sales-skills/sales-nicheshunter

Niches Hunter Platform Help

Niches Hunter (nicheshunter.app) is an AI iOS-app-niche discovery tool: it tracks 40,000+ App Store apps daily (downloads, revenue estimates, ratings, competition) and surfaces low-competition, high-revenue niches ready to build — for indie developers, solopreneurs, and vibe coders looking for a mobile app to ship. Its modules: a browsable validated-niche database, Niche Roulette (random pick), a Revenue Estimator, an AI Niche Validator PRO (0–100 viability score), a Workspace with competitor deep-dive, and a daily newsletter. Unlike the pure-LLM validators, its niches are derived from real App Store behavior — but that behavior is the revenue/competition of existing apps, not proof that your app will sell, and the store estimates are third-party approximations. It's solo-built and young, so treat catalog freshness, pricing, and the API surface as best-effort — verify on the site.

Step 1 — Gather context

If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated platform knowledge.

Ask only what you can't infer:

1. What do you want from Niches Hunter?
   • A) Browse / discover iOS app niches to build a shortlist
   • B) Validate a concept with the AI Niche Validator — what does the 0–100 score mean?
   • C) Understand how it sources niches (40k+ App Store apps daily) and what that signal proves
   • D) Compare it to other generators/catalogs (Pick My Niche, IdeaBrowser, VentureVault…)
   • E) Automate it — the pay-as-you-go Developer API / export reality
2. What's the real question — "what should I build?" or "is this niche worth building?" If it's the go/no-go decision, that's /sales-idea-validation (an App Store niche is a market signal, not demand) — route in Step 2.

Skip-ahead: if the user wants the validate-before-building method or to compare validators across the market, that's a /sales-idea-validation question — route immediately.

Step 2 — Route or answer directly

| If the user's question is about… | Route to | |---|---| | The validate-before-building method, or the go/no-go decision itself | /sales-idea-validation {question} | | Comparing Niches Hunter against other generators/catalogs/validators (Pick My Niche, IdeaBrowser, VentureVault…) | /sales-idea-validation {question} | | A free AI niche generator for web and mobile ideas from Reddit + Google Trends | /sales-pickmyniche {question} | | Deep Reddit demand-signal discovery / scoring as its own workflow | /sales-trendseeker {question} | | Building the smoke-test / fake-door landing page to test real demand | /sales-funnel {question} | | Growing a pre-launch waitlist / capturing real demand | /sales-audience-growth {question} |

When routing, give the exact command: "This is a {domain} question — run: /sales-idea-validation {original question}"

Otherwise, answer Niches Hunter-specific questions using Step 3.

Step 3 — Niches Hunter platform reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for the full reference — the modules and what's UI-only vs API-accessible, best-effort pricing and plan gates, the pay-as-you-go Developer API (auth + credit model, and why endpoint docs are only partly public), the "own the signal" fallback via Apple's public App Store APIs, the data model, and quick-start recipes. For the raw API surface see references/nicheshunter-api-reference.md.

Answer using only the relevant section — don't dump the full reference.

