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- [00:00]
A
In this episode, I go through eight companies that you've never heard of that are making at least $50,000 a month on mobile apps. Now is the greatest time to be building mobile apps and there are people printing, doing it. I go through exactly how, how are these apps able to make so much money? And how can you copy what they're doing it and apply it to another niche? I give you tons of startup ideas in this episode, but my favorite part is actually going through six frameworks that I have for coming up with mobile app ideas. If this video gets a few thousand likes, I will share the Excalidraw that I shared in this episode. So stop what you're doing like and comment and I'll share it with you.
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I saw this tweet. It said, Here are the 10 apps released in the last 180 days making $50,000 per month. So today we're going to go actually break down each of these apps and we're going to try to basically reverse engineer. How are these mobile apps that are basically coming out of nowhere that people are vibe coding, how are they able to crush it? I'm going to give you a bunch of frameworks towards the end of this episode, actually. First what we're going to do is we're going to go through each and every one of these apps. We're to really try to understand it. Then what we're going to do is I'm going to give you a framework and actually a bunch of frameworks for how you can come up with your own mobile app ideas and how you can spot these things. And then at the end, I'm going to give you even more startup ideas and just hand this to you in a silver platter because I want you to go and vibe code a mobile app in 2026 that's going to make you money. And I think that if you can look at some of these, it's going to, it's going to get you inspired, it's going to get those creative juices flowing. So let's get right into it. The first app is an app called Flash Loop. It's an AI video generator. You can see here, I'm sure you've seen Those, those like TikToks and reels where it's like babies doing podcasts and stuff like that. It's basically one of those things where it's an AI video generator. If you look at the description, it says generate epic AI videos from text or images in seconds. It's powered by VO3 and Sora 2. So just breaking down. Why is this thing working? Why is this thing able to get $50,000 a month in revenue? It's gotten 50,000 downloads worldwide in the last 30 days as well. It's just because the vanity of it. All right? People want to see themselves.
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In characters. This is, you know, a tale as old as time. You can see here female Shrek, ballerina, cappuccino, like Barbie doll stuff.
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You know, these things get shared a lot and especially on TikTok. Right? So how can you take this idea and build it for yourself? Like, why don't you go build this for pets? Why don't you go build this for cosplay? Why don't you go build this for, you know, weight loss, aging outfits? You can take the same framework for an AI video generator and just apply it to these other niches. So that's number one. Number two is the Bible notetaker and recording app that has gotten $60,000 in revenue in the last 30 days. 60,000 downloads as well. So what is it? Basically it captures every sermon in prayer. So you can do press one tap and it records the moment. It gives you transcriptions, smart summaries.
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It's basically a sermon note taking tool. There's also a daily Bible devotions and prayer section. Super cleanly designed. I will say too. And this is a trend that's been picking up over the last six to nine months is lock screen. They've got a lock screen widget which I think they did a really good job at. Add daily verses to your lock screen. So you know, and you can see they have a year subscription and a week subscription. So why is this working? Well, you know, you have churchgoers and you know, billion plus, you know, Christians all over the world who are going to church and you've got this built in cadence, right? They're going, you know, either daily or they're going on Sundays. And they've got this strong desire to capture, remember and reflect. Notes, verses, prayers and sermons are high intent content people don't want to lose. These are very special.
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Pieces of content. And why it works is people identify obviously with the religion and there's the ritual piece and repetition. So how can you apply this to a different niche? Well, therapy sessions, aa, Alcoholics Anonymous doing recovery notes, different religions, the Muslim faith, mosque sermons, the Jewish religion, Torah study groups, meditation journals, marriage counseling notes. These are just a few to get your creative juices flowing that I think.
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This format would work really well in. Sam Altman, the co founder of OpenAI just said that it is the era of the idea guy and he is not wrong. I think that right now is an incredible time to be building a startup. And if you listen to this podcast, chances are you think so too. Now I think that you can look at trends to basically figure out what are the startup ideas you should be building. So that's exactly why I built ideabowser.com every single day you're going to get a free startup idea in your inbox and it's all backed by high quality data. Trends. How we do it, people always ask. We, we use AI agents to go and search what are people looking for and what are they screaming for in terms of products that you should be building. And then we hand it on a silver platter for you to go check out. We do have a few paid plans that take it to the next level, give you more ideas, give you more AI agents and more. Almost like a chatgpt for ideas with it. But you can start for free ideabrowser.com, and if you're listening to this, I highly recommend recommend it. The third app we're going to go through is the AI Home Decor Interior Design app. It's gotten 100,000 downloads in the last month. It's done 100,000 in revenue last month. So it's an AI interior designer. You can see it here and you can change the room style easily. You can redesign your house, your apartment, change the floors. Basically using AI to change the aesthetic interior of your house or apartment. If you go to the description, what you can see is a high at home Decor helps you redesign interiors and exteriors in seconds. You upload a photo, you choose a style, and you get stunning makeovers for rooms, gardens and more. Powered by AI, of course. There's that premium for full access and they've got weekly, monthly and yearly plans. So why does this work? Well, you know, this is going to sound obvious, but people hate guessing what a room a garden exterior could look like. And AI finally allows you to unlock that. So the visualization removes the uncertainty and makes design decisions feel safe, fast and fun. So it solves this whole idea of I can't picture it. We've all had that, right?
