Here are some options:

___Free Options___

1) Make apps without needing to spend a lot of time learning to code.
Look into "MIT App Inventor" (http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/). It's a very _easy_ way to make pretty complex apps using drag and drop coding. You can find youtube tutorials that will show you how to make your first app within 5 minutes. I've used MIT App Inventor to make prototype apps for many of my ideas, saving me tens of thousands of dollars if I paid a dev to do it instead.

Learn to do "real" coding yourself.
The main investment will be your time. There are plenty of free resources for learning coding on the web. I'd suggest learning "React Native", it's a relatively new way to code apps, which allows you to make one app that will run on both Android and iOS.

2) Find a software engineer cofounder.
Go to Meetups, conferences, local hackerspaces / makerspaces. Hang out on relevant online forums (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/ make sure to read their rules for posting before posting though). It won't be easy to find a tech cofounder, your idea will need to be amazing, and you yourself will need to be very passionate and capable in order to convince someone to partner up with you for sweat equity.

___Paid options___

1) Use developers with less established reputations / portfolios (lower cost, higher risk)
Be very wary of freelancers on sites like Upwork, Fiverr, etc. Here are some basic hiring rules:
In your hiring script, make sure to ask for all applicants to give their account name for github/bitbucket and Trello.
Don't hire agencies, only hire individuals.
To get hired, ask them to do a simple task via Trello and submit the code via github/bitbucket. This task should only take them maybe 1 hour. Check the quality of what the applicants and if they deliver it in a timely manner. Keep the 1 or 2 people that do a good job. If you don't do this vetting these "low cost" developers may end up costing a lot in the longer run.

2) Use developers with more established reputations / portfolios (higher cost, lower risk)
With this option your app will probably cost > $20k to develop, but it can be worth it if you have a single idea that you know you want to move forward with. I can introduce you to a very high quality developer in NY if you're at this stage.

Let me know if you'd like any additional help more tailored to your specific app ideas,

best,

Lee