--- name: sales-validateidea-ai description: "ValidateIdea (validateidea.ai) platform help — an AI business-idea validator that returns a multi-section research report (market & competition, customer insights, revenue & growth assumptions, risks & open questions), delivered async in under an hour, with a paid escalation ladder from a cheap downloadable-PDF tier to a deeper AI tier to a human-expert tier (hands-on review, one-on-one sessions, GTM and MVP-scope guidance). UI-only — no public API, webhooks, or Zapier. Use when running an idea through ValidateIdea and interpreting its report, choosing between its Startup Turbo / Pro / Expert Support tiers, deciding whether AI-only analysis is enough or you should pay for human expert review, wondering how long a report takes or whether a short idea description is enough, or asking if it has an API. Do NOT use for the validate-before-building method or comparing validators across the market (use /sales-idea-validation), or the smoke-test landing-page builder at validateidea.io (use /sales-validateidea)." argument-hint: "[describe what you need help with in ValidateIdea]" license: MIT version: 1.0.0 tags: [sales, idea-validation, pre-launch, platform] --- # ValidateIdea Platform Help ValidateIdea (**validateidea.ai**) is an **AI business-idea validator** that turns a short idea description into a **structured multi-section research report** — a business overview plus market & competition, customer insights, revenue & growth assumptions, and risks & open questions. Two things set it apart from the crowded AI-scorer field: it's **async** (the report arrives **"in under an hour,"** not instantly — it does deeper research per idea than a 120-second scorer), and it puts a **human expert at the top of a steep price ladder** — a cheap self-serve AI PDF, a pricier deeper-AI tier, then a **human-consulting tier** (40 hours of hands-on review, one-on-one sessions, go-to-market and MVP-scope guidance). Its job is the *scorer* half of validation: it emits an AI **opinion/report**, not measured demand. The report sharpens your thinking and surfaces competitors and risks — but a stranger taking an action (a waitlist email, a "buy" click, a pre-order) is the real evidence. Keep the structured parts; take the go/no-go from behavior. **Do not confuse it with `validateidea.io`** — nearly identical name, different tool: `.io` (`/sales-validateidea`) *builds* a smoke-test landing page (a real demand test); `.ai` (this skill) *generates* an AI report. Their relationship is unconfirmed — treat them as separate products. ## Step 1 — Gather context Ask only what you need to answer well: - **What's the goal?** Interpreting a report they already got, choosing a tier (Startup Turbo / Pro / Expert Support), deciding AI-only vs paying for human expert review, or an API/automation question. - **What stage & stakes?** A weekend side-project (a cheap AI PDF is plenty) vs a funded/high-stakes launch (where the human Expert Support tier might earn its price). - **What evidence do they already have?** A hunch, an AI report, interviews, a landing page. If they only have a ValidateIdea report, the real demand test is the *next* rung — not more AI. - **How sharp is the idea statement?** The input is capped (~2,500 chars) — a vague description yields a vague report. Have a specific customer + problem + differentiation ready. Skip-ahead: if they just want the report reframed against "should I build?", jump to Step 4. ## Step 2 — Route or answer directly - **"My ValidateIdea report says it's viable — should I build?"** → answer here (the report is an AI opinion, not demand), then hand the go/no-go to `/sales-idea-validation` for the real-behavior test. - **Comparing ValidateIdea vs other validators (Validator AI, DimeADozen, IdeaProof, RebeccAi…)** → "This is a cross-tool comparison — run: `/sales-idea-validation {question}`". Name the split first: they all *score/report*; the decision belongs to a real demand test. - **Building the smoke-test landing page itself (or you meant validateidea.io)** → "That's the demand test / the .io builder — run: `/sales-validateidea {question}`". - **Driving traffic to a validation page / growing a waitlist** → `/sales-audience-growth`. - Otherwise answer directly from Step 3 / the platform reference. ## Step 3 — ValidateIdea platform reference For the full report anatomy, the tier ladder, the "no API — export the PDF instead" recipe, and how to write an input that yields a useful report, read **`references/platform-guide.md`**. The essentials: - **Output is a report, not a live score or a page.