A 0 to 100 score that tells founders the truth, before they build.
Every idea runs the same gauntlet: raw market signal in, eight weighted dimensions scored, one blunt verdict out. No flattery, no vibes. Scale or kill.
“I waste 10 hours a week keeping my CRM in sync.”
“Existing tools are priced for teams, not solo founders.”
“Just give me a simple API I can drop into Next.js.”
Stands on demand and pain. Cleared every gate dimension. Promoted to a build-ready spec.
Eight dimensions. Not all equal.
The weights come from the evidence, not opinion. Demand proof dominates because "no market need" is the most documented cause of startup death. Novelty barely counts because most outliers had competitors on day one. Four of the eight are gates: a zero on any of them caps the whole score in the killed band, no matter how good the rest looks.
Demand evidence
GateProof people already want this. The #1 documented cause of startup death is "no market need."
Pain severity
GateA nuisance or a hair-on-fire problem. Vitamins lose, painkillers win.
Distribution
GateA believable, repeatable way to reach buyers without a paid-ads bonfire.
Solo fit
GateCan one founder actually build and run this, or does it need a team you do not have?
Economics
Does the unit math survive contact with real CAC and churn?
Market quality
Who is buying, how often, and how much room is left.
Timing
Why now and not three years ago or three years from now.
Differentiation
Barely registers. 85% of billion-dollar startups had competitors at founding.
Models score each dimension on a coarse 0 to 5 scale, the range where humans and language models actually agree. The arithmetic, the gates, and the bands are computed in code, not guessed by a model.
Independent judges. One score is never enough.
Each idea is scored independently by separate models. When they agree, the composite is the average and confidence is high. When they disagree by more than 25 points, or one of them abstains, the run is flagged for a human look instead of quietly fabricating a middle number.
Every wounded or killed verdict ships with two things: the kill shot, the single sharpest reason it fails, and stands if, the one condition that would change the answer.
Distribution is unproven. Every cheap channel to reach solo founders is already saturated by free Zapier templates.
You can show one repeatable, non-paid channel that lands 20 of these founders in a week.
Illustrative verdict. Real runs cite the actual sources behind each score.
Three answers. The score picks one.
The verdict follows the bands, even when a model wants to be kinder. The number decides, not the mood.
Strong on demand and pain, with a way to reach the market. This is the one worth a build-ready spec.
A real shape with a real flaw. You get the kill shot and the one condition it would stand on if you fixed it.
A zero on any gate dimension caps it here regardless of the rest. A sharp no on day one beats a soft maybe in month nine.
The verdict keeps watching after launch.
Planned: the engine re-runs the rubric on a live idea and flags a new competitor or shifting demand the moment a gate dimension moves. Today the score is a snapshot at decision time, not a live monitor. We label what is built and what is not.
- ScoredToday
A snapshot at decision time: Scale, Pivot or Kill.
Re-runs the rubric on a schedule
- Flags a gate movingnew competitor
Put your idea on the scale.
Run the rubric, read the verdict, get the kill shot. The honest no costs a minute. The wrong yes costs a year.