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Before you write any code

What iOS app should you build?

Every idea sits somewhere on two axes: how many people search for it, and how hard the apps already there are to displace. Three of the four corners are traps. This is how to find the fourth one before you spend six months building.

Crowded“recipes”Wanted, and held by everyoneThe opening“one-pot dinners”Wanted, and nobody good is thereNobody asked“social recipe feed”A fight over an empty roomQuiet for a reason“vegan air fryer log”Free to win, worth nothingMANY PEOPLE SEARCH ITALMOST NOBODY SEARCHES ITSTRONG RIVALSWEAK RIVALS

Demand up the side, competition across the bottom. The corner you want is the quiet one nobody draws on a pitch deck.

The short version

If you read nothing else.

  1. 01

    Write the search

    One phrase a stranger would type. If you cannot, start again.

  2. 02

    Check somebody types it

    A phrase with no demand is a product with no audience.

  3. 03

    Open the top five

    Read their bad reviews. That is your feature list.

  4. 04

    Narrow until you can rank

    Top three on something specific beats invisible on something broad.

  5. 05

    Check somebody pays

    If nothing in the niche charges, find out why before you build.

Start from a search, not from a feature

The most common way an app fails is not bad code. It is that nobody was looking for it. An idea that starts as "wouldn't it be cool if" has no evidence attached to it, and you will not find out whether anyone wanted it until the app is finished.

Turn the idea into the words someone would type into the App Store search box. Not your product name, and not a feature: the job. "Split a restaurant bill." "Track what I watch." "Learn guitar chords." If you cannot write that phrase, that is itself the finding, because your future customer cannot write it either.

Then check whether anyone types it. A phrase with real search volume is an audience that already knows it has the problem, which is the cheapest kind of customer to reach.

If you cannot write the search someone would type to find your app, they cannot type it either.

Read the competition as products, not as a number

A crowded search is not automatically closed. What matters is who is holding it and how well. Ten polished apps from funded teams is a wall. Ten neglected apps with two-star reviews and a 2019 screenshot is an opening, on the same search with the same volume.

Open the top few results and use them. Read their recent one and two-star reviews, which is where people say exactly what is missing. A repeated complaint across several competitors is the clearest product brief you will ever get, and it is free.

Narrow until you can win something

The instinct is to go broad, because a big market sounds like a big opportunity. In App Store search the opposite is true: a broad term is where the incumbents are strongest, and ranking 80th for a popular search sends you nothing at all.

Narrow the idea until there is a specific phrase you could plausibly rank in the top few for. A recipe app competes with thousands. A recipe app for one-pot meals cooked in under twenty minutes competes with a handful, and the people searching that phrase want exactly that.

You can widen later. Ranking for something narrow and real beats ranking nowhere for something broad.

Ranking 80th for a popular search sends you nothing. Ranking 3rd for a narrow one sends you customers.

Check it can make money before you build it

Look at how the apps already serving this audience charge. If every one of them is free with ads, that is what the audience has been trained to expect, and a paid app walks in at a disadvantage. If several charge a subscription and have healthy review counts, somebody has already proved people will pay.

This is a check on the market, not a forecast of your revenue. What it rules out is the worst case: building for an audience that has never paid for anything.

What people ask

Questions.

How do I know if an app idea has demand?

Check whether people search the words that describe it.

Write the phrase someone would type into the App Store to find an app like yours, then look at how much that phrase is searched and which apps currently rank for it. Demand with weak incumbents is an opening. Demand with strong incumbents is a fight. No demand at all means the audience is not looking, however good the idea is.

Should I build an app for a crowded category?

Only if you can name the narrower search you would win inside it. Crowded categories are crowded because there is money in them, so the answer is not to avoid them but to enter through a specific phrase the incumbents are serving badly. Competing head-on with an established app on its own main search is the version that does not work.

Is it better to build something nobody has built?

Usually not. An idea with no competitors often has no competitors because there is no demand, and you then pay to teach people the problem exists, which is expensive. A few tired competitors on a well-searched phrase is a far better starting position than an empty one.

How long should I research before building?

Long enough to write the search phrase, read the top competitors' recent reviews, and name what you would do differently. That is days, not months. The research is there to stop you building the wrong thing, not to replace building.

The rest of it

Everything else on the listing.

When you want the numbers

Check your listing against your category.

The App Rating checker scores any App Store app out of 100 against the leaders in its own category. Free, no account, no card.

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