** Five sections: business overview, market & competition, customer insights, revenue & growth assumptions, risks & open questions. Downloadable **PDF** on the paid tiers. - **Async delivery: "in under an hour."** Not instant — that's by design (deeper per-idea research), so a report that isn't ready in seconds isn't broken. - **Tier ladder (best-effort; confirm on site):** **Startup Turbo** (cheap, self-serve AI report + PDF), **Startup Pro** (much pricier — deeper AI: personalized recommendations, growth assessment, advanced technical validation), **Expert Support** (top tier, a large step up — **human** hands-on review [~40 hours], one-on-one sessions, go-to-market and MVP-scope guidance). - **Input cap ~2,500 chars** describing idea, target users, and market. Sharp input → sharp report. - **UI-only.** No public API, no webhooks, no Zapier/Make, no MCP found in research — you cannot call it programmatically; automate only by exporting the PDF and parsing it yourself. ## Step 4 — Actionable guidance - **Treat the report as an AI opinion, not demand — anchor the go/no-go on real behavior.** However polished the report, tell the user an AI validator can be confidently wrong (it can invent market sizes). The build-or-don't decision must rest on a stranger taking an action — route the real test to `/sales-idea-validation` (and `/sales-audience-growth` to capture signups). - **Keep the structured parts, discard the verdict.** The competitor landscape, customer-segment hypotheses, revenue-model references, and the "risks & open questions" list are the reusable value — use them to sharpen the pitch and design the demand test; don't bank the viability conclusion. - **Choose AI-only vs the human Expert Support tier by stakes, not curiosity.** The cheap Turbo/Pro tiers are AI; **Expert Support is human consulting** (hands-on review, 1:1s, GTM/MVP guidance) at a large price step. Recommend it only for a high-stakes or funded idea where hands-on GTM/MVP review pays back — for a quick gut check on a side project, the cheap AI report is enough. - **Set expectations on async delivery.** The report arrives "in under an hour," not instantly — if it's taking a while, that's the deeper-research design, not a failure. Don't promise a 120-second score. - **Write a sharp, specific input.** With the ~2,500-char cap, a vague "an app for productivity" yields a generic report. Feed it a specific customer + problem + differentiation so the market/competitor sections are about *your* niche, not a category. - **Present pricing and tiers as best-effort and point to the live site.** The Turbo/Pro/Expert Support names and prices are from research — say so and point the user to validateidea.ai for current numbers. - **There's no API — automate by exporting the PDF, not a nonexistent endpoint.** No public API, webhooks, Zapier/Make, or MCP. To get a report into a pipeline, export the PDF and parse it (or drive the UI); don't hunt for a ValidateIdea API. - **Don't conflate validateidea.ai with validateidea.io.** If the user means the smoke-test landing-page builder, that's `/sales-validateidea` (the .io tool) — a different product. If you discover a gotcha, workaround, or tip not covered in `references/learnings.md`, append it there. ## Gotchas *Best-effort from research (2026-07). ValidateIdea (validateidea.ai) is a niche indie tool (~1,100 ideas analyzed at research) whose live site is hard to fetch; verify the tier names, prices, delivery time, and input cap against the live site before relying on specifics.* - **The report is an AI opinion, not demand.** A confident, well-formatted report can rationalize a bad idea — a high-viability read is not evidence anyone will pay. Always follow with a real-behavior test. - **Steep price ladder — the top tier is *humans*, not more AI.** Startup Turbo is a cheap AI PDF; Expert Support is a large jump to human consulting (~40 hrs, 1:1s). Don't buy the expert tier expecting "a better report" — you're buying hands-on human review, so only pay for it when that's what you need. - **Async, not instant.** "In under an hour" is normal — don't treat a non-instant report as broken. - **Short input cap (~2,500 chars).** A vague idea in → a generic report out. Specificity is on you. - **No API/webhooks/Zapier/MCP.** The only export is the PDF; there's no programmatic report generation. - **Name collision with validateidea.io.