How to Stand Out When Everyone Can Build an App

Last night, I used Claude Code to build in less than a day what took me two weeks to research and develop. Staring at the finished product on my screen, it hit me: oh crap, the App Store is about to become a flea market.

I’m not exaggerating. It’s literally going to be a flea market. Before, you at least needed to know how to code. Now? Anyone can whip up a beautiful app. It reminds me of when blogging first exploded—suddenly everyone had a blog. Then YouTube came along, and everyone became a YouTuber. Now it’s apps’ turn.

Building an App Is Just Step One. Then What?

I’ve been wrestling with this question lately: why do some creators rise above the noise?

Take music, for example. Tens of thousands of new songs hit Spotify every day, but why does YOASOBI shoot straight to the top whenever they drop something new? YouTube gets 500 hours of video uploaded every minute, yet some channels effortlessly attract millions of subscribers.

The answer is simple to understand but hard to execute.

Three Keys to Surviving the App Ocean

After years as an indie developer, I’ve noticed successful apps usually nail one (or more) of these three things:

1. Influence (Who You Are Matters More Than What You Build)

This is the most brutal truth. Imagine if tomorrow a YouTuber with a million subscribers suddenly used AI to build an app with the exact same features as yours. What happens?

The answer is obvious—they’d crush your download numbers. Not because their app is better, but because they have an audience, a brand, trust.

This is already happening. James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, hired the prestigious design agency Metalab to build his habit-tracking app Atoms. Productivity YouTuber Ali Abdaal’s team launched VoicePal. Popular Taiwanese book reviewer Waki hired developers to create his Habit Station app.

Whether these apps are actually good or not, they’ve already won at the starting line. When AI makes building apps as easy as posting on Instagram, this advantage only gets bigger. They don’t even need to understand code—just tell their fans “hey, I made an app” and watch the downloads roll in.

For those of us indie developers without millions of followers, this is both a warning and an opportunity. The warning: competition is about to get fierce. The opportunity: we still have time to build our voice and audience. In this era, quietly building good products isn’t enough anymore. You need people to know who you are and why they should care.

2. Utility (Solving Real Pain Points)

This sounds obvious, but you’d be amazed how many apps don’t actually solve any problems. AI can help you build features, but it won’t tell you what users actually need.

The best apps usually come from the developer’s own frustrations. What annoying problem do you face every day? What do existing apps consistently fail at? Starting there beats chasing trends every time.

My own Japanese learning app MARU competes on utility. The market is flooded with language learning apps, but I focus on actually helping users learn effectively rather than building flashy but useless features. This is my current advantage, but honestly, utility alone might not be enough in the future—which is why I need to get serious about building my personal brand.

3. Uniqueness (Creating “Whoa” Moments)

This is what I find most interesting and underrated. In an age where AI can generate everything, “standard” and “optimized” have become cheap. Instead, it’s the weird stuff—the “what was the developer smoking?” products—that get remembered.

Learning from My Hero: Treat AI as an Instrument, Not a Tool

Speaking of which, I have to mention my Stanford professor Ge Wang. Ten years ago, he said something in class that I still remember: “Make something pot-smoking!” (i.e. “Make products that make users think the developer might be on drugs.”)

Everyone laughed, but looking back, that was brilliant advice.

In his recent interview with The Verge, he shared an amazing insight: we should treat AI like a musical instrument, not just a tool. Tools pursue efficiency; instruments pursue expression. Tools want you to reach a goal; instruments let you enjoy the journey.

This completely changed how I think about AI.

Doing Something Different in a Sea of Sameness

When everyone uses AI to generate “optimized” UI/UX, the “unoptimized” but personality-filled designs will stand out.

I’ve been experimenting with some ideas:

• Exaggerated animations (even if they slow the app down a bit)
• Hand-drawn icons (even though AI can generate more “professional” ones)
• Unusual interactions (even if users need to learn them)

Yes, these might not be “best practices,” but who says we have to follow best practices?

Final Thoughts: Embrace Chaos, Create Surprises

AI will definitely replace a lot of “good enough” creations. The most profitable path might be letting AI take over completely, removing humans from the equation. But that world would be boring, wouldn’t it?

So I’m choosing a different path: spending more time on ideation, writing more specific prompts, adding human imperfection on top of AI’s output. Making apps that aren’t just feature collections, but expressions, attitudes, experiences that make people go “what was this developer thinking?”

In an era where everyone can make apps, maybe the real competitive advantage isn’t being faster, better, or cheaper. It’s being more interesting, more personal, more memorable.

After all, when everyone’s running in the same direction, the person going the opposite way stands out the most.

Don’t you think?

By the way, if you’re also thinking about staying creative in the AI age, check out Professor Ge Wang’s interview. His insights on “AI as instrument” are truly inspiring.