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I'm trying to like redo some of my office in here and I literally can't figure out which chairs to buy because I need to, like, picture it.
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So, you know, someone like me would actually download this. It's a problem which exists in every home, for every project forever. Okay, well, where can we use this format for we know it already exists, we know it's already working here. So what about for landscaping? What about this idea for RVing Camper Interiors? What about for office layout specifically for commercial? What about for retail store displays? What about for Airbnb staging? What about for backyard and patio design? What about for gym and garage transformations? It's pretty much endless. This is like a pretty horizontal app, meaning it could work for so many different use cases in residential, but there's just so many niches that you can go after. So no, no surprise why this is crushing it. The next app is an app called Mojilab. It's done 100,000 downloads in the last 30 days and it's done $100,000 of revenue in the last month. So when you look at the app store screenshots which are so busy and look like Christmas ornaments, just like insane but.
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Like so bright. But obviously it's working for them. You can see 3,000 plus stickers. More fun. Create unlimited stickers and sticker packs. Basically it's a sticker, a sticker pack company and you get different stickers. And it says here emoji Lab is an all around emoji tools that adds fun to your chats. Popular memes, cute pet stickers, we have them ready for you. Support DIY production, personalized group management, et cetera, et cetera. So these memes and sticker and GIF companies have been around for a while, but you know, now that it's so much easier to create them with AI, you know, it's just there's a lot of opportunity to I guess have a little more fun with it. So, you know, why is this working? Well, people want endless ways to express mood, humor and personality across chats. And high frequency messaging is high frequency usage, right? This is a product that a lot of people would use. The freshness matters. So the constant new sticker meme packs keep retention high. And if you're using AI to create some of those things, keeps the cost down. So why does something like this work? The identity, the expression of volume. But where else could you.
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Take this idea and how can you apply it to it? Sports fans packs, right? This just for sports is interesting. City based packs. You know.
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I'm from original originally, I'm from Montreal, Canada. It's like, oh, give me, give me all the stickers for all the different neighborhoods. You know, why not just I know them in my head, right? But like, you know, Notre Dame, de Grasse, the west island, like having these, you know, sticker packs that are just you know, maybe I didn't saw that and with my high school buddies I'd be posting on it, right? Culture and holiday expression packs. We saw, you know.
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The Bible app, the Christian app, you know, is crushing it. Like, what is this just for Christians, what is this just for Muslims, et cetera. So.
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This was an interesting one. I don't think it's my favorite on the list, but.
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Just because it doesn't feel as like a huge pain point, like the interior design one to me for example, like feels like more of a pain point. But you know, still think that there's opportunity here. The next one. I was actually shocked to see like how much revenue this has created. But then it, like it made sense to me. This is called vinyl Snap. It's for vinyl records. It's done 70,000 downloads in the last month, $70,000 of revenue in the last month as well. So it's an app that basically helps you figure out what your vinyls are worth. So it gives you an accurate price. You scan your vinyl and you, you know, learn about what the value is, you know, based on. Also you say it if it's, you know, mint condition or what's, you know, is the sleeve condition good? So if you go to their description, it just, you know, the big value add is reliable market valuation. You know, get a trusted reference before you buy, sell or store. Know if you found a $10 album or $1,000 treasure. So why does this work? Well, it's a mix of nostalgia. Like I never grew up.
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Collecting vinyls, but like in my parents generation they did. And to that, you know, to them it's like, you know, it's nostalgia, right? And the financial stakes, right? Like maybe they've kept a vinyl and all of a sudden, you know, who knows, maybe it's worth $10,000. So.
