Choosing a utility-app startup direction for going overseas

Goal

Deliver ongoing value through the app, monetize by showing ads or charging users, and keep LTV > CPI so the business is profitable.

Why utilities?

Utilities have a relatively low revenue ceiling and less “big story” upside, which suits indie developers and small startups. Large companies rarely focus on this space.

Android or iOS?

Android accounts for 71.62% of the global smartphone market. A larger market generally makes user acquisition easier.

Use Google Play growth charts and look for apps with 1M+ downloads. Why growth charts? Placement there often means paid UA is working—the business model may already be validated. If growth is mostly organic, demand is likely very strong.

Product research

Retention and frequency (retention data can be queried via Google AI Bard). For example, data recovery is low-frequency; TV remote and cleaner tools are high-frequency. Focus on high-frequency products only.
Review analysis: what users praise vs. complain about—surfaces gaps and which needs the product already satisfies.
Triggers for frequency and retention: e.g. cleaners often depend on out-of-app notification prompts → high reliance on background retention; TV remotes depend on the habit of watching TV → each viewing session drives use → less reliance on keep-alive tricks.
Development cost (ask ChatGPT directly). Building a cleaner in-house is hard—many teams use Trustlook’s API and pay monthly. A TV remote must support many TV models → heavy dev and QA cost.

Revenue estimate

After a few days of normal post-install use, log frequency and ad impressions, then estimate ARPU using target-country eCPM.
Bucket retention into tiers to estimate LT.
Collect CPI benchmarks online (Google can surface CPI by major country, platform, and category).

Final selection

Discuss dev cost, UA cost, upside, and risks with the team, then pick the project. Define the first-phase core features as an MVP and run the cheapest validation loop.