10 Mobile App Business Ideas

Have you ever wondered about building a mobile app based business? If yes, then you must go through this list of 10 Mobile App Business Ideas. Being in this industry for almost over a decade I am asked every now and then from friends and family to give them some mobile app business ideas. So, I decided to help them, and of course you too.

Many of these app ideas may exist in some form or the other. I feel if something is already out there then it doesn’t mean that it can’t be further polished and improvised.  There are tons of app with beautiful ideas but executed poorly. And there is definitely a good scope to pick them up and do them better.

[box type=”warning” align=”aligncenter” class=”” width=””]Important Point: Before you dive into this list I would like to warn you that having a mobile app idea is not enough. Execution is the key to every successful mobile app business. It needs patience, dedication, and attention to details to get the desired details. I don’t recommend that you straight away jump into building an app without careful planning and a clear roadmap. And remember one thing[/box]

ALWAYS FOCUS ON BUILDING A BUSINESS NOT AN APP.

As I mentioned earlier I have been in the app business for over a decade now, and I have seen people burning a lot of money without even having the slightest idea of how the whole thing works. So don’t think this to be a quick way to make some bucks. But if you do it right then there are very high chances that it can open a really good channel for you to make some serious passive income.If you’d like to get my view on your mobile app idea before you begin, then drop me a line at hola@appedus.com and I will be happy to validate your mobile app business idea.

[box type=”success” align=”” class=”” width=””]10 Mobile app Business Ideas is a work in progress article. I am going to add more mobile app business ideas in the future. [/box]

[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” class=”” width=””]01. Travel App For Senior Citizens | Category: Travel
Just the other day an elderly couple in the family returned from there month long trip in South East Asia. And they were supremely happy about the entire experience provided to them by the travel agency.  It immediately raised the “APPIFY IT” alarm in my head. I started to think about creating a curated list of “Senior Citizen Friendly” destinations. In other words Imagine an app for senior citizens to discover, shortlist and book for there trips. This business niche is interesting and the trend is catching up fast.  I don’t know about you but I love working for senior citizens, they are always sorted, not in a hurry and with tons of patience. So putting together an app for this niche business idea will definitely be fun & profitable.

How to make money from this app?

First thing first, create a list of destination that you would like to focus. Do a bit of research and create a neat package around that destination like hotels, taxi service provider etc. You can easily Google all of this information. Ideally, I will suggest you sign up for the affiliate program of Booking.com or similar sites and link them up with your app. So, every time someone clicks on that link and do a booking, you get a handsome commission.

Tip:  Running a web blog around the idea of “Senior Citizen Travel” can be a good way of promoting your app idea. That will be another avenue for generating additional affiliate income by promoting travel products for the senior citizens.

[tie_tooltip text=”The approximate time that you will need to develop your app for iPhone and Android.” gravity=”n”]Time to Develop: 3 to 4 Months [/tie_tooltip] | [tie_tooltip text=”The level of expertise or knowledge that you need for this industry.” gravity=”n”]Domain Knowledge: Moderate [/tie_tooltip]

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[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” class=”” width=””]02. Wedding Planner App | Category: Lifestyle
If you are married you will probably know how crazy it gets around the wedding time. So, the idea is to create a wedding planning app which will help the couple create a todo list of all the activities that need to finish in order to help them keep everything under control. The app should be capable of keeping a list of all the wedding service vendors like the florist, cake designer, catering etc. The app can also have a countdown to the wedding and a helpful daily reminder in the form of a to-do list.

How to make money from this app?

There are tons of ways to make money from this app business idea. You can create a freemium app with little fees for people to use the advanced features in the app. You can charge the vendors to signup for the app or you can do a commission based on the transaction. The revenue structure of the app solely depends on the amount of time you plan to invest in building this app.

Tip:  Creating a list of wedding planner will be a good idea too. Like finding a “wedding planner around you” service.

[tie_tooltip text=”The approximate time that you will need to develop your app for iPhone and Android.” gravity=”n”]Time to Develop: 2 to 3 Months [/tie_tooltip] | [tie_tooltip text=”The level of expertise or knowledge that you need for this industry.” gravity=”n”]Domain Knowledge: Easy[/tie_tooltip]

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[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” class=”” width=””]03. Fitness Service Provider App | Category: Health
Though there are quite a few apps and website which can give you the information about fitness service providers around you. But the idea that I am proposing to you is a revenue layer on top of that idea. So, just for the core app, aggregate service providers for Gyms, Yoga, Pilates, Zumba, Dance, Aerobics, Swimming, Fitness Studios, Martial Arts, Kick Boxing, Spinning and Weight Loss/Weight gain programmes etc. You can start this from your city and slowly spread to other cities.  Collecting the data for the service is a slight challenge in this one but that is also mostly available on the web or you can start emailing them with a google form to collect the data.

