📱 Best Platforms
Apple App Store, Google Play
📖 The Hustle
Build a tip calculator app that stands out by adding bill-splitting with named friends (including item-level splitting for when one person ordered the lobster), receipt photo scanning using on-device OCR to auto-fill amounts, and a service quality rating that adjusts the suggested tip percentage. Tip calculator apps are a crowded category, but most are basic number crunchers. Adding receipt scanning and item-level splitting solves real dining-group pain points.
🚀 First Step
Create a Flutter app with a manual entry screen: bill total input, tip percentage slider (10-30%), number of people selector, and a results panel showing tip amount, total, and per-person cost in large readable text.
🔑 Keys to Success
- The item-level bill splitter ('Sarah got the steak, Mike got the salad') is the unique selling point — group dinners where one person ordered significantly more are awkward, and this feature solves a real social pain
- Use on-device OCR (Google ML Kit or Apple Vision) for receipt scanning — processing data locally is free (no API costs) and privacy-friendly, and users trust an app that does not upload their receipts
- Price at $2.99 one-time — tip calculators are low-consideration purchases and a fair one-time fee generates more downloads than free-with-ads, which feels cheap for a tool used at restaurants
🛠 Tools & Resources: Flutter, Google ML Kit (OCR), Android Studio, Xcode, RevenueCat