If you have a great idea for an I-Phone web-ap but no knowledge about web design/SDK what should/can you do?K

The only thing i suggest is to sign up for the Apple Developer program (free) and download the SDK (free) for iPhones (hopefully you have a Mac running leopard, because if not it won’t work) and teach your self and play around with everything.

Starting from scratch could take a you a long time if you’ve no prior programming knowledge. You’d do well to hunt around for a contract programmer who’s demonstrated that they can build OSX applications. That foundation would likely make them a good candidate. Get them to sign and NDA before you interview them :)

I feel that a distinction needs to be made here.

A web-app is just HTML, CSS, and Javascript. It is basically a web page and it isn’t very hard to make one.

A app built with the SDK is like writing a native app for OS X in Objective C. This is significantly more difficult.

If you just need to hit up a database and display information and allow people to edit or add information a web-app would be the way to go. And most people that can build a web page can do that. If you need a app that needs more than what can be done with a normal web page then you would need someone that knows how to program in Objective C.

And I know that doesn’t answer your question but it might help you not waste your time looking for the wrong person for the job.

you could share your idea with me so that we can start a business together.

Not that this makes any sense to me but judging on the response above you would need to be able to write a native app for OS X in objective C – can you do this?

First I would document that you had the idea. Write it down, plan it out on paper. Shouldn’t take you too long. Then start hunting for the help. Date that write-out, btw. Something that can hold up in court. It is just going to take too damn long to learn how to do it all yourself. After thought, once you have a proof of concept up and running, apply for some iFund money.

Good stuff, thanks for the advice – if it comes to anything I will pay it forward!

Ideas are easy; execution is hard. And you get paid for the execution, not the idea. You need to either learn to program yourself, pair up with a programmer who will do most of the heavy lifting but still give you half for being the idea guy, hire a programmer, or give the idea away for free.