Building an iOS app costs months. Validating an iOS app idea costs an afternoon. The math is brutal and most indies skip the second step. Here is the checklist we run before any new Tappa project gets a green light.
1. Write a one-paragraph user story
If you cannot describe the user, the moment, and the win in one paragraph without using marketing words, you do not yet understand the idea well enough to build it. Force the paragraph. Read it aloud. If it sounds vague, the app will be vague.
2. Find the existing competitors
There is almost always something that exists. "Nobody is doing this" usually means "I have not searched hard enough." Spend an hour. Find the top five. Install them. Use them for a day. Then you will know what your edge actually is.
3. Read the one-star reviews
This is the cheapest research on Earth. Sort each competitor by one-star reviews and read the first 50. Look for a theme. The theme is the gap. That is your wedge.
4. Check search-volume signals
If there is no demand, you will not find one. Check App Store Search Ads keyword volume, run a few searches on a clean device, and see what auto-completes. Real demand auto-completes. Fake demand does not.
5. Test the headline
Write the App Store title and subtitle. Show them to ten people. If they cannot tell you what the app does in five seconds, the title is wrong, and a wrong title kills downloads. Iterate the title before you iterate the code.
6. Build a one-page landing
A one-page landing with a real screenshot mockup and an email signup form is a forty-minute job. Send it to fifty people in your target audience. Track signups. If you cannot get at least 10% to sign up, the demand is weaker than you think, or the message is wrong, or both.
7. Estimate the unit economics on a napkin
Take your best guess at:
- Cost to acquire a user (in your category).
- Conversion to paid.
- Average subscription length.
If the math does not work on a napkin, it will not work at scale. If it does, build.
8. Write the press release
Seriously. Write the launch announcement before you write any code. If the announcement is boring, the app will be boring. If you cannot write three exciting sentences about it now, three thousand lines of Swift will not save you.
When to skip validation
There is one category where the rules above do not fully apply: apps you would build for yourself even if no one else used them. We have shipped two of those. They both became commercial successes anyway. But the bar is high — you have to actually use it daily, not theoretically.
The most important test is the cheapest one: a few honest hours, before any code. Use them.