Ad spy tool is live, revenue is still zero, want blunt feedback
The building part is done and that turned out to be the easy half.
Quick context. I kept paying for ad spy tools that cost more per month than my actual ad budget, which felt stupid, so I built my own. You give it a niche, it pulls the ads running in it, and it flags the ones that have been live long enough to probably be making money. It's free right now. Been up about three weeks.
Revenue is zero. Not slow, zero. I've got a small number of people who tried it and two who came back a second time, which I'm choosing to read as encouraging.
What I don't have is a clue what to do next. My instinct is to keep adding features, and I'm fairly sure that instinct is wrong, because adding features is the comfortable thing and comfortable is usually the wrong move here.
So, two asks for anyone who's been further down this road than me. Be blunt about the product. If the landing page doesn't explain itself in five seconds, or the whole idea is already covered by something free, I'd honestly rather hear that now than in six months.
And what actually got you your first ten users? Not the podcast version. The boring thing that worked.
Anyway, it's here if you want to poke at it: https://adspy-tool.vercel.app?utm_source=indiehackers&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=adspyfree_202608
Two people coming back is more interesting than the zero revenue this early.
You have some evidence of repeat use, but not yet evidence of why they returned or whether that reason is strong enough to support a business.
Those are very different signals.
I checked the homepage and the Car Phone Mount results. The strongest part is the source transparency: Meta/TikTok, days active, advertiser count, source links, and the scoring formula all make it feel inspectable instead of another black-box ‘winning product’ list.
Blunt bit: I couldn’t find a revenue action on the page. The headline, brand, and search all say free, so even someone who loves the results has no obvious next step to pay for. I wouldn’t build more yet. Ask the two returners what decision they came back to make. If they describe the same recurring job, try selling that outcome manually to one or two people before turning it into a feature.
I’d also tighten one trust issue. A lot of very different Car Phone Mount ads score 100 despite being active for 196, 198, 328+ days, etc. That makes the score feel less useful than the underlying evidence. Either create more separation or lead with days active plus advertiser overlap, with the score secondary.
For the first ten users, look for current conversations where people are already asking how to validate a dropshipping niche or complaining about expensive ad-spy tools. Where links are allowed and genuinely relevant, reply with the specific result page rather than the homepage. Track landing view → first search → result click → seven-day return. At this stage, repeat use tells you more than feature count.
Trust the instinct — features are the comfortable move, and you already know that's a trap.
Blunt take: the landing page doesn't tell me who this is for in five seconds, and "flags ads that are probably making money" is the only line that made me sit up. If you can't name the person who'd pay, that's the bug, not the missing feature.
The boring thing that got us our first users: not posting to our own audience, but replying inside conversations where people were already describing the exact problem. Ten one-on-one replies beat a month of announcements. Only talk to people who've voiced the pain — cold lists get ignored.
Two returning users is real signal, not noise. Before adding anything, ask both of them one question: what made them come back? That answer is your roadmap.