Post

After years of failed startup ideas, I tried something different. Instead of building on a hunch, I let AI run a full market analysis to find a validated problem worth solving. Here's what I learned and how you might do the same. #buildinpublic

First, a caveat: ChatGPT won't cut it for this. You need an AI that can independently research the web, pull real sources, and come back with evidence -- not just confident-sounding hallucinations. I used Manus AI and gladly paid the $40/month for this.

My initial prompt was simple: "I'm a Ruby developer who wants to build a B2B SaaS. Analyze potential opportunities, validate market need, and recommend ideas with real pain points." Then I pushed it to go deeper on each recommendation.

Here's the thing: I had my own ideas too. I pitched a few to the AI, expecting it to validate them. Instead, it shot them down hard. Explained why the market was too crowded, why the problem wasn't painful enough, why I'd struggle to compete.

That was actually reassuring. It wasn't just telling me what I wanted to hear. It was giving it to me straight. And that's the benefit of this approach -- no ego, no confirmation bias, just cold, hard research.

One idea kept surfacing: runbook discovery for on-call engineers. The AI found Reddit threads like "Senior SRE who knew all our incident procedures just left -- now we're screwed" and G2 reviews complaining about scattered documentation.