Still no paying users. So I'm doing something different.
It's been a week since I rebuilt everything and launched soto.
For context: I built a business idea validator, got scared it was the bad idea, rebuilt it anyway. New name, new design, Stripe live at €19. Posted on Reddit, got real conversations, zero conversions.
26 users this month across 6 countries. Zero paying users.
Traffic is starting to move. I don't think that the problem traffic. People are finding it, landing on it, and leaving without paying. Or worse, without even starting the form.
I could keep posting and hoping. Or I could do something that actually tells me if the product works.
So I'm doing this instead: I'm looking for 5 people with a business idea or side hustle they've been sitting on. Answer 10 questions, I run it through soto, you get the full report free. Percentage score, biggest risk, one move this week.
No pitch. I just need to know if the verdict actually reflects real situations, or if I've built something that sounds good but doesn't deliver.
If you have an idea you've been sitting on, drop it in the comments. I'll send you the 10 questions. Thank you!
The move from “idea validator” to testing real founder situations is the right one. The bigger issue may not be traffic or even pricing yet. It might be that people do not trust a score until they feel the product understands the messy context behind their idea.
I’d probably position soto less as a validator and more as a decision tool for stuck founders. “Percentage score” is useful, but the sharper value is the next move: what risk matters most, what to test first, and whether this idea deserves another week of attention.
One thing I’d watch is the name. Soto is short, but it does not immediately carry the founder-decision or startup clarity angle. If this becomes a serious idea-to-action platform for early founders, Xevoa .com would feel more like a clean SaaS brand than a small validation tool.
the trust point is the one I keep coming back to. the score only lands if the person feels like soto actually read their situation, not just processed it. that's why the constraint questions matter more than the percentage.
the "decision tool for stuck founders" framing is interesting and honestly closer to what it does. "validator" implies pass/fail. what soto actually does is tell you what deserves your next week and what doesn't. might be worth changing how I describe it. thank you!
Exactly. “Validator” makes it feel like the product gives a verdict.
But “what deserves your next week?” is much sharper because it speaks to the real founder pain: uncertainty, limited time, and not knowing which risk to test first.
That shift also changes the naming question.
If Soto stays a lightweight idea validator, the name is fine. But if this becomes a founder decision layer, where the product helps people choose what to build, test, kill, or continue, the brand probably needs to carry more weight.
Xevoa fits that direction better because it feels more like a clean SaaS platform than a small scoring tool. Not saying you need to rename immediately, but I would pressure-test the brand before the “validator” frame gets too deeply attached to the product.
I think this is a much stronger direction than watching traffic numbers in isolation.
At some point, the important question stops being “are people visiting?” and becomes “does the output actually change how someone thinks or acts?”
One thing that feels important here though is separating:
“people are curious enough to try it”
from
“people trust it enough to make decisions from it.”
Those can look very similar early on, but they are different signals.
Still, I think observing real reactions directly is probably far more useful right now than trying to interpret analytics alone.
Curious vs trust distinction is exactly the thing I'm trying to figure out right now. The 5 free validations are specifically to answer that, I want to see if people who get the full report feel like it actually helped them decide something, or just gave them something interesting to read haha
Yeah, I think that distinction becomes really important here.
Something can feel insightful or entertaining without actually influencing a real decision afterward.
The interesting signal will probably be whether people change anything because of the report:
That feels like a much stronger validation signal than whether they simply enjoyed reading it.
that list is exactly what i ve tried to do. and honestly "one move this week" exists specifically for that reason, not to give someone something interesting to read but to force a specific next action. whether people actually take that action is the thing I can't measure yet.. that's what the free validations are really trying to find out.
This is a really honest breakdown—and respect for rebuilding instead of abandoning the idea.
The “traffic but no conversion” situation usually means the landing page isn’t clearly communicating what happens after the 10 questions or what tangible value people get from the report. Even if the tool is useful, users often need a very immediate “why should I trust this?” signal.
Offering 5 free validations is a smart move though it should give you real signal fast, especially if the feedback is structured instead of just opinions.
Curious: are people dropping off before starting the form, or after seeing the first few questions? That distinction might tell you more than the traffic numbers.
As I have noticed with clarity, people are landing, scrolling to the form, seeing it, and leaving without typing a single answer (the form is right under the fold). I m starting to believe that the landing page isn't giving them enough reason to begin..
i would love to check the page they are landing on. the real problem may be your communication of information. maybe you raised their expectation too high and they saw different thing on your website.
i'm a conversion optimizer, I want to help with the conversion side. even if you're still getting low traffic, you should be able to convert. if you don't optimize your conversion and spend on traffic, most people still won't convert
I've been thinking about this exact problem from a portfolio angle. Something I noticed from studying founders who succeed at this price point: they don't bet on one product. They run multiple small validators in parallel.
The 5 free reports are a good start, but here's a framing shift that helped me: instead of asking "does this one tool convince someone to pay?", ask "does this tool create a repeatable scoring decision for me?"
Meaning: can you use soto yourself to score 10 ideas in an afternoon, and reliably pick the best one? If it works for your own decisions first, it becomes a personal methodology you're sharing — not a tool you're selling. That changes how people perceive the price.
Also — the "people see the form and leave" pattern is super common at $19. At that price, the hesitation isn't about money. It's about time investment. They're asking "will typing 10 answers be worth my next 20 minutes?" If the landing page could show one example report with the EXACT output they'll get (not a description of it), that might bridge the trust gap faster than free trials.
Rooting for this. The idea-to-action space needs more honest builders.
One thing that helped me frame this for a low-price consumer app: don't treat the 5 free reports as feedback calls, treat them like onboarding tests.
Before they see the report, ask what decision they're hoping it helps with. After, ask "what would you do next differently?" If they can answer that without you explaining, you have a value signal.
If they say "interesting" but no behavior changes, it's probably still positioning/output clarity, not traffic.
Once you deliver these 5 free reports, what specific signal or metric will you use to decide if the product is actually delivering value versus just "sounding good"?