I built an AI co-pilot to stop founders from wasting time on bad ideas. Seeking feedback!
Hey Indie Hackers,
I'm excited to share my own project and ask for your brutally honest feedback.
The Problem
Like many of you, I've had countless "aha!" moments for a new business idea. But I always hit the same wall: how do I know if this idea is actually any good before I sink hundreds of hours into building it? The initial research phase can be a huge time-suck, and it's easy to get lost in analysis paralysis or, even worse, build something nobody wants.
My Solution: IdeaGenius
To scratch my own itch, I built IdeaGenius. It's an AI-powered tool designed to be a "first-pass filter" for your business concepts. The goal isn't to tell you "yes" or "no," but to give you a strategic 360-degree view of your idea in minutes.
You can check out the live site here: https://thebestideas.netlify.app
What it does:
· Initial Submission: You plug in your idea, the problem it solves, and the target audience.
· AI Viability Score: It instantly gives you scores for things like Implementation Complexity, Competition, Problem Severity, etc.
· Deep-Dive Analysis: This is the core of it. You can generate a SWOT analysis, get AI-powered improvement suggestions, research competitors, and even get a custom assessment based on your specific company goals (e.g., "disrupt a market" vs. "find a small niche").
The Ask:
I'm now at the stage where I'm too close to the project to see its flaws clearly. I would be incredibly grateful for your feedback.
· Is this a tool you would ever use? Why or why not?
· What's the most confusing part of the site?
· Are there any analysis tools you think are missing?
· Is the pricing/pro plan something that makes sense? (It's a free demo for now).
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I'm ready for the feedback—don't hold back
I like the product idea. When I exported the idea history I was expecting it to export everything, but it seems to only export the description and viability factors. None of the other info created in the "pro" area was in the export. For me, it would have to have all the info in the export to be valuable. Dudes it require a minimum of 3 competitors in order to do the competitive analysis? It wouldn't do the analysis for me without at least 3 competitors listed. It's unclear to me whether the questions in the pro area are meant to be fine in order or not. More explanation of how to use the app would be good. I think it would also be good to address the elephant in the room. Someone who is going to use this may question how private their product idea info is.
Wow, thank you so much for this incredibly detailed and thoughtful feedback! This is pure gold. I'm really glad you like the core idea of the product, and you've highlighted some major areas where I can make it much better.
Let me address your points one by one:
You are 100% right. This was a major oversight on my part. The export should be a complete snapshot of everything you've generated. I've just pushed an update that expands the Markdown export to include the SWOT analysis, competitive analysis, marketing copy, and all other "pro" data.
That was a bug in the UI design. It should only require one competitor. I've fixed this now, so the form will start with just one input field, and you can add more if you need to. Sorry about that confusion!
That's a fantastic point about the user experience. The intention is for it to be a flexible toolkit where you can use any analysis at any time, but I didn't make that clear. I've added a "How to Use IdeaGenius" section to the "About" page that explains the intended workflow (or lack thereof).
This is probably the most important point you've made. Trust is everything for a tool like this. I've added a new, prominent section to the "About" page called "Your Ideas Are Your Own" that explicitly states my privacy and data ownership policy: you own your ideas, and they are not used for any purpose other than providing the service directly to you.
Thank you again for taking the time to write all this out. You've given me a clear, actionable roadmap for making IdeaGenius a much more useful and trustworthy tool. I truly appreciate it.
i see the value of using the tool. some instant feedback from me:
- for the initial assessment, it would be nice to have a visibility into how the score is constructed.
- explanation what "submit idea" actually mean might be helpful.
- got an error when i tried so submit my idea - not sure if the functionality is not implemented yet or something is broken?
This is fantastic feedback! It's incredibly helpful. Thank you so much for taking the time to test it out and share your thoughts.
Here are my thoughts on your points:
That is an excellent point. Transparency is key. The current formula is:
(Community Engagement × Problem Severity) ÷ (Implementation Complexity × Competition)I'll definitely add a tooltip or a small info icon next to the score in a future update to make this clear.You're right, that button is a bit vague. "Submit Idea" saves your idea and all its details securely to your personal account in the database. It's the final step after the AI has assessed the initial factors. I'll rephrase that button to something more descriptive like "Save Idea to My Account" to avoid confusion.
Ah, you found a bug! My apologies for that. The submission functionality is implemented, but it sounds like an error occurred when trying to save the data. This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to find. I'll investigate the logs and get that fixed. Thanks for catching it!
This is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. Thank you again