I built an AI to kill the 3-week Excel research grind. It got 8 PH upvotes. What did I do wrong?

Context switching is the silent productivity killer that turns a quick search into a two-hour rabbit hole. Using voice to capture fleeting insights is a smart way to bypass the keyboard bottleneck entirely. It sounds like you have built a custom pipeline for your brain to keep that research momentum alive. Avoiding the "wait, what was I thinking?" moment is the best way to survive the feature matrix grind.
Do your voice notes usually come out as a structured plan or a beautiful mess to clean up later?

Using Bunzee on Bunzee was a funny way to realize we are often our own toughest customers. Your point about the competitor analysis is great because market gaps should be impossible to miss. It is much better to find those gaps now than to build a tool that stays on the shelf. We are already working on making those insights surface even faster to save you time.
Is there one specific thing you always look for when checking out what others are building?

I'm totally with you on that. Compiling and organizing competitor data is something AI tools like ChatGPT or the cloud handle much better than us anyway.

Ultimately, I believe our real job is to uncover the 'actual' behavior patterns figuring out the deep-seated 'why' behind a user choosing one specific product over another. That’s the part that really matters, and it's where the real insights are hidden.

That trust wall is real because nobody wants to bet their future on a hallucination.
Most users treat the output as a smart first draft they refine rather than a final command. It is about moving from a scary blank page to an informed editor in just a few minutes. The AI handles the heavy lifting, but the founder still holds the steering wheel.
What is the one piece of data you would need to see before trusting a market report completely?

That 8-upvote reality check taught us that even a strong engine needs a flashy coat of paint to get noticed. We were so buried in the logic that we forgot to show the instant relief of closing fifty messy tabs. Visualizing the time saved is the ultimate UX for a hunter who only gives us a five-second window. It is a clear case of over-engineering the solution while under-designing the first impression.

Do you think a quick screen recording or a single high-impact graphic usually works best for these demos?

That "50-tab spreadsheet vs. 1-page PRD" comparison is a total lightbulb moment for us. We definitely got caught up in showing off the "AI engine" and forgot to highlight the actual relief we provide.

To answer your question: it is consistently the PMs who finish the funnel. They seem to have the highest desperation and the most to gain from turning messy research into a clean, actionable PRD.

We are taking your advice to heart and pivoting the landing page to lead with that output immediately. Less "how it works," more "what you get." For your memo app, what was the specific "aha" moment that helped you find your wedge against the bigger players?

Our launch crew was just the founding team looking at each other. We spent all our time on the design and forgot to invite the guests to the party. It was a lesson in building a crowd before building the screens. We are now using our own tool to find where our users are actually hiding. How many weeks of pre-launch preparation do you think is the minimum for a real push?

I've always got my notebook ready to jot down any and all real user feedback. I’d be incredibly grateful if you could take a moment out of your day to share your experience with Bunzee.ai. We are in a constant state of improvement driven by insights from users like you, so I’m eagerly looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

We are both building a survival kit for founders who hate busywork.
Bunzee checks if an idea is good so tools like Hermes can build it without wasting time. Since coding is fast these days, the real goal is avoiding the wrong path from the start. What is one manual task you see founders waste the most energy on before launching?

I completely agree with you. I’m really curious to know from your interesting perspective, what’s your take on Bunzee.ai? I’d love to hear about your experience with it!

We would rather face a cold reality now than spend months building a beautiful ghost town. Treating a failed launch as a strategic audit has been our most valuable internal update.

Searching through Reddit manually is the ultimate "death by a thousand tabs" experience for any founder. Swapping that endless scrolling for an automated report is exactly why we built our agent to handle the heavy lifting. Quality engagement really is the only metric that does not lie when a product is in its early stages.

What is the most surprising or weirdest complaint you have found while digging through subreddits for your research?

Structure is the only thing that saves a great ambition from becoming just another forgotten tab in our brains. Helping people act on those ambitions is a great way to fight the daily noise that usually kills momentum. At Bunzee, we try to solve the same noise problem for startup ideas by automating the boring research phase.
What is the one personal goal people seem to struggle with most once their workday officially ends?