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Cult collections and collectors like this is becoming more and more big. You know, you're seeing it with like I saw the article that Pokemon has outperformed the S and P over the last like 15 years. Like people want to collect things. So collectors are constantly buying and selling and trading records. They're pricing them manually. It's slow and confusing. If only you had a single scan that gives conditions, value and rarity, high intent, high frequency behavior. Behavior is another reason why this works, right? Some people have literally hundreds or thousands of records. So where else can you apply this format? Well, use books, comic books, sports cards, toys, vintage clothing, signed merchandise. There's so much in this whole collectibles industry where you can just scan, identify and Manage your collections. Let's go on to the next one. So this one's actually a little different than the ones that we've seen. So it's called Genera AI. It's gotten 300,000 downloads in the last month. I never heard about this company until doing this research. It's gotten $300,000 of revenue in the last 30 days. Well, what is.
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Basically is a app that brings together, you know, GPT, deepsea, Claude, all the different LLM models in one place so that you don't have to download multiple apps. That's basically what it is. When you go to the description, you know, it says, you know, it's a next generation AI assistant that seamlessly combines conversational intelligence with real time search. You can choose for some of the world's smartest models. GPT4OH Mini 4.003 Gemini 2.5 Flash. The craziest thing is all the, you know, these models are not the same state of the art model. So they're actually using like old models, putting it together.
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But you know, they're selling it to people who probably don't know, you know, and I kind of hate that about this, right? Like this is not the best product, right? Like the best product is the one that has the most up to date model. So.
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You know, I think that I hate this. I hate that it does that. So if, you know, let's just talk about why it works and let's just talk about how we can learn from this and apply it for a business idea that maybe someone listening can actually go and build and hopefully make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. So why does this work? Well, it becomes that if they, you know, the default assistant on someone's phone, if they're positioning themselves as like, hey, you know, you don't want a million different LLMs, so go to come to this simple place and you'll get it done. Most users don't want five different AI apps actually they want one place to ask questions, generate media, summarize PDFs, analyze images and search the web. Bundling creates daily usage and stickiness. So think when you're coming up with ideas for some of these apps. Where can you bundle some services and put it in one place? So where else? Well, student research copilots, sales and CRM copilots, investing and trading copilots, teacher lesson planning assistants, legal and medical document tools. There's a bunch of workflows that you can stitch together a bunch of models, bundle them all up and create a niche app of something like this. What are they calling it?
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Genora. And it's just like, hey, we're the best app for xyz, niche students, legal, et cetera. And there's probably a lot of opportunity there. Okay, we've got a few more that we want to go to. The next app is called Logomaker. Not exactly the most, you know, best name, but it works, right? 100,000 downloads and $200,000 of revenue just in the last month. What is it? Well, it just helps you create logos from prompt. You just prompt, and in a few seconds you get a logo in a few formats. Super, super simple app. They charge $6.99 per week, so quite expensive, or $40 a year. So why does this work? Well, you know, if you're starting a new business or a new project or new feature even for some, you know, for something you might just, you know, you need something like this, and you might not want to hire someone for thousands of dollars. So there's the constant new business demand. But where else could this work? Well, thumbnails, YouTube thumbnails, packaging, poster and flyer generators, podcast cover arts, brand kits, YouTube intro graphics. There's so much demand for creative assets. This is just, you know, what's interesting about this is these people are making $200,000 a month just focused on logos. But, you know, go search on the App Store and see, like, what, what, you know, what can you own, right? What is there an opportunity to do? And you do have to do the hard work around finding what that thing is. But I do think that there's a bunch of opportunity in creative assets and just focusing on one. Like, I think actually one of the reasons why this works is it's just a simple name, right? Logo Maker. So it's sort of relying on ASO App Store optimization, where people are going into their app store and they're writing logo Maker or I need a logo or AI logo. And they're coming out up. We've got, I think three. Yeah, three more apps. And then we're going to go shift to the frameworks, which I think are some of the most interesting part to discuss.
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So this one's called Menu fit. It's done 30,000 downloads, but it's done $60,000 of revenue. So it sort of brands itself as the number one app for eating out healthy. It says your favorite restaurants, your goals and meals, and there's like an AI assistant, which you can ask about any menu item in real time. And it's got every single restaurant in the world. When you go to the description, it says, we're the number one app for eating out healthy. Know exactly what to order at any restaurant based on your likings and goals. So it really takes, you know, the menu to the next level, right? It says discover the best meal for your goals. Scan any restaurant to get instant recommendations and you can instantly find what to order and what to avoid. So.
