However much we’d all like there to be, there’s no Silver Bullet or Magic Formula that will make an app project successful. However, that doesn’t mean that app creators are helpless. Just because there’s no guarantee of success doesn’t mean that the right knowledge can’t drastically change the odds.

Consider the Stock Market. There’s no guarantee that you won’t lose your money in the stock market. Some people were heavily invested in Enron, or AIG, or with Bernie Madoff. But those are rare exceptions. The vast majority of well diversified investors make money over time. Contrast that with the Lottery. A few people, statistically, have made more money than they’ve lost on the lottery, but they are few and far between, and their existence doesn’t make the lottery an intelligent investment strategy.

Unfortunately, it can be hard for many people to tell the difference between the app-development-project equivalents of the lottery and the stock market.

This book isn’t (and can’t be) about “how to have a successful app project every time.” Instead, it’s about how to maximize your chance of success – about how to make sure you’re investing in the Stock Market instead of playing the Lottery. With the average app development project running into tens of thousands of dollars, we’d like to hope that reading this book will a small investment that can make a huge amount of difference in your odds of success.