After building 7 apps I’ve realised that all my successful apps fall into one category and all the unsuccessful ones fall into another. The successful apps all solve an acute pain and the unsuccessful ones don’t.

What is an acute pain?

An acute pain is a problem the user has and wants to solve immediately. The app should resolve the problem within a minute of the user opening your app.

Whats the difference between the two?

Apps don’t need to solve acute pains to be widely successful. In fact the largest apps often don’t solve acute pains because mass market audiences don’t all have acute pains. The main point is that apps that solve acute pains are significantly easier to sell. You don’t need to build reputation or a high quality experience for your users, all which matters is that you solve this pain well.

What are some app examples?

Acute pains

• “I want to edit my video”: CapCut
• “I want to backup my photos”: Google Photos
• “I want to add captions to my videos”: Captions

Non acute pains:

• “I want to try learn a language”: Duolingo
• “I want to be entertained”: Monopoly Go
• “I want to be relaxed”: Calm
• “I want to lose weight”: Lose It - Calorie Counter