Hiding in Figma is the designer’s version of a warm blanket compared to the cold reality of user interviews.We traded the safety of pixels for the risk of silence and definitely learned that lesson the hard way. The next move is to lead with those 20 uncomfortable conversations, using Bunzee's data as our shield.

How do you personally handle the transition from the comfort of the code editor to the messiness of human feedback?

Transparency is much better than pretending everything is perfect while shouting into an empty room. You hit the nail on the head regarding the distribution wall that every builder eventually hits. We are focused on turning that painful research phase into a quick win so founders can stop guessing.
What is the most common reason you have seen for a launch falling flat despite a great product?

Launching without a pre-built community felt like throwing a party without sending any invites. Our strongest metric is seeing power users generate three full briefs during their first session. Removing the "Excel wall" clearly lets people explore their shower ideas at record speed.
Where do you go to reach founders who are deep in the building phase?

ok

The shift from polite nods to real clicks is a lesson we definitely needed to hear.
We fell into the trap of showing the whole factory instead of just the finished product.
Your four-step plan for instant clarity is the exact surgery our landing page needs.
Leading with a sharp promise instead of a feature tour is our new mission.
Which specific industry do you think feels this research pain most acutely right now?

Thanks for the reply! I feel like these are exactly the kind of questions that get answered naturally once you take a closer look at Bunzee.ai.

Bunzee’s competitor analysis works by first identifying specific user pain points to map out a strategy, and then selecting competitors based on that foundation. Through our 'Matching Rate,' you’re not just picking names from a random list; you can choose competitors starting from those with the highest probability. What’s important here is that we show the full spectrum from high to low matching rates so you can broaden your 'virtual experience' by seeing different perspectives on the same objective.

Regarding your point about understanding why users prefer one product over another, our team is constantly discussing the best ways to communicate that to you. For example, when it’s overwhelming to dig through every single Reddit comment or upvote, you can simply select a Reddit-related thread within Bunzee. It will break down the specific pain points, the sentiment of the discussion, and whether any existing products have actually solved the issue yet. I believe this is a great way to indirectly grasp why certain products earn more love.

As for our PRD generation, it’s a conversation-driven process where the document is built through the dialogue we have with you.

If you're curious to learn more, I’ve organized all the details on the Bunzee.ai landing page to be as easy to digest as possible. Feel free to check it out! For any other specific inquiries, you can always reach us at [email protected].

Thank you for your answer. How do you verify demand through actual users?

I’m totally with you on this. Like most developers, our team is usually buried under 50 Excel tabs during a launch rather than scrolling through Product Hunt to see what’s trending. Thank you for hitting the nail on the head.

We’ve been mainly using Bunzee to test real-world pain points we find on Reddit. Reddit is where you see the raw struggles of fellow developers, and we wanted to focus on how we could actually turn those frustrations into solutions.

One thing that really surprised us was running analysis on products that performed well on Product Hunt. We found that products with massive upvote counts often didn’t translate to a high user base or solid real-world performance. Seeing that disconnect is a huge reason why we’ve stopped obsessing over Product Hunt rankings.

From your perspective, what do you think of Bunzee? Have you had a chance to try Bunzee.ai yet? I’d love to hear about your experience your feedback is always more than welcome!

Hi Shirley, it’s great to connect with you.

For the past two years, our team has been running Letspl.me in South Korea a platform that helps with team building and matching members for side projects. We currently have 20,000 members and are still actively operating it today.

Building on that experience, we decided to take a leap into the global market. Since it was an entirely new arena for us, we put a massive amount of effort into our prep work, and our ultimate conclusion was: 'Let’s get our product out there on Product Hunt!'

We worked so hard to secure potential users before the launch, but the results were honestly devastating.

Now, having gone through our second launch, our team completely resonates with what you said (especially the part about how frustrating and baffling the whole process can be...).

Just as you mentioned, our team is now actively engaging in communities with everyday users who share these same struggles. We’re discussing ideas and openly sharing the bitter lessons we’ve learned. It’s exactly like how you and I are having this genuine conversation right now to learn from each other's experiences.

I’m actually really curious about the cold DM template you’re using! Also, I’d love it if you could share your honest experience with Bunzee.ai."

You are completely right about the launch being a distribution issue.
We definitely skipped the pre-launch outreach and paid the price.

