Question
I have an idea and I am looking to take it to the next step by developing a MVP. What do you recommend I do? Hire a freelance web developer, find a co-founder, find a mentor?
Answer
So I joke with my friends about this all the time. When I hear about a high school kid building some million dollar app, I say if programming was as easy as it is now when I was 16 with all the free time I had I would be a millionaire too. If you have the money to invest in a freelancer and you have a well thought out idea then that is one rout you can go, but this might be a good time to learn some development yourself. If learning yourself is not an option then I might suggest perhaps you might want to entertain the idea looking for a technical co-founder in you network. I know some people oppose adding a co-founder at this point but I think there are a few thing you should keep in mind. Depending on how validated your idea is already you probably have to do quiet a bit of iteration and feature changes to get to MVP and that will cost increasingly more money. The other thing to take into consideration is your age, some investors will be apprehensive towards investing in you (not your idea) so to over coming that your app will probably need to be further along. Both of these concerns are addressed by bringing on a technical co-founder, yes you will lose some equity but what good is having 100% of nothing.
