Four petrolheads. One idea. Zero app development experience. What could possibly go wrong?

When we first came up with the idea for Revved, we genuinely thought the hardest part would be figuring out what we wanted the app to do.

Turns out, that was probably the easiest part.

None of us are app developers. We all have day jobs, we love cars, and somewhere along the way we convinced ourselves that building an app for the motoring community was a perfectly reasonable thing to do with our spare time (and what actually is spare time these days).

A few months, hundreds of hours, countless YouTube tutorials and a fair amount of money later, we’re still figuring it out.

And because we know there are probably other people sitting with an idea and wondering where on earth to start, we thought we’d share what we’ve learned so far.

Not because we’re experts. Clearly.

But because we wish someone had handed us this list before we started.

1. That brilliant idea in your head? Write it down.

Seriously. Before you spend a cent, open a document and write down exactly what you’re trying to build.

What problem are you solving? Who is the app for? What should it actually do? What features are essential, and what can wait?

We started with the idea of creating a garage for car and bike enthusiasts. Somewhere to show off your ride, keep track of your build and connect with people who share the same obsession.

Simple enough, right?

Until you start asking what happens when someone adds a second car, changes a modification, scans a QR code, joins a club or wants to share their build.

Suddenly your little idea has about 200 moving parts.

Our advice: Get as much detail onto paper as possible. AI tools are brilliant for helping you structure the idea, challenge your thinking and identify things you’ve missed.

And be very clear on what version one actually needs. Not every brilliant idea needs to make it into the first release.

2. Build a website. You can actually do this yourself.

This is probably one of the biggest surprises of the whole experience.

You don’t need to hire an expensive website developer to get something professional up and running.

We used Framer, and honestly, its AI agent has been an absolute game changer.

You explain what you want, and the agent helps build it. You can refine the layout, change the copy, add pages and keep tweaking until you’re happy.

The trick is the prompt.

We’ve been using Claude to help structure and improve the instructions we give the Framer agent, and that combination has saved us an enormous amount of time.

You don’t even need your app to be finished before putting a website live.

In fact, we’d recommend doing it early. It gives you somewhere to explain your idea, collect emails and start building interest while the actual product is still being developed.

Have a look at what we’ve built at www.joinrevved.co.za. No web development background required.

3. Finding a domain is its own little adventure.

You finally settle on the perfect name.

Then you search for the domain.

Taken.

Of course it is.

Do yourself a favour and have a few name and domain options before getting too attached to anything.

We used Domains.co.za to sort out our domain.

Try to keep it short, easy to remember and easy to spell. Also check whether the matching social media handles are available.

You really don’t want to build an entire brand around a name only to discover someone else owns every version of it (trust us).

4. Your logo probably shouldn’t be designed in PowerPoint.

Once you’ve got your name, it’s time to make everything look like an actual brand.

This is where Fiverr becomes your friend.

There are some seriously talented designers on there, and you can find very affordable options if you’re willing to spend a bit of time looking.

But here’s what we would recommend.

Don’t just tell someone to make you a cool logo.

Use AI to help develop your brand concept first. Think about your colours, fonts, personality, the type of people you’re trying to attract and how you want the brand to feel.

Then take that properly thought-out brief to a designer and let them bring it to life.

It’s much easier to refine something when you know what you’re looking for.

For us, Revved needed to feel like the motoring community. Modern, a little edgy, but still something that could work on everything from an app screen to a sticker on the back of a car.

And yes, you’ll probably change your mind about a colour about 15 times.

5. Now for the fun part. Actually building the app.

This is where things got interesting.

We discovered Figma for designing how the app should look and FlutterFlow for building the actual app.

Perfect. There are loads of YouTube tutorials. How difficult could it really be?

Well.

Hours and hours and HOURS of tutorials later, we had learned quite a lot.

Unfortunately, none of it was enough to build the app we actually wanted.

We eventually had to accept that while we could do a lot ourselves, building a proper working app was going to need some professional help.

So back to Fiverr we went.

We found an offshore development team that could help us turn the idea into something real.

And here’s the thing: you can save a lot of money going this route, but you need to be prepared to put in the work.

Working with an offshore team can be frustrating. Different time zones, language differences, misunderstandings and explaining the same feature three different ways.

We’ve learned that you cannot be too detailed.

Screenshots, examples, designs, written instructions, videos. Whatever it takes to make sure everyone understands what you mean.

And just because something makes perfect sense in your head doesn’t mean it makes sense to the person building it.

Do as much groundwork as possible yourself. It makes the process easier and helps avoid spending money fixing things that weren’t properly explained in the first place.

Also, make sure you agree upfront on what is included, who owns the code and how you’ll access everything if you ever change developers.

6. Surprise! You’re also starting a business.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, you realise that building an app and running a business are two very different things.

