I built a tool that exposes fake YouTube gurus. 6 months. 2,400 scans. $0 revenue. I'm still not quitting.

Six months ago I was watching yet another YouTube video promising $10,000 a month with "one simple trick." I didn't trust it. But I had no way to prove it was lying.

So I built TruthScore.

It scans any YouTube video and scores it from 0-100 based on engagement patterns, estimated hidden dislikes, comment sentiment, channel trust, affiliate funnel detection, and manipulative language in the title. In 10 seconds you know whether a video is worth your time or just worth someone else's commission.

The tool works. 2,400+ videos scanned. Users coming back. Real results.
The revenue? Zero dollars. Zero cents.

Here's what I've learned in 6 months of building in public with nothing:
The product was never the problem.

I spent the first two months obsessing over the algorithm. Tweaking scores, fixing flags, improving sentiment analysis. The tool got better and better while exactly zero people knew it existed.

Distribution is the actual product.

YouTube comments. X posts. Dev.to articles. Pinterest boards. Reddit with a 2 week old account. I tried everything. What I discovered is that slow distribution compounds — but it takes longer than anyone tells you and longer than your bills are willing to wait.

The gate changed everything.

Originally TruthScore showed the full results immediately. Every visitor got what they came for and left without giving me anything. No email. No conversion. Nothing.
I gated the score behind an email capture. Suddenly visitors had a reason to stay. Emails started coming in. Not fast — but they came.

The popup nobody asked for.

5 seconds after results load, a Pro upgrade popup appears. $9/month. Unlimited analyses, no gate, full breakdown. I was terrified it would annoy people. It hasn't. Nobody has complained. A few people have clicked.

The insight that might actually save this:

This week I've been tracking Iman Gadzhi's live series—one of the biggest make money online creators on YouTube with millions of followers. I scanned every video in his series daily and tracked how the scores changed:
Day 1: 83% ✅
Day 2: 61% ⚠️
Day 3: 77% ✅
Day 4: 83% ✅

Same creator. Same series. Completely different scores based on title framing, dislike patterns and engagement drop. The dislike ratio climbed every single day: 2% → 6.3% → 8.7% → 9.4% — even as the scores recovered.

That kind of data doesn't exist anywhere else. And people are paying attention.

Where I am today:

2,400+ videos scanned
8 emails collected
$0 revenue
Domain expiring soon
Bills to pay
Still building

I'm not writing this for sympathy. I'm writing this because I genuinely believe TruthScore solves a real problem for a massive audience and I haven't found the distribution lever that makes it explode yet.

If you've been here — building something real with zero traction — I want to hear how you broke through.

And if you've ever been about to follow advice from a YouTube video you weren't sure about—try it. truthscore.online. Free. Always will be.