The need for a wide array of mobile apps continues to increase as smartphones and other mobile devices’ popularity continues to rise. Creating an app with millions of users is the goal of many entrepreneurs. With the majority of the apps available for download solving various everyday problems, it’s certainly not impossible.
Pokemon Go generated a billion dollars in revenues after skyrocketing to the download charts’ top in 2016. After Blizzard acquired Candy Crush (King) for nearly six billion dollars, the team behind the app started swimming in money. Uber’s value is now at least $60 billion. These headlines are more than enough to make every aspiring app developer’s mouth water.
However, the big question is how do you conceive of an app idea that will earn a lot of money and attract a huge user base?
You’ve arrived at the correct place if your goal is to come up with a new popular app idea and start building an actual app. Below are six app idea generation tips for you.
- Identify a Specific Problem
Identifying a problem and building its solution is the best way to generate an app idea.
It’s essential to note that it’s always best to go for a problem that you’ve personally experienced or currently experiencing when identifying one. Issues that you have personal experience with will give the needed head start in figuring out how to create a solution, rather than extracting an answer to the problem from another person’s head.
If you’re looking for an example of a problem statement, take a look at MyFitnessPal. Many people find keeping track of an individual fitness routine a tedious task. The solution MyFitnessPal offers for this problem is a tool that helps users manage their fitness routines easier and quicker. Another example is tunable, which deals with the complexity of making music by allowing music lovers to create their own music on their mobile device.
- Emulate the Concepts of Currently Existing Apps
Looking at how apps that currently exist work is the easiest way to generate an app idea. Below are the different directions you can take when following this tip:
- Cloning: This can work, although this is the least original approach. Just make sure to come up with something more effective and, if possible, cheaper. One way to make your app cheaper but equally, if not more, effective is to offshore its development. Check out websites like www.greyloud.com to learn more about offshore mobile app development.
- Inspiration: Using other popular apps’ concepts for a new market or new way isn’t wrong. You’re basically borrowing their ideas but the concepts driving these smartphone apps are what you want to emulate. Look at Uber’s concept of getting something on demand quickly. Likewise, Tinder’s simple concept is turning the complicated question of who do you want to go on a date with into an uncomplicated binary decision—swiping to indicate a yes or a no. You can create excellent apps by applying these concepts to different markets.
- Join Hackathons
Search for hackathons and startup pitch meetups online and free your schedule so you can join them.
Attending hackathons will give you the chance to hear other entrepreneurs’ ideas and be immersed among like-minded individuals. Even if you don’t end up generating your own app concept during the event, one thing is for sure—you’ll come home more motivated and energized to come up with a brilliant one.
- Don’t Avoid the Crowded Spaces
Chances are you’ve already heard someone saying that crowded spaces in business mean competition. That’s the reason why many entrepreneurs avoid crowded spaces. If you want to avoid competition, you have to avoid good ideas too. So, what’s with crowded spaces? And how do you come up with a winning idea while in one?
What you can do is find a niche to win. That means focusing on a larger market’s smaller subset. It will allow you to get access and a foothold on a specific audience. Doing so will result in an app that’s tailored to an audience’s unique needs in a way that broader apps are unable to accomplish.
Another strategy you can employ in crowded spaces is checking out the biggest apps then going through their one-star reviews. Doing so will allow you to see the common pain point themes. You can find the most significant dissatisfaction with current solutions this way. You’d then want to focus your new app’s development around those problems and how to solve them.
- Use Social Media to Know Other People’s Problems
Social media listening tools like Mention and Hootsuite can be of great help if you want to use Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter to figure out what solutions people want for their problems. Through these tools, you’ll notice when social media users use phrases that show opportunity or the need for a new or more effective solution. You can use these pieces of information for your next app idea. Look for keywords like ‘I hate it when…’ and ‘I wish there was…’ They can be a good start.
- Check Out What Ideas Investors Tend to Fund
Look at the app concepts that the organizations or people who may end up investing in your idea are interested in.
Investors often share thoughts about what business ventures or ideas they’d like to fund, so don’t forget to check their social media pages.
Investor portfolio pages are also a great source of information. They allow you to draw parallels between the companies or organizations that these firms put their money into. Look for unique business models, disruptive technologies, problem statements, and hot niches.
Validating Your New App Idea
It’s time to validate your app idea once you’ve come up with one.
Note that you shouldn’t skip validation since this step ensures that the energy, time, and money you invest into developing your new idea into its app form are worth it—building an app can cost $40,000–50,000, and almost 50,000 new apps are becoming available every month, so validation of the worthiness of your app idea is indeed a very crucial step.
Your app’s merit can be validated using several tactics. All you have to do is to identify existing apps that are solving the problem you’re trying to build a new app for. Analyze these apps and ask these questions: Did they raise funding? How consistently are they ranking in download charts and how high? Answers to these questions will tell you if you have a solid and valid idea.
Final Thoughts
One of the best ways to delve into the world of startups nowadays is to build an app.
The most vital step is to generate an app idea. However, determining whether or not your idea has the markers of success is also essential. Validate your app idea before investing money, time, and effort into developing it.
This post can be your handy guide when coming up with a new popular app idea and when figuring out if it’s really worth pursuing.
