Blog · By Rea Hailley, Co-Founder
They Predicted $75 Million. Here Is Why You Should Run.
When someone pitching to build your app shows you a projection that says your idea is worth $75 million, they are not doing market research. They are selling a dream to justify an invoice. Real development partners talk about validation, costs, and ranges. Dream-sellers talk about your future riches. Here is how to tell them apart before you sign anything.
Why the big number works on smart people
A giant projection flatters you. It reframes the developer's fee as trivial: what is $150,000 against $75 million? It converts your caution into fear of missing out. And it is unfalsifiable at the moment it is spoken, because nobody can disprove a forecast. Every part of that works in the seller's favor and none of it works in yours.
The red flags that travel together
- Revenue projections presented by the people who profit from you believing them
- A quote produced without formal requirements gathering, which makes it a wild guess by definition
- A lowball build price attached to a giant market number, so the deal feels unmissable; what should have been a $30,000 app becoming a $58,000 problem starts exactly here
- Pressure to sign before "the opportunity window closes"
- No mention of validation, as if demand were already proven because a slide says so
What honest scoping looks like instead
An honest partner asks what must be true before big numbers are even worth discussing: have real customers validated this? Our answer is usually to validate your app idea before you spend serious money.
Then the estimate itself: real requirements gathering, and a range with a low and high end rather than a single confident number, because building from scratch has unknowns and pretending otherwise is salesmanship. That is exactly how our App Cost Calculator works: developer-ready specs and a realistic cost estimate, $197, credited back in full if you hire us. Compare that to a free pitch deck with $75 million on slide three.
The one-question test
Ask the person pitching you: what would make this idea fail? A partner has an answer, because they have seen failures and want to protect you from one. A dream-seller changes the subject back to the upside. Run from the second one, and check the 14 questions before you hire the first one.