Found something good?

i’ve been posting app ideas almost every day for the last year.

some of them went viral, some of them got built, and some of them are now making over $30k/month.

because of that, i thought it would be more useful to share the process behind the ideas instead of posting another random concept.

i'm not going to promote any tool in this article.

i simply want to show you the workflow i use every week to find ideas that people actually want.

what you should avoid

there's a huge trend right now where people say:

just copy a $100k/month app

and while i understand why this advice is popular, i think it's one of the reasons why so many founders end up quitting.

the problem is that most people stop thinking after the "copy" part.

they see an app making money and assume that the product is the reason behind its success, when in reality they're ignoring everything else that happened before.

they're ignoring the audience, the positioning, the marketing, the content, the distribution and all the iterations that happened after launch.

what usually happens is pretty predictable.

someone finds a successful app, gets excited, spends a couple of weeks building it, launches, gets almost no users and immediately starts looking for the next idea.

then they repeat the same process again.

i've seen this pattern hundreds of times because there's a version of the "consumer app dream" being sold on X where all you need to do is copy an existing app and wait for the money to arrive.

that's not how it works.

consumer apps are hard, competition is brutal and users have more options than ever. if you're building the exact same thing as someone else, you need a very good reason for users to choose you instead.

that's why i almost never start from the question:

what app should i copy?

instead, i start from:

what problem can i solve better, differently or for a different audience?

those are two completely different ways of thinking.

i'm not saying you should ignore successful apps. actually, i think studying successful apps is one of the most important things you can do.

but there's a huge difference between studying an app and cloning it.

the best opportunities usually come from taking something that already works, understanding why it works and then adding your own twist, positioning or audience.

that's exactly what we're going to do in the next steps.

1. creator search insight

this is probably the best method i've found in the last year and the reason i'm sharing it first is because it's where most of my app ideas come from.

the intuition is pretty simple.

if we're building products for gen z, where is gen z spending hours every day?

tiktok.

so one day i thought: why am i trying to find app ideas on twitter when people are literally telling me their problems on tiktok every single day?

they're already sharing what they struggle with, what they want, what they're searching for and what they're trying to improve.

we just need to pay attention.

to access it, open tiktok and search:

creator search insight

you'll find a dashboard with trending keywords and search queries that people are actively looking for.

it's basically a version of google trends built specifically for tiktok, which makes it incredibly valuable if your target audience spends most of their time there.

what i usually do is go to the suggested section, select "all" and start looking for keywords with at least 100k weekly searches.

i'm generally not interested in broad trending topics because they tend to be too generic. instead, i'm looking for specific problems to get better app ideas.

while writing this article, for example, i found the keyword:

what to have for dinner

with over 219k weekly searches.

most people would stop there and think they found an idea.

i don't.

the keyword itself isn't the opportunity.

the opportunity is understanding why hundreds of thousands of people are searching for it.

are they too busy to cook?

do they want healthier meals?

are they trying to lose weight?

do they simply run out of ideas every evening?

those are completely different problems, even though they're all hidden behind the same keyword.

that's why i also spend time watching the videos that appear for that search term. not only can you find creators that could potentially promote your app later, but you can also understand which content formats are already working in that niche.

sometimes you'll discover marketing angles before you even discover the product.

and that's incredibly valuable because distribution becomes much easier when you already know what type of content people engage with.

once i find a keyword with enough searches and enough interesting content around it, i move to the next step.

because a keyword tells me there's attention, but it doesn't tell me whether there's money.

that's what we're going to validate next.

2. validate with sensor tower

just because people are searching for something doesn't mean they're willing to pay for a solution.

this is one of the biggest mistakes i see founders make. they find a keyword with hundreds of thousands of searches, immediately get excited and start building without checking if money actually exists in the niche.

that's why my next step is always the same: i open sensor tower.

going back to our example, let's say we found the keyword:

what to have for dinner

the first thing i'd do is search for recipe apps and see what's already happening in the market.

i'm not looking for inspiration yet. i'm simply trying to answer one question:

are people already spending money here?

if the answer is yes, that's a very good sign.

it doesn't guarantee success, but it tells me that users are already paying to solve that problem and that i'm not trying to create demand from scratch.

in the recipe niche, you'll quickly find apps making hundreds of thousands or even millions every month. that's enough validation for me to continue researching the idea.

but this is also where most people make another mistake.

they find a successful app and immediately decide to copy it.

instead, i use those apps as research.

i'll download them, go through the onboarding, read reviews, look at screenshots and try to understand why people are paying for them in the first place.

reviews are especially useful because users will literally tell you what's missing, what's annoying and what they wish existed.

that's often where the best opportunities come from.

our goal is understanding what's already working so you can build something better positioned, easier to market or more focused on a specific audience.

i always prefer starting from proven demand and adding my own twist rather than trying to invent a completely new category from scratch.

it's less risky, faster to validate and usually leads to much better ideas.

