Creating Mobile App for Entrepreneurship

[DK1989]

Hi everyone, I need some recommendations and advises on my entrepreneurship journey.

I want to create a marketplace mobile app that is similar to Carousell but providing a different service.

I had some programming background but that's during my poly days (~10 years ago). I enrolled to Udemy to freshen up my programming skill but I am worried that by the time i finish the course and start to work on the app, someone would have introduce the idea to the market.

So I wanna ask does these courses help a lot in creating a marketable mobile app?
Usually how long will one take after completing the online course to create a Minimum Viable Product like Carousell.
Is there any recommended courses or institute to aid me in developing the app?
Or any recommended FL/firm for development of the app?

Thanks in advance.

 

[ztleee]

Most marketplace ideas do not work well due to user acquisition issues on both sides. I would recommend you to market validate your idea thoroughly first, i.e. speak to users and ask whether they would pay for the service you are providing.

Instead of jumping straight into coding, do consider high-fidelity prototyping tools like proto.io, justinmind and invision. Once you make the prototype, go out to validate the idea and speak to users. Most often then not we focus on the solution rather than the problem we are solving, i.e. whether the problem is painful enough for the users such that they would pay for it.

Once your idea is market validated, you can consider going the native route(java/kotlin for android development or swift for iOS), or hybrid like react-native, ionic or flutter. Udemy or youtube has many such courses, for udemy the courses are quite cheap <$20. Realistically it will take at least a few months to develop a fully functional app. Think of your one core value proposition that is different from others that people would pay for to develop first, do not get caught up in adding many useless secondary features.

Another advice would be that ideas are worthless but execution is key, hence do share more about your idea with the people around you to gain as much feedback.