Shifting our message to the "fear of building the wrong thing" is amazing advice.
We built the tool to fix that exact fear, but somehow forgot to use it as our main hook.

Thank you for the reply.

I completely agree with your thoughts. On one hand, from the initial launch through the cold-start phase, I feel like the most crucial thing is to constantly communicate: 'We built this,' 'We just fixed this,' and 'Here’s what we’re updating next.'

But personally, I think once a product passes that phase, it might be better to quietly smooth things out in the background. Unless it's a brand-new feature, we could just anticipate the friction points and fix them so seamlessly that users don't even realize an update happened.

I actually have a question for you. When you realize that a certain product is causing you a specific 'pain,' do you actively switch to a similar alternative that solves it? Or do you usually just stick with your current tool, figuring the inconvenience isn't annoying enough to justify the move?

Thank you for the wonderful insights. The biggest lesson I took away from our two Product Hunt launches was a hard truth: 'I need to work much harder to put myself out there.' My inbox has always remained completely quiet, and since I'm still stuck as a 'ghost account,' I don't even get replies to the comments I leave on the forums.

Regarding your point about whether the tool provides unexpected insights that actually depends a lot on how you define the requirements during the initial strategy phase. But generally speaking, we’ve seen users experience those 'Aha!' moments of discovering existing sites they didn't know about, which helps them dial in much closer to their actual needs.

Since our launch, through the genuine conversations we've been having in communities where our target users hang out, the most consistent feedback is that Bunzee drastically cuts down the tedious hours they used to spend on research.

Our team actually started Bunzee based on our very own struggles. When we decided to expand beyond Letspl.me a platform we currently run in Korea with 20,000 members and build a global service, we spent an unbelievable amount of time just doing market research. We might not be seeing flashy results right now, but we are determined to make it happen through steady, daily consistency

Those 8 upvotes brought almost zero signups, proving that a pretty interface cannot fix confusing messaging.

Your suggestion to add source URLs during the competitor analysis step is incredibly sharp and exactly what we are building next to prevent hallucination panic.
Rewriting the one-liner until a stranger can repeat it is a fantastic validation test that we are absolutely stealing for our own pivot.

Providing exact receipts for the AI's claims is the only way builders will actually trust the generated output.

Our team is a small, tight-knit squad made up of a business planner (handling backend), a product manager (handling publishing), and a designer (handling operations). Because we wear so many hats, we constantly discuss even the smallest administrative details to ensure we’re completely aligned and looking toward the exact same vision.

We went through countless revisions just for the very first headline users see when they land on Bunzee.ai. We agonized over that copy to make sure it aligned perfectly with the expectations and perspectives of the users looking at our product.

However, as every maker experiences, we noticed a gap post-launch between our initial validated target and our actual user base. While our core message remains the same, we’re currently in the trenches, continuously iterating and validating to deliver that value much faster and more intuitively to our users.

From your point of view, what were your thoughts on Bunzee? I’d love to hear your detailed experience

I felt like my explanation was a bit lacking, so I’ve shared the full story over at: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/eating-our-own-dog-food-i-ran-my-ai-research-tool-on-my-ai-research-tool-to-find-my-own-market-gap-64606a37cf

Using the tool we developed ourselves was not just a simple confirmation of bias, but a tremendous experience that forced us to face the harsh reality. As a result, we realized that instead of addressing the "blank slate" anxiety experienced by individual developers, we had been too focused on competing with massive enterprise software companies.

Thanks to this realization, we were able to eliminate unnecessary planning modules and concentrate entirely on generating Product Requirements Documents (PRDs) immediately.

It is quite ironic that even after building a system to identify blind spots in the market, one can still miss their own.

You nailed it our original pitch was way too abstract compared to the actual pain of building feature matrices.

We are now testing hooks like "Skip the 50-tab competitor spreadsheet," which hits much closer to that exact breaking point. As for the launch, we definitely relied too much on organic discovery instead of orchestrating that critical first-hour push.
Learning that distribution requires just as much architecture as the code itself was a harsh but necessary lesson.

What is the most effective way you have seen founders build that launch day momentum without feeling overly spammy?

