This conversation has been edited for length. The full unedited transcript is available on request.

Imogen Holloway: Let's start with the obvious one. Most people who try to build an app studio fail. What do you think you are doing differently?

Bohdan Hlushko: I think the thing I learned earlier than most is that you cannot win a category that is already won. The number-one note-taking app does not need another. The number-one habit tracker does not either. So we just do not enter those categories. We look for the small shelves where the leader has a 3.6 rating and 800 reviews and has not updated in six months, and we go there. That is most of the difference.

IH: Is there a recent example of that you can talk about?

BH: Antique Identifier. We saw that the top apps in the category had angry one-star reviews about the same problem — they always tell you everything is worth a fortune, and that is obviously wrong. So we built the opposite. We made the app honest about uncertainty. The retention has been better than anything we have shipped this year.

IH: How did you choose to build a puzzle game (I Remember) at all? It does not fit the studio's pattern.

BH: It does and it does not. The category is huge but most of the top apps are casino-feeling. Slot-machine sounds, push notifications when you do not play for an hour. We thought there was room for a quieter puzzle game. So far we are right, in a small way.

Also, honestly, I wanted to ship a game once. Eight years of utilities was enough.

IH: What is the hardest part of running a studio of eight live apps?

BH: Saying no. There are always three more apps we could build. The pressure is constant. The discipline is to ship two per year and do them well, instead of five per year and do them badly.

IH: How do you protect against the temptation?

BH: A team that pushes back. Nathan will tell me when an idea is engineering-fragile. Eleanor will tell me when an idea has no organic potential. Claire will tell me when the unit economics do not work. Oliver will tell me when something does not have a clean design solution. Five smart people who will say no to me are worth more than fifty who will say yes.

IH: You have started writing more about the work this year. Why?

BH: Two reasons. First, I think a lot of indie iOS knowledge is locked in heads of people who are too busy to write it down. We benefit when others share. We should do the same. Second — and this is more strategic — search is changing. People are asking ChatGPT and Claude for app recommendations. If our work is not written down, those models cannot recommend us. The Forge is partly a press kit for robots.

IH: Last question. What do you wish you had known four years ago?

BH: That the boring parts of running a company are the parts that matter. Operations, finance, hiring, contracts. I avoided them for two years because they did not feel like building. They are building. They are the foundation. Without them the apps do not ship.

IH: Thank you, Bohdan.

BH: Thank you. Now I have to go fix a TestFlight bug.

Bohdan Hlushko is the founder of Tappa. The studio has eight live iOS apps and is open to one client engagement per quarter.