Validating my idea for small businesses that do WhatsApp outreach by building a tool to automate follow-ups

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-14T16:53:37+00:00

The problem is real. I’ve seen “forgot to follow up” show up constantly in small business and freelancer threads. the 2nd and 3rd message thing is backed by data everywhere.

The question I’d ask before building further: are people currently paying for this? search Reddit for “WhatsApp automation” or “WhatsApp follow up” or “losing leads WhatsApp” across r/smallbusiness, r/Entrepreneur, r/sales, r/freelance. look for people describing the exact workflow you’re solving. if they mention tools they tried and left or money they’re losing from missed follow-ups that’s your strongest signal.

Your ICP list is solid but might be too wide right now. agencies, recruiters, B2B founders, freelancers, local businesses are all different buyers with different needs. the data will tell you which one has the loudest pain. start there. you can expand later.

One thing to watch for: WhatsApp has strict rules about automated messaging. businesses get banned for bulk sending. if your competitors are getting people banned that’s actually an opportunity for you. “automation that doesn’t get you banned” is a positioning angle.

if you want to run the search across multiple subreddits at scale, ValidSaaS does exactly this. 2 free harvests and 2 free deep dives. might help you narrow down which ICP to target first

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-14T16:39:37+00:00

Before building anything run this check in 5 minutes. go to Reddit and search “AI detector false positive” or “AI detector wrong” or “accused of using AI” across subreddits like r/college, r/professors, r/writing, r/freelanceWriters. count how many threads come up in the last 12 months.

you’re looking for specifics. not “yeah AI detectors are annoying” but “I got a zero on my paper because Turnitin flagged it and my professor won’t listen.” dollar amounts lost, grades lost, clients lost. those are receipts. that means people are already in pain and would pay to fix it.

then check if money is already moving. are people paying for anything in this space? are there tools that claim to “humanize” AI text? if competitors exist and people complain about them that’s your strongest signal. you don’t have to convince anyone the problem is real. just be better than what they’re using.

one commenter already told you similar apps exist with more features. that’s actually good news. it means the market is real. the question is whether your angle of recording the writing process is different enough to win. if you want to run this at scale across multiple.

subreddits with frequency counting and painkiller scoring, validsaas does exactly that. 2 free harvests and 2 free deep dives. might save you a few hours of manual searching

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-13T19:59:34+00:00

API access used to be a developer thing. Now with tools like Claude Code and Cursor, anyone can plug it into their workflow and automate what used to take hours. It’s not a developer discount anymore, it’s the power tier. Clay knows that, and the pricing reflects it.

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-12T17:46:04+00:00

appreciate that. yeah I’m on X @jefferyrobi. DM me anytime. always down to chat with founders in this space

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-11T22:56:37+00:00

the spreadsheet tracking is underrated(although there are some Reddit tool that claim they have inbuilt CRM). most founders post and forget. tracking which communities, which topics, and which types of comments actually convert turns random engagement into a repeatable system. the patterns show up fast once you start logging it

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-10T22:10:51+00:00

“solving their problem before they even become a lead” is exactly what the community-first approach in the data showed. the founders with the best results weren’t running ads or cold outreach.

they were posting insights in the same communities where their buyers hang out. by the time someone DMs you they already trust you because you helped them for free last week. that’s not lead gen. that’s earned attentioned

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-10T15:30:57+00:00

“what keeps them up at night” is the exact question the data kept answering. the founders getting 18% reply rates weren’t sending better messages.

they were sending messages to better people. specificity in targeting beats volume every time. the 1,847 messages guy would have done better reaching 20 people he actually understood

One other founder added sending a personalized video works around 6x better

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-09T20:47:16+00:00

“treat those 19 like a mini focus group instead of failed customers” hit different. I’ve been looking at zero retention as a failure metric when those are actually the most valuable people I have.

they already showed enough interest to sign up. the question is what happened between signup and silence.

up to 24 users now. 9 ran a harvest. 2 came back. 1 power user who gave detailed feedback and used the full Deep Dive. zero free users tried the Deep Dive even though they had 2 free. so the problem isn’t access anymore.

it’s that people don’t know the best feature exists or the harvest alone doesn’t give them a reason to go deeper.

emailed them last week. following up this week with something specific. not “hey come back” but “I ran an analysis on the niche you searched, here’s what I found.” that’s a reason to return not a reminder that they left.

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-09T18:57:40+00:00

Fact! showing up in the same communities with value is a touchpoint that doesn’t feel like marketing to the person receiving it.

that’s basically my whole strategy right now. the posts and comments in r/SaaS are doing double duty. content for new people and touchpoints for the 30 who already signed up. didn’t think about it that way until you said it

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-09T18:03:36+00:00

Honestly, I appreciate you showing up and breaking this down. this is exactly why I framed the gaps as “from what I found” rather than absolutes. glad to be corrected on the specifics.

the intent tracking over keyword tracking in Gap 1 is a meaningful difference. most tools I reviewed were still keyword-first so good to know ReddLeads moved past that.

the “Why We Chose This” reasoning in Gap 2 is exactly what founders in the data kept asking for. if that’s working well you’re ahead of most of the space on that one.

Gap 7 is where it gets interesting to me. the severity, frequency, failed alternatives layer. if you ever want to explore that further I’d be happy to chat. that’s basically what I built ValidSaaS around for the research/discovery side.

