Since being away from the technology, what are some of the best practices of today? Backend, front end. php, asp, off the shelf dev tools?

Having gone through this multiple times either in new startups or for side projects, here is how I would approach turning your idea into an app. 1. Defining the Minimum Viable Product Your first goal with any new idea should be about proving the idea and finding a market that wants the app you want to build. Achieving that quickly is probably one of the most important thing. To achieve that, you will need to write the specifications that will constitute your MVP. The MVP is basically the simplest expression of your idea to prove it. This step should not cost you much as you can do this on your own. 2. Design the app Before starting any development work, I would suggest you work with a good UX/UI designer to create wireframes and mockups of the app based on the specifications you came up with in step 1. You can find good designers in meetups & hackathons or on website like Dribbble or 99designs. If you want to reduce your costs, you can give shares in the project to the designer. Otherwise, it really depend on the size of the MVP but I would say it will probably cost between $5K-$10K. 3. Develop the app Once you have the specifications and the design of the app, you now need to find a good developer that will build it. Again, you can find good developers in meetups & hackathons or on sites like Github. If you want to reduce your costs, you can give shares in the project to the developer. Otherwise, it really depend on the size of the MVP but I would say it will probably cost between $10K-$25K. For this part however, I would recommend the developer becomes part of the project as his engagement will most likely be higher. 4. Test the app This step is not only about making sure the app is bug free, it's also making sure the app does what was intended in the specifications. To test the app, you can use platforms like BrowserStack or SauceLabs which gives you access to multiple devices/browsers. You can do this step on your own so the cost will be for the subscription to the test platform which would be around $100/month. Hope this helps and good luck with your project.

Usually Programmers are only slow when they don't know how to solve a particular problem. So they will spend a lot of time researching and a lot of trial & errors to solve a problem. It is important that before you engage a programmer on a project, you break down the entire project into simple, easy to understand modules. Let him give you an estimate of how many hours he will require to complete each of the modules. Example: a typical site will have a login module, registration, My account, profile etc. So let him estimate how much he will require to do the login. You can go even detail here. (e.g. how much extra time if you were to implement Facebook/Twitter Login?). Once he start developing, track his progress closely and make sure he is following his given timeline. If he goes over his budgeted time on a module, talk with him and see what went wrong. It is often seen that they may be wasting their time on something very insignificant that you may have asked him to implement, but you can totally go by without it too. So by understanding what is taking longer time, you will be able to prioritise things better. You definitely need some tools to get this done. Google Spreadsheet or Excel works just fine. But if you don't mind spending a few bucks there are many agile project management tools that you might look into. Here is a list, google them all and sign up for trials: * AgileZen * Agile Bench * Assembla * AssiTrack * Blossom * Basecamp * Breeze * DoneDone * Eidos * Fogbugz * GreenHopper * Jugggla * Kanbanpad * Pivotal Tracker Or the reason why he is slow can be purely non-technical. Sometime your developer may don't share the same level of enthusiasm as you about the idea that you are working on. They often don't often see the "bigger picture" (since you don't share everything with them explicitly). If you can somehow get them excited about what he is a part of, it will work like a drug :) He will work day and night without questioning you. But you need to work equally as hard as him. The moment he sees that you are the boss and he is just the guy doing work for you -- his mentality will shift from being part of something to being the low paid developer. Ultimately its all about motivation and making him a part of your venture. After all he deserves it, if he is really playing a crucial role in the entire development.

Yes Wix supports a mulitude of APIs to used for various fetch calls for your web pages. If you already have to API's in mind you can venture off within you WIX code to integrate within your application's processes. There shouldn't be any complications getting this done. Please see the link below for more information https://www.wix.com/code/home/api

I recommend that you get technical cofounder as soon as possible. Using a contract developer to create a prototype is ok but keep in mind that startups need to iterate and be very flexible in the early stages of company/product development. A contract developer works best on a fixed spec and will be hard to adapt without a lot of extra costs and frustration on both sides. Go get a tech cofounder, somebody invested in your product and willing to be flexible and adapt as you discover what your product really is.

Create an ideal customer profile. Create some questions that will allow to you survey a potential tester to determine if they fit your profile. Design simple landing page with very clear value proposition that speaks to your ideal customer. Ask for a minimum of information up-front (email), but ask for more info after they commit by submitting the first piece of info. (KISSmetrics does a good job of this on their current website trial signup). Use the their answers to these profiling questions to put the applicants into buckets. Let in the most ideal bucket first, or split them into groups if they're big enough. Try and measure engagement the best you can. Measure qualitative and quantitative data. Schedule calls with your beta testers to find out more, especially with the ones who's user behavior seemed to indicate that they didn't get value from your product. Find out why. Make sure they are indeed your ideal customer. Pick up the phone and get to know your customers inside and out. Meet them in person if possible. Incorporate their feedback quickly and get more feedback. Rinse repeat.