# New venture: from app idea to clickable prototype URL: https://up2.digital/examples/startup-mvp-prototype > An example of a typical project for someone with an app idea and no technical co-founder: turning it into a clear plan and a clickable prototype you can actually show people. ## The situation Imagine someone with a genuinely good idea for an app: they've talked to potential users, sketched screens on paper, and can describe exactly how it should work. What they don't have is a technical co-founder, and every developer they've spoken to either wants to "just start building" without a clear plan, or quotes a price that assumes a fully finished product before anyone's seen whether people actually want it. Meanwhile, there's no proper way to show the idea to anyone. A description in a document doesn't land the same way as something someone can actually tap through on their phone. Investors, early users and even friends giving feedback all respond differently to seeing it work, even roughly, than to hearing it explained. None of this means the idea is wrong. It means it hasn't yet been turned into something people can react to. ## What we'd set up - **[Idea shaping and a clickable prototype](/services/custom-apps)**, turning the idea into a clear plan: what the app actually does, who it's for, and which screens matter most, then building a prototype that can be tapped through like a real app without writing the full thing yet. - **[A simple one-page website](/services/websites)**, giving the idea a proper online presence to share with early users or investors, with a way to register interest. - **[Business email on your own domain](/services/it-support)**, so outreach to investors or early users comes from a proper address rather than a personal Gmail account. - **[An AI opportunities review](/services/ai)**, looking at whether AI genuinely belongs inside the product itself, or whether it's better used later, rather than added just because it's expected. ## How the project would run **Week 1**: a free call and a structured workshop to shape the idea properly: who it's for, what the core feature actually is, and what can wait until later versions. **Weeks 2-3**: a clickable prototype is built, covering the key screens and flows a real user or investor would actually interact with, built to look and feel like a working app without the cost of building the whole thing. **Week 4**: a simple one-page website goes live alongside business email on your own domain, and an AI opportunities review looks honestly at whether AI belongs in the product from day one or further down the line. ## What changes day to day Instead of describing the idea from memory, there's something to hand over: a prototype someone can tap through on their own phone, which tends to generate far more useful feedback than a conversation alone. Outreach to early users or investors goes out from a proper business email address rather than looking like a side project. And crucially, the plan for what to build first comes from a structured look at the idea, not a guess, which makes the next conversation with a developer, or with us, about actually building it far more grounded. ## What you get back Describing the idea from memory to every new person stops being the only option, because there's something to hand over and let them tap through themselves. Explaining what the app does in a document stops being how feedback gets gathered, because a prototype gets a far more useful reaction. And working out what to build first stops being a guess, because it comes from a structured look at the idea rather than whoever's in the room that day. If this sounds like where you are, [start my project like this](/start?goal=app). ## Tools involved A prototype like this is typically built using tools such as Figma, which let a non-technical founder click through screens that look and behave like a real app without any of it being properly coded yet. The one-page website is usually a simple, fast-loading page built to be easy to update as the idea develops, and email runs on Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace depending on preference. ## Related If this sounds like where you are, see [We've got an app idea but no one to build it](/solutions/idea-no-app) and [We know we should use AI but don't know where to start](/solutions/ai-overwhelm). Further reading: [How much does a custom app cost for a small business?](/guides/custom-app-cost-uk) and [How to brief a software project (and get accurate quotes)](/guides/how-to-brief-a-software-project). ## Frequently asked questions ### Do I need a clickable prototype before building the real app? It's not essential, but it tends to save money and arguments later, because it lets you and anyone else test the idea and get real feedback before paying to build the full thing. ### How much does a prototype like this typically cost? It depends on how many screens and flows are involved, but you can expect a guide price in line with the figure on our [pricing](/pricing) page, with a fixed quote agreed after a free 30-minute call. ### Will you build the full app afterwards? We can, once the prototype and the plan behind it are solid. Some founders also use the prototype to raise funding or bring in a technical co-founder first, and that's a reasonable path too. ### I'm not technical at all. Will that be a problem? No. The whole point of this kind of project is to turn a non-technical idea into something concrete without you needing to understand the technical side yourself.