30 Location Based App Business Ideas You Can Start Today [2023]

30 Location Based App Business Ideas You Can Start Today [2023]

Interested in starting a location based app business in 2023?

We put together 30 of the best location based app businesses you can start in today.

For each business idea, we’ll show you real-world examples of other location based app businesses to help you see what it really takes.

Here's the full list:

1. Start a healthy meal delivery service ($1.56M/year)

How Much Can You Make?
$5,000 — $25,000,000/month
Average Initial Investment
$500
Time To Revenue
210 days
Skills
Work from home

Cesar Quintero from Miami, Florida, USA started Fit2Go over 18 years ago, a healthy meal delivery service.

  • Revenue: $130,000/ month
  • Founders: 1
  • Employees: 11
  • Location: Miami, Florida, USA

Case Study

I have an engineering degree and a corporate marketing background, and worked as a production engineer in Venezuela, specializing in logistics and project management. I also spent four years as a marketing manager in R&D for Proctor and Gamble in Latin America.

Three factors combined to fuel my move to Miami in 2005 and change my career path. First, things were economically tough in Venezuela. Second, I wanted to start a business. And finally, while I’d found weight management to be a lifelong struggle, the corporate lifestyle made it even more difficult. A hectic work schedule basically gives you two options—grab something from the vending machine or hit a fast food joint.

For a long time, I thought that being a good leader meant feigning total strength and confidence. This is a big problem with first-time and even many seasoned entrepreneurs—those negative connotations around the positive concept of vulnerability.

how-i-started-a-130k-month-healthy-meal-delivery-service-before-that-was-a-thing

2. Start a cheap flights finding service business ($120/year)

How Much Can You Make?
$10 — $1,500,000/month
Skills

Ju Li from Boston, MA, USA started BuyLo about 2 years ago, a cheap flights finding service business.

  • Revenue: $10/ month
  • Founders: 4
  • Employees: 1
  • Location: Boston, MA, USA

Case Study

I actually started my career as a Consultant at Analysis Group before joining a local insurtech marketplace as a Strategy Manager. I do not have a background in travel. No one on my team does. But we are all immigrants and we have all noticed a societal problem bubbling under the surface: increased polarization.

We believe this to be a direct result of increased social media use. The algorithms that drive engagement have a side effect of funneling us into online echo chambers. Furthermore, the anonymous nature of online interaction also distorts the way we interact with each other. People aren’t constantly broadcasting their political views and dropping zingers on each other for likes in real life. Social media is the root of the problem but they can’t be part of the solution for this reason.

How do we reverse this? We believe that travel has the power to bring people together. There is no such thing as a well-traveled racist. The very act of traveling and experiencing different cultures will elevate your consciousness and level of empathy.

pivoting-from-a-cheap-flights-website-to-a-money-saving-browser-extension

3. Start a dating app

How Much Can You Make?
$11,250,000/month
Average Initial Investment
$150,200
Skills

Examples of a successful dating app:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a dating app:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a dating app ➜

Case Study

At age 22, Whitney Wolfe helped launch Tinder, one of the world's most popular dating apps. But a few years later, she left Tinder and filed a lawsuit against the company alleging sexual harassment. The ensuing attention from the media – and cyberbullying from strangers – prompted her to launch Bumble, a dating app where women make the first move. Today, the Bumble app has been downloaded close to 30 million times. PLUS in our postscript "How You Built That," we check back with Michael Dixon, whose business Mobile Vinyl Recorders uses portable record lathes to cut vinyl at parties, weddings, and music festivals. (Original broadcast date: October 16, 2017)

4. Develop a supply chain & logistics monitoring app

How Much Can You Make?
$20,000/month
Skills

Examples of a successful supply chain & logistics monitoring app:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a supply chain & logistics monitoring app:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a supply chain & logistics monitoring app ➜

Case Study

Hello, everyone! My name is Kiril Kirilov, and I am the co-founder of Rush — the most versatile shipment software for Shopify businesses. Rush is a Shopify post-purchase solution that turns first-time customers into returning customers.