3. study the audience before building

this is probably the most underrated step in the entire process.

before building anything, i spend time scrolling.

i'll search the keyword on tiktok, reels or wherever that audience spends time and start paying attention to how people talk about the problem.

i want to understand what frustrates them, what outcome they're trying to achieve and how they describe the problem in their slang.

the reason this matters is because every complaint, frustration or desire can eventually become both a product feature and a marketing angle.

using our recipe example, someone searching "what to have for dinner" isn't necessarily looking for the same thing as everyone else.

some people want quick recipes because they're tired after work and don't want to spend an hour cooking. some people want healthy recipes because they're trying to lose weight. others simply enjoy cooking and are looking for something new to try.

they're all searching for the same keyword, but they're solving completely different problems.

that's why i spend so much time reading comments and watching content in the niche. i want to understand which type of person shows up the most and which pain points appear over and over again.

sometimes this research completely changes the app i was planning to build.

instead of building a generic recipe app, i might realize there's a better opportunity in recipes for women, recipes for gym people or recipes for students living alone.

same niche, same demand, but much stronger positioning.

this is also where you start understanding distribution. by looking at creators, you'll naturally discover which content formats are working, which hooks are getting engagement and which topics people care about enough to comment on.

that's why i believe you should know how you're going to market the app before you start building it.

if you can't imagine how people will discover your product, it's usually a sign that you need to spend more time understanding the audience.

4. build the app

at this point everything becomes much easier because you're no longer starting from a random idea.

you already know that people are searching for the problem, you've validated that money exists in the niche, you've studied competitors and you've spent enough time understanding how your audience thinks and talks.

most founders skip all these steps and jump straight into building, which is why they often spend months creating something nobody wants.

when you do the research first, the product becomes much more obvious.

you already know which features users care about, which problems they complain about and which marketing angles you'll use to promote the app later.

that's why my advice is always the same: build the simplest version that solves the problem and get it into users' hands as fast as possible.

don't spend weeks choosing colors, redesigning screens or debating tiny details that nobody will notice.

the goal is to validate that real people actually want the solution you're building.

once users start using the app, they'll tell you what to improve. you'll get feedback, feature requests and complaints, and that's usually worth more than spending another month building in isolation.

a lot of founders think they need a perfect product before launching, but in reality most successful apps become good after launch, not before it.

ship something functional, learn from users and keep iterating.

5. promotion

this is where most founders fail.

they spend months building the app and then they spend a few days trying to promote it.

you can have an average app with great marketing and still get users, but it's very difficult to save a great app that nobody knows exists.

that's why i think you should start thinking about promotion long before the app is finished.

if you've done the previous steps correctly, you already know how your audience talks, what type of content they consume and which marketing angles resonate with them.

now it's simply a matter of testing.

founder-led UGC

before hiring creators or running ads, i think every founder should create content themselves.

you need to learn which hooks stop the scroll, which formats people engage with and which messages actually make users curious enough to download your app.

the fastest way to learn this is by posting yourself.

i'd aim for at least 100 videos across tiktok and instagram before spending money on creators.

that sounds like a lot, but you're not trying to get every video viral.

you're collecting data.

after 100 videos you'll usually start noticing patterns. certain hooks will consistently perform better, certain formats will generate more comments and some marketing angles will clearly resonate more than others.

that's the information you need before scaling.

if i was starting from zero, i'd probably focus on simple formats like hook + demo videos, snapchat-style content or talking UGC if you're comfortable being on camera.

recently i found an app called herbi that wasn't even launched yet, but the founder managed to get over 10M views on a single tiktok and generated more than 30k waitlist signups.

that's what happens when distribution works.

ads & ugc

once you've posted enough content and found formats that consistently perform well, that's when i'd start hiring UGC creators.

at this stage you're no longer guessing because you already know what type of content works for your audience.

you can find creators through platforms or directly on tiktok, and i'd usually pay a fixed monthly amount ($400) + bonuses tied to performance.

once creators start producing videos that work organically, you can often reuse those same videos inside paid ads, which makes the transition much easier.

for ads i'd keep things simple at the beginning.

start with tiktok or meta, spend around $50/day and focus on learning rather than scaling.

you don't need massive budgets to validate an app.

if the product is good and the content resonates with the audience, scaling becomes much easier.

the end

i wanted to write this article because every time i share parts of this process people get curious.

especially creator search insight.

it's still crazy to me that most people don't use it because it completely changed the way i look for ideas.

people are literally telling you their problems every day.

you just need to listen.

if you found this article useful, let me know.

and if you have any questions, feel free to DM me.

bye.