Feeling Overwhelmed Building Your App? Try This Simple App Development Lifecycle
Today’s Tip: When you’re stuck trying to launch (or even start) your app, a simple way to get unstuck is to focus on just one stage of the app development lifecycle (explained below).
When your app project stalls (confusion, delays, scope creep, or blown budget), it’s usually because of a lifecycle-stage mismatch.
You're either solving the right problems at the wrong time or the wrong problems at the right time.
If you’re obsessing over scale and growth before your MVP even works, that’s a sequence problem (you skipped steps in the lifecycle).
If you’re stuck coding features without knowing what your users want, that’s a validation problem (you didn’t lock in the earlier stage first).
A simple exercise to fix both: focus on one lifecycle stage at a time.
Literally pick the one stage you’re in — and block out everything else.
For example, if you’re in the design phase, don’t think about growth loops or app store optimization.
If you’re validating your MVP, don’t hire a dev team to start building yet.
So in theory, if you only made progress on a single lifecycle stage today — but it was the right one — that’s a win.
Why does this work so well?
Because it forces you to slow down, zoom in, and ask better questions:
What does this stage actually require?
What problem am I trying to solve right now?
What would “complete” look like for just this part of the process?
What decisions need to happen before I move forward?
By narrowing your focus to one lifecycle stage at a time, it forces clarity:
You eliminate distractions, stop jumping ahead, and start building with purpose.
This is how you should approach app development anyway — but it’s easy to lose focus when everything feels urgent.
Of course, when you lock into one stage, two powerful things happen:
You make actual forward progress — because you’re no longer context-switching
By solving the right problem now, the next stage becomes exponentially easier
It’s basically the Miyagi method of app building: “Wax on, wax off” your way through the lifecycle — one clear phase at a time.
I’ve done this with dozens of founders and it works every time.
Here’s a real-world example:
A startup founder I worked with had an amazing app idea in the coaching space.
They were deep in pricing strategy, brand design, and marketing funnels…
…before they even had a working prototype.
Their project was stuck in limbo — lots of ideas, zero momentum.
So we zoomed out and asked:
Where are you really in the app development lifecycle?
The answer? Still in Stage 2: Design and Validation.
So we paused everything else.
We focused only on creating a clickable prototype that users could test.
They got clarity, feedback, and early believers — all without writing a single line of code.
That prototype led to early pre-orders.
Then dev started.
Then a launch.
Then growth.
All because we stopped trying to do everything — and focused on the right stage.
The moral of the story is… this framework is a game changer for getting unstuck.
Use it when you’re overwhelmed by the complexity of building an app — and need to reset your focus.
PS. If you need help in your app development lifecycle book a FREE Zoom call with me.
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