I stopped building my product. Now I need to find out if strangers can actually use it.
I’ve spent the past few weeks building Zaivy, a product designed to help someone go from:
“I want to start something, but I don’t know what to do.”
to actually taking action.
The idea came from something I kept noticing while looking into side hustles and small businesses.
There’s no shortage of information.
You can ask AI for 100 business ideas in seconds. You can watch videos, read Reddit threads, search Google, or find another list of “best side hustles.”
But then you still have to figure out:
- Which opportunity actually fits me?
- Is it worth pursuing?
- What should I do first?
- How should I price it?
- Where do I find customers?
- What do I say to them?
- How do I know if I’m making progress?
That’s what I’m trying to solve with Zaivy.
Right now, the product takes someone through:
Match → Validate → Launch → Pricing → Customers → Outreach → Growth
It keeps their progress together and tries to give them a clear next step instead of another pile of information.
But I recently reached a point where I realized I could keep adding features forever.
So I stopped.
I froze the beta.
Because a product working on my computer doesn’t prove that anyone else understands it—or actually wants it.
My goal right now is incredibly small:
5 real testers.
I want people who are genuinely interested in starting a side hustle or small business to use Zaivy without me teaching them how it works.
I specifically want to learn:
Where do you get confused?
What feels unnecessary?
What actually helps?
Do you know what to do next?
Would you come back after the first session?
I already got my first outside founder to agree to test it today, which feels like a much bigger milestone than another feature would.
The beta is free.
If you're interested in testing it, comment below and I’ll send you the link.
And if you’re also at the stage of trying to get your first few users, I’d be happy to hear what you're building too.
The first outside tester is a useful milestone, but the stronger signal seems to be whether they can move through the flow without you explaining it. If a tester gets stuck, how will you distinguish a UX problem from the fact that the underlying decision itself is still too ambiguous?
That’s a really good distinction. I’m treating those as two different failure modes. If the tester understands what Zaivy is asking them to decide but doesn’t know the answer yet, that’s probably genuine business uncertainty — and Zaivy should help surface that uncertainty and suggest how to reduce it. If they don’t understand what Zaivy is asking, why it matters, or what to do next, I’d treat that as a UX/product problem.
That’s also why I’m trying not to explain the product to testers beforehand. I want to see where they naturally hesitate, what they misunderstand, and whether the product can distinguish “I don’t understand Zaivy” from “I don’t know this about my business yet.”
That distinction is much cleaner when the tester isn’t being coached through the flow. I’d be interested in digging into what you learn from those natural hesitation points. Happy to continue privately — what’s the best email to reach you on?
Definitely, I’d be happy to keep you updated on what I learn from the testing. You can reach me at zgbowie@gmail.com. Appreciate you being interested in this.
Thanks! I’ve just sent it over.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts whenever you have a chance.