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

• Name its signal honestly: App Store data = revenue/competition of existing apps, not demand for yours. Tell the user Niches Hunter derives niches from real App Store behavior (downloads, revenue estimates, ratings) — that's a stronger, more behavioral signal than a pure-LLM opinion, but it shows an existing category is lucrative, not that anyone will buy your app in it. It's a hypothesis to test, not validated demand.
• Treat every revenue/competition number as a third-party estimate. App Store download/revenue figures (Niches Hunter's and every competitor's) are modeled approximations, not Apple's actuals — verify order-of-magnitude before betting on a niche, and never quote them as fact.
• Read the AI Niche Validator's 0–100 score as directional. It's an LLM opinion (GPT-5.2) trained on App Store data — keep its structured output (competitors, keyword angle, strengths/weaknesses) to sharpen the pitch, and discard the number as the decision.
• Flag "low competition" as a double edge. A niche with no strong incumbents can mean an untapped gap or a category users won't pay for — have the user check why it's empty (weak demand? hard to build? Apple restrictions?) before treating emptiness as opportunity.
• Present pricing as best-effort and point to nicheshunter.app/pricing. Don't hard-quote a number — say Free tier + a cheap one-time lifetime (or monthly) Pro, and a pay-as-you-go Developer API, and tell the user to confirm current tiers on the site.
• For automation, be honest about the API's state and give the durable fallback. There is a pay-as-you-go Developer REST API (API-key auth, load credits, $1 free to start) returning niche data / App Store rankings / scores — but the endpoint paths and schemas are not fully published (the docs page is JS-rendered), so tell the user to grab the exact routes from their developer dashboard and do not invent endpoints. For a stable, free pipeline, reconstruct the signal from Apple's own public APIs — the iTunes Search API and App Store RSS chart feeds are exactly the raw material Niches Hunter processes. Note each Niches Hunter API call spends pay-as-you-go credits, and Apple's public feeds return metadata and ratings but not downloads/revenue (so those stay estimates). See references/platform-guide.md.
• Anchor the go/no-go on real behavior. A shortlisted niche → a smoke-test landing page + real install intent, not the browse. Route the real test to /sales-idea-validation and /sales-funnel.

If you discover a gotcha or tip not in references/learnings.md, append it there with today's date.

Gotchas

Best-effort from research (2026-07) — Niches Hunter is a young, solo-built tool with a JS-rendered site and no public review coverage; verify pricing, features, niche freshness, and the API surface on nicheshunter.app.

• An App Store niche is a market signal, not demand for your app. The data shows a category is lucrative for existing apps — not that anyone will buy yours. Follow it with a real demand test (smoke test / install intent); the go/no-go is a stranger taking an action.
• Revenue and competition numbers are third-party estimates. Downloads/revenue are modeled, not Apple's actuals — verify magnitude, never quote as fact.
• The AI Niche Validator score is an LLM opinion. GPT-5.2 over App Store data; a high score isn't demand. Keep the competitor/keyword breakdown, drop the number.
• "Low competition" can mean "no market." An empty niche may be untapped or unwanted — check why before building.
• Pricing is best-effort. Free + a cheap lifetime/monthly Pro + a pay-as-you-go Developer API — confirm current tiers on nicheshunter.app/pricing; the Validator PRO and Workspace are paid-plan-gated.
• The Developer API is real but under-documented. REST + API-key auth + pay-as-you-go credits, but endpoint paths/schemas aren't fully public (JS-rendered docs). Pull exact routes from your dashboard; don't assume undocumented endpoints. No webhooks / Zapier / MCP were found.
• iOS/mobile only. It's App-Store-native — for web/SaaS ideas or a Reddit+Trends generator, that's /sales-pickmyniche or the catalogs; for the tool-agnostic method, /sales-idea-validation.
• Name collision — "niche finder" is a crowded label. Many unrelated "AI niche generator" tools exist; this skill is specifically nicheshunter.app (not pickmyniche.com or the ASO tools like AppFigures).

Related skills

• /sales-idea-validation — The tool-agnostic validate-before-building method + the full validator/discovery landscape (use this to actually decide build-or-not; an App Store niche is a market signal, not demand)
• /sales-pickmyniche — Pick My Niche platform help (the closest sibling — a free AI niche generator for web and mobile ideas from Reddit + Google Trends; Niches Hunter is the iOS/App-Store-data-native counterpart with an actual API)
• /sales-ideabrowser — IdeaBrowser platform help (the paid market-leader idea catalog — Reddit + search-trend + YouTube signals into pre-researched, scored SaaS ideas; the web/SaaS analog to Niches Hunter's App Store focus)
• /sales-venturevault — VentureVault platform help (a free browsable catalog of AI-scored startup ideas — the catalog analog to Niches Hunter's App Store niche database)
• /sales-trendseeker — Reddit-based demand discovery + evidence scoring (a real-signal sibling that scores Reddit demand as its own workflow)
• /sales-funnel — Build the smoke-test / fake-door landing page the real demand test runs on
• /sales-audience-growth — Grow a pre-launch waitlist and capture real demand
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do -a claude-code

Examples

Example 1: "I want to build an iOS app but don't know what — is Niches Hunter good for finding a niche?"