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Sort of interesting. I think why it works is people eat out constantly, huge business, but they want to stay healthy and they hate decoding, confusing restaurant menus. Not every restaurant menu has, you know, the fat content and how many calories it has. So it turns a stressful decision. What can I order here that won't blow my goals into a quick, confident choice? So it's used every time they sit down to eat. Where else can you apply this to? Bar menus, airport food courts, hotel room service, school cafeterias, sports stadiums, cruise ships, meal delivery and meal kit apps. I think they're onto something here. I think that the idea that you can just have an AI chat there, you can scan any restaurant, you get instant recommendations and it's sort of speaking to the people who want to eat more clean.
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I think I'm no surprise that.
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They'Re doing well here. The next app we're going to talk about is called Langlearn. It's an AI English tutor and it is absolutely slang. It's done 200,000 downloads in the last 30 days. It's done $300,000 of revenue in the last 30 days. So how does it work? Let's just look at the app store screenshots. Just speak AI. Quick personal AI language tutor, instant AI feedback. Practice real life conversations. That's pretty cool, right? Like you're basically having a conversation with this like virtual person and they're not judging you, they're not judging you, they're just trying to help you, right? Trying to help you learn. So, you know, we know how big of a business Duolingo is, multiple billion dollar business. But I think if Duolingo were to start today, it might look something more like this. So why does this work? Well, huge global demand to speak better English, but most learners are shy, busy, or can't afford a live tutor. Practicing with an AI gives instant corrections in real life scenarios. That removes embarrassment and fits into short daily sessions, which drives habit and subscription. Okay, so it's crushing it. Where else can we apply this idea to Spanish, Chinese?
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You know, business English is like, might be different than just English, right? If you just focus on business English and maybe you own that term in ASO interview prep, customer support, scripts, pronunciation and accent coaching, medical and legal English for professionals. There is just so much opportunity here and you never know, like maybe you do get acquired by a duolingo. So not only you're creating cash flow, but you're creating enterprise value that you might be able to sell. So I like this one a lot. The last one we're going to talk about is called Zozo Fit 3D body scanner. It's done 40,000 downloads in the last 30 days, some 40,000 in revenue in the last month. So they've gotten over 2 million body scans. You basically scan your body 360 degrees.
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You can see here identify areas of growth or reduction in color. So this is like color metric, but basically it's smarter tracking for impactful changes, precise body measurements and AI powered nutrition tracking all in one place. Zozo Fit provides you with your very own digital toolbox that allows you to revolutionize your personal fitness journey by monitoring weight loss, tracking your body transformation and logging your diet. I just think that the idea that it's in 3D and you can see it is really interesting. I had never seen this before and they do have some sort of apple watch integration which I think is interesting as well. So why does this work? Well, you know, people care more about how their body is changing than the number on the scale. True. And tape measure tracking is annoying and inconsistent and like not a lot of people want to do that. A visual 3D scan that shows precise measurements and progress over time makes fitness efforts feel tangible and addictive to track. So where else can we apply this like 3D scan? Right, that's the big question. Well, what about posture and rehab tracking? What about remote coaching check ins? What about tailoring and sizing for clothing and athleisure? What about cosplay and costume fitting? What about pre and post surgery body tracking? Huge, huge opportunity. So I think they're onto something with the 3D thing.
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And clearly, you know, they're doing the least amount of revenue on here. But I think that they've got room to grow. And.
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I also feel like the name matters so much. The name matters so much. And zozofit just.
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I think that in this list it's one of the worst names here I would have leaned into the 3D. Like why not call themselves 3D scan, 3D nutrition scan, something like that. So when you're coming up with an idea name for whatever it is you're working on, make sure that you could get good ASO there because that'll be important. All right, so when you go through all these ideas, I was trying to think like, okay, how can I give you guys frameworks to basically repeat all this stuff? Right. Well, the biggest framework I have here, I called it the Greg's 50K MRR app framework is find a group that 1 spends money, 2 has a repeating problem, 3 uses photos and videos as inputs. We've seen how important that is. 4 cares about accuracy and 5 has bad existing tools. If they check all 5 boxes, you might be sitting on a 50k MRR mobile app idea. So like when, you know, think about the vinyl, you know the vinyl record idea, right? Targeting older people who spend money. Well because they have more money, they had more time to compound. Right.
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The average 65 year old just has more money than the average 19 year old. Right. Has a repeating problem. They want to know how much their vinyls are worth. Uses photos and videos as input. You take a photo of the vinyl and it tells you cares about accuracy. Of course I care about accuracy because the difference between.
