Amanda Spann, How Women Can Turn Their Industry Experience Into A Launchpad

The past few decades have come with an exponential amount of digital innovation, encouraging intellectual autonomy and independence. From the gig economy to the burst of startups, there have been many opportunities for individuals to latch onto. A fairly new concept is app entrepreneurship, which is the process of creating, developing, and launching mobile applications for various purposes. A versatile innovation, it leverages the platform to solve unique problems and provide value to a diverse market of users. This has fostered creativity in many entrepreneurs.

This prompted Amanda Spann to pivot to a career in education and app entrepreneurship. Spann is a serial app entrepreneur, ecosystem builder, and author of I Have an App Idea. She’s worked for IBM, Techstars, and Wells Fargo, and also co-founded the first immigrant-focused accelerator for African immigrant founders in the United States. 

Her wealth of experience has led her to develop a book and online program on app entrepreneurship. 

Amanda started with app entrepreneurship because it seemed inexpensive, but she also wanted to build a business accessible to everyone, and apps were the best way to do that. But she got into educating others about app entrepreneurship to prevent the failures she had experienced. With her first app costing $40,000 and taking about 18 months to build, she had to create her own way.

“There were so many expenses I could have avoided if someone had taught me,” she says, “For tech people, there are programs that taught them how to code and build apps, but for people in the middle, there‘s nothing. I wanted to provide that pathway. I was my own customer, and I didn’t want to go through that process again. So I built out a framework, and my second app only took me two months using this framework.”

The framework builds an app that resonates with a target audience, motivates them to purchase, and adds value. Moreover, she realized this was a much bigger issue when she began getting emails and letters from people all over the world saying, “Hey, I lost $25,000 trying to build an app,” or “I lost $50,000,” or “I got my idea stolen.” 

This emphasized the importance of getting the information out there. “There are so many game-changing ideas that could make our world a better place, but they’re living in the minds of people who don’t have access to the education or resources to bring them to life,” she says, “This model is a great equalizer.”

Amanda’s model, “I Have An App Idea“, is the essential guide to building an app without technological skills. She focuses on non-technical founders who want to turn their domain expertise into a product.

It walks you incrementally from an idea in your head to the app store. Amanda details the steps her model covers:

“It starts with building a business around your app idea,” she says. “Think strategically about an app-based business model that’ll transform your idea into a profitable product.”

Then, she addresses the different ways to build an app, vibe coding with AI, or working with a software developer. “My goal is not to teach you how to code, but to be familiar with the language,” she says. “You’ll know what to look for, the red flags, the green flags, and the yellow flags.”

Finally, after creating your app, the model provides a checklist on what should be prepared to make sure your app stays in good standing, including maintenance, marketing, and distribution. “We hold your hand through the entire process,” she says. 

This model has been successful for multiple businesses. 

Estate Shield VI, an estate planning app, went through Amanda’s program, launched their app in 2024, and within a year, they made half a million dollars. “They had managed their business with spreadsheets for 20 years and initially wanted an app that would help them better run their business,” she says. “But the program helped them realize other estate planners likely faced the same issue, so they built a tool they could license to others.” A year later, they’re on track to do a million dollars this year, and he just won an $80,000 investment in the app. 

They also have alumni like Good Roots, a nutritional app for postnatal care. Since new parents have to be meticulous about nutrition. Good Roots allows you to scan packaging and track whether that food is healthy based on the family’s health history. Lastly, there’s Wagabon Pets, which just won $15,000 in a pitch competition. They provide a cloud-based pet health record system that lets veterinary offices around the world share pet records.

Industry professionals have a lot of ideas after their decades of experience, and I Have An App Idea gives them the wherewithal to transform their idea into a sustainable app. 

Amanda states that her model especially benefits women because “women are natural innovators,” she says. “We see problems and solutions everywhere.”

The way of work has also changed for women. “A lot of women are choosing to leave the workforce or are being pushed out of it, so they have to venture into entrepreneurship,” Spann says. “This model is a great opportunity for women to navigate this with a little more guidance.

As an experienced career woman, you can leverage this model and your wealth of knowledge to build a product that might just change your life.