I've been researching local markets before buying a business and the part that nearly killed the process was market research. Not the financials, those are in the listing. I mean understanding whether the market itself is worth entering.
How many competitors are in that zip code? Is it saturated or is there room? Are nearby businesses struggling? Is the area growing or dying?
I spent two weeks pulling this manually from Google Maps, listing sites, and census data. The raw competitor count is useless without context. Five businesses in a dense urban zip code means something totally different from five spread across a rural county.
So I built Caplyo Territory Scout. You enter a zip code and a business type and it gives you a radius adjusted saturation score that factors in population density, plus nearby distressed business listings. Takes about 30 seconds instead of two weeks.
It works for any US zip code and any business type. Currently in beta and free while I collect feedback.
I'm looking for 10 people who research markets before buying or starting a business. Tell me what's missing, what's wrong, what you'd actually use. Brutal feedback welcome.
You can try it here: https://caplyo.com
A saturation score needs a confidence band, not just a number. Rural listings and Maps coverage can be messy, so “high confidence” versus “sparse data” would tell buyers whether the 30-second result is a filter or a decision.
Nice
This is super interesting! I’m building Finsight AI to help SMBs forecast cashflow, and tools like yours show how powerful quick insights can be. How are you planning to onboard your first beta testers?
The interesting value isn't scoring market saturation—it's helping someone decide which markets aren't worth spending weeks investigating in the first place. I'd keep validating whether customers trust the score itself or the reasoning behind it. If they need to understand why a market looks attractive, the explanation may become as valuable as the score.