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(Disclaimer)

These points are based purely on my personal experience. There are no absolute rules when it comes to making money online. Always trust your gut.

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Ideation

Your marketing will only take you as far as your idea allows it to. When developing an idea, the primary focus should be on solving a real problem or improving the user’s life in a meaningful way.

The easiest way to come up with an idea is to find a problem you experience. Then figuring out a creative way to solve it. This will not only help people who are experiencing a problem, but there are also probably a lot more people experiencing the same problem. It also makes you understand your ideal customer a lot more, due to the fact that you are your ideal customer.
A good app idea solves a problem that is:
  • felt frequently (daily or weekly)
  • emotionally irritating or deeply frustrating
  • experienced by a large group of people
A user forgetting a password once a month is a weak pain.
A user procrastinating every single day is high-frequency pain. The more often a person experiences a pain point, the more likely they are to:
  • search for a solution
  • value the solution
  • pay for the solution
  • build a habit using the solution

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Follow User Behavior, Not Stated Desires

Users say they want one thing, but actually behave differently. For example:
  • Many people say they want to read more
  • Their actual behavior: scrolling on TikTok until 2 am
Use behavioral truth instead of verbal claims.
Observe human nature in action. Sometimes the best ideas come not from: “What do people want?“
but rather
”What do people actually do, even when they shouldn’t?”

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Build for a Niche First, then Expand

A common mistake: building for everyone. A better approach:
Solve a problem for a very specific audience first.

The largest companies started as a niche
  • Facebook started as Harvard-only
  • Amazon started with just books
  • Snapchat started as a messaging app for teens
  • TikTok started as a dancing Gen-Z app.
Owning a niche builds:
  • loyalty
  • trust
  • word of mouth
  • authority
Then you expand outward. Steal proven mechanics and apply them to different formats
For ex:
  • Duolingo → Fitness & productivity: streaks, XP, level-ups to gamify consistency.
  • Spotify Wrapped → Personal stats: yearly fitness, study, sleep, or productivity analytics worth sharing.
  • MyFitnessPal → Behavior logging: track moods, workouts, studying, spending, or habits.
  • Tinder → Swipe decisions: instantly choose exercises, outfits, meals, or daily goals.
  • Fortnite → Seasonal progression: short “seasons” of focused improvement with resets and rewards.
Your idea should also have a viral quality. This ties into the Purple Cow principle, which states that in a field of ordinary cows, the purple one is the only one that stands out. To succeed, your product must be remarkable. Your app needs to visually stand out from the moment it appears on screen. It should have an element of surprise or uniqueness that compels a viewer to stop scrolling and download your app. If you create something that the user has never seen before, curiosity will drive them to try it.

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How I Came to This Idea

In October, I launched two apps. App One: a RizzGPT-style clone. It wasn’t original, and I wasn’t particularly passionate about it—but it looked lucrative.
App Two: Wrestle AI—an AI wrestling coach that analyzes match footage and breaks down your strengths, weaknesses, and how to improve. I was deeply passionate about this idea. I was a wrestler, and it’s something I would’ve loved to have growing up. Both apps were marketed through seamless influencer integrations. The results were eye-opening.
  • App One generated 1.5 million views and made $15.
  • App Two generated 1 million views and made $17,000.
The difference wasn’t reach, it was meaning. App One was a remix of previously viral ideas. App Two was a genuinely distinct product—something people hadn’t really seen before and actually cared about. This revealed a key lesson:
If your product is not a Purple Cow, then your marketing must be. When the idea itself isn’t remarkable, you’re forced to rely on extreme creativity and unconventional tactics to stand out. In those cases, the marketing becomes the product. Brands like Liquid Death and Rainbet understand this perfectly—their differentiation lives in how they market. The experience is the marketing. But when the product itself is remarkable, marketing becomes leverage—not a crutch.

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Provide long-term value

An app with a viral hook but no real utility will not have sustainable longevity. Users will come for the novelty and leave quickly. On the other hand, apps that have valuable but less exciting features tend to retain users over time. The ideal balance is to attract users with a viral and attention-grabbing feature, and then retain them using your practical, useful, everyday features. Do not be afraid to pull users in with something fun or unique, and then keep them with the features that provide long-term value.