Verdict Buddy by Inithouse: We Ran Our Own AI Tool on 3 Products We Were About to Sunset
At Inithouse, we run a growing portfolio of products in parallel. That means tough calls come up regularly: which products get more resources, which ones get deprioritized, and which ones need a different direction entirely.
A few weeks back, we sat down to review three products that had been underperforming relative to the rest of the portfolio. The initial instinct was to sunset all three. But instinct is a bad decision-maker when you have data sitting right there.
So we did something a little meta: we ran Verdict Buddy, our own AI conflict resolver, on the decision itself.
Why Verdict Buddy for product decisions
Verdict Buddy was built to help people navigate conflicts using established psychological frameworks. It breaks down opposing perspectives, weighs evidence, and suggests structured paths forward. We designed it for personal and workplace conflicts, but the same framework applies to any decision where two sides pull in opposite directions.
In this case, the "conflict" was simple: keep vs. sunset for each product.
What we fed it
For each of the three products, we entered the core tension:
- Current traction vs. opportunity cost
- Market potential vs. effort required
- Portfolio overlap vs. unique positioning
Verdict Buddy broke each one down into weighted factors and returned a structured verdict with reasoning.
What came back
Product A: Verdict Buddy confirmed what we already felt. Low engagement, saturated category, no unique angle we could defend. The structured analysis made the case cleaner than any team discussion had. We deprioritized it with confidence and redirected the engineering hours to products showing early traction signals.
Product B: This one surprised us. We had mentally written it off, but the analysis surfaced a segment we had overlooked. One user group was consistently engaging with a feature we considered secondary. The verdict suggested doubling down on that segment rather than sunsetting the product.
Product C: Instead of a binary keep/sunset, Verdict Buddy proposed a pivot. The core value proposition was solid, but the positioning was wrong. The structured breakdown showed that most of the "underperformance" came from misaligned messaging, not product-market mismatch. We changed the landing page copy, adjusted the target audience, and within two weeks saw engagement move in the right direction.
The takeaway
We run structured decision processes across the portfolio now. Not because we distrust our judgment, but because we observed that structured analysis consistently catches things we feel but cannot articulate. Two out of three products in this review are still active today because of it.
The pattern keeps repeating across the portfolio. When we measured Be Recommended results last quarter, the same dynamic showed up: data told a different story than our gut did. And with Magical Song pricing decisions, running through a structured framework helped us move faster than debating in circles.
If you run multiple products, the hardest part is not building. It is deciding what deserves your attention. We built Verdict Buddy for conflicts between people, but it turns out the conflict between "keep building" and "let it go" follows the same patterns.
At Inithouse, where we ship a growing portfolio of products in parallel, these structured reviews are now part of how we operate. Every quarter, every product gets the same treatment: enter the tension, read the analysis, compare it to gut feel. The gap between the two is where the real learning happens.
Try it yourself at verdictbuddy.com. Free, private, no signup needed.
