Scoring Methodology

Build Cleverly is not a black box. Here's a complete explanation of how we derive scores from community discussion data.

Data Sources

We crawl publicly accessible community discussions from the following platforms. All sources are linked in reports:

πŸ”΄Reddit

Posts and comments from r/SaaS, r/indiehackers, r/webdev, and related subreddits

Primary data source, widest coverage

🟠Hacker News

Comments from Ask HN, Show HN, and related discussion threads

Excellent technical user coverage

πŸ”΅Indie Hackers

Product discussions, milestone sharing, community Q&A

Valuable indie dev WTP insights

🌐More

Other relevant forums, product review sites, and public discussions

Supplementary source, broadens signal diversity

6 Scoring Dimensions

Market Demand

Weight 25%

Measures overall demand for this type of product in the target market. Calculated through post volume, discussion trends, keyword frequency, and other metrics.

Key Signals

  • Monthly volume of relevant questions/posts
  • Emotional intensity in discussions
  • Demand expression trends (growing/declining)

Pain Point Depth

Weight 20%

Measures the intensity of target users' current pain points. Uses sentiment analysis to identify high-emotion vocabulary (frustrated, waste, hate, need desperately, etc.).

Key Signals

  • Frequency of high-intensity emotional vocabulary
  • Specificity of user-described pain points
  • Frequency of existing solution complaints

Willingness to Pay (WTP)

Weight 25%

The most critical dimension and the hardest signal to fake. We only count original evidence where users explicitly mention willingness to pay, not inferred 'felt need' signals.

Key Signals

  • Count of posts containing 'would pay', 'paying for', '$X/month'
  • Price range distribution
  • Conditional analysis of payment intent

WTP Hard Threshold: When fewer than 5 explicit payment intent discussions are found, the overall score is capped at 60.

Competition Gap

Weight 15%

Analyzes existing solution coverage and user satisfaction in the market to identify differentiation opportunities. More competition means less space, but zero competition may mean no market exists.

Key Signals

  • Frequency of direct competitor mentions
  • User dissatisfaction with existing tools
  • Underserved niche segment ratio

ICP Clarity

Weight 10%

Measures how identifiable and reachable the target user group is. Vague targets ('everyone') lower the score; precise user profiles raise it.

Key Signals

  • Clarity of discussion participants' professional labels
  • Specificity of use cases described
  • Match between pain points and specific user groups

Launch Feasibility

Weight 5%

The only dimension based on internal assessment rather than external evidence β€” estimated from tech stack maturity and competitor implementation cycles. Lowest weight, doesn't determine the overall verdict.

Key Signals

  • Maturity of tech stack required for core features
  • Historical competitor MVP timelines
  • Feature complexity assessment

Verdict Rules (Ship / Rework / Skip)

  • Β·Overall score β‰₯ 72
  • Β·WTP dimension β‰₯ 60 (at least 5 explicit payment intents)
  • Β·Pain depth β‰₯ 65
  • Β·Confidence β‰₯ 70%

  • Β·Overall score 55-71
  • Β·WTP or competition gap below threshold
  • Β·Pain depth β‰₯ 55
  • Β·Clear adjustable assumptions exist

  • Β·Overall score < 55, or
  • Β·WTP < 30 (extremely weak payment intent), or
  • Β·Negative sentiment > 60% in market discussions, or
  • Β·Insufficient data coverage and unclear direction

Limitations & Disclaimers

  • ⚠Build Cleverly's scoring is based on public community discussion data and cannot cover private research, industry reports, or other paid data sources.
  • ⚠When target market discussion volume is low (< 50 relevant posts), score confidence drops significantly β€” this is clearly marked in reports.
  • ⚠WTP signal strength reflects intent expressed in discussions, not actual conversion rates. Combine with your specific product and execution capability for final judgment.
  • ⚠Emerging markets (e.g., certain AI applications) may score lower due to lagging community discussions β€” supplement with industry trend analysis.
  • ⚠This tool assists decision-making, it doesn't replace it. You bear final responsibility for execution decisions.