How can you make money from this app?

One straight away source of revenue is to earn commission through membership sales for these service providers. Another interesting way is to create a little shop inside the app for selling yoga mats, to pants to what not. The process of setting up shop is fairly simple by just tying it up with Amazon affiliate program.

Tip:  Starting a youtube channel will be a good idea for attracting new customers and engaging the existing ones. 

[tie_tooltip text=”The approximate time that you will need to develop your app for iPhone and Android.” gravity=”n”]Time to Develop: 3 to 4 Months [/tie_tooltip] | [tie_tooltip text=”The level of expertise or knowledge that you need for this industry.” gravity=”n”]Domain Knowledge: Moderate[/tie_tooltip]

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[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” class=”” width=””]04. Baby Food App | Category: Ecommerce
I was recently blessed with a baby and I now know that raising a kid is a full-time job. Salute to all the mothers out there. I have seen my wife spending a lot of time either consulting a nutritionist or googling all the time for baby diet plans. To help her, I created an excel sheet of all possible products that she can order from Amazon or elsewhere. It has definitely helped her out. This idea came from my own experience. I strongly feel that there is a need for an app where you can classify food items based on a monthly basis with a weekly diet chart for the baby. If you are pediatric nutritionist reading this then I have a request, please go ahead and make this app. If you need any help then you can reach out to me. I will be happy to help you. Drop me a line on hola@appedus.com .

How can you make money from this app?

Apart from connecting each product with its online store links you can also make money through advertisements for baby products on this app. There are quite a good number of baby products manufacturers that you can reach out to who will be interested in advertising on your app. If I am in your place then I would like to do a monthly subscription service. That will help you with sustained revenue.

Tip:  Sending out a daily tip about baby care to the app users can be a good way of keeping your audience engaged.

[tie_tooltip text=”The approximate time that you will need to develop your app for iPhone and Android.” gravity=”n”]Time to Develop: 2 to 3 Months [/tie_tooltip] | [tie_tooltip text=”The level of expertise or knowledge that you need for this industry.” gravity=”n”]Domain Knowledge: High[/tie_tooltip]

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[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” class=”” width=””]05. Baby Fashion App | Category: Ecommerce
This idea just came up because of the previous idea. How about creating an app exclusively for baby garments and accessories. However, the twist that I would recommend here will be to do a complete look sales. You can create a look by mish-mashing products picked up from the online stores and then redirecting the customers to buy the complete look. You can include tops, bottoms, socks, shoes, and baby accessories to go along with the look. This will help in increasing the revenue as well as enhancing the user experience. There are a lot of sites which do drop shipping and you don’t have to bother about the delivery, payments etc. You will just have to focus on the sales.

How can you make money from this app?

Connecting online stores for sales commissions. Advertising. If the app takes off then sourcing your own product and creating your own shop can also be an additional source of revenue in the future.

Tip:  Whenever you upload a new look, make sure you send out notifications to your user. Will help in sales.

[tie_tooltip text=”The approximate time that you will need to develop your app for iPhone and Android.” gravity=”n”]Time to Develop: 2 to 3 Months [/tie_tooltip] | [tie_tooltip text=”The level of expertise or knowledge that you need for this industry.” gravity=”n”]Domain Knowledge: Moderate[/tie_tooltip]

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[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” class=”” width=””]06. Speciality Tutor App | Category: Education
Yes, I know there are tons of them out there. But my concept is not tutoring math or science. The idea is to start a tutoring app of your own specialty or expertise that you have. For example, you may be great at digital marketing. So, starting a 60 days digital marketing course with a day by day class schedule can be a good idea. You can also source a lot of content from other portals doing so and charge your customer for that. You can have both the format of tutoring, recorded sessions or live sessions. And if you are doing a recorded session then this can be a good source of passive income for you. You can also do a distribution of your teaser content on various other sites like Coursera, Udemy, Youtube etc. This way you will be promoting yourself and also on the sidelines build a captive audience of your own through your app.

How can you make money from this app?

Purely subscription base model with a combination of some free teaser material and rest of it as paid material. Over a period of time, you can introduce some other digital info products to be sold through your app. You can find tons of digital products to be sold on your app through various affiliate programs.

Tip:  If you can dish out a nice designed certificate ( for an extra fee) to your “students” then it will be a good way to promote your product. 

