What the AI research finds
Describe what the product does and who pays. A web-search model looks for the closest competitors and what their own sites say they charge, then for public posts where people ask for a fix: Reddit and Hacker News threads, forum questions, complaints in reviews. It rates each factor from the outside, names the assumption most likely to sink the idea, and suggests a sharper angle based on the gaps it found.
Every demand signal links to a page the model actually read, and a competitor’s own marketing never counts as demand. Competitor links and prices only come from sites it read. No competitors found usually means you described the idea in words customers don’t use, not that the market is empty.
How the scorecard works
Rate six factors from 1 to 5. Each has written anchors for 1, 3 and 5 so a “4” means the same thing next week as it does today. The ratings are weighted to a score out of 100: problem, demand signals and willingness to pay count 20% each, urgency and a reachable channel 15% each, competition 10%. The weights are our judgement, and the tool says so.
The headline number is the evidence-backed score. Any rating you haven’t ticked “I have evidence” for counts as 3 at most. That stops optimism from doing the work. The gap between your two scores is the size of what you’re assuming.
What counts as evidence
- Past behaviour, not opinions. “Last month I spent two days on this” is evidence. “I’d definitely use that” isn’t. Rob Fitzpatrick’s The Mom Test is the standard short guide to asking questions that get honest answers.
- Workarounds. Spreadsheets, scripts, a hired assistant, a competitor they complain about. People who already spend time or money on a problem are your best early customers.
- Money. A pre-order, a deposit or a signed letter of intent is the strongest signal you can get before the product exists.
The 7-day plan
We pick your weakest factors (the ones costing the most points, with unproven ratings counted as risk) and list concrete experiments with a pass mark you set before you start. Write the pass mark down first; it’s too easy to move it afterwards. Most of them need no code: conversations, a landing page, a price, one channel.
Useful next steps: the customer interview script for the calls, the keyword idea generator for search phrases to check, and the startup name generator once the idea holds up. When you’re ready to ship, the launch checklist covers launch week.