This is a follow up post to my 24 apps goal post.

So to build 24 apps I need to be ruthless with the investment of my time. Hereā€™s a collection of app requirements Iā€™ve settled on to help my be focused in my app ideas.

1. Solve an acute pain

The app must solve a clear and visible pain of the customer. This canā€™t be the pain of tracking things or the pain of boredom. The customer wants to do X and canā€™t without this app. That is an acute pain.

2. No market or execution risk, just distribution risk

With developing apps theres a few risks we need to care about:

  1. Market risk: do people want to product?
  2. Execution risk: can you build the product?
  3. Distribution risk: can you find the people who want your product?

To avoid market risk the app must solve a known problem. People should be visibly searching for a solution for the problem.

Execution risk is much easier to resolve as building apps isnā€™t hard.

This makes it crystal clear that the key bet being played here with the 24 apps goal is whether I can effectively learn and get distribution for these apps.

distribution risk: People should already be searching for this app

This is a follow up on reducing distribution risk. You can find this out on the standard ASO platforms.

market risk: People should be willing to pay money for it

The app should provide enough visible value for the customer to want to give you their money. Are people already paying money for this solution?

execution risk: I can build the product

The app I create must be competitive so I shouldnā€™t take on projects I donā€™t have the right domain expertise on. I shouldnā€™t build an app to teach a language I donā€™t know. That should be obvious.

3. Not cross platform

Supporting both platforms is way too much surface area for a single person to support over 24 apps.

4. No backends

Supporting 24 backends sounds like a miserable experience.

5. Minimal app state

State is the enemy. All apps should reduce and avoid state as much as possible. This is also to reduce maintenance and development cost.

6. Support just 3 views

As a single developer I donā€™t have the time to compete in features against multi team companies. Each app should clearly lay out what three views are essential for the core gameplay loop and to maximally focus on these at the expense of other parts of the app.

And moreā€¦

When I learn from the failures of app I release, Iā€™ll add more requirements here!