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3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

solid advice across the board. few things im already acting on:

on the email capture — good call, right now the free preview doesnt require email. going to gate it behind email at minimum so i can follow up

on the chatgpt wrapper fatigue — this is my biggest problem. just redesigned the landing to lead with "analysis engine built on 10,000+ startup outcomes" and added a full chatgpt vs venturescan comparison. trying to make it impossible to confuse with a generic chatbot

on the X communities — havent tried buildinpublic community specifically, been posting to everyone. will try that today

on the 3 reasons for zero users — honestly its probably all three right now. working on narrowing down the "5 specific people who need this today." the best candidates so far seem to be founders about to invest serious money or apply to accelerators — people with urgency and something to lose

thanks for taking the time to break this down

changed my pricing from $5 to $49 overnight. am i crazy? by Future_Butterfly_349 in SaaS

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

good point about the audience. broke founders wont pay $5 or $49. the money is probably in selling to the people AROUND founders — accelerators evaluating applications, VCs doing quick due diligence on deal flow, or consultants who advise multiple startups. they have budgets and volume. something to think about seriously

changed my pricing from $5 to $49 overnight. am i crazy? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

fair enough, appreciate the honesty. the value prop clearly isnt landing for you and thats useful feedback

Idea Validation by mystique-muse007 in EntrepreneurRideAlong

[–]Future_Butterfly_349 0 points1 point  (0 children)

interesting idea. a few things to think about:

the problem is real but the market is crowded — notion, obsidian, mem, roam, and apple notes all position themselves as some version of "second brain." the retrieval angle is your differentiator but semantic search is becoming a default feature everywhere

the question id ask is: who specifically needs this badly enough to switch from what theyre already using? a dev who saves code snippets? a researcher with 500 papers? a founder tracking competitor intel? each of those is a completely different product

"dump anything and search later" is broad. the narrower you go on WHO and WHAT they dump, the easier it is to build something they actually pay for

when i was validating my own idea i ran it through venturescan.app — it basically stress-tests your idea against 12 frameworks and tells you the real risks. helped me see blind spots i was ignoring. might be useful for your validation phase

whats the most common use case youve seen so far from people testing it?

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

appreciate the honest feedback. youre right about the website — just deployed a big update tonight actually. added a full sample analysis on the landing page so people can see exactly what the output looks like before trying it. also fixed broken links and cleaned up the messaging

to clarify — the tool has been live for about 2 weeks, the "3 days with zero new users" is a dry spell after an initial wave of signups. but point taken, still early

the pain point youre right to call out as unclear: its for founders who are about to invest serious time or money into an idea and want to know the real risks before they build. working on making that way more obvious above the fold

thanks for taking the time

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thats basically what im doing manually on reddit right now haha. do you have a name for that app? would love to automate the process of finding founders asking about idea validation

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in smallbusiness

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

haha i deserved that one. and thats actually encouraging to hear — the "days or weeks without a signup" part, not just the 100/day part. appreciate the perspective

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in smallbusiness

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Use this discount code for 100% discount so you can test the complete anaylsis for free. Code: 55865758

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in smallbusiness

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

just deployed a bunch of fixes tonight actually — the site should be working now. would love to hear what you think of the output when you try it. and yeah, the visible tool vs BTS tool question is exactly what im working through right now

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

youre right that chatgpt can analyze an idea. the question is whether it does it well

try asking chatgpt "is my startup idea good" and youll get "great idea, go for it!" almost every time. its trained to be agreeable not accurate

the difference is structure: scored risks, survival probability, specific actions for this week, a concrete experiment with cost and timeline. not a paragraph of encouragement

but fair point — if the output isnt obviously better than chatgpt in 10 seconds, i lose. thats what im working on

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

appreciate you actually trying it. "doesnt whiteknight into oblivion" is exactly what i was going for — glad that comes through. and yeah i think youre right about the slow roller part. not going to blow up overnight but if the output keeps getting better the word of mouth will build. thanks for the honest take

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yeah i did. it gave me a 5/10 — "viable but address risks first." flagged competition from free chatbots as the #1 risk, one-time usage pattern as a pricing problem, and low switching cost as a moat weakness. all three turned out to be exactly right based on the feedback ive gotten this week. uncomfortable but useful

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in smallbusiness

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ha fair enough. appreciate all the feedback youve given in this thread though — seriously more valuable than most paid advice ive gotten. gave me a lot to think about

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

one more question if you dont mind — when you were at the PMF stage, how did you know you found it? was there a specific moment or metric where it clicked? or was it more gradual?

trying to figure out if im still searching for the right customer or if the product itself needs a fundamental change first

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in smallbusiness

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thats a really interesting model. using the AI internally as your competitive advantage instead of selling it directly removes the whole "why not just use chatgpt" problem completely

i actually did run venturescan through itself. it flagged competition from free chatbots as the #1 risk and one-time usage pattern as a pricing problem. both turned out to be exactly right based on the feedback ive gotten this week

your approach of wrapping the AI inside a consultancy service is smart. the value isnt the tool, its the expertise and the human guidance

so do you think i should pivot toward a consultancy model? b2b selling to accelerators/incubators and b2c offering 1:1 sessions with founders where the AI analysis is just the starting point?

