How to turn your idea into a starting prompt - Replit Tutorial

How do you come up with ideas for apps and how do you turn those ideas into starting prompts for tools like Repl.it to build them? These are the typical questions I get when people realize they can build anything with AI, and they're good questions because we don't walk around thinking about building apps all the time, at least not unless you're a developer. But here's the thing. Developers like me, we build what I call throwaway apps and throwaway software all the time, even when it's not for something something that's gonna live out in public that people are gonna see, because software, once you know how to build it, is really useful for taking over tedious and repetitive tasks or doing things that otherwise take a lot of time that you don't want to do. And that's where I recommend you start. Look at your life and your work and identify places where you wish there was an app that could do the thing you are doing. It could be something as simple as finding information or turning one piece of data into something else, or it could be to automate some process you have to repeat over and over and over again, or capture information from somewhere, the opportunities and possibilities here are pretty much endless. Once you identify something where you wish there was an app, you now have the capability of actually building that app. We've gone from, I wish there was an app for that, to I'm just gonna build an app for that. And because building apps with AI is so straightforward and easy, you're allowed to experiment to see, Is it possible to solve this problem with an app? And is it possible to build it in such a way that it works for me and for someone else? And then just get started. Here's my recommendation to you. Once you identify a place where you wish there was an app, write out what you would want that app to do. Maybe even sketch it out to see like, how would the app work? What kind of information would go in and where would it come from? Is it an input? Is it a data source or something else? What happens to the information once it's inside the app? And how do you verify that the app's actually doing the work it's supposed to be doing? Then show your idea to a colleague or a family member or a friend to discuss how it should work and get some input from someone else, because there's a good chance there's some opportunity you missed, or there's something that isn't quite clear, or there's some way of doing things that you haven't thought of. AI can also be incredibly useful for this ideation stage. However, you shouldn't use Repl.it for this process, because in Repl.it, you're paying for the tokens you use in the AI chat and they're quite expensive. So instead, have the conversation about your app idea with any other AI chat. ChatGPT, Copilot, Cloud, Gemini, whatever. Let me show you how I do it and also explain my app idea. In ChatGPT, I start a new conversation with the prompt, I have an idea for an app. Help me articulate the idea by asking me questions one at a time. The end result should be a short and concise app description I can use to build the app in Replin. Then I describe my app idea the same way I would to a person I was talking to. I want to build a Q&A app for conference talks where attendees can submit questions and vote up questions they like, and the speaker can select questions to answer and archive questions already answered. Now, the description goes on to add more details to the app. I want an admin panel where I can set up different talks and manage them. I want the ability to delete questions that show up that shouldn't be there. I want the app to highlight the questions I'm currently answering and then archive them afterwards. I want it to be so that people don't have to register to use the app, but at the same time, make sure that people are only voting once for each question and so on and so forth. At the end of my prompt, I repeat the original intent by saying, help me refine this app idea by asking me questions one at a time. And note, this is not a full PRD. I just need the general outlines of the idea. So I have a starting point for Repl.it to do its work. Send off the prompt, and now ChatGPT starts asking me questions one at a time. And as I answer the questions, I refine my app idea. I may come up with new things I want to add to the idea. I clarify any uncertainties. And at the end, ChatGPT says, okay, I have everything I need. Now it's time to build out that spec. Now, in this example, ChatGPT did something that all of these AI tools tend to do. It produced a very, very detailed spec that has variable names and input fields and framework choices and backend choices and a bunch of technical information. I don't want any of that because I want Repl.it to make those decisions during the build process to fit with Repl.it's specific requirements. So in response, I say, this is far too detailed and complex. I just want a straightforward description of how the app works, the core features, the flow, who uses it, and how. And in return, I get a straightforward prompt with everything I need. This is how you make AI work for you. By using AI to help you think through problems and then produce the type of output you need to move on to the next step. Also, you noted there is no magical template or pro approach to this. There's no special incantation you have to say to the AI to build the perfect description. You just prompt it to ask you questions based on your idea and build out your idea. And then you get the prompt you need.