I’ve started working on my next app and have begun researching some of the problems I’ve brainstormed over the past few days. I did some simple App Store searches for solutions similar to my app ideas, and even very niche concepts already had indie apps addressing them.

I’ve also done some App Store keyword searches, and guess what? Everything seems saturated. Either the keyword is very popular (good) but also highly competitive (bad), or no one is searching for that keyword, and it’s still quite hard to rank for it in the App Store. All in all, it made me rethink this whole “let’s make an app that solves a problem” approach. There are so many talented people creating amazing apps and products, and all the low-hanging fruit ideas have already been implemented.

For the past day or so, I’ve been in this mental state where I don’t know what to do next or what to tackle, mostly due to the fear of building an app no one will use. I understand that I’ll likely build many apps that no one uses, but hopefully, one of them will work. There will be market fit, users will find it useful, and all the hard work will be worth it.

And guess what? I don’t care that the app market is already saturated. I will create an app that I feel solves a real problem for people. This feeling of hopelessness won’t stop me from making things that I believe solve meaningful problems for me—and maybe for others as well.

I had this shift in mindset after reading this year’s MacStories Selects 2024 – Best Apps of the Year. The list is filled with interesting niche apps that solve real problems. For example, the best new app, Croissant, allows publishing short-form text to multiple platforms like Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads. It’s a delight to use. Another example is Simple Scan, which solves a problem already addressed by millions of other scanner apps in the App Store. The list goes on and on, so I’m hopeful that there’s a place for my apps to solve people’s problems too.