Max's portfolio of 28 mobile apps
Pick app ideas from App Store searches with popularity 20+ and rivals earning $100+/month
Source of all 28 apps; four now make ~$1,500/month each
Workedasomarket-selectionvalidation
What they did
Starts from search terms users type when they have a problem. In Astro, create a temporary app, pick a random category or something he wants to build, add a seed keyword (e.g. 'tree identifier'), pull related apps and their keywords, then filter: popularity at least 20 and difficulty at most ~60-70 (e.g. 'wood identification': decent popularity, very low difficulty). Select the target keywords, then check top competitors' monthly revenue in Sensor Tower, the App Store or similar; skip the market if they make less than $100-200/month.
What happened
Used for every app in a portfolio making ~$10K/month
- Stage
- Pre-launch (Idea selection)
“First of all, my main source of ideas is a well-known ASO tool, Astro. And then I pick a random category or something that I really want to build myself and search for various relevant keywords.”
“When I do my research, I make sure the keyword has at least 20% of popularity and 60 or 70% difficulty. When I find interesting keywords, I usually check top competitors and look at their monthly revenue, which you could do with a Sensor Tower or similar tools. My benchmark is at least $100 or $200 per month.”
“So you see the like wood identification kind of popular, and the difficulty is very low. I would build that because I probably might target for this keyword and get some good results.”
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More from this episode
- After one app, build siblings for nearby searches, like physics AI then chemistry AILets him launch the next app in little time; no separate numbers
- Stop polishing one app; ship a one-feature app, then move to the next28 apps in 8 months part-time, ~$10K/month; four apps make most of it
- Copy a rival's main feature and reuse your old paywall, onboarding and settings screensApps ship in 2 hours to a week; up to 90% of code reused
- Once the launch boost fades, polish and advertise the apps that hold steadyFour winning apps now make ~$1,500/month each; ad results not given