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Media  ·  Niche Autopsies

russell@bellamyworks.com

CASE FILENICHE AUTOPSIES

DIVISIONBELLAMY WORKS — MEDIA

SUBJECT230 APP NICHES · 31 CATEGORIES

STATUSIN PREPARATION — NO ISSUES RELEASED

Most app ideas are already dead.

The autopsies show which — before you spend ten weeks building one.

We scored 230 app niches across 31 categories against live App Store data — leaders, ratings, prices, last-update dates — hunting for one real opening a solo builder could take. Almost none survived. The findings are being written up as autopsies, one niche at a time, so you can skip the traps.

230niches scored
31categories swept
8ways a niche dies
0that were a free win

01 / THE FORMAT

What an autopsy is

Each issue opens up one real app idea against live App Store data. Who actually leads the niche. Whether the “weak incumbent” is a real opening or a trap. Which of the eight killers shut the door — and, on the rare occasion a genuine opening exists, exactly why.

It is written for solo builders — people who can now build anything in a weekend and need the harder skill: picking something real, and getting it found.

02 / CAUSE OF DEATH

The eight ways a niche is already closed

  1. Free-commodity wall. A 50k+-rating free leader means no oxygen (GasBuddy, 447k).
  2. Brand-subsidized free tool. D&D Beyond is free because Wizards sells books. CARFAX, free (124k).
  3. Content-factory. One shop ships an app for every topic — exam prep owns every cert.
  4. Network-effect platform. AllTrails (1.03M), Ancestry (619k) — you're fighting a database, not an app.
  5. Government / NGO freebie. FEMA, Red Cross, NOAA give the tool away as a public good.
  6. Tracker-factory colonization. The moment a tiny niche looks open, a template factory has already flooded it.
  7. SaaS / back-office incumbent. Clio owns lawyers, Stessa owns landlords. Not a one-time app.
  8. Hardware dependency. OBD scanners, trail cams — looks like software, needs a device.

03 / THE GATE

Run before writing a line of code

  1. Who's the free leader, and who funds them?
  2. Is the moat user-contributed data — a network effect?
  3. Open the #1 listing — sleepy incumbent, or wrong target? Flat field, or barbell?
  4. Who's already colonizing it?

And underneath all four: how will the first five hundred people find it?

04 / THE LIST

Read them as they're released

The first autopsies are being prepared for publication now. Leave an address and each one goes to you the day it's released — starting with the first.

Russell Bellamy · Bellamy Works — Media. Small apps, picked on evidence, not vibes. Every niche gets scored against live App Store data before a line of code is written — so a dead idea never costs ten weeks.