[tie_tooltip text=”The approximate time that you will need to develop your app for iPhone and Android.” gravity=”n”]Time to Develop: 3 to 4 Months [/tie_tooltip] | [tie_tooltip text=”The level of expertise or knowledge that you need for this industry.” gravity=”n”]Domain Knowledge: Moderate[/tie_tooltip]

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[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” class=”” width=””]08. Donation Raising App | Category: NGO
When I decided to write 10 Mobile App Business Ideas, I always thought that someone somewhere will read it and build a beautiful app around it. The idea was to help, to give the knowledge that people around me have given me. So the idea # 8 is all about giving to others. I don’t see this as a business idea but just putting it down here for people who would like to build something to help others. I have built quite a few donation app in the past and they are doing pretty well at the app stores for there NGO’s. So my idea is to find the right cause that ignites your passion and create an app around that. It’s not just money that you can raise through the app but also mobilize volunteers, ask people to send out “gifts” for the needy or simply create awareness in the public. Not just for this but any app that will need a backend will require a good hosting service provider. To begin with, we will recommend using Hostgator.

How can you make money from this app?

If you decide to donate all the money that you raise to a particular NGO or a cause then you can keep a little margin for you to cover your costs. You can find NGO’s or organization looking for donation raising volunteers as well.

Tip:  A weekly status update in form of a notification will really help your app subscribers to know what’s going on in the community. This will keep them connected and also engaged with the app.

Request:  Please do share this Mobile App Business Ideas article with your friends and family. You never who can get inspired and eventually go out and create one of these apps. A small gesture can really bring big changes. So please do share.

[tie_tooltip text=”The approximate time that you will need to develop your app for iPhone and Android.” gravity=”n”]Time to Develop: 2 to 3 Months [/tie_tooltip] | [tie_tooltip text=”The level of expertise or knowledge that you need for this industry.” gravity=”n”]Domain Knowledge: Low[/tie_tooltip]

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[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” class=”” width=””]09. Bitcoin App | Category: Finance
No matter what people are saying, Bitcoin ain’t going anywhere. And it is the right time to catch the train before you miss it. I am not asking you to invest in Bitcoin, I am asking you to build an app around Bitcoin ecosystem.It can be anything like a Bitcoin merchant finder app; where people can find the merchant who accepts Bitcoin around them. Or it can be a Bitcoin centric news app, which later you can pivot it to something more actionable in the Bitcoin domain.

How can you make money from this app?

You can make through advertisement and referrals. There are a lot of wallets or exchanges out there which pay you handsomely for recommending customers to them.

Tip:  A weekly status update in form of a notification will really help your app subscribers to know whats going on in the community. This will keep them connected and also engaged with the app.

[tie_tooltip text=”The approximate time that you will need to develop your app for iPhone and Android.” gravity=”n”]Time to Develop: 2 to 3 Months [/tie_tooltip] | [tie_tooltip text=”The level of expertise or knowledge that you need for this industry.” gravity=”n”]Domain Knowledge: Low[/tie_tooltip]

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[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” class=”” width=””]10. Pet Care Shop App | Category: Ecommerce
Who doesn’t love to have a pet around them? But pet care can be a very daunting task, almost akin to raising a kid. These lovely little things need constant care and grooming. The app idea that I have is to create multipurpose Pet Care App. Which can do following:-
1.Pet Food Shop around you
2. Pet Grooming Stores
3: Pet Clinics
4. Pet Food Online Ordering
5. Provide tips for pet care

Ideally, I would like to create a “Pet profile” where the owner can signup their pet to provide complete details, like breed, age, food preference etc. Just like how you build your FB profile. This app will then recommend you certain stuff based on your profile.

How can you make money from this app?

Do a freemium version with certain information to be available only for paid users. You can eventually charge Pet care service providers to become part of your app. You can also make money from advertisement or sale of Pet Care products.

Tip:  Send useful notification to users based on their preference. More you send the customized notification, more likely it is for them to take action on that. 

[tie_tooltip text=”The approximate time that you will need to develop your app for iPhone and Android.” gravity=”n”]Time to Develop: 3 to 4 Months [/tie_tooltip] | [tie_tooltip text=”The level of expertise or knowledge that you need for this industry.” gravity=”n”]Domain Knowledge: Moderate[/tie_tooltip]

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A Remark About these 10 Mobile App Business Ideas

I am no Oracle to predict the success of your app or your mobile app startup idea.  Your success will depend on your effort, dedication, focus and your domain knowledge.  As I wrote in the beginning that having build 100’s of apps I have come up with a certain checklist/process which can put you on the path to having a successful mobile app business. So, if you would like my opinion on your mobile app business ideas then just drop me a line on hola@appedus.com. Will be happy to help!