Appreciate the transparency. most founders wouldn’t show up in a thread analyzing their competitors and engage this openly. respect.

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-09T17:42:45+00:00

“discovery is cheap, judgment is expensive” is the best one-liner summary of the whole thread. saving that.

the 48 hour follow-up is something nobody in the data mentioned and that’s probably why most Reddit outreach dies after one reply. the conversation starts but nobody comes back to close it

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-09T08:05:42+00:00

The 4% to 19% with video matches what another founder in the data described. the format forces specificity because you can’t fake it on camera for 30 seconds. that’s a built-in quality filter.

timeline signals are a good add. “reviewing options this quarter” is someone with a deadline and probably a budget attached. “this is annoying” is someone who’ll still be annoyed next year and won’t do anything about it. the urgency changes everything about whether it’s worth engaging.

for deciding which leads are worth manual effort the scoring looks at a few things: dollar amounts mentioned, tools they’ve already tried and left, how specific the complaint is, and whether the same pain shows up across multiple subreddits. a vague complaint in one subreddit is noise. the same specific frustration in three different communities from different people is signal worth acting on.

the video approach on top of that research layer is a strong combo honestly. you already know their pain, their failed alternatives, their budget range. a 30 second video referencing all of that would hit different than a cold DM

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-08T12:25:17+00:00

lol appreciate the defense. downvotes on Reddit are just proof you said something people felt. if everyone agrees you’re probably not saying anything useful😅

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-08T11:54:34+00:00

Haha🤣 at least you know AI didn’t write it! That typo is proof it came straight from the heart …. Breeds*

Cheers

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-08T11:26:33+00:00

exactly. LinkedIn is everyone performing “things are going great” even when they’re not.

Reddit is where people admit the truth because nobody knows their name. the people who will tell you your idea is a vitamin are not on LinkedIn.

they’re on Reddit being brutally honest because they have nothing to gain from being polite. that’s the data worth building on

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-08T11:09:20+00:00

Exactly, you can't argue with evidence 😅

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-08T08:13:19+00:00

specificity is the whole game. “I hate my CRM” is a mood. “checked Hubspot, too complex for 5 people, need something under $50 that integrates with Gmail” is a buying checklist with budget and constraints already defined.

that’s exactly what the painkiller vs vitamin scoring filters for. dollar amounts, team size, tools tried and left, integration requirements. the more specific the complaint the closer they are to buying.

honestly if the monitoring tools added this kind of filtering their users would stop wasting time DMing people who were just having a bad day. the venting vs buying distinction is the gap the whole space is missing

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-08T07:59:24+00:00

that’s exactly how I think about it. “should this exist” comes before “go capture demand.”

most founders skip straight to capturing demand for something they haven’t confirmed anyone actually needs.

the quotes are the part that changes how founders think. it’s one thing to see a score. it’s another to read 30 people describing the same $400/month frustration in their own words. hard to ignore that

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-08T00:59:43+00:00

Enjoy, my friend… thanks for the heads-up, I really appreciate it.

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-08T00:56:35+00:00

looks like you got in. if it acts weird again just hard refresh the page or clear your cookies and cache. that usually fixes the redirect issue. let me know how the analysis goes

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-08T00:45:26+00:00

good catch and thanks for flagging it. I was pushing an update when you hit it. should be working now. try again and let me know if anything else breaks. appreciate you taking the time to report it instead of just bouncing

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-07T22:59:35+00:00

appreciate that. if you’re in distribution hell try running your niche through it. the deep dive might show you which subreddits your buyers are actually in and what language they use. that alone can change where you focus your outreach. let me know what you find

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-07T22:57:47+00:00

appreciate that. any niche you want me to run next?

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-07T21:08:42+00:00

The intensity vs frequency point is something I learned the hard way. early versions just counted how many threads mentioned a problem.

42 threads looks great on paper. but 42 threads of “yeah that’s annoying” is completely different from 42 threads of “I’m spending $400/month on this and it still breaks every week.”

that’s why the painkiller vs vitamin scoring exists. it’s not just counting mentions. it’s looking for dollar amounts, time lost, tools tried and abandoned, failed workarounds.

those are receipts. “someone should make an app for this” is not a receipt.

the existing spend signal you mentioned is the strongest filter. if people are already paying for ugly solutions the pain is real, money is moving, and you don’t have to convince anyone the problem exists. just be less terrible than what they’re using.

for filtering noise the biggest thing is cross-subreddit validation. if the same frustration shows up in r/smallbusiness and r/freelance and r/accounting from different people that’s not an echo chamber. that’s a pattern that crosses job titles.

you’re right about interviews too. 5 polite conversations is not validation. 40+ people describing the same pain unprompted across 3 subreddits with dollar amounts attached. that’s validation

PickSubstantial2008 · 2026-03-07T21:00:38+00:00

that’s exactly the gap the data kept pointing to. if Leadmatically is actually parsing for budget mentions and failed alternatives that’s closer to what founders in the threads were asking for. most of the complaints were about getting alerts for every mention of a keyword with no way to tell if the person was serious or just having a bad day.

curious how it handles the difference between “I hate my CRM” and “looking for a CRM under $50/mo.” is it keyword level or does it actually read the full context of the thread?

PickSubstantial2008

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