This is a very deep question.  There is no one way to go about it, especially since there are several languages, devices, and platforms that are not on the same page.  Before you determine anything, you need to first figure out some very basic qualifications.

1. Have an idea!

It all starts with that “A-HA!” moment.  You hopefully find a solution to the worlds problems like Facebook or you think of the most addicting idea game angry birds, the results are the same.  Success through prosperity and abundance.  Determine the following things:

• Does this solve a problem for a ‘niche’ audience?
• Are you passionate and absolutely love the idea?
• Is it entertaining?
• Are you evolving a current product?
• Does it have a gaming dynamic?

2. Tool Belts

iPhone

• Join the Apple iPhone Developer Program ($99)
• Buy an iPod, iPhone, or iPad
• Get an Intel-based Mac computer with Mac OS X 10.5.5,
• Prepare a Non-Disclosure Agreement (here’s a sample) *
• Download and install the latest version of the iPhone SDK if you don’t already have it.
• Buy a moleskin

Android

• Go to Google App Inventor and read everything.

WIndows

• Who knows why you would want to do this, but you can try it out here.  (I’m biased because I’ve never used it, so don’t take that comment seriously.)

BlackBerry

• The latter.

3. Where are you a star?

What makes you valuable?  Are you the angel that everyone wishes they had or a beast objective-C, or self-taught android genius?  Or maybe you are the social networker that has social capital.  If not him or her, you just have a good idea and you want to make it happen.

Regardless the position, you just need to understand that you are going to have to adapt to any role that is necessary.  ”Bootstrapping” and embracing entrepreneurism is the only thing you can do.  This will include tasks like researching, administration, designing, developing, marketing, promoting, or even taking out the trash every now and then.

Over years of entrepreneuring, I have learned that your team is vital to the situation.  It may not be employees even, but your family, friends, vendors, or anyone you surround yourself with makes a huge difference in how you are going to succeed.

4. Research. Research. Research

Use Google, Facebook, Twitter, Bing, and every single way you can find out more about what you are trying to do.  This will help you save time whether its discovering that someone else already did this, you have a great opportunity, or you have a small time frame.

• What problem does your app solve?
• What products have you seen that perform a similar task?
• How do successful apps present information to users?
• How can you build on what works and make it unique?
• What value does your app bring to your audience?

5. Understand your UI

Whether you are building on an android, iPhone, iPad, or android tablet you need to have a full understanding of its capabilities and what you want to do with it.

• How do well-designed apps navigate from screen to screen?
• How do they organize information?
• How MUCH information do they present to the user?
• How do they take advantage of the iPhone’s unique characteristics: the accelerometer, swiping features, pinch, expand and rotate functions?

Go to the app stores and play with the top rated games and see why they are successful.

6. Target your market!

We assume here that you’ve already determined that your app will bring value and that you will have a raging audience for your app. Well, fine, they are raging fans, but who are they really? What actions will they take to achieve their goals within the app?

If it’s a game, maybe they want to beat their high score. Or perhaps they are a first time player – how will their experience differ from someone who is getting a nice case of brain-rot playing your game all day?

If it’s a utility app, and your audience wants to find a coffee shop quickly, what actions will they take within the app to find that coffee shop? Where are they when they’re looking for coffee? Usually in the car! Do present an interface that requires multiple taps, reading and referencing a lot? Probably not! This is how thinking about how real-life intersects design.

Action: Line item out the different types of people who will use your app. You can even name them if you want to make the scenarios you draw out as real as possible.

7. Pre-Plan

Sketch your app online or offline.  You can use your moleskin to cut out pieces or you can use Adobe Photoshop to speed up the process.  Depending on your creative abilities, you will know what you have to do.  If not, try something until it works!

8. What is your timeline?

Do you have a deadline for a launch?  Is the market closing?  Don’t have a deadline?  Find out and make it realistic.  Sometimes I get requests from agencies that want a week to design something.  This is not reasonable, unless you have nothing scheduled and your ready to take on the job 24/7.

9. Developing it

Designer

If you are a designer, download the iPhone GUI Photoshop template or our iPhone PSD Vector Kit. Both are collections of iPhone GUI elements that will save you a lot of time in getting started. If you’ve solidified your layout during sketching, drawing up the screens will be less of a layout exercise and more about the actual design of the app.

If you are not a designer, hire one! It’s like hiring an electrician to do electrical work. You can go to Home Depot and buy tools to try it yourself, but who wants to risk getting zapped? If you’ve followed steps 1–3, you’ll have everything you need for a designer to get started.

When looking for a designer, try to find someone who has experience designing for mobile devices. They may have some good feedback and suggested improvements for your sketches. A few places to look for designers: Coroflot, Crowdspring, eLance. When posting your job offer, be very specific about your requirements, and also be ready to review a lot of portfolios.

Programmer

You can learn how to do it yourself, or search on places like twitter, facebook, quora, odesk, elance, or solvate.  The best solution is to learn it yourself then seek out a partner.

10. Distribute

iPhone

If you are working with a developer make sure to ask them the following:

• Create your Certificates
• Define your App ID’s
• Create your Distribution Provisioning Profile
• Compile the application
• Upload to iTunes Connect

If you don’t have a developer make sure to use the resources above to find the best match.

