App portfolios vs. single-app focus: Which strategy drives long-term success?

As RevenueCat’s State of Subscription Apps 2025 shows, making a living from mobile apps is not for everyone — most who try never even reach $1,000 in monthly recurring revenue. This opens the eternal debate on whether it’s better to go all in on a single idea, or diversify into less polished ones to see what works best then double down.

After five years, I’ve experienced both paths myself — and also worked alongside teams that chose one or the other. I’ll share those first-hand lessons so you can better weigh the benefits and risks, and decide which approach suits you.

Benefits of a single-app focus

Before listing the benefits and advantages of putting all your time into one app, you should remember that software is a commodity.

This means that if you are here to play the long-term, you must never forget that almost every single app developer team could replicate your product. Therefore, focusing on a single app eliminates the most crucial risk: being unable to stand out and nail the distribution game.

But why?

The main benefits of a single-app focus are not product improvement iterations but what will make your users say, “Oh, I should try this app”. In other words, it’s not about the software but what brings customers to the front door.

Instead of giving a boring bullet point explaining why this could be a cool idea, below are three real cases I’ve lived that prove this approach is worth trying.

1. Some years ago, a US-based indie developer focused on a single product in the health and fitness category. Today, this single app is doing more than $500K a month (most of it thanks to organic users coming into the app). What did he do to get here?
   • Community building: Grow its social media accounts to more than 1M followers, by focusing on not killing the product’s virality. He achieved this by not monetizing the product for the first few years. Who doesn’t like a great product for free? This is a clear example of playing the long game.
   • Name: He nailed the app store positioning because the app’s name was the name of the entire category; therefore, the app ranks number one even after years. This means that he decided to allocate a lot of time and effort into app store optimization (which worked).
   • Apple-friendly: Bet on something that Apple will be proud of sharing for free with its user base in the App Store. His app has been app of the day, editor’s choice, and much more. He focused on creating relevant stories to pitch the Apple editorial team.
     
2. I collaborated with two indie developers who scaled an app to +$100K ARR in two months without a clear idea of how even apps work. But they decided on one thing: to make one great product (with the secret catch that they bet on an idea forcing users to use the product daily). The result was a fantastic onboarding experience that resonated with their customers and a user experience focused on ease of use. But what were the benefits they discovered?
   • Organic growth engine: Created a small network of content creators, paid a fixed rate per 1,000 views, with an incentivized payout structure. This got them millions of organic impressions and almost free ideas to run paid ads. The organic purchases were “paying for the creators themselves”, and providing an extra cash flow to test-validated ad concepts.
   • User obsession: They built something they would use and did multiple user interviews weekly to identify the low-hanging fruit (low-effort features with high impact).
   • Short payback period: Ads were profitable since day one. They achieved this by removing the free trial and investing in validated ad ideas. Achieving this level of performance in a short period allowed them to scale fast while mitigating any financial risks.
     
3. A close friend who had previously built a successful gaming company decided to go all-in on creating a new subscription apps studio. He chose the single-app approach. The result was that his first app today is doing +$700K in MRR, with the caveat that it took him more than one and a half years to get to the first $50K in MRR. These are things where he allocated his focus to make it work:
   • B2B distribution: Instead of doing a simple B2C application, he built a more robust B2B product for users who depend on a specific service to do their work. He focused on promoting the app within niche communities of their user base, offering partnerships and referral programs. This is a tedious and lengthy process.
   • Exhaustive creative testing: During the first 12 months of work, he never achieved a single ad that could make a cent in revenue. After more than 350 assets, he finally got a winning ad that later changed the course of his business. The idea came from asking users what videos they love seeing in their TikTok feed when bored.
   • Innovated product features: Developed and optimized new ways of doing things that users already requested. Took the time to design, test, and deploy new product functionalities with a high level of detail. This created a strong word of mouth among its user base (product-led growth).

With these stories, you’d conclude that by focusing on a single app, you’ll be able to maximize your chances of success by nailing:

1. Building an authentic organic community/engine
2. App store optimization
3. Product retention (focusing on high-frequency usage and disruptive features)
4. No trial onboarding flow to get profitable ads from day zero

The risk of focus

But what are the potential risks to focusing on one app?

Vahe Bagdasaryan, Founder of paywalls.design, has led Growth, Monetization and Lifecycle Marketing at Flo Health. He shares the trade-off for single-app success:

“When you focus on a single app, you get depth: tighter product loops, more brand equity, and the ability to run faster, compounding experiments. But you’re also putting all your revenue risk in one basket—an algorithm change or market shift can hit hard.”

I’ve personally experienced several lessons first hand after working at multiple companies focusing on a single app:

1. Slow (to none) responsiveness to new trends: After years of working at a company that was mainly focused on improving what was already ‘working’, one learning was clear: they were not able to adapt to the new AI trend and ship high-quality products associated with what customers were looking for. It was a sad experience seeing other companies with 5% of the resources we had scale to millions in ARR in a matter of months, while we were focusing on trying to increase the revenue 5% YoY because the app was doing well. They tried to switch their approach two years later, but it was too late. The peak for the AI wave was left behind.
2. Complexity to identify the ceiling: It is almost impossible to confidently say, “We won’t be able to grow our app anymore”. Because of this, companies are trapped in a loop where they keep trying even after seeing their metrics stabilize or shrink. It’s hard to say when it’s a good time to let it go and move on. The lack of certainty tends to freeze the decision-makers. It’s always safer to stick with what works (or used to work) than go all in on something new.
3. Emotional damage: I’ve seen it before. Companies spend over two years on a single app, only to realize it was not the best bet. These situations devastate morale, creating a false impression of their skills and capabilities to ship great products. This all comes up to the human concept: “If I’m as smart as I think, then I won’t need to put too much effort into making this work”.