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Accuracy could be thousands of dollars. Has bad existing tools. The, the existing tools is literally I need to get into my car, potentially drive to, if I'm lucky, have it in my city, but sometimes not in my city, have to go to another city and basically say, hey, will you buy this record from me? So this is, I want you to like internalize these. This framework, I know it is simple and someone listening might be like, oh, it's too simple. He's saying it's easy. I'm not saying it's easy. I, I'm making it simple so that you can. And I'm oversimplifying it because this is the core part of what makes a great app. It really is just this now finding, you know, of course you need to find the right niche. You have to build the right app. The UI needs to be really good, the experience needs to be easy. And we're going to talk about more frameworks to help you build that app that has the highest probabilities, probability of success. So I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 more frameworks that I came after going through all these apps, came up with after going through all these apps that I think are gonna help you when you're coming up with an idea for your app. So all these apps started with a nerve. And what I mean by that is they didn't start with a market.
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The niche that they, you know, a niche works when it has an identity and it has, you know, collectors or professionals, churchgoers, urgency I need an answer now. Stakes, money, reputation, time and repetition. Same job to be done weekly and daily. If the niche has all four, AI can eat it. AI app can eat it. So the question that you should be asking yourself is who has a repetitive pain that they'd pay to make disappear? So you want to start. That's why I say start with a nerve. You want to start with the pain point and you want to focus on the niche with identity, urgency, stakes and repetition. And if you have four good chance that you have that nerve. The second framework is the, you know, solve one job that always must be done framework. Every app on this Excalidraw does one draw breath really well. So tell me what this is worth, tell me what to buy next. Summarize this listing for me. Restore this image instantly, scan this object and identify it now. So the next 50k MRR app in my opinion is one job times one obsessed group, times one recurring need. The third framework is build around a single high intent input. So a lot of these apps have, have succeeded because the input is extremely high signal. It's a photo, it's an address, it's an item, it's a collectible, a logo idea, a prompt, a plant, a room. The point is the high intent inputs usually lead to higher conversion. If the, if the input is naturally harder to interpret, the AI creates, you know, instant value. Right? The next, the next framework I want to talk about is using AI to unlock a premium insight. So AI is the engine, right? The product is the insight you unlocked, right? So examples might be the price into worth, the photo into diagnostic diagnosis, the listing into a summary and forecast. The object goes into an identity, the room we saw goes into a design plan artifact into an appraisal. So the question to ask ourselves is what is the premium insight that AI can unlock instantly? That used to take time and expertise. The sixth framework is how do you wrap it in a simple desirable interface. A lot of these apps that I showed are like brutally stupid simple. They're one screen, one button, one transformation. And that's a part of the reason why it's working. So you might want to screenshot this if you're on YouTube or if you're on Audio, Spotify and Apple. You can go to YouTube and screenshot this. But it's basically sort of a summarizing high intent. A lot of the frameworks here basically. So you need the high intent input. This is basically a framework for coming up with mobile app ideas that help you get to 50, that get to 50k a month. You know, high intent input, photo, video, address goes into the AI premium insight goes into the simple interface goes into recurring behavior loop. You target your audience here and then hopefully you get the 50k mrr. So these are just frameworks to help you.
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Help you make sure that the idea that you're working on has what it takes to.
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Go viral to hit 50k or more.
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Before we ended, I want to give a few just like three or four startup ideas. I know I gave you a ton, but I'm going to give you a few more.
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And then we can, we can, you know, end the podcast. So this is just a request for someone should build these things. These are things I've been thinking about, the AI Golf swing coach app. So you know, I actually recently got some lessons at like a golf simulation.
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You know, company like they help. It helps you learn to do golf swings and stuff like that. And the place is packed but with AI now you can just do, you know, a video with biomechanical corrections. Like you can just use your.
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Your phone and it, it'll tell you what to do. Someone go build that. The AI auction strategist photo expected bid range and strategy. Right. Number three, an AI closet stylus photo of clothes. Tell me my outfits, resale pricing purge guidance. The pet health scanner photo and video as the input. Early issue detection and care guidance. Garden plant doctor photo of like you know, a brown leaf disease fix and seasonal reminders use car analyzer VIN and photos give me repair risk, price comps and negotiation scripts. Let's do one more RV and van life layout designer interior photo, optimized layout and shopping list. So there you have it. I know that was a lot to digest, but.
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I believe that, you know, 2026 is an incredible time to be building mobile apps. I'm certainly building mobile apps in 2026. This is how I'm thinking about it and I wanted to share it with you. I hope this has been helpful. If it has, please, please do share this with a friend. It's way more fun to be building with a friend and.
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Yeah, and let me know if I should be doing more of these. I enjoyed sharing this with you and hope you have a really creative day and I can't wait to see what you build. I'm absolutely rooting for you and I'll see you next time.