SplitVote – real-time global polls on moral dilemmas (May update: 67 weekly visitors, 0 revenue, building in public)
Hey IH! Sharing my latest build: SplitVote (splitvote.io)
What it does: You get presented with a moral dilemma (trolley problem, euthanasia, open borders, etc.), vote anonymously, and immediately see how the world splits – filtered by country, age, gender.
Tech stack:
- Next.js 14 + TypeScript + Tailwind
- Supabase (auth, PostgreSQL, row-level security)
- Upstash Redis for IP-based rate limiting
- Vercel (hosting + edge functions)
- Daily cron that auto-generates new dilemmas via AI
Current traction: ~67 weekly visitors, 50 impressions on Google in 28 days, bilingual IT/EN, 433 pages indexed
What I'm working on this month:
- Fixing SEO indexation of the /it (Italian) section
- Building first backlinks (this post being one!)
- Preparing Stripe subscription flow for premium features
Revenue: $0/mo — day job funding it
Would love feedback on UX, positioning, or monetization ideas!
SplitVote is a strong concept, but right now it sits in a tricky zone: high curiosity, low retention utility.
The core hook (moral dilemmas + global split visualization) is inherently viral — people will click, vote, and scroll. But the current model risks becoming a “check once, feel something, leave” product unless there’s a deeper loop beyond novelty.
From a positioning lens, I’d tighten one key question:
Right now it reads like “a social experiment platform”
but it could become “a live sentiment intelligence layer for human values” — which opens up retention, subscriptions, and even research/insight monetization.
A few honest pressure points:
Retention gap: Daily AI-generated dilemmas help, but without personalization or consequence, users have no reason to return beyond curiosity.
Segmentation value: Country/age/gender splits are interesting, but only if framed as insight discovery (otherwise it’s just trivia).
Monetization friction: Stripe premium only works if you introduce something users actively rely on, like trend tracking, “your moral profile”, or historical comparison of beliefs over time.
What’s actually promising here is the data layer — if SplitVote evolves into a real-time moral sentiment map, it stops being a game and starts becoming a dataset people care about.
You already have the right ingredients; it’s just currently optimized for engagement spikes, not ongoing dependency.
Thank you for such a thoughtful analysis, and apologies for the late reply. I ended up spending the last few weeks focused on another project and only just saw your comment.
I think you’re pointing at the biggest challenge: SplitVote currently answers “What do people think?”, but not yet “Why should I come back tomorrow?”.
The long-term vision has always been bigger than a collection of moral dilemmas. I’m much more interested in building a living map of how human values differ across countries, generations, and cultures, and how those values evolve over time.
Features like personal moral profiles, historical trend analysis, “people like you” comparisons, and value evolution are all ideas I’ve been exploring. The challenge is finding the right balance between keeping the experience lightweight and gradually adding enough depth to create real long-term value.
I really appreciate you taking the time to write such detailed feedback. Comments like this help me think beyond features and focus on positioning, which is often the harder problem to solve.
That makes sense. At this stage, I’d focus on proving the repeat behavior first too.
If the retention is really coming from self-positioning, comparison, and cultural signal, then the brand question becomes much more important later because the product is no longer just a voting mechanic.
For now, I’d keep watching that behavior closely.
And if Auryxa becomes a serious candidate for the broader layer, not just a naming example, that is probably the point to discuss it privately before the current name gets too baked in.
Otherwise I’d stay focused on validating the loop.
The idea is more interesting than a simple polling site. The stronger angle is that SplitVote is creating a live map of how people think across countries, age groups, and identities. That can become more than “vote on dilemmas.” It could become a social opinion graph around moral, cultural, and political questions.
But the naming matters here. SplitVote explains the mechanic, but it also makes the product sound like a small polling feature. If the bigger vision is global moral dilemmas, anonymous voting, demographic splits, and real-time cultural comparison, the brand needs to feel less literal and more memorable.
Auryxa .com would give this a more premium, social-intelligence feel if you want the product to grow beyond polls into a broader platform around public opinion, debate, and cultural insight.
That’s a really interesting framing, especially the “live map of how people think” part.
I think that’s probably the deeper layer underneath the current product.
Right now I’m intentionally keeping the experience very lightweight and immediate, because I don’t want it to drift too far into “analytics platform” territory too early.
But the idea that repeated voting patterns can reveal cultural and identity-level differences is definitely something I keep thinking about.
On the naming side, I actually chose SplitVote because it explains the mechanic instantly. At this stage, that clarity feels more valuable to me than a more abstract/premium name.
But I do agree the long-term positioning could evolve beyond “polling
That makes sense. For the first version, SplitVote does have an advantage because people understand the mechanic instantly.
The part I would pressure-test is whether the name is explaining the mechanic too well and the product ambition not enough.
If this stays as lightweight dilemma voting, SplitVote works. But if the deeper layer becomes “how different groups think across culture, identity, location, and belief,” then the product is no longer just about split votes. It starts becoming a social insight layer.
That is where a mechanic-based name can quietly cap the perception. Users may understand what to do, but they may not immediately feel there is a bigger platform forming underneath.
