Thoughts on app development

If you are thinking of developing a mobile app - you may find this post helpful.

We can categorize mobile apps into the following categories based on time-spent

Utility
These are utility apps you use on a daily basis but don't spend that much time on it.
Eg: Uber, UberEats, Lyft, DoorDash, LastPass

Dopamine
Addictive apps - you are filled with dopamine hits when you are using them. The primary focus of these apps is to keep you using the app as long as possible. (more screen time = more money)
Eg: TikTok, Netflix, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Games

Exploratory
Everything else - these are apps that were marketed to you heavily (direct or indirect) and you ended up installing them to check it out. You will most likely never touch these apps again. (these are likely in the bottom shelves in your app drawar)

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Every new app installs go through the exploratory phase.
How easy it is to jump to the dopamine/utility phase is what makes an app successful.

Deleted member 923340 said:

How easy it is to jump to the dopamine/utility phase is what makes an app successful.

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Drawbacks of being an emotional being
Quite informative.

Interesting - have you done any of these app development yet ?

SonOfBhw said:

Short and helpful post

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Glad you found it helpful I try to keep things short and to the point.

HustleTong said:

Drawbacks of being an emotional being

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It is. Unfortunately many profit from this behavior. Depends on how ethical you are.

avidjam said:

Interesting - have you done any of these app development yet ?

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I've developed a few apps in the past. Some bring very little money to this day. But nothing that I'm proud of.
The app market is very crowded these days, unfortunately. This post is just some thoughts for someone trying to make it in this competitive space.

The market is not crowded u just need to stand out

In the end its all about the marketing budget. You can literally "buy success" by showing your app and its ads everywhere, any time, to anyone.

Making an app like TikTok or Instagram is not really the problem, getting it out there and get thousands or millions of users is difficult.

For example, if you run a Google Adwords campaign for app installs WITHOUT any limit, you get 10k downloads per day, but you will also need to pay a thousand bucks. Imagine you have a budget of $250,000. You know what you do? Hire some influencers, spent thousands of dollars for Adwords and Facebook ads.

So basically what an Indie developer should try is to get into this "positive cycle" of generating a lot of revenue and then reinvest the money for ads to grow the brand and generate even more money.