I have some good ideas for mobile phone apps/games but was surprised to find out it costs 50k + to have one developed. Bummer. So I might try to put together my own company and hire programmers and such. My question is this. Who do I need to hire to develop my game ideas for smart phones? (Ex. Programmer, designer, etc..) thanks for your time.

I have some good ideas for mobile phone apps/games but was surprised to find out it costs 50k + to have one developed. Bummer. So I might try to put together my own company and hire programmers and such. My question is this. Who do I need to hire to develop my game ideas for smart phones? (Ex. Programmer, designer, etc..) thanks for your time.

It depends on the size/scope of the project. You might be able to get away with 1 artist / 1 programmer, however it could be 3 or 4 times that number. It depends on the scope and nothing more. Having an experienced producer on board would probably be a good idea. Obviously you'll need a part time accountant and HR staff as well. FWIW, I'd be surprised if you could get it done cheaper than 50k.... Infact, I'd probably say paying a dev company to do it (assuming they have a good track record) is probably your best bet.

Moving to Business forum.

Yeah, I have seen different articles pegging a modern game's development cost to between $50,000 and $100,000. Honestly though, you can get pretty far in your game's development by just getting some startup capital to fund the MVP of your game, and then using the revenues from that to propel your development (or the userbase from it to raise actual VC funding)

There's some pretty cool sites and funds out there that can help you get started. I really like AppBackr, which is basically a Kickstarter-for-apps, which is basically crowd-sourced funding for apps in exchange for a rev share. One fund that might be interesting to you if you're into Android development is TapJoy's Android fund, which among other things gives people backing in the form of free ad vouchers.

Finally, I have to do a shameless plug here: check out Betable's Prospector's Fund! Betable is a platform that let's you integrate real-money gambling into your games (which as I'm sure you can guess, can make you way more money than existing methods). We offer up to $10,000 in funding to get you started, plus a complete plug-and-play solution for payments, fraud, risk mitigation (getting wiped out by a jackpot, etc), and player compliance checks required for gambling play. We also give you 100% revenue share amnesty for the first 6 months that you app is live. If you're interested, shoot me a PM!

Thanks for the reply folks! Tyler I am very interested. I will need a day or so to research the links you sent me. And also MVP because I have no idea what the hell that is. Im a fish out of water when it comes to programming/game dev. Again thank you very much. I will be in touch. By the way, can I leave my email add. on here?

Use the Help Wanted forum for seeking help.