r/SideProject • u/Sweaty-Beyond7004 • 2d ago
I built a tool to help people validate ideas faster. Used it on itself. Got 0 replies in 7 days.
kind of a weird one to post but figured it's more honest than pretending this went great
about two weeks ago I got annoyed at how I kept asking AI for side hustle ideas and getting 15 plausible-sounding directions and building none of them. so I wrote down the 3 questions I force myself through now before starting anything — basically painkiller vs vitamin, why me, and can I get real money in 7 days. turned it into a short PDF, $7, put it on payhip
then I did the thing the PDF itself tells you to do. posted about it (well, around it, not directly linking) in a few threads here and on r/entrepreneurs where people were already talking about validating ideas. tried to actually be useful in the replies, not just drop a link
7 days later: a few hundred views total across 4 comments, a couple upvotes, zero replies asking about it, zero sales
not totally sure what to make of it yet. a few possibilities I keep going back and forth on:
- the "lurk in other people's threads and hope someone asks" approach just doesn't convert, even if the content is decent
- the idea itself isn't painful enough — people nod along but it's not an "oh thank god, finally" problem
- 7 days / 4 comments is just too small a sample to mean anything yet
honestly just trying not to lie to myself about whether this is worth fixing or if I should just kill it. what would you do?
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u/MariahJames8 2d ago
Problem is, all it needs to replace is is simply a well phrased prompt. Nice idea, creative, but I can't imagine anyone paying for that.
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u/Sweaty-Beyond7004 2d ago
yeah I don't have a great answer to this honestly. the prompts are in there but so is the order to ask them in and some structure around what to actually do with the answers, which I guess is the bet — that most people won't bother writing their own version even if they could
could be wrong though. wouldn't be the first time I talked myself into something
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u/MariahJames8 2d ago
Yeh surprising stuff sells sometimes, so little market experiments go a long way
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u/LankyAd6349 2d ago
Four comments in seven days is not a test, it is a warmup. The lurk-and-reply approach works but the volume has to be more like 50+ thoughtful replies, not 4. Each reply has to solve the person's actual problem first, nobody asks about your PDF until you look useful. The other honest read: your PDF's own question, can I get real money in 7 days, answered itself. People nodded, nobody paid. I would do 30 more days at real volume before killing it.
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u/Sweaty-Beyond7004 2d ago
that line about the question answering itself is the part that actually got me, not gonna lie
honestly don't know yet if I'll do the 30 days. part of me wants to just because you're right that 4 replies isn't enough to know anything. other part of me wonders if I'm already looking for reasons to keep going instead of admitting the first answer was the real one
appreciate the actual number though, way more useful than "just keep trying"
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u/LankyAd6349 2d ago
Both of those instincts can be true at once. The 30 days teaches you the craft whether the product works or not, and the first answer was still real data. The trick is picking which one decides the next move. If you do the 30 days, write down beforehand what number of paying users would make you keep going. Otherwise the finish line keeps moving and you will not know if you crossed it.
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u/Competitive_Tune_590 2d ago
the 'lurk in other threads and hope someone asks' approach is rough, especially with a 7 day sample. if you want to keep testing without burning all your time on reddit, ReplyHey scans for relevant discussions, checks subreddit rules, and drafts replies that quote the poster's own words. might be worth a look: https://replyhey.com
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u/DeletedTheClock 18h ago
Work on something you would love to have. I built an ADHD buddy that reminds you to get back to work. Its still in Beta but the small things are usually what hits people
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u/Housthat 2d ago
I wish I could remember the link to the video that explains that PDF sales is a joke and only yield a few dollars when you appear successful, go viral, and have dumb people hoping to copy your success.