Auryxa would only make sense if you want the product to feel less like a polling utility and more like a premium social-intelligence brand over time. If you are intentionally staying lightweight for now, SplitVote is fine. But if the cultural insight layer keeps coming back, I would not leave the naming decision too late.
I think that’s a very fair point, and probably the strongest argument against mechanic-based names in general.
The trade-off I keep coming back to is clarity vs. abstraction.
Right now, I’m optimizing heavily for instant understanding because the product still lives or dies on whether the loop “clicks” immediately for new users.
An abstract name might leave more room for future positioning, but it also removes a lot of context at the exact stage where context matters most.
What’s interesting though is that multiple people keep independently gravitating toward the same deeper framing:
not polling, but social self-positioning.
So I do think there’s a real possibility that the product evolves beyond the current mechanic over time.
I’m just cautious about designing the brand around the future version before fully validating the present one
That caution makes sense. SplitVote is useful for validating the first loop because people understand the mechanic fast.
But I would separate MVP clarity from long-term brand control.
If the product is already pulling toward social self-positioning, identity patterns, cultural comparison, and public opinion insight, the broader brand decision probably should not wait until after that becomes obvious publicly.
By then, users, posts, SEO pages, screenshots, and early community memory may already know it as a polling product. That makes the move harder at the exact point where the bigger positioning starts to matter.
Auryxa is not about replacing the MVP loop. It is about locking the cleaner long-term frame before the product gets categorized too narrowly.
I would not turn this into public pricing, but if you can seriously see Auryxa carrying the broader social-intelligence version, message me on LinkedIn. We can discuss a founder-friendly way to secure it before the brand direction hardens.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aryan-y-0163b0278/
I think that’s a very smart distinction, honestly.
The “community memory hardens” point is probably the strongest argument for thinking about brand architecture earlier rather than later.
At the same time, I’m still very cautious about sacrificing immediate recognition too early in favor of future abstraction.
Right now, the product benefits a lot from users instantly understanding the core interaction without explanation, and I think that clarity is helping the early loop more than a broader conceptual brand would.
That said, I do agree there’s an interesting tension between:
“the mechanic people see today” and “the deeper layer the product may evolve into over time.”
So I’m definitely thinking carefully about where that line eventually sit
That’s fair. I would not replace MVP clarity just for the sake of having a more abstract name.
The real question is whether SplitVote is only the product mechanic, or whether it is also the brand you want people to remember if this becomes social self-positioning and cultural insight over time.
If it stays close to dilemma voting, SplitVote is probably the right name for now.
If the deeper layer keeps pulling you toward public opinion, identity patterns, and cultural comparison, then I’d separate the two:
SplitVote can explain the current loop.
Auryxa can carry the broader platform if you decide that is the serious direction.
I would not overthink it publicly beyond that. If Auryxa is just interesting as a thought experiment, no problem. But if you can seriously see it carrying the broader product, message me on LinkedIn and we can discuss whether there is a clean founder-friendly path before the name direction hardens.
That’s a really thoughtful way to frame it, and honestly, thanks for pushing the discussion beyond the obvious “polling app” layer.
I think the distinction between:
and
is probably the cleanest way to think about it.
Right now though, I’m still very focused on validating the core loop itself:
retention, repeat interaction, emotional response, and whether the social positioning layer is actually strong enough to sustain long-term behavior.
So for the moment I’m intentionally keeping the product and brand tightly coupled around the simplest possible interaction.
But I do agree the underlying direction feels potentially larger than dilemma voting alone, and I’ll definitely keep that framing in mind as the product evolves.
That makes sense. I think you are now asking the right question: whether people return for the vote itself, or for the post-vote self-positioning and comparison layer.
That distinction probably decides the whole brand direction.
If useful, I can do a focused naming/positioning audit around SplitVote: current name risk, retention-driver framing, whether the product is really a voting mechanic or a social self-positioning layer, and what brand direction would make sense if the second path proves true.
Not a long consulting thing. Just a sharp written breakdown you can use while you are testing retention and repeat behavior.
I’m doing a few of these at $99 while refining the format. If useful, connect here and I can give you a clear outside read before the product gets more public memory around the current frame:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aryan-y-0163b0278/
That makes sense. If the core loop is still the main thing you are validating, keeping the name tied to the interaction is a reasonable call.
The only hard thing I’d pressure-test is this:
Are users coming back because they want to “split vote,” or because they want to understand where they stand compared with other people?
Those are very different products.
If the retention is driven by the second one, then SplitVote may be describing the surface action, not the actual emotional hook.
That is where mechanic-based names can be dangerous. They feel clear early, but they can hide the real reason people care.
So I would not force a rebrand now. But I would watch the behavior closely. If users are returning for self-positioning, comparison, identity, or cultural signal, then the core is probably bigger than the current name suggests.
That is the point where the brand decision stops being cosmetic.
That’s actually a really important distinction.
The “surface action vs emotional hook” framing is probably the clearest way to think about the product so far.
Because you’re right:
people may not be returning for the act of voting itself.
They may be returning for:
And those are very different retention drivers.
I think that’s also why the post-vote moment keeps feeling much more important than the voting mechanic itself.
So before thinking too much about brand architecture, I probably need to understand which layer is actually creating repeat behavior in the first place.
Really appreciate the push on this, it genuinely helped clarify the product thinking.