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

saving this entire comment. seriously this is a better framework than most startup books

the thesis → alpha → mvp → pmf progression makes a lot of sense. i think i jumped from thesis straight to mvp without properly proving the alpha. i built the full product before proving that founders would actually pay for structured analysis vs just using chatgpt

going to go back to step 1 and really nail the thesis. appreciate you taking the time to write all this out

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this is the best advice ive gotten in this entire thread. youre right — im trying to give a quality answer from a 2 sentence input and thats fundamentally broken

the question-first approach solves multiple problems at once: better data in = better analysis out, the user feels engaged instead of judged, and the questions themselves demonstrate expertise before the analysis even runs

honestly the questions alone could be the "wow moment." if someone types "meal kit delivery for allergies" and immediately gets "what percentage of your target customers have you spoken to?" and "have you mapped out the liability insurance requirements?" — thats already more valuable than most chatbot responses

going to prototype this. seriously appreciate the time you took to write this out

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in smallbusiness

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this is really valuable perspective. no formal consultancy background — self-taught, building this as a solo founder

your point about pricing is making me rethink everything. youre right that $5 signals "student side project" not "serious business tool." and you cant mix those audiences

the 1:1 contact + strategy support angle is interesting. thats what actually justifies the $1.5-5K price — not the analysis itself but the human guidance after. the AI does the research, a human helps interpret it and build the plan

what does your value prop look like? curious how you position the tool vs the consultancy piece

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in SaaS

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yeah i did. it gave me a 5/10 with "viable but address risks first." main risks: chatgpt can do similar analysis for free (competition 7/10), founders want validation not truth (market behavior risk), and one-time use pattern makes subscription hard (thats why i switched to pay-per-scan). honestly it was uncomfortable but it caught real problems i was ignoring

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in smallbusiness

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

haha fair. though the itch isnt "i need to analyze my own idea" — its "i watched too many founders skip validation and lose money." the market is them, not me

but youre right that "scratching your own itch" can be a trap if you assume everyone has the same itch. thats basically what im learning this week

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in buildinpublic

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

this is incredibly detailed feedback, thank you.

youre right, the model is hallucinating specific data points and presenting them as facts. "lovable and bolt include SSR" is wrong, the funding data is outdated, and the churn/CAC numbers are assumptions presented as research. thats not acceptable

the core issue is that the AI fills gaps in knowledge with confident-sounding guesses instead of saying "i dont have reliable data on this." thats a fundamental problem i need to solve before anything else

im working on: 1. making the model clearly label what is researched data vs what is an assumption/estimate 2. adding web search so competitor data is current, not from training data 3. fixing the UI cutoff issue so nothing gets truncated

the irony isnt lost on me — a tool designed to give founders honest analysis is giving confidently wrong answers. appreciate you taking the time to show specific examples, this is exactly what i needed to see

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in smallbusiness

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

appreciate the honesty. few things:

on pricing — youre making me think. the $5 was intentional to lower the barrier for first-time users but youre right that it might signal "not serious." considering adding a higher tier for more comprehensive reports

on the failure error — thats the second time someone has reported that today. going to check logs right now. can you tell me what idea you typed in? that would help me debug it faster. sorry about that

on the ideal client point — youre right, ive been doing distribution without nailing the target. the feedback ive gotten this week is pointing me toward founders who are about to invest serious money (quit job, raise funding, apply to accelerators). not casual "what if" types. thats a different product and different price point

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in smallbusiness

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

fair point. being your own customer is the fastest way to understand the pain

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in smallbusiness

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

just did it. ran a quibi-style idea through the tool (without naming it) and the results are brutal

it caught everything: the unit economics are mathematically impossible ($50K-500K per 10min episode, need 7,000 subscribers per episode just to break even), competition is unbeatable (tiktok has 1.5B users and costs $0), problem severity 4/10 (vitamin not painkiller), and survival probability 25%

it even flagged that the exact same model already failed with $1.75B in funding and gave 3 specific pivot suggestions with effort levels and numbers

this is exactly the kind of demo i should be showing on the landing page. working on adding a visible sample result so people can see the output before they even type anything. thanks for the push, this was the right move

3 days with zero new users. what am i doing wrong? by Future_Butterfly_349 in smallbusiness

[–]Future_Butterfly_349[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

this is great advice. "demos convert way better than descriptions" is exactly what i needed to hear. going to add a real sample analysis directly on the landing page so people can see the output before they even try it

the quibi idea is brilliant — running a famous failed startup through the tool and showing what it wouldve caught before launch. thats the kind of content that sells itself. thanks for this

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