As far as how much money we are making today, we just hit $20k MRR. With more than 1500 active installations, we are steadily growing. On top of that, we are building strong relationships with customers, experienced dropshippers, and brand owners on Shopify.

this-dropshipper-built-a-20k-month-shopify-order-tracking-app

5. Start a fresh meat delivery business

How Much Can You Make?
$60,000/month
Average Initial Investment
$5,000
Skills

Examples of a successful fresh meat delivery business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a fresh meat delivery business:

Learn more about starting a fresh meat delivery business ➜

Case Study

Hello, my name is Mohamad Saad, and I am one of the founders of HalalWorldDepot, America’s premier Halal online marketplace. The company started three years ago as meat and grocery delivery service and slowly grew into a full-blown online marketplace offering a wide range of Halal products.

With a simple goal of getting as many Halal items listed, we also focus on building a community of Muslims around the United States to connect and come together. A home formed on a website where all can feel welcomed and comfortable shopping and finding the products they need.

i-started-my-online-food-business-at-17-it-now-earns-720k-year

6. Start a travel destination finder app business

How Much Can You Make?
$114,200,000/month
Skills

Examples of a successful travel destination finder app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a travel destination finder app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a travel destination finder app business ➜

Case Study

Tripadvisor was founded by co-founders Stephen Kaufer, Langley Steinert, Nick Shanny, and Thomas Palka in February 2000. When they first launched Tripadvisor, they emphasized official words from newspapers, guidebooks, or magazines.

Tripadvisor, now the world’s leading travel advice network, assists hundreds of millions of people in becoming better travelers, from planning to booking to traveling.

Travelers use Tripadvisor to get bargains on lodgings, book activities, reserve tables at wonderful restaurants, and discover excellent locations nearby.

Kaufer co-founded TripAdvisor in 2000 to assist tourists worldwide in planning and having the perfect trip. The business idea came about when Steve was preparing for a vacation, and he searched the internet for a vacation idea, and his experience wasn’t pleasing.

At that moment, he decided to work on a travel search engine that would find those backwater pages, insights, and opinions of what other travelers found.

Their original search engine would search what was already out on the web, find biased information, pull it back into a central database, and then license it as a B2B model to other travel providers.

Their first client came a year after its founding when Lycos, the number 3 web search engine in 2001, allowed TripAdvisor to power the travel sections on Lycos and provide all the travel-related content.

Before co-founding TripAdvisor, Kaufer was an independent software vendor and CenterLine Software’s co-founder and vice president of engineering, where he directed the creation of many award-winning programming environments.

The platform has over 1 billion reviews and recommendations from almost 8 million companies. This travel guide firm works across 43 markets and offers services in over 22 languages, making trip planning simple regardless of the sort of journey.

The global revenue of Tripdavisor, Inc. increased by approximately 49 percent in 2021 over the previous fiscal year after dropping sharply in 2020 due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Overall, the company’s revenue worldwide amounted to 902 million U.S. dollars in 2021, rising from 604 million U.S. dollars in 2020.

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7. Start a car rental app business

How Much Can You Make?
$2,000 — $583,333/month
Skills

Examples of a successful car rental app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a car rental app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a car rental app business ➜

Case Study
  • Giovanni Smith, Kendell Johnson, and Preston Martelly co-founded Subskryb, a luxury vehicle subscription service.
  • Through Subskryb, car owners can list their high-end cars while renters can choose from the listed cars and book them daily, weekly, or monthly.
  • This subscription-based car-sharing & car rental company leverages technology to revolutionize personal mobility while building a VAAS (Vehicle-As-A-Service) model with car owners and renters.

