True, but there are less people with good ideas than programmers. ... and I'm a programmer myself.
Wrong. Everyone has ideas. Many of them are good, assuming good polished execution. It's the execution that's hard to do.
For example, I've got a great idea for a to-do list program for people who want to get organised but find it hard. It pops up on your computer first thing in the morning, goes full screen, and won't let you leave until you've picked which tasks you're going to do today.
That's the idea. If someone went and made it, it could be great or it could be terrible, depending on the implementation. I will probably never get round to coding something like that I don't have the free time, and in my job I code what I'm paid to code. So the idea isn't worth anything.
Now, I did start drawing some
more detailed designs for it. They were done in a small amount of time and were just aimed at getting my thoughts down on paper. Idea still not worth anything.
If I'd specced out the whole app, including drawing every screen, with flow arrows showing how the user progresses through them, a list of every option in preferences, a list of the fields it would store in the file format, some thoughts on a network protocol for synchronisation (if any), and I'd made actual mockups of various screens and tested them out on real users and documented how the users respond
*then it might be worth something, because I'd have added some real value to the project. Until it gets to that stage, I still think that an idea is worth a couple of pints of beer. It's the design, usability testing, creating graphics, programming, documentation and handling technical support that are the difficult bits in creating an app (and hence the bits that are worth money).
Amorya