Are There Any New Short-Video Platforms Worth Trying?

I think push vs in-app are two different things, like email and telephone call. Push reaches people who are not using your app, but require OS-level permission. In-app gives you much more flexibility but they only reach people who are using your app (obviously!). As to whether in-house or external SDK is best, it depends what you are trying to do and whether an external system handles it. For a typical retail environment the SDKs might be easiest--it's a well-established use-case. For something needing a more customized algorithm, an in-house system might work as well as an external SDK (for less money). There are simple options to save you from starting completely from scratch, from PHP toolkits to Amazon SNS. It depends on what (if any) server environment you have... Hope that helps!

Assuming you have actually identified someone in this role and you're asking about the legal side of things, I'd say that beyond a legal entity by which to enter into an employment or contractual agreement that has the standard assignment of rights, confidentiality, etc, you're probably fine for now. Depending on where you're operating from and whether you actually have an actual office or not might impact your need for a business license. But if you're asking how you would actually identify this person, that's a much different answer. The reality of it is that unless you have already raised or can self-fund a full-time salary of an iOS developer (which will range $85,000- $140,000 for just salary anywhere in North America depending on experience and location), you're better off looking at a mobile development agency. Also, many great iOS developers lack strong back-end skills, so in order to publish an app, you're likely looking for two engineers, not one. Those that pass themselves off as "full stack" are usually marginal at both. So either you have to be able to show that you have raised or can self-fund two people's salaries for a year, or you won't be able to attract full-time talent. Also, I haven't mentioned anything about design, which depending on the nature of the app, would require a third person at least on contract to design and iterate the user experience. In most cases, non-technical founders that want a product built should find a reputable mobile agency to build the first version of their app. I know of several and am happy to provide further information, if you're serious about building your app. Beyond the cost of building a single platform app with a contractor (I would budget $50k at a minimum), you should also be sure you have at least $50k in customer acquisition budget comfortably allocated and that's just to take a "realistic shot" at having an app get any traction. So if you can't raise or spend USD $100,000, I would say that as a non technical founder, you're better off pursuing a different line of business. That's just the reality of the mobile app marketplace today.

As the host of 'The App Guy Podcast', I can introduce you to a few good developers ranging from inexpensive locations to $100 per hour top rates. As a quick guess, this type of app will start from $900 using a cross platform solution (Like Titanium Studio) to $5000 for Objective-C apps written on xCode Let me know if you want an introduction by contacting me through my website or podcast Paul Kemp - The App Guy Podcast http://TheAppGuy.co/

The best day to launch your app is either Wednesday night or Thursday, because the iOS App Store changes features every Thursday and you may get featured that day as "New games..." "New app..." etc. Ideally all your marketing/PR/advertising efforts should start that day (Thursday) because Apple likes it when an app is being privately promoted at the same time it's being featured. Yes AdMob could work for you but please know that there are many other ad placement companies similar to AdMob that can work for you too. You need to see what kind of clients they have, if they match with your niche, etc. Usually this is a trial and error process, you start with several ads and you see which works and which doesn't, you improve, you cut them. etc. Good luck

You've received good advice. I'd just add one thing. We recently interviewed dozens of developers. After narrowing it down to a handful of individuals that had personalities and resumes we liked, we paid a developer friend of ours a few hundred bucks to interview the developers and thoroughly vet them from a technical standpoint. It was well worth the money to have someone more technically skilled than us contribute to our due diligence on the candidates.