Research cutoff 5 October 2026 · for solo and tiny-team builders
You don't need to read everything. You need six honest sentences.
Six short steps. In each one you finish a sentence about your own idea. At the end you get a one-page card that says TEST, REPOSITION or KILL, before you write a line of code.
What the research shows: small AI businesses do make real money. But most public revenue figures are what founders say, not what an auditor checked. The ones that last usually do one dull job very well.
The path
Each step ends with something you can hold: a finished sentence and a one-word result.
| Step | The blank you finish |
|---|---|
| 1 | My buyer's best free alternative is ___ |
| 2 | After costs, I need ___ left per month |
| 3 | If the model were free, they would still pay me for ___ |
| 4 | I would hesitate to leave because ___ (in the customer's voice) |
| 5 | Six questions in one paragraph, no score → TEST, REPOSITION or KILL |
| 6 | The bounded paid offer I will make before another feature is ___ |
Who this is for
Good fit
You build alone or with one or two others. You have an AI idea, maybe half-built, and you want to know whether someone will pay for it, and keep paying.
Not for
Not for: investors, market sizing, or anyone after a success rate. The research doesn't have one, and this guide won't make one up.
Two promises
Your answers stay on this device, in this browser's storage, so the next step can show what you wrote. Nothing is sent anywhere.
"I don't know yet" is a valid answer on every step. It turns into a small test to run, not a failing grade.
How to read the numbers
Every money figure is labelled with how well it's proven, because most public "AI wins" are founder claims nobody checked.
Founder-reported the founder said it, nobody audited it · Secondary someone else reported it · Verified announcement dated primary source · Editorial target a goal we chose, not a market fact · Unknown the evidence doesn't say
You now have:
- A map of the six blanks and what each step gives you.
- Permission to answer "unknown".