We honestly thought we had laid the groundwork perfectly for our first Bunzee launch. Maybe we were a bit overconfident, thinking, 'This is going to work out, we’ll be fine.' When that first launch failed, we actually didn't spend as much time building relationships for the second one. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say we couldn't.

As I’m sure you know, Product Hunt doesn't exactly roll out the red carpet for new accounts. Ever since that first launch, my daily routine before starting my actual work consists of going on Product Hunt to leave upvotes and comments on newly launched products. Despite all that effort, we’ve only just managed to take one tiny step out of the shadow-ban zone what we makers usually call a low-tier 'ghost account.'

How is your account holding up? Have you gone through a similar experience?

It is a huge psychological barrier to admit that an idea might have already come to nothing before you even open an IDE or code editor.

Bunzee resolves the "ignored gap" trap by directly cross-analyzing the issues pointed out in competitor reviews.
If there is a feature that no one builds but users actively complain about, it is a proven opportunity.
The omission of features that receive no complaints in the market is a trap that developers must avoid.

LaunchForge focuses on distribution; is the reason founders fail primarily due to customer definition, or were there other reasons? I would like to hear your experience.

The biggest hurdle we face is that most founders our team included would rather spend two weeks coding the wrong feature than spend five minutes validating it. Convincing them to step away from Figma or VS Code for a quick reality check is our toughest challenge.

Essentially, we’re trying to introduce a more efficient workflow to makers who just want to dive headfirst into development. But once they actually see the results how Bunzee.ai pinpoints competitors' pain points and maps out exactly what to build (PRD) and how to build it (MVP prompts) the value instantly clicks for them.

First off, I really appreciate your deep interest in Bunzee.ai. So, are you willing to hit pause for a moment to test out a new tool?

Thanks for getting back to me. Before Bunzee, we launched and operated Letspl.me a platform for side-project team building and management. We managed to grow it to 20,000 members, and riding on that momentum, we boldly decided to take a shot at the global market.

Honestly, we stumbled through two failed Product Hunt launches. But just as you pointed out, we realized the core issue: instead of diving into the communities where real users actually hang out, makers often just fire up Figma again to over-analyze the product in isolation.

Since our latest launch, our team hasn't touched Figma at all. Instead, we’re completely focused on actively engaging in various communities, gathering raw feedback, and pushing out endless, rapid iterations straight from the dev side.

We’re also going to take your advice on 'target pivoting' and seriously discuss it with the team.

From your perspective, how does Bunzee feel to you? Could you share the specific details of your experience? I’ll be eagerly waiting for your insights. Thanks again!

Using Bunzee to fix Bunzee was the ultimate "inception" test for our internal logic.
Finding "invisible" competitors is like hunting for a bug that only appears in one specific browser. Our agent scans for the actual "problem state" to find niche players hiding in deep B2B workflows.

The most dangerous rivals are often those quietly solving the exact gap you are targeting. What is one specific requirement in court recording that feels like a permanent "must-have" for your users?

Thank you so much for the positive feedback on Bunzee.ai. Before we built Bunzee, our team created and currently operates Letspl.me in Korea. Through that journey, we’ve been up close with so many founders struggling with their side projects, and we felt a deep sense of empathy for their challenges. That’s exactly why we didn't hesitate to dive into the '50 Excel tabs' grind ourselves doing the tedious manual research that most people avoid.

It was that very process that allowed us to launch Bunzee.ai. In an era where hundreds of projects are born and disappear in the blink of an eye, our heart is for makers to launch even just one product, as long as it's a thoroughly validated one.

How does Bunzee.ai look from your perspective? Does it align with the vision I’ve shared? I’d love to hear about your experience and thoughts

That "Stage 0" vs. "Stage 1" workflow is exactly the kind of strategic thinking every founder needs to survive. You’re right checking search demand with TrendyRevenue is the perfect "go/no-go" filter before diving into the deep execution work that Bunzee.ai handles.

I love the synergy here: TrendyRevenue answers "Does anyone want this?" and then Bunzee answers "How do I beat the people already doing it?" It’s the ultimate "No-Build" validation stack that prevents the "pixel-perfect crickets" scenario we both know too well.

I’m definitely going to run our next pivot idea through your free tier to see if our gut signal matches the actual search data. If we can kill the 50-tab Excel grind and the zero-demand risk in under 15 minutes, that’s a massive win for the maker community.