Why an app-portfolio approach is a good idea 

After years in the app industry, I learnt there are two types of app-portfolios:

1. One-code-fits-all: When a company uses the same codebase to create new apps for different audiences and problems. Same code, different UI (theme/topic).
2. Diversification: Take as many different bets as possible to see what works. Implies building in various verticals, distinguished features, and new front/back infrastructure each time.

“A portfolio spreads risk and gives you more shots at the goal, but the flip side is diluted attention and slower iteration per app.”

Vahe Bagdasaryan – Founder of paywalls.design, ex-Flo

One-code-fits-all

Let’s start with the golden ticket: one-code-fits-all. Imagine for a second that your first app works out. Most app developers will start thinking about the next venture, but only a few will think about adapting the same codebase to a new product, and even fewer will know how to make that work.

Here are some learnings and benefits of doubling down on one code fits all:

1. Low-code maintenance, and therefore the need for a massive team of developers, disappears. You can keep a lean infrastructure with just a few people — this helps to reduce operational costs and improve the gross profit.
2. Tends to be a two-way door decision. If your next project does not work out, you can return to the previous state quickly without burning too much cash.
3. Marketing and product-wise, it enables you to manage multiple apps at scale and with limited resources. If one feature works for one app, it will probably work for others. And the ad learning could be shared across apps.

Diversification

When it comes to diversification, these are the main benefits I experienced first-hand:

1. Trend surfing allows flexibility and the ability to create different products quickly without worrying about the tech and maintenance.
2. Reduces the risk of putting all your eggs in one basket. Betting in multiple verticals at the same time could ensure long-term success.
3. Generate the opportunity to create entire new portfolios thanks to a huge success in a specific niche. I worked with a company that decided to create an app in the utility category, and encountered a massive success, so it allowed them to fund an entire team to only build utility apps.

“What I’ve seen work best is building the infrastructure and playbooks (growth, monetization, lifecycle, etc.) that can scale across multiple apps — once you have that, the marginal cost of launching the second or third app is much lower, and you don’t lose as much focus.”

Vahe Bagdasaryan – Founder of paywalls.design, ex-Flo

What to be aware of when managing an app portfolio

With industry growth fueled by AI, it’s faster and easier than ever to develop multiple apps. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to make multiple successful apps. As Nathan Hudson, Founder & CEO @ Perceptycs, explains:

“There’s an awful lot that goes into scaling an app successfully: user acquisition, onboarding, optimization, ASO, improving retention, ongoing product development, bug fixes, etc. It’s not that simple to build a really solid, strong app.”

Some of the risks of pursuing an app portfolio may be obvious, but when I started working with apps, it wasn’t clear to me just what could go wrong. (Plus, people don’t tend to share the bad news!)

Below is a list, by order of importance, of the things you should consider:

1. The amount of missing great opportunities is higher than what people think. Due to high iterations and low improvment cycles for a same product, a lot of companies end up throwing to the trash something that with more time could scale.
2. Underestimate the difficulty of handling a lot of tech debt. Things break, users leave bad reviews and revenue does not grow.
3. Focus in business is everything. As everyone says, doing a lot of things at the same time may led you to not doing anything good.
4. Ignore the fact that other people with much more experience and knowledge than you are already building in a vertical you have almost no idea. Don’t be one of those people that say, “I can build something like this” and then expect to have the same revenue. That’s not the way it works.
5. It’s hard to define how much time it’s worth allocating to an app, hence creating confusion on what success looks like.

“The main bottleneck for many companies is no longer development time, it’s the growth strategy and execution itself, as well as ideation on the product side.”

Nathan Hudson – Founder & CEO @ Perceptycs

Whether you opt for one-code-fits-all or diversification, both approaches have their benefits. And if you can nail your resource management and risk expansion, an app portfolio can pay off.

How do you decide between single-app focus or app portfolios?

Ultimately, there’s no one right path in mobile apps, just different opportunities to chase.

After my own experiences and seeing others pursue portfolios, these are my main takeaways:

1. Pick a lane and double-down: A single-app focus lets you pour all resources into one growth engine, community, ASO, sticky features, and ad funnels often driving faster organic traction and earlier profitability.
2. But beware of tunnel vision: The same single-app commitment can blind teams to new trends (e.g., AI), make it hard to spot a growth ceiling, and sink morale if the bet stalls.
3. Portfolios spread risk and learning: Re-skinning one winning codebase or diversifying across verticals lets you ride new waves quickly, recycle features, and hedge against any one app’s decline.
4. Operational drag is real: More apps mean more tech debt, fractured focus, and a higher chance of killing promising ideas too early success hinges on ruthless prioritization and shared infrastructure.
5. Success ≠ one formula: Your best path depends on team strength, appetite for iteration, and cash runway. Choose the strategy that lets you move fastest while staying financially and emotionally resilient.

“If you’ve built a money printer, I’d just focus on keeping it full of ink.”

Nathan Hudson – Founder & CEO @ Perceptycs