I built a free UX case study audit to test my SaaS positioning before paid ads
For the last 5 years, I've been on the hiring side reviewing UX/Product Design portfolios, while continuing to mentor and teach designers.
The pattern has been pretty consistent: most candidates have
projects, screens, and process artifacts. The hard part is
explaining the decisions behind the work.
That's the problem behind Folioverse, a case study mentor for
UX/Product Designers.
The product uses AI, but I'm not testing "AI writes your
portfolio." I'm testing whether designers want hiring-manager-
style questions before they write the final case study.
Before spending more time on features or paid acquisition, I
wanted to test the framing with something static.
My read: if the audit gets used, the "mentor" framing has some
signal. If not, I'm probably building the wrong thing here.
Better to learn that before burning more dev cycles.
The setup:
IndieHackers / organic traffic
→ uxcase.app free case study audit
→ email capture
→ 5-email nurture sequence
→ Folioverse signup
→ first case study started
The free audit uses the same kind of questions Folioverse asks
inside the product, just without the AI layer. Designers can use
it to review their own case study and spot what is missing.
What is live:
- Folioverse main app
- Free case study audit on uxcase.app
- 5-email nurture sequence in Brevo
- PostHog attribution from UTM to product signup
- Lemon Squeezy billing on the main product
What I'm tracking:
- Email submit rate
- Confirmed opt-in rate
- Nurture open / click / unsubscribe
- uxcase.app to Folioverse signup
- Folioverse signup to first case study started
The metric I care about most is whether the lead magnet attracts
people who actually start a case study inside Folioverse.
Still unsure:
- Whether "case study mentor" is clearer than "AI portfolio writer"
- Whether a static audit creates enough intent
- Whether 5 emails is too much
- Whether this funnel is too much for this stage
If useful, here is the free audit:
https://uxcase.app/?utm_source=indiehackers&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=launch_week1
For anyone who has tested positioning before paid acquisition:
would you judge this mainly by email conversion, product signup,
or activation inside the product?
I may be overthinking the funnel, so pushback is welcome.
Emails and sinups are vanity here. If they don't stare a case study, the positioning is not landing.
Agreed. Email and signup are weak signals on their own. The real read is whether they actually act on it inside the product.
You’re testing the right thing, but the funnel is measuring too late.
The real risk here is not whether designers submit email.
It’s whether they believe “better case study framing” is painful enough to fix now.
Most UX designers already know their portfolio is weak.
The bottleneck is not awareness.
It’s urgency.
That usually means your strongest signal is not email submit or even signup.
It’s whether they start rewriting a live case study immediately after the audit.
That’s the moment intent becomes real.
If they read the audit, nod, and leave, the framing is interesting.
If they start rewriting, the pain is active.
That’s the metric I’d watch hardest.
Also: “AI portfolio writer” is weaker.
It sounds like generic output help.
“Case study mentor” is better because it implies judgment, not generation.
That’s the actual value. Designers are not paying for words. They’re paying for sharper thinking.
Folioverse is the stronger name here if you lean into the mentor / review angle harder.
“uxcase” works as a lead magnet, but it feels narrower and more disposable than the actual product.
This is sharper than the framing I came in with. The urgency point especially: I've been treating "do they convert" as a positioning signal, but you're right that almost every UX designer already knows the portfolio is weak. The positioning has to push past awareness into "fix it now."
On the metric: I'm tracking "Folioverse signup → first case study started" inside the product, which is the closest proxy to your rewrite-after-audit signal. The static PDF audit means I can't observe an immediate rewrite directly, but the cross-domain time-delta should tell the same story.
On the brand point: agreed. uxcase is a narrower asset on purpose (lead magnet for a different intent stage), but the product narrative should lean harder into the mentor / review angle. "Designers are paying for sharper thinking, not words" is going on the wall.
That’s also where the naming split starts to matter.
uxcase works for the low-intent moment because it is literal and easy to click.
But the second someone moves from “something feels off” to “I need to fix the case study I’ve been avoiding,” the product is no longer just a portfolio tool.
It becomes judgment.
Review.
Hiring signal.
That’s where Folioverse starts feeling a little softer than what the product is actually doing.
If the real value is helping designers face evaluation and sharpen judgment, the product likely wants a name that carries more weight at that stage.
Something like Beryxa.com would hold that much better than Folioverse once the product moves beyond the lead-gen layer.
Naming weight is real but Folioverse is past the rename window. Domain, lead magnet, content, first paid lead all live. Switching cost would outweigh any softer-or-sharper tradeoff between names.
The mentor / review / hiring signal lives in copy more than the URL anyway. That's where I'm leaning harder going forward.
Fair.
If Folioverse is already past the rename window, then the next best move is making the name feel sharper through the surface around it.
The risk is not the domain anymore.
It’s whether the product keeps getting read as “portfolio help” instead of “case study judgment before hiring.”
So I’d make every major touchpoint carry the heavier frame:
mentor
review
hiring signal
case study judgment
If Folioverse stays, the copy has to do the weight-lifting the name doesn’t.
"Case study judgment before hiring" is sharper than "portfolio help" and closer to where I want the copy to land. That goes in the next round of touchpoint updates. 👍
Exactly.
If Folioverse stays, then the job is making the surrounding language sharper than the name.
“Case study judgment before hiring” is the strongest lane here because it moves the product away from generic portfolio help and toward something designers actually feel pressure around.
That is the frame I’d build the next round of copy around.
For context, Folioverse is the main product behind this test:
https://folioverse.app
I kept the main post focused on the audit because that's the
part I'm testing here.