If you are the developer then make sure to be organized and have your strategy layed out to save you time and money.

Android

If you are working with a developer make sure to ask him the following:

• Did you conform to the developer distribution agreement?
• All applications must be signed. The system will not install an application that is not signed.
• You can use self-signed certificates to sign your applications. No certificate authority is needed.
• When you are ready to release your application for end-users, you must sign it with a suitable private key. You can not publish an application that is signed with the debug key generated by the SDK tools.
• The system tests a signer certificate’s expiration date only at install time. If an application’s signer certificate expires after the application is installed, the application will continue to function normally.
• You can use standard tools — Keytool and Jarsigner — to generate keys and sign your application .apk files.
• Once you have signed the application, use the zipalign tool to optimize the final APK package.

If you want to learn on your own then O’Reilly has some great ways for you to distribute your Android application.

11. Marketing

Whever you do, its making sure that you have access, interaction, and create compelling experiences.  The following is a list of things you can do to increases success.

• Pre-launch campaign to create expectation about app
• Post-launch campaigns via mobile, social networks, videos, etc.
• In-app campaign via app store’s other popular apps
• Unique and creative animated mobile  app video for your app
• App review site submission and coverage
• News and industry related website and blog coverage
• Paid advertising on targeted websites
• Review generation to increase app listing rankings
• Suggestions for new app upgrades based on user feedback
• Maintaining and Monitoring communication stream with users to ensure app engagement
• Search Engine Optimization and content development

12. Don’t knock the hustle!

Keep at it, moving, and don’t stop.  That’s the only guarenteed you will succeed.

The Future of Independent Digital Movie Making is now.  As we take each step, there is a new form of technology that is enabling people to create more efficiently.  The issue is that studio’s like Warner Brothers & Paramount are not willing to adapt.  The connectivity of the internet and growth of technology are creating a limitless opportunity for independent entrepreneurs of the future.

Here’s the path a film usually takes to get to your local theater:

• Someone has an idea for a movie.
• They create an outline and use it to promote interest in the idea.
• A studio or independent investor decides to purchase rights to the film.
• People are brought together to make the film (screenwriter, producer, director, cast, crew).
• The film is completed and sent to the studio.
• The studio makes a licensing agreement with a distribution company.
• The distribution company determines how many copies (prints) of the film to make.
• The distribution company shows the movie (screening) to prospective buyers representing the theaters.
• The buyers negotiate with the distribution company on which movies they wish to lease and the terms of the lease agreement.
• The prints are sent to the theaters a few days before the opening day.
• The theater shows the movie for a specified number of weeks (engagement).
• You buy a ticket and watch the movie.
• At the end of the engagement, the theater sends the print back to the distribution company and makes payment on the lease agreement.

“Each print typically costs about $1,500 to $2,000 to make, so the distributor must consider the number of theaters a movie can successfully open in. Many of the 37,000 screens in the United States are concentrated in urban areas. A popular movie might fill the seats in several theaters in the same city while another movie would have a much smaller audience. Since opening a movie on 3,000 screens could cost $6 million for the prints alone, the distributor must be sure that the movie can draw enough people to make the costs worthwhile.” – howstuffworks

This old method includes an army of gatekeepers and middlemen that are only focused on Profits and Losses at the end of the day.  Let us take a look at an alternative model of movie making.

The Alternative Future of Movie Making

• Someone has an idea for a movie
• They create an outline and use it to promote interest in the idea via the internet
• They build a community by targeting people they think would be interested
• People are brought together to make the film (screenwriter, producer, director, cast, crew)
• They utilize the community by providing them tools to collaborate in producing, micro-financing, marketing, and distributing.
• The community is the distribution, marketing, and finance
• Theaters then license the property based on targeted-geographical data analysis to guarantee sales
• At the end, the people have a part and say in what they are choosing to view
• The content creators benefit by connecting and creating with their audience.

The cost of traditional film and distribution is inefficient in terms of delivering valuable content to a targeted audience.

The Platform

The future platform is in P2P/IP TV.  Imagine your video console, computer device, or digital top box that deliver’s ALL content to you.  Like Kid Cudi says, “The Evolution of the revolution”.  Let us face it, children are going to be projecting HD via their iPhone5 during recess.  This technology has been in the talks for year, but now people are empowering themselves with on-demand control.  You can already get started with AppleTV & Boxee.

Creating Revenue

Youtube is just one example of how a “lo-fi” production like iJustine or Natalie Tran can drive an average of 500,000 to 1,000,000 views per video post.  Which ranges from $5,000-$20,000 per month depending on your demographic based on those views per month.

This model is only one of the models until developers start creating dynamic algorithms and technology starts to adapt towards the user viewing the content.  Imagine interactive roll-over product placement pieces that fluidly allow you to engage simultaneously.  Think of all the meta-data from your Facebook account & Google Searches that have been data-mined since your early internet days.  Thus enveloping a choose your own interactive adventure, per say.  As the restraint of technology, ideas, and accessibility decrease, then innovation will become abundant.

Reason why I’m writing this

I’m sharing this article for many reason.

1. Put things into perspective from my perspective.

2. I am creating a movie and this is a perfect blog post entry

3. Sharing these ideas could be beneficial for movie makers and entrepreneurs

4. I need to blog more

Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below!  Thank You!