least known digital marketplaces on the web. Make friends, enough friends and likes on your posts that you will be able to create contests. Contests are ways to crowd source your digital design work. I had the app icon and all front end UI done on digitalpoint for under 200 dollars for an app I still have under development. UI design alone in your old budget was probably 5k or more.

3) learn this: for loop, while loop, compile, DRY, front end, back end, lamp stack, ui, sdk, API, agile development, GitHub, iteration, testflight, uuid, documentation. Get a team treehouse account, hack 20 min a day. (Yes wantrepreneurs need to know how to code, every single person on quora will agree.)

4) download balsalmiq. You can create the entire flow of basic front end of the app using balsalmiq. If you are like me, you want to just run around and build stuff, but you don't know how to do it! Balsalmiq is your answer!! Go build your magic idea in rough draft form, iterate, build again. I do all of my preliminary design using this tool, and I even send it out to real people to test it. This is going to be very important for #5.

5) find a dev. Elance is your friend. Search for mobile developers. Throw out people with less than 5 stars, less than 15 jobs, and whose portfolio doesn't have mobile projects. Invite 100 of only those people to the job you will create on elance. Set the job to 'decide later' price. Wait. Weed out the bad ones (like zero earnings, no mobile development, etc). Be rigorous and ruthless, why? Because you have your own money in the game. Then send them your link to balsalmiq, explain it on skype, require a proposal, pick the ones that are the most responsive and have good questions. (Remember, these people are smarter than you, get used to it, the visionary is the genius because he can get geniuses to rally around him)

Note: it's going to cost you about 2500 or less. Figure out a way to pay for it. (Steve jobs sold his van for computer parts) pick up cans, 80% of American is richer than me cash wise, I just had to find a way.

6) upload your first app. I dont care what your idea is, it shouldn't cost more than 5k to build. Snapchat? 1500. Instagram? 2k. (Please please don't clone apps, build something unique.) so be ruthless, find the best darn developers for the best darn price. And get it done. Have them upload each iteration to testflight. (Now u better know what these terms mean). And have a few of your friends inside the beta group so they all get the builds simultaneously.

There are two kinds of wantrepreneurs in this world: those who have an app on the App Store and those who don't.

This journey will open up the world for you. Since my first app, I have been able to build more apps without paying for them. I have been fortune enough to have had opportunities where other people put the money in for the development, actually twice, almost three times. They see what I have done, they see my vision and can feel my know-how, and they open their wallets.

Welcome to the world of wantreprenuership. You better bring something to the table, if it's not code, then it better be vision, or insider know-how, or just-get-it-done attitude...something.

One last parting comment: when Steve Jobs was 12, he cold called the CEO of HP asking for parts for a frequency counter he was building. How many of us could do that today? You (and me included) better learn how to be fearless about the things we build and be willing to call anyone out of the blue to share our vision and get them involved.

Good luck. :)

***Thanks for all of your responses and upvotes! I have definitely learned something from this experience: there are a ton of us 'wantrepreneurs' out there in the world. I am going to start blogging about my journey/our journey. Please send me a message on quora about the specific struggles that you have experienced while trying to start a company. (I want to know what you are building and what you need help with) We have a story, I am going to find what that story is. Also, here's my email: reiftauati@gmail.com. Spam me. =)

Unfortunately you're highly unlikely to be able to raise money at this point. Not because you don't have a partner, but because you don't have a business.

These days, the bar has been raised quite high for what it takes to get funding. "Ideas" (whether for apps or anything else) are worth virtually nothing. It's only when they are executed on—and begin to show results—that investors are willing to take a chance on them.

This blog post by Derek Sivers does a good job of explaining why:

Hi.  I just happened across your question in my email.  Man, you've got some long winded and negative responses here.  Look, you have an idea, you believe in the idea, do it!  If you are new at this, you will never understand or know without that experience of trying.  If you need a partner to offset something you don't have (i.e. skill set or financing), be careful, but look for one.  Maybe you simply need a developer.  Hire one.  Look for experience.  But listening to idiots saying you will fail, join this site or that site to make friends...WTF?!  These guys suck.  Seriously.  You will never know what to do until you get your feet wet.  You might fail on your first one, but that's the way of the entrepreneur.  You dust off, figure out what you did wrong, then move forward.  There are kids developing apps.  You think they listened to these responses on here?  Hell no.  You have to take that first step and then run with it.  If you need to hire someone, then do it, just don't put yourself or your family in financial danger learning this first one.  Does your app require numerous servers to run, or is it self contained?  If self contained, much cheaper to maintain.  But to raise money, you do need a plan, and you really need a prototype to at least show not only how the app works, but that you are committed.  There is a great site called fundable.com, check that out. 

Seriously though, don't listen to some of the crap posted here.  Figure out what you need and do it.  Heck, if there is a way to message me through quora, please feel free, I'll answer whatever I can, through my own experience.  I developed and manage autowebengine.com and have been through just about everything.

Hi :)

I'm really glad to see someone interested in creating a new app and seeking our comunity support.
From my point of view, you should start by presenting something to your audience so that you can get feedbcak, partners or funding. At the same time your idea will be shaped and get better.
You can start by paper prototyping, or use some online tool to do the sketches (see the examples given by Reif Tauati).
There are also online platforms where you can start creating your app. For instance, in http://www.easyeasyapps.net/en_US/ you can register for free and preview the app online (see the image) or in HTML5 in your mobile browser. Use it to show to your partners or investors. You just need to pay when you want to publish it ($45.00/month).
Apart from the prototype always ask people to give feedback and ideas. You can also use Quora to do it.
Do not forget: "Energy and persistence conquer all things." Benjamin Franklin

Best luck!

Hey folks - there's at least one investor who backs companies at the idea stage, and that's us (Forward Partners). We have engineers who can help bring the product to life and then we will help you find your partner from a position of strength. Only in London though. So far :)

I'll like you to pay much attention to me just like you'll do if it was the real steve jobs talking to you at the moment. Let's face the facts, Firstly, you are not an entrepreneur, you're still looking forward to becoming one but the way you painted yourself with this question tells me that you've started basking in the euphoria of entrepreneurship when you don't actually run a business. The business of ideas you currently run does not qualify you to be an entrepreneur, what qualifies you is the business of taking risks in other to get finance to fund your ideas. What you don't seem to understand is that there's nobody on earth that can understand your ideas better than you do and it takes someone who understands every bit of your idea to fund it. I think you're in a better position to fund your ideas. If truly you have a brilliant idea, then take the risk of fund raising. wozniak and Steve Jobs trusted in their ideas and that was why they took the risk of fund raising by selling their van and scientific calculator. Secondly, you should try as much as possible to be unique, you shouldn't want to be like Wozniak searching for Jobs. Partnership doesn't guarantee success, In business, the most powerful factor that guarantees success is COMMITMENT. So, your partner need be commitment not necessarily Steve Jobs. Thirdly, Can you offer yourself for an experiment to a friend who is a medical student? No matter his persuasion, you'll turn down his request because you can't afford to risk your life. That is why you shouldn't approach any investor because they would definitely turn down your request. In the aspect of location, you should know better than I do since you know your environment better than I do. Environment can act as an impediment or an impetus to your success, so you should carefully analyze your environment and decide if it's gonna be an impediment or an impetus to actualising your big dream.
Entrepreneurship is all about risk, RISK IT!