Stop Building That App

Most developers I talk to have an app idea. Many have already built it. And most of those apps go nowhere.

This is not a talent problem. Developers are great at building. That is exactly the problem.

Building an App Is Easy

Software development is deterministic. There is a correct answer. Either the app works or it doesn't. You write the code, you test it, you fix the bugs, you ship. Done.

For a developer, this feels like progress. And it is — just not the kind that makes a business.

Making a Successful Business Is Not Easy

Once your app is live, the real questions start:

• Does your product have market fit?
• Are you solving an urgent problem — not just a nice-to-have?
• Do you know who your target audience is?
• Can you actually reach them?
• Do you know how to market to them?
• Are they willing to pay, and keep paying?

None of these are deterministic. There is no correct answer you can test and ship. This is where most developer-built apps die — not because the code was bad, but because nobody thought hard enough about these questions before writing a single line.

AI Coding Makes It Worse

Before AI coding, most startups already failed. The odds were already bad.

Now the bar is even higher, because the moat around your idea has almost disappeared.

If you build something with traction, someone else can copy it in a weekend. If they are better at marketing than you — and a developer usually is not — they will take your market. The competitive advantage used to be the ability to build. That advantage is gone.

Unless you are solving a very urgent problem, can reach your target audience fast, and have a clear distribution strategy, the obstacles to success are enormous.

When Developers Do Succeed

The developers who tend to build successful apps usually do it by accident. They build a tool for themselves — a developer solving a developer problem — and other developers are willing to pay for it because they have the same problem.

That works because:

1. You understand the problem deeply (you lived it)
2. You know where to find your target audience (they are you)
3. You have some signal that others will pay (because you would)

That is the rare case where the developer is also the business person by default. But even that is getting harder. Copy one of those tools today and you are competing on distribution, not on the idea.

Who Actually Wins With AI Coding

The people who will win with AI coding are not necessarily the best developers. They are the people who already understand a market, a customer, and a problem.

A business person. A marketer. Someone in an industry who knows what hurts, knows who to call, and knows how to sell. They could never build before because coding was expensive and slow. Now they can build an MVP in a week without writing a line of code.

If I had to bet between a developer and a business person, both building their first app — I would bet on the business person every time. Not because the developer cannot build, but because building is now the easy part.

So Should You Build?

Build for fun, absolutely. Build to learn, absolutely. Build to sharpen your skills — go for it.

But if you want to build something with the goal of making money, stop and answer these questions first:

1. Do you know who has this problem and that it is urgent enough for them to pay to solve it?
2. Do you know how to reach that audience?
3. Do you have a realistic way to market to them?

If you cannot answer all three clearly, do not build yet. Go talk to potential customers first. Validate the problem before you write code. The app is easy to build later. The hard part — knowing that someone wants it and will pay for it — needs to come first.

Most developers skip this step because coding feels like progress. It is not progress if nobody wants what you built.