** Nearly identical name, opposite tool (`.io` builds a demand *test*; `.ai` writes an AI *report*). Their relationship is unconfirmed — don't assume same company. ## Related skills - `/sales-idea-validation` — The tool-agnostic validate-before-building method: the evidence ladder (problem → demand → willingness-to-pay), how to read an AI report critically, and the full head-to-head of AI validators vs real-demand tests. The go/no-go lives here, on real behavior. - `/sales-validateidea` — Validate Idea (**validateidea.io**), the near-namesake but opposite tool: a no-code **smoke-test landing-page builder** that builds the real demand test (not an AI report). - `/sales-audience-growth` — Drive targeted traffic to the demand test and grow the pre-launch waitlist. - `/sales-funnel` — Build the smoke-test / fake-door landing page the demand test runs on. - `/sales-do` — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: `npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do -a claude-code` ## Examples ### Example 1: "ValidateIdea gave my SaaS idea a strong, detailed report — am I good to build?" **User says**: "The validateidea.ai report is really positive across all sections. Should I start building?" **Skill does**: Reframes the report as a directional AI **opinion**, not demand — it can invent market sizes and rationalize almost anything. Says to keep the structured parts (competitor list, customer segments, risks & open questions) to sharpen the pitch, then earn a real go/no-go: a smoke-test landing page to a pre-set conversion bar, then a pre-sale for willingness-to-pay. Routes the method to `/sales-idea-validation` and the page/traffic to `/sales-funnel` + `/sales-audience-growth`. **Result**: The founder gates the build on stranger behavior, not a positive AI report. ### Example 2: "What's the difference between Startup Pro and Expert Support, and how long does a report take?" **User says**: "Is Expert Support just a better report than Pro? And is it instant?" **Skill does**: Explains the report is **async — "in under an hour,"** not instant (deeper per-idea research). Distinguishes the tiers: **Startup Pro is still AI** (deeper analysis — personalized recommendations, growth assessment, advanced technical validation), while **Expert Support is human consulting** (~40 hours hands-on review, one-on-one sessions, GTM and MVP-scope guidance) at a large price step. Advises picking by stakes: pay for the human tier only on a high-stakes/funded idea. Flags prices as best-effort → validateidea.ai. **Result**: The user buys the tier that matches their stage instead of over- or under-paying. ### Example 3: "Can I pull ValidateIdea reports into my dashboard automatically? (developer/automation)" **User says**: "I want each report to land in our internal tool via an API." **Skill does**: States plainly there's **no public API, no webhooks, no Zapier/Make, no MCP** — you cannot generate or fetch reports programmatically. The only export is the **PDF**: the workaround is to export it and parse it (PDF-to-text/LLM extraction) into your tool, or drive the UI — not to hunt for a nonexistent endpoint. Points to `references/platform-guide.md` for the export-and-parse recipe. **Result**: The developer stops looking for an API and pipes the PDF contents into their own sink. ## Troubleshooting ### "The report is taking a long time — is something broken?" Not necessarily. ValidateIdea is **async by design** — it advertises delivery **"in under an hour,"** not instantly, because it does deeper per-idea research than a 120-second scorer. Give it time; only treat it as stuck if it blows well past an hour. If you need an instant score for a quick gut check, a same-second scorer (see `/sales-idea-validation`) is a different trade-off. ### "Is the Expert Support tier worth it over the cheap AI report?" Only if you need **humans**, not a better AI report. Startup Turbo is a cheap self-serve AI PDF; Expert Support is a large price step to **hands-on human review** (~40 hours, one-on-one sessions, GTM and MVP-scope guidance). For a side-project gut check the cheap AI tier is plenty; the expert tier earns its price on a high-stakes or funded idea where 1:1 GTM/MVP guidance changes the outcome. Prices are best-effort — confirm on validateidea.ai. ### "My report came back generic and didn't feel specific to my idea" The input is capped (~2,500 chars) and the report is only as sharp as what you feed it. A vague "a productivity app" yields a category-level report. Re-run with a **specific customer + problem + differentiation** (who exactly, what pain, why you're different) so the market/competition and customer-insight sections are about your niche. Then take the go/no-go from a real demand test, not the report — see `/sales-idea-validation`.