Thanks for the honest feedback and for sharing TrendyRevenue let's keep helping founders stop wasting time on the wrong things!

Thanks for your question! Our pricing is structured into Free, Starter, and Pro tiers as monthly subscriptions. Each tier comes with 30, 100, and 200 monthly AI credits, respectively. In the Starter and Pro memberships, we’ve varied the depth of features from trend history and strategy to competitor analysis, PRD reports, and production roadmap details.

Our competitor analysis engine runs on LLM APIs. Since my focus is primarily on UI/UX and product design, for deeper technical inquiries regarding API calls and backend specifics, please feel free to email [email protected] our team will get back to you with the details.

From my personal perspective as a founder, if you’re adding features similar to existing platforms that already offer stability and a seamless user experience, it might be wise to leverage your current tech stack.

However, the real challenge is finding that 'special something' that undeniable hook that compels users to abandon their current platform for your new product. Honestly, anyone can grind through a weekend using various AI agent tools to whip up an MVP. The harder, more crucial task is thoroughly validating whether existing or new users will actually switch over.

Bunzee.ai was born out of this same mission: to support solo founders and colleagues who are itching to build something new.

With that in mind, how does Bunzee feel to you? Please share your honest experience it would be incredibly helpful for us.

Thank you for the response! It’s strangely reassuring to know there are so many fellow makers who’ve faced the same crushing defeat on Product Hunt as we did. It really hits home that the challenge often lies more in distribution and targeting rather than just the product itself. Facing these hurdles is definitely more daunting than just whipping up an MVP over a weekend, but it’s a necessary evolution.

We’ve already added your sharp insights about simplifying our screens and reducing cognitive load to our team’s to-do list. We’re going to tackle those improvements head-on.

Could you share more about your detailed experience with Bunzee.ai? I’d love to dive into the specifics like where exactly you felt like dropping off at each stage, or what the biggest pain points were from your perspective.

Also, if you ever need a fresh set of eyes on your own project, I’d love to return the favor and help out however I can. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. Our team has gone through two Product Hunt launches with Bunzee so far. The first one was practically just 'working for the launch' we spent ages on screenshots and struggled just to avoid a shadow-ban. The results were devastating. Even launching on a high-traffic Thursday, we realized that the platform naturally favors projects from users with much stronger existing networks.

After that failure, we revamped Bunzee into a 'Business GPT' and tried a second launch in early April. When that didn't take off either, we completely pivoted our strategy much like you did. Instead of firing up Figma and questioning our product in isolation, we’ve buried ourselves in the same '50 Excel tabs' our users are struggling with. We're now active in communities where people share the same pain points, trading advice and gathering real insights.

We don't see massive changes every day, but I can feel the compound effect building up. While it hasn't turned into revenue or payment conversions just yet, we trust this 'quiet growth' strategy and plan to keep moving forward.

From your brilliant perspective, how was your experience using Bunzee.ai? We’d love to hear your story. And please, let me know if I can help you in any way. As a UI/UX designer, I might have a visual-heavy bias, but I genuinely want to be of service to you.

That is a great reality check 8 upvotes did feel a bit like shouting into a void, but you’re right that the real win is the "why now" hook and the learning process. I definitely fell into the trap of describing the solution rather than telling the story of the 15-hour Excel grind it’s meant to replace.

My hypothesis for the core user is the "overwhelmed maker" the founder who is stuck in "research paralysis," drowning in 50 open tabs and spreadsheets trying to figure out if their idea actually solves a real problem. They have the skills to build, but they're terrified of building a "ghost town" feature.

That is exactly the gap I’m trying to bridge with Bunzee.ai. It’s designed to kill that "Excel hell" by scraping real human feedback from Reddit and App Stores to generate a PRD and MVP prompt in under a minute.

Since your advice on the PH launch was so sharp, I’d actually love it if you could take a slightly deeper look at Bunzee. I’m still refining that "pain point story," and I’d value your honest take on whether the product effectively tackles that research grind or if I'm still missing a piece of the puzzle. Would you be open to poking around and sharing your thoughts?

You ask a sharp question here. For niche audiences like solo devs in Telegram, most tools I’ve seen struggle because they surface the obvious players first. The more useful signal usually comes from smaller patterns that don’t look important at first glance.