User says: "I'm a solo dev who can ship a small iOS app. Will Niches Hunter give me something worth building?" Skill does: Positions Niches Hunter as a discovery tool — browse its App-Store-data-derived niches (low competition / high revenue) to build a shortlist — while naming the signal honestly: it reflects the revenue and competition of existing apps, not demand for yours, and the numbers are third-party estimates to sanity-check. Then insists the go/no-go comes from a real demand/install test, routing the decision to /sales-idea-validation and the smoke test to /sales-funnel. Result: The user gets a candidate shortlist to test, not a false sense that a browsed niche equals demand.

Example 2: "The AI Niche Validator gave my idea 82/100 — should I start building?"

User says: "It scored my app concept 82 with 'low competition.' Good enough to commit?" Skill does: Reframes the 0–100 score as an LLM opinion (GPT-5.2 over App Store data), not demand — keeps the structured parts (competitor list, keyword angle, weaknesses) to sharpen the concept, and flags that "low competition" can mean untapped or unwanted, so check why the niche is empty. Recommends earning the real signal with a smoke test / pre-order via /sales-idea-validation before building. Result: The maker pressure-tests the score instead of over-trusting a number.

Example 3: Can I pull Niches Hunter's niche data into my own dashboard via the API? (developer/automation)

User says: "I want to script Niches Hunter and pull niche scores + App Store rankings into my own tool." Skill does: Confirms there is a pay-as-you-go Developer REST API (API-key auth, load credits, $1 free to start) that returns niche data / rankings / opportunity scores — but warns the endpoint paths and schemas aren't fully published (JS-rendered docs), so tell the user to copy the exact routes and auth header from their developer dashboard and not to assume undocumented endpoints. Then gives the durable fallback: reconstruct the signal from Apple's public APIs — the iTunes Search API and App Store RSS chart feeds are the raw material Niches Hunter processes — with working code in references/platform-guide.md. Result: The user wires up the real API safely and has a stable, free fallback pipeline.

Troubleshooting

Every niche looks like a winner / how do I know it's real?

Symptom: The niches Niches Hunter surfaces all show high revenue and low competition. Cause: They're derived from App Store estimates for existing apps and framed as opportunities — that's a market signal (and modeled numbers), not audited demand for your app. Solution: Use the output to rank and shortlist, not to decide. Verify the revenue magnitude and scan the actual top apps in the category yourself (via the App Store or the iTunes Search API), confirm why competition is low, then run a real demand test (smoke test / pre-order / install intent) via /sales-idea-validation.

I want to automate it / the API docs are missing endpoints

Symptom: Want to script Niches Hunter but the /developer page doesn't show endpoint paths or schemas. Cause: There's a real pay-as-you-go Developer REST API (API-key auth, credit-based), but the docs page is JS-rendered, so the routes/response shapes aren't reliably public. Solution: Generate your API key in the developer dashboard and copy the exact endpoint paths, auth header, and response examples from there — don't guess undocumented routes. For a stable, free pipeline, reconstruct the signal from Apple's own public APIs (iTunes Search API + App Store RSS chart feeds) — see the recipes in references/platform-guide.md. No webhooks / Zapier / MCP were found.

What does it cost, and how is it different from Pick My Niche?

Symptom: Can't pin down pricing, or confused it with another niche generator. Cause: Pricing is best-effort (Free + a cheap lifetime/monthly Pro + a pay-as-you-go Developer API), and "AI niche generator" is a crowded label. Solution: Treat any tier/cost as best-effort — confirm on nicheshunter.app/pricing. Niches Hunter is iOS/App-Store-data-native (mobile apps, real store data, has an API); Pick My Niche is a free generator for web and mobile ideas from Reddit + Google Trends and is UI-only. Pick Niches Hunter for App-Store-grounded mobile niches; route web/SaaS ideas or the tool-agnostic method elsewhere.