Ten days after launch I still don't know if anyone will actually pay for this
I launched BrandClover about ten days ago. Since then I've had some genuinely good conversations here, people pushing on the actual gaps, one person even pointed out that the deck stops being the real bottleneck pretty fast, the harder problem shows up later. That stuck with me.
Here's what I'm still stuck on though. I built this because I kept doing the research and pitch deck work by hand for friends, so I know the problem is real for at least a few people. What I don't know yet is whether it's real enough that someone would actually pay for it, versus just being a nice free tool they use once and forget.
I'd rather find that out now than assume it and build the wrong thing for the next few months. So I'm looking for people who actually have an idea, even a rough one, to try it and tell me honestly where it falls short. Not "cool tool" feedback, the "I wouldn't pay for this because X" kind.
It's free to try, trybrandclover.com. If you're willing to break it and tell me what's missing, I'd genuinely appreciate it.
One thing I really like here is that you're trying to invalidate your assumptions instead of protect them.
I think that's an underrated habit. The sooner someone tells you, "I wouldn't pay because...", the sooner you can learn what really needs to change.
An uncomfortable answer early can become the starting point for building something people genuinely want.
Appreciate that, honestly it's a little uncomfortable to post but you're right that protecting the assumption doesn't actually help me. I'd rather hear "I wouldn't pay because X" now than find out the hard way after months of building the wrong thing.
10 days in and not knowing if anyone will pay is the realest signal — it means you haven't yet found people describing the exact pain in their own words, not that the product is wrong.
Quick q: are you hunting Reddit / niche communities for that language yet, or mostly waiting on launch traffic?
I built a scored thread digest for that hunt (discovery only). If useful, I can map a sample for your ICP — or you can just tell me one-liner + a few subs and I'll send one. No pressure.
Honest answer is not yet, right now I'm mostly relying on launch and post traffic, haven't gone hunting in Reddit or niche communities for the actual language people use yet. I'll take you up on that sample this time, ICP is early-stage founders who have an idea but aren't confident enough to start, still figuring out if it's worth building. Whatever you can put together would be genuinely useful.
Perfect — that’s enough context.
I’ll map threads around early-stage founders saying things like “is this worth building?”, “not sure anyone wants this”, “afraid to start”, and “how do I validate before building” — not generic startup posts.
I’ll send a small scored feed here. When it lands, pick 2–3 and tell me “yes, this is my buyer” or “no, too early/wrong intent.”
Sounds good, whenever it lands I'll go through it and give you a clear yes or no on 2-3 of them. Looking forward to seeing what actually comes up.
Sample ready:
https://threadscout-theta.vercel.app/feed/212c8140-b870-4a18-8001-7bc3ca5b489d
Mapped around early-stage / “will anyone pay / should I build / looking for feedback” language.
Honest flags (manual):
Pick 2–3 and say “yes, this is my buyer” or “no.” That tells me if the scoring matches your ICP.
Went through the feed, three of these look like a real match, the digital badges post, the AI customer success tool one, and the overdue-invoice SaaS one. All three are actual founders stuck on the exact "is this worth building" question before committing to anything. A couple of the others read as either too early, no idea yet, or already past that stage, already built and asking for feedback.
Quick heads-up: the feed I sent you was a one-time snapshot — that's the free sample. The actual product is that same feed refreshed every morning with new threads.
You already told me the scoring matches your instinct. The open question is whether the daily version turns into real conversations for you. $19 first month, refund if it doesn't — you're not risking anything except finding out.
Want me to switch your feed to daily?
Appreciate you following up, still not ready to commit to paying right now, want to keep validating my own thing first before adding a new subscription to the mix. Will keep it in mind though.
Perfect — that’s the exact filter I needed.
Those three (“is this worth building / before I commit”) are the ICP. The too-early / already-built ones we can ignore.
Next step: 10–15 min call — I’ll show how daily digests would look for YOUR product (one-liner + subs + phrases), plus how founders usually reply without looking spammy. If it fits, pricing is $39/mo (or $59/3mo). 19$ for the first month - founder discont with refund option, cancel any time
When works this week? Or drop 2 times that work for you (timezone).
Appreciate the offer, not ready to jump on a call right now though, still pretty early and heads down on other things. If that changes I'll reach out.
Totally fair — early + heads down wins.
Door’s open whenever. If you ever want another sample mapped to a specific product (not a call), just ping.
Usage won't answer willingness to pay if the free path gives away the whole one-off job. Put a price on a concrete continuation: refresh the research after customer interviews, compare two positioning angles, or keep the evidence deck updated as assumptions change. A founder paying to revisit the decision is stronger validation than another deck export.
This actually clicked for me, giving away the whole one-off job means usage doesn't tell me anything about willingness to pay, I've just been measuring the wrong thing. Putting a price on revisiting the decision, like refreshing research after real customer interviews or comparing two positioning angles, feels like a much stronger signal than another deck export. Going to sit with this one, thank you.
Turn that into one paid rerun now: after a founder completes three customer interviews, offer a fixed-price research refresh against the new evidence. A purchase there tests the continuation, not the free artifact.
Good idea in theory, but sitting with it made me realize two problems I'd need to solve first. If the free report itself isn't building enough trust, a paid refresh doesn't fix that, it's building on something unproven. And practically, taking someone's raw interview notes and having AI rewrite the report off that risks amplifying a bad read from just 3 conversations, which isn't something I want to ship carelessly. Appreciate you pushing the thinking though, it's made me realize the real question I need answered first is whether the free report builds trust at all.
That's the right correction. Don't charge for the AI rewrite yet; test trust before automation. Show the founder the three to five evidence snippets behind one conclusion and ask them to mark each accurate, wrong, or missing. The useful metric is whether they'd use that conclusion to choose a next step, not whether they liked the report.
That's actually the smarter test, and it sidesteps the exact problem we talked through, testing trust before touching the rewrite mechanism entirely. Showing evidence snippets and asking accurate, wrong, or missing is a much cleaner signal than anything I was considering, and whether someone would act on it beats whether they liked it every time. Going to think through what this looks like in the actual flow, appreciate you steering this back to the right problem.
Make the trust test a fork in the flow, not a survey at the end. Show one conclusion with three evidence snippets, ask accurate, wrong, or missing, then ask which next action they would take. If “accurate” does not change the action, the report is informative but not decision-grade.
That's a good refinement, making it a fork instead of a survey at the end forces a real signal, if marking something accurate doesn't actually change what someone would do next, the report isn't earning its keep. Still theoretical on my side for now though, haven't built anything against this yet, but it's a clearer target to build toward when I do.