Certainly! As you’ll see when using Bunzee.ai, it analyzes competitors based on the virtual product concept you define during the strategy phase. Our matching system then ranks them, showing you everyone from the most relevant competitors to the outliers.

What makes it really powerful is the access to 'real' review data we’ve gathered from various channels where founders like us are active. I truly believe Bunzee.ai can slash the research time that usually takes founders hours down to just 10 minutes.

If you have a moment, I’d love to get your thoughts and feedback on it!

I’ve received quite a bit of feedback so far, but most of it has focused on the overall framework rather than the landing page UI. We built Bunzee.ai to help founders answer the critical questions: 'Who is the competition, what do their users hate, and what exact features are needed to win?'

Our strength lies in using 100% real user review data to pinpoint competitor flaws and then mapping out exactly what to build (PRD) and how to start (MVP). However, to get high-quality results, the user needs to apply their own judgment what we call 'selection and focus.' I suspect this might be a friction point for casual users who just want to plug in a vague idea and see an instant result.

If you don't mind sharing, what specific feedback do you have for us?

Thank you for the kind words! Honestly, as a UI/UX designer, just hearing the phrase 'massive Excel research' makes me chuckle. My brain is already telling me to just fire up Figma and start building frames instead.

If you have a moment, would you mind giving Bunzee.ai a spin? I’d be grateful for any feedback at all even the brutally honest stuff. Looking forward to hearing what you think!

Yes, absolutely. Our team went through a lot of trial and error while 'dogfooding' Bunzee.ai, and we’ve actually found it incredibly helpful for our own work. We figured that if we couldn't trust the information ourselves, we couldn't expect our users to have a positive experience either.

I believe the core mission of Bunzee is to deliver reliability through accuracy and stability, all built on a foundation of hallucination-free 'human' data.

Based on your experience, do you feel that Bunzee.ai is living up to that mission? If not, I’d be very curious to know at what point you felt like dropping off.

Thanks for the reply. We’ve already gone through our second launch on Product Hunt, but I’m honestly kicking myself for realized so late that I was wrong to think I’d just naturally meet potential users there.

Since our second launch of bunzee.ai in early April, our team has been working hard to get deeply involved in communities where our potential customers are active like Indie Hackers, X, Reddit, and LinkedIn.

We still have a long way to go, but I feel relieved that our sincerity is starting to come through and that we’re beginning to receive feedback like this.

If you don't mind, could you tell me at which point you felt like dropping off while using bunzee.ai?

Thank you for your thoughtful response. When we first launched Bunzee on Product Hunt, we focused so much on recommendations and follower counts that we missed out on genuine communication with actual users. As you mentioned, we realized that it is far more important to provide clear and friendly answers to the questions people are actually curious about.

Personally, I believe our target customers are likely solo entrepreneurs looking to launch a product on their own, without developers or planners. For example, our team also operates letspl.me, a side project platform where people can recruit team members and promote their projects. The biggest lesson we learned there is that members gathered on the site without material compensation, solely to advance their careers or gain diverse experiences. Nevertheless, while running the site, I realized that finding like-minded team members and building a strong team is not easy.

In conclusion, as AI agent tools advance, anyone will be able to create an MVP on their own, regardless of whether they are planners, developers, or designers.

While I believe Bunzee clearly fulfills a need in this niche market, the fact that it only has 8 recommendations makes me keenly aware that we still have a long way to go. If you have the time, I would appreciate it if you could try Bunzee.ai and let me know at what point you stopped using it.

Thanks for the sharp critique on the name 'Bunzee' sounding a bit too playful!

We actually derived it from a bungee jump. But to us, it’s not a blind drop it's a 'safe leap' backed by a highly calculated safety cord.

The real magic of bungee jumping isn't falling; it's the bounce-back. That rebound perfectly captures the 'speed' and 'resilience' Bunzee offers, helping you take a risky hypothesis and quickly pivot it toward success through data-backed AI analysis.

Finally, the 'Z' in Bunzee stands for 'Zenith.' It’s about taking you from A (your initial idea) to Z (the peak of business success) faster than anything else.

Let me know if you have any more sharp insights I'm always open to them!