The short answer
You need someone who does the part that isn't building.
That's it. That's the whole answer.
Getting a working prototype out of an AI tool is real progress, and the code that comes out of it can genuinely be fine. The hard part is everything that sits between "it runs on my laptop" and "a stranger downloaded it six months ago and it still works."
That list is longer than it looks:
- Store review. Apple and Google have rules. Break one by accident and you get a rejection with almost no explanation of which part caused it. No hints.
- Signing and permits. Every app needs a certificate that proves it's really you. Those expire, and quietly break your next release if nobody's watching.
- Real accounts. Sign-in that still works when someone gets a new phone or forgets a password, opens the app on a tablet, or switches from an iPhone to an Android and expects everything to still be there.
- Payments. And the tax, receipts and refunds behind them.
- Security. Making sure one user can never see another user's private data.
- The thousand small decisions that turn a demo into something people can trust with their money.
Why this is the expensive half
Someone told Carey he built an app in two hours, using AI, and he wasn't lying. Building really has gone from months to an afternoon.
What he hadn't done yet was the part after that, which is exactly where products actually live or die.
Here's a story that explains it better than any tech talk could. Carey has remodeled four houses herself, and in one of them she had a pony wall, a short wall between the top floor and the stairs below. One day she decided to knock it down.
She had an idea, and she went for it. She already knew exactly what she wanted in its place: a stainless steel cable railing, and just how it should look.
Then she stood there. She had the vision. She didn't know how to finish it.
It wasn't only about looks, either, because the drop to the floor below was real, and if that railing wasn't built right, someone could lean on it and go over.
So she found someone who knew how to build it, and how to make sure it was safe. A specialist.
That's the whole story with AI and apps, too. AI can knock the wall down for you now, and you can picture exactly what you want. That part is easy, and it keeps getting easier.
Building it so it holds, so it's safe, so it doesn't tip the first time someone leans on it, that takes someone who's done it before. That's the job. That's us.
Bring what you've got
If you already have a prototype, bring it, because you're further along than you think, and there's no reason to start over just because somebody else wrote the first version.
Then ask whoever picks it up:
Will you work with what I have, or insist on a rewrite? Sometimes a rewrite is the honest answer, and a good builder explains exactly which parts don't survive and why. Reflexively demanding one is a different thing.
Who owns the developer accounts? You should. In your name, not the agency's. If an agency holds your App Store and Play Console accounts, moving to anyone else later means rebuilding your listing from scratch, losing every review you've ever earned, and starting your ranking history all over again from zero, and nobody mentions that part at the start, when everyone's just excited to get going.
What happens at the next OS update? Something always breaks. Every time. "Raise a ticket" isn't an answer.
What does a quiet month cost, and what does a busy one cost? If those two answers are wildly different, that's the clearest way to tell whether somebody has actually run a live product before, or only built one.
How we handle it
Our agents do the engineering, testing and deployment, and Carey handles strategy, quality, and the judgment calls AI still can't make on its own.
Publishing to the App Store, Play Store or Roblox is part of the work, not a surprise you discover later, and so is keeping it running after that.
You watch it happen in your own dashboard. Nothing ships without your approval.
The honest version
If your prototype proves the idea, and the idea is good, this is a short road. Genuinely short.
If the prototype was the idea, and there's no real business behind it yet, we're probably not your people. That's a different problem, and no amount of App Store paperwork fixes it.