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Watch the full interview on youtube.com ➜

8. Start a mail delivery business

Examples of a successful mail delivery business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a mail delivery business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a mail delivery business ➜

9. Start a navigation app business

Examples of a successful navigation app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a navigation app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a navigation app business ➜

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10. Start a pizza delivery business

Examples of a successful pizza delivery business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a pizza delivery business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a pizza delivery business ➜

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11. Start a tenant finder/communications app business

How Much Can You Make?
$19,000 — $1,000,000/month
Skills

Examples of a successful tenant finder/communications app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a tenant finder/communications app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a tenant finder/communications app business ➜

Case Study

My name is Matthew Roberts, and with the help of co-founder Nathan Anderson and our great friend Benjamin White, we started our company PEAR and launched our first product: PEAR Cards.

We are based in Chico, CA and are currently awaiting our first order of PEAR Cards. They should be here sometime in the January - February time frame, and we are so excited to finally hold them in our hands & share them with the rest of the world!

raising-19-000-building-a-positive-card-game

12. Start a tutor finder app business

Examples of a successful tutor finder app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a tutor finder app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a tutor finder app business ➜

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13. Start a gas station finder app business

Examples of a successful gas station finder app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a gas station finder app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a gas station finder app business ➜

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14. Start an ecommerce location-based app business

Examples of a successful ecommerce location-based app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a ecommerce location-based app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting an ecommerce location-based app business ➜

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15. Start a fitness app business

How Much Can You Make?
$250 — $33,333,333/month
Skills

Examples of a successful fitness app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a fitness app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a fitness app business ➜

Case Study

To date, we’ve bootstrapped our business to over $100,000 MRR. We’re especially proud to be the only platform in our space who serve the best interests of our clients first, having no investors to answer to.

how-i-created-a-software-to-manage-gyms-and-reached-100k-month-in-revenue

16. Start a chek-in app business

Examples of a successful chek-in app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a chek-in app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a chek-in app business ➜

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17. Start an advertising insights app business

How Much Can You Make?
$10,000/month
Skills

Examples of a successful advertising insights app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a advertising insights app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting an advertising insights app business ➜

Case Study

Howdy! My name is Jordan Shamir, and I am one of the co-founders of Yofi, a customer identity platform that helps brands prevent bots and create meaningful relationships with their customers! My co-founders and I started Yofi because we were frustrated constantly needing to pay ridiculous resale prices for our favorite sneakers and concert tickets because we couldn’t beat the bots who were buying all of these items.

how-these-former-resellers-built-a-120k-year-tool-to-combat-bots

18. Start an accommodation booking app business

How Much Can You Make?
$200,000 — $114,200,000/month
Skills

Examples of a successful accommodation booking app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a accommodation booking app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting an accommodation booking app business ➜

Case Study

We are Eugenio Ferrante and Ahmed Nizar, co-founders of Casa Mia Coliving.

Today, we have 150 bedrooms in central Singapore across popular neighborhoods such as River Valley, Tiong Bahru, and Orchard. We have reached an annualized revenue of $2.5M, and we’re growing fast!

we-started-a-2-4m-year-coliving-business-in-singapore

19. Start a lounge finder app business

Examples of a successful lounge finder app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a lounge finder app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a lounge finder app business ➜

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20. Start a banking app business

Examples of a successful banking app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a banking app business ➜

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21. Start a goal tracking app business

How Much Can You Make?
$45,000 — $1,466,666/month
Skills

Examples of a successful goal tracking app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a goal tracking app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a goal tracking app business ➜

Case Study

Hi, my name is Jared Brown and I am a co-founder of Hubstaff. We started the company eight years ago to build a time tracking tool that included “proof of work”. The initial goal was to solve the issue of non-developer owners and managers not knowing how long development tasks should take and feeling helpless when they suspected the freelancers they hired were billing them for more hours than they were actually working.

