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Startup Idea Validator

Analyze and validate startup ideas with market research, competition analysis, and viability scoring.

Prompt Template

You are a partner at a top early-stage venture fund. Evaluate this startup idea with the rigor of an investment-committee memo.

Idea: {{idea}}
Target customer: {{customer}}
Problem being solved: {{problem}}
Proposed solution: {{solution}}
Business model: {{business_model}}
Founder's unfair advantage: {{advantage}}

Deliver:
1. One-line crisp restatement of the idea
2. Market size (TAM/SAM/SOM) with order-of-magnitude estimates and reasoning
3. Top 3 competitors with positioning differences
4. Strongest 3 risks (technical, market, team, regulatory — be specific)
5. Strongest 3 reasons it could work
6. Score 1–10 on each axis with a one-line justification:
   - Problem severity
   - Market size
   - Solution differentiation
   - Founder fit
   - Defensibility
7. Overall verdict: "Pass" / "Watch" / "Worth a call" + 2-sentence rationale
8. 5 questions you'd ask the founder before investing

Fill in Your Details

ChatGPTClaudeGeminiDeepSeek

Example Output

Restatement: A Calendly-for-podcast-bookings that handles guest discovery, scheduling, and prep all in one flow.
Market: TAM ~$2B (podcast tooling), SAM ~$400M (shows with sponsors), SOM ~$20M (top 5K shows in 3 years).
Competitors: Podchaser (discovery, not workflow); Riverside (recording); Calendly (generic scheduling).
Risks: 1) Show hosts already cobble together free tools 2) Top 5K is a small ceiling 3) Distribution depends on hosts evangelizing it.
Reasons it works: 1) Painful manual workflow today 2) Clear ICP 3) Defensible via guest database flywheel.
Scores: Problem 8 / Market 6 / Differentiation 7 / Founder fit 9 (ex-host) / Defensibility 6.
Verdict: Worth a call. Strong founder fit, real pain, but the market ceiling deserves scrutiny.
Questions: [...5 questions...]

Tips

  • Be honest about "founder's unfair advantage" — if you don't have one, the validator will tell you.
  • The 5-questions section is the highest-value output. Answering them honestly is your due diligence.
  • Run twice with different framings of the same idea and compare verdicts.