Niche and positioning tactics

Created an Apple Ads max-conversion campaign targeting all countries except the US, with a few top-of-funnel keywords and a $2 target cost per install. Checked impression share by country and which countries produced paying users (India: impressions, no purchases; Netherlands, Canada, UK: impressions and sales). Cross-checked with Mo's Astro-based Claude skill listing keyword volume by country: Netherlands had the same popularity (~55) as the US but difficulty ~17 vs 60-something. Then stop the worldwide campaign and create a Netherlands-only campaign with more budget.

1) Search the US App Store (on a phone; the web doesn't show long-tail suggestions) for a topic you understand and can build for, e.g. 'calories'. 2) Note autosuggest long-tail terms; ignore new apps' names that appear there briefly. 3) Check whether other apps already own the keyword in title/subtitle, or whether it's a brand term. 4) If US popularity is low (e.g. 5) but Apple suggests it, assume it's searched elsewhere: find the top-ranking app for it and see where it gets its ratings/installs. 5) Deep research with Claude connected to Astro via MCP (his own skill): popularity and difficulty per country, related keywords, competitors per country; ASOMobile shows whether anyone bids on the keyword in Apple Search Ads. Many related keywords with demand is a good sign. Then build, with country-specific titles/subtitles mixing native and English keywords. Example: 'kanji' has popularity 7 in the US but 73 in Japan; 21 of 22 Japanese-learning keywords score better outside the US.

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.

Same video concept, different platform name in the hook. 'Stop using LinkedIn to apply to jobs' reaches white-collar workers who apply to hundreds of jobs and will pay to automate it. 'Stop using Indeed' / 'Who's still using Indeed?' reaches blue-collar workers who get interviews easily and flood the comments with hate about paying to apply. Read the comments to tell whether you hit the right audience.

Every unit (private room in a shared home, furnished studio or backyard ADU) must be fully furnished and include all utilities. There are no showings, so residents can move in about 48 hours after booking. The company tracks how bookable each room is (quality, host pricing, photos, owner availability) and how fast rooms refill rather than raw occupancy.

Each AI agent ('digital worker') costs ~$45K/year, slightly less than one pharmacy technician's salary, while doing the work of 2-3 technicians (~$150K+/yr with benefits and payroll). Pitch: hire a digital worker that works 24/7, train once, retrain for more tasks. Explicitly rejected per-seat pricing and per-task pricing (tasks are ambiguous; 'close to tokens'). Pharmacies buy multiple agents (average 2.5-3; a big one can buy 100), so revenue grows with each agent added.

Thesis: people who track calories most are in health and fitness, which has millions of creators but few brands to work with them (protein powder, athleisure), so many had never had a brand deal. These creators already posted 'what I eat in a day' / 'to look like this you have to eat like this' videos about once a week, so the ask was simply to scan their food with Cal AI on camera. Jake's test for whether this transfers: huge creator supply, few competing brands, and content that naturally fits the app (an astrology app fails all three, and its few creators may be locked into exclusivity deals).

For a travel app whose value is not impulse-driven, the creator ICP is an expert: ex-flight attendants. Video opens with a visual hook (e.g. tying a ponytail back, hands moving) and a spoken credibility line ('I've been a flight attendant for 3 years, here's my number one flight hack'), then a listicle of tips: tip 1 a general hack (book Tuesday, Wednesday or Saturday), tip 2 'use Jetpack' with a step-by-step. No app-UI demo needed. Goal is a page people follow because they'll book weeks or months later, so follow-worthy expert content builds the account.

Make the product available internationally to widen the creator pool. LATAM creators of similar quality cost ~$15/video vs ~$25 in the US. Companies use these markets as cheap testing grounds for new formats, then carry the winners to other markets. Start one market at a time with a test pool of 3-5 creators; for LATAM bring in a fluent Spanish-speaking manager. Europe and Asia (Korea, Japan, Singapore) are also picking up: high purchasing power, far less UGC, so audiences haven't seen the formats. Build a playbook per market that new managers can tweak.

Picked the health and fitness niche, which is oversaturated with creators but has few brands (mostly protein powder and athleisure), so many creators had no way to monetize. Pitched them to show the app inside content they already make (what I eat in a day, losing weight, building muscle): before eating, scan the food with Cal AI on camera. Easy for creators and didn't disrupt their schedule. Then reached out to thousands of creators to sign them.

In a niche Duolingo owns, Pingo saw reaction content blowing up on TikTok and adapted it: creators try to speak languages like Spanish or French on camera, mispronounce words, and Pingo's AI roasts them in real time, so the app demo itself is the funny, memorable part. The host calls this 'referential concepting': taking a whole creative idea from another niche so you are first with the format.

Same consumer product, different entry point: instead of acquiring users one at a time via paid media, sell licenses to organizations that already care about the problem (Christian universities investing in discipleship and student counseling, churches, therapists and treatment providers, employers). The institution is both the customer and the distribution partner, so two customers must win: the institution (buy and renew) and each individual (activate and keep using). Value prop to the institution: rollout help, redemption infrastructure (org codes), and an anonymized admin dashboard of usage. Waited until the product was multi-device and on iOS before pitching seriously. Founder-led sales; contracts pushed to 12 months. Inspired by Headspace selling into insurance plans. Example: Asbury University bought 200 licenses for student leaders as a pilot year, intending to roll out to all students.