Startup Sphere |
This coin app makes $500K to $1M per month just by telling you what your coin is worth based on a picture you upload.
The Tactic
The whole product answers one question: what is this, and what's it worth? You point your camera at the thing and get back a name and a price.
1. Niche
Pick something people find by chance and can't price. CoinWeek's review says CoinSnap is best for "coins found in an attic or inherited by a relative." Someone holding a coin like that has no idea what it's worth or where to ask. Sports cards, stamps, war medals all fall into a similar category.
2. Format
Snap a photo and the app shows the coin's name, market price and an estimated grade. Then you save it to a collection that adds up the total value.
It doesn't have to be perfect. In CoinWeek's test it got 14 of 15 coins right (which is still pretty good).
The app is free to download, and the yearly plan starts with a 7-day trial.
3. Volume
Put one caption on lots of different videos.
CoinSnap's TikTok has 26 videos, and 24 of them use the same caption: "Your Loonie could be worth thousands! Scan with CoinSnap to find out!" Seventeen of those went up on one day in August 2025.
The videos themselves are different. One is an appraisal at a coin show, one is a guy holding up a quarter with "$12,400" on screen, another is a hand digging through a tub of change.
The hook for each video is a coin and a price. Their best video has 2.1M views, and 13 of the 24 passed 100K.
Although to be fair, they are definitely putting paid money behind their ads.
4. Repeat
The same app works for the next hobby. Next Vision also ships StarSnap for sports cards, FoilSnap for trading cards, ComicSnap, PhilSnap for stamps, VinylSnap for records, and ToyWorth.
The Business
CoinSnap is a free coin identifier for iPhone and Android from Next Vision Limited, a Hong Kong company. It's been out since August 2022.
People who find or collect coins pay to identify them and look up their value. Plans are weekly at $5.99 to $7.99, yearly at $29.99 or $39.99 with a 7-day trial, or $49.99 for lifetime.
It has 311K App Store ratings averaging 4.7 stars and ranks #17 in Reference.
Sensor Tower estimates $500K to $1M in revenue and 100K to 500K downloads last month, mostly from the US, Germany and France. The company doesn't publish numbers, so these are outside estimates.
AppGoblin puts total installs at about 20.3M.
How It Was Built
Here's the prompt I'd use to get a v1 going in Claude Code:
I want to build a phone-friendly web app where I upload a photo of a coin and get back its name, year, country and an estimated value range.
It's for people who found or inherited a few coins and want to know if they're worth anything.
I have no coding background, so explain your choices in plain English.
Before writing any code:
1. Ask me up to 5 questions about anything unclear.
2. Tell me the hardest part to build, and whether an existing service or API can handle it.
3. Propose the smallest v1 that proves the core works: no login, no payments yet. List what we're leaving out.
4. Recommend a stack and the accounts I'll need to create.
5. Give me a step-by-step plan where every step ends with something I can test myself.
Wait for my OK before building.Your Move
Pick one collectible Next Vision doesn't cover yet and search for it in the App Store. Write down how many scanner apps come up and how many ratings the top one has.
Paste the prompt above into Claude Code, swap "coin" for your item, and get a v1 that turns a photo into a name and a price.
Post it in one Reddit or Facebook group for that hobby and ask people to try it on something they own.
Reply with the niche you picked and a screenshot of your first scan, and I'll feature the best ones next week.
How useful was this week's tactic?
Till next week,
— Vlad
