New Feature: Validate Your SaaS Idea Against Real Market Evidence

You’ve got an idea for a SaaS product. Maybe it’s an inventory tool for Shopify merchants, a CRM plugin for Salesforce, or a productivity extension for Firefox. The question is always the same: is this worth building?

Most founders answer that question with gut feel, a quick Google search, or by asking friends. The result? Weeks or months spent building something nobody actually needs.

Today we’re launching the Idea Validator — a tool that answers that question with real data.

How it works

1. Describe your idea — app name, what it does, key features, and target audience
2. Pick your data sources — choose which app stores to scan (Shopify, Salesforce, Firefox) or search all of them
3. Get a validation report — scored 0-100 with evidence from real user reviews

That’s it. The entire process takes about 30 seconds and costs 1.5 credits.

What’s in the validation report?

The report scores your idea across five dimensions:

• Pain Point Confirmed (25%) — do real users actually complain about the problem you’re solving?
• Market Demand (20%) — how much review volume and activity exists in this space?
• Competitive Whitespace (20%) — are there features no current competitor does well?
• Feature-Market Fit (20%) — do your proposed features match what users are actually requesting?
• Willingness to Pay (15%) — are there pricing signals and competitor pricing that suggest users will pay?

Each dimension is scored individually and weighted into an overall validation score.

Example: validating a Shopify email marketing tool

Say you’re thinking of building an email marketing tool for Shopify merchants with flat-rate pricing, a visual flow builder, and real-time sync. Here’s what a validation report looks like:

Validation Score: 72/100

Score Breakdown:
  Pain Point Confirmed    ████████████████░░░░  85  (25%)
  Market Demand           ██████████████░░░░░░  70  (20%)
  Competitive Whitespace  █████████████░░░░░░░  65  (20%)
  Feature-Market Fit      ████████████████░░░░  80  (20%)
  Willingness to Pay      ███████████░░░░░░░░░  55  (15%)

Confirmed Pain Points:
  ✓ "Shopify sync breaks constantly"     142 mentions  shopify
  ✓ "Pricing is unpredictable"            89 mentions  shopify
  ✓ "No built-in A/B testing"             56 mentions  shopify

Weak / Unconfirmed:
  ⚠ "Need flat-rate pricing"              12 mentions
    Few explicit requests — most complain about pricing
    but don't specify flat-rate

Competitors Found:
  Klaviyo          4.1★  892 reviews   weakness: pricing
  Mailchimp        3.2★  1,247 reviews weakness: sync
  Omnisend         4.5★  654 reviews   weakness: SMS pricing

Whitespace (your edge):
  + Flat-rate pricing — all competitors use per-contact
  + Real-time sync — most sync on 15min-1hr intervals

Overlap (competitors do well):
  ~ Visual flow builder — Klaviyo's is industry-leading

Build Confidence: MEDIUM-HIGH
Suggested Pivots:
  1. Consider adding SMS — high feature request volume
  2. Revenue attribution is a must-have for parity
  3. Position as "Klaviyo alternative for < 10k contacts"
Kill Signals: None detected

This is a real example of the kind of output you get — grounded in actual review data, not generic advice.

Real evidence, not opinions

The validator doesn’t guess. It searches our index of 130,000+ real user reviews from the Shopify App Store, Salesforce AppExchange, and Firefox Add-ons. It finds:

• Confirmed pain points — complaints that match what your product solves, with mention counts and sources
• Weak signals — areas where evidence is thin or indirect
• Direct competitors — apps in the same space with their ratings, review counts, and key weaknesses
• Whitespace — features you’re proposing that no competitor does well
• Overlap — features where competitors already excel (and you’d need to match)

Recommendations you can act on

Every report ends with actionable recommendations:

• A build confidence rating (Low / Medium / Medium-High / High)
• Suggested pivots — specific changes that could improve your chances
• Kill signals — if the market is contracting or users are satisfied, we’ll tell you straight

How is this different from just Googling?

Google tells you what exists. The Idea Validator tells you what’s broken about what exists — and whether your specific features address those broken things.

When you search “Shopify inventory app,” Google shows you a list of apps. The Validator shows you that 142 merchants complain about sync failures, 89 want bulk editing, and nobody offers flat-rate pricing. That’s the difference between research and intelligence.

Try it now

The Idea Validator is live at whatcanibuild.io/validator. Sign in with Google, describe your idea, and get your validation report in under a minute.

During beta, validation costs just 1.5 credits — a fraction of what it’ll cost at launch. Every new account gets 15 free credits to start.

Build what the market actually wants.