You need to decide whether you’re going to operate as an individual or register a company.

In South Africa, you can register through CIPC, but the right structure depends on what you’re building and how you plan to operate.

Think about who owns the app, who will receive payments, your business banking and how you’re going to manage the finances.

It’s not the exciting part.

Nobody sits around a braai talking about how much they love company administration.

But it’s important to get these things right early.

7. Get your developer accounts sorted sooner rather than later.

While the developers are busy building, you should be getting the administrative side of launching sorted.

That means signing up for Google Play Console and the Apple Developer Program.

Both have their own requirements, verification processes and fees.

And yes, there are forms. Lots of forms.

One particularly important thing is your D-U-N-S number if you’re registering developer accounts as a company.

It’s basically a unique identifier used to verify your business.

Our tip is to check whether your company already has one and, if not, use the D-U-N-S lookup and request process linked through Apple’s Developer website.

You can request one for free, and it may save you from chasing down paid third-party services.

If you’re enrolling as an individual, the requirements are different.

The big lesson here?

Do this early. Waiting for business verification when your app is otherwise ready is not anyone’s idea of fun.

8. The legal stuff. Nobody warned us about the legal stuff.

• Privacy Policy

• Terms and Conditions

• Community Guidelines

• Child Safety Standards

• PAIA manuals

• POPIA

At some point, we started wondering whether we were building a car app or opening a law firm.

Depending on your app and business, you’ll need various policies, disclosures and procedures in place.

For a community app like Revved, where people can create profiles, upload photos and interact with each other, privacy and user safety are particularly important.

And simply writing a policy isn’t enough. Your app actually needs the systems to support it.

Our advice is to get proper guidance on what applies to your business and start putting the documents together early.

We host our policies on our website so they’re easy to find and accessible when the app stores ask for them.

One less thing to scramble for at the end.

9. Your first APK is not your finished app.

Eventually, the developers send you that first Android installation file, the APK.

Finally! Something you can actually install on your phone.

You open it. You click around. You find about 25 things that don’t work quite the way you imagined.

Welcome to testing.

We’re firmly in this phase right now, and if there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that testing takes far longer than you think.

A button works on one phone but not another. Something looks perfect in Figma but completely different in the actual app. You fix one issue, and suddenly something else needs attention.

It’s a process of testing, giving feedback, refining, receiving a new build and doing it all over again.

Our advice: Test absolutely everything. Use different phones. Get other people to test it. Ask them to do things without explaining how the app works.

If they can’t figure it out, you probably need to rethink something.

It’s much better to discover the issues now than have your first users discover them for you.

10. Google and Apple don’t just let you upload an app and call it a day.

Here’s something we wish we’d known much earlier.

For new personal Google Play developer accounts, Google requires a closed testing period with at least 12 testers opted in continuously for 14 days before you can apply for production access.

We’d recommend finding more than the minimum, because getting people to sign up and stay involved takes a bit of organising.

And completing the test doesn’t automatically mean you’re approved to launch. There’s another review process.

Then there’s Apple.

Apple has pretty strict App Store review standards, and your app needs to be ready.

Working features, functional links, accurate descriptions, appropriate permissions, privacy information and proper testing all matter.

If your app gets rejected, don’t panic. Read the feedback, fix the problem and resubmit.

The goal isn’t simply to get approved.

The goal is to release something people actually enjoy using.

11. And one last thing. Everything takes longer than you think.

This is probably our biggest lesson so far.

Whatever timeline you have in your head, give yourself more room.

The design takes longer. The development takes longer. Testing takes longer. Verification takes longer.

And while all of that is happening, there are still social media accounts to run, content to create, people to respond to and a community to build.

Not to mention actual jobs and lives outside of this little adventure.

We’ve also learned that building the technology is only half the challenge. Getting people excited about something that doesn’t even exist yet is a whole different job.

But that’s also been one of the most rewarding parts of Revved.

Seeing people follow the journey, sign up for founding garages, share ideas and genuinely get excited about what we’re building has made the late nights worth it.

So, would we do it all again?

Ask us when the app is live. 😂

But seriously, absolutely.

We’re still learning. We’re still making mistakes. And there’s still plenty we don’t know.

We’re not writing this from the other side of some hugely successful app launch.

We’re writing it from the middle of testing, with a growing list of fixes, a lot of open browser tabs and a team that’s probably tired of hearing the words “just one more change.”

If you’re sitting with an idea for an app, we’d say go for it.

Just do your homework, plan properly, use the tools available to you and understand that there’s a lot more involved than simply having a good idea.

Most importantly, don’t rush something out into the world just because you’re excited to launch it.

Because if we’re going to build something for people who get it, we want to make sure it’s something worth being part of.