We started charging for our product in August of 2013 and we were recently named one of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the U.S. for the second year in a row. We are about to hit 10,000 paying customers and $6,000,000 in annual recurring revenue.

how-we-grew-our-time-tracking-app-to-10-000-paying-customers

22. Start a weather forecast app business

Examples of a successful weather forecast app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a weather forecast app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a weather forecast app business ➜

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23. Start a social networking app business for sale, buy, or rent

How Much Can You Make?
$10,000/month
Skills

Examples of a successful social networking app business for sale, buy, or rent:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a social networking app business for sale, buy, or rent:

Learn more about starting a social networking app business for sale, buy, or rent ➜

Case Study

Former Macy's employee Natalie Gomez started selling dresses on Poshmark and soon made $10,000 in one month.

  • Natalie Gomez left her job at Macy’s as a merchandise planner and in a few months, started her side hustle as an online retailer on Poshmark.
  • In Feb 2016, she started her journey. She would buy clothing items at cheap rates from local thrift stores and sell them for a higher price at her Poshmark store.
  • Her business soon took flight and she achieved a sale of $10,000 in just one month.
  • This gave her the boost and motivation to continue this as a full-time career.

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Read the full story on cnbc.com →

24. Start a tours search app business

How Much Can You Make?
$13,083,333 — $114,200,000/month
Skills

Examples of a successful tours search app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a tours search app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a tours search app business ➜

Case Study

During the dot com boom of the late 1990s, Jimmy Wales was running an internet search company. That's when he began to experiment with the idea of an online encyclopedia. In 2001, Wales launched Wikipedia, a website where thousands of community members could contribute, edit, and monitor content on just about anything. Today, the non-profit has stayed true to its open-source roots and is the fifth most visited website in the world. PLUS in our postscript "How You Built That," how Florence Wetterwald created Blabla dolls – eco-friendly knitted dolls made in Peru.

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Read the full story on npr.org ➜

25. Start a train tracking app business

Examples of a successful train tracking app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a train tracking app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a train tracking app business ➜

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26. Start an on-demand fuel-delivery app business

How Much Can You Make?
$83,333,333/month
Skills

Examples of a successful on-demand fuel-delivery app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a on-demand fuel-delivery app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting an on-demand fuel-delivery app business ➜

Case Study

Gopuff, a leading food & consumer goods delivery service, was started in 2013 by two Drexel University students, Yakir Gola and Rafael Ilishayev.

Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the business began as an on-demand hookah delivery business but has now grown to provide food and supplies.

This consumer products delivery business operates on an on-demand basis. The firm mostly fulfills deliveries for food, drinks, alcohol, home essentials, and other necessities you typically find in a convenience shop.

GoPuff's business model is distinct from those of other delivery firms. The firm operates its warehouses, where it stockpiles items and fills orders on demand.

Rafael, born in Russia, began his career at his father’s sandwich restaurant and afterward at a banquet hall that his father had purchased. Yakir, the son of an Israeli immigrant, used to work in his father’s cash-for-gold store.

The genesis of GoPuff began in 2011, when its creators, Rafael Ilishayev and Yakir Gola, met in a Business 101 class at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

In less than a decade, the company has evolved into a multibillion-dollar corporation serving over 1000 locations. In 2021, GoPuff generated $1 billion in revenue, three times what it did in 2020.

GoPuff has raised $3.4 billion over nine rounds, with its latest $1 billion funding round in July 2021. The company is valued at a massive $15 billion.

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Read the full story on blog.wishpond.com ➜

27. Start a games app business

Examples of a successful games app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a games app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a games app business ➜

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28. Start a restrooms finder app business

Examples of a successful restrooms finder app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a restrooms finder app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a restrooms finder app business ➜

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29. Start a location-based alerts app business

Examples of a successful location-based alerts app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a location-based alerts app business:

Learn more about starting a location-based alerts app business ➜

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30. Start a local public transport accessing app business

Examples of a successful local public transport accessing app business:

Here are some great videos on how to get started with a local public transport accessing app business:

For further info, check out these books and products:

Learn more about starting a local public transport accessing app business ➜

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Pat Walls,  Founder of Starter Story
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Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.