“We looked at the same mistake from different angles — until we decided to make a product out of it.” Ukrainians launched AI idea validator NicheIQ, which analyzes Reddit, forums, keywords, and competitors in 45 minutes, determining the viability of the product

How the idea came about

According to the co-founders, they faced the same problem from different angles.

Viktor, as a technical specialist, launched side projects that worked well technically, but did not reach production due to poor market penetration. Lyudmila, as an entrepreneur and consultant, saw how businesses were launched without a basic demand analysis.

«We looked at the same mistake from different angles until we decided to make a product out of it,» explained the founders of dev.ua.

The idea behind NicheIQ is to automate a process that many people do manually: analyzing Reddit, forums, keywords, and competitors. According to CB Insights, 42% of startups close due to lack of demand, and 58% of founders admit that they should have done more research before launching.

How the service works

The user enters a product idea, after which NicheIQ runs a full research cycle and returns a structured report with over 50 parameters in about 45 minutes.

The system analyzes real discussions in social networks and forums, finds pain points and classifies them by frequency, seriousness and willingness to pay. Then it generates possible solutions, evaluates them for market fit and technical feasibility, and forms a full-fledged business plan with TAM/SAM/SOM, SEO keys and competitive analysis.

The service algorithm is as follows:

1. Entering a niche. The founder enters a name or description of the niche: «freelance designers,» «micro-SaaS builders,» «side-project for HR,» «AI tools for founders,» etc.
2. Analysis of real conversations. The system collects and processes thousands of posts and comments from social networks. It is pre-cleaned of noise, prompt injections, and irrelevant discussions.
3. Launching AI agents. First, one agent finds out what pains people actually describe in this niche, without romanticizing them.
   Then the other agents proceed sequentially:
   • classify pain by «importance» and level of confidence (GOLD/SILVER/BRONZE);
   • assess trends (is attention increasing or decreasing);
   • Filter out unrealistic or overly theoretical pains.
4. Report and recommendations generation. The output is a structured report:
   • top pains, quotes from real discussions,
   • assessment of the potential market,
   • a few specific micro-product ideas,
   • «GO / MAYBE / NO-GO» verdict with justification.
5. Return to the user. Then the report is «dressed» in a clear UI: with the ability to compare niches, export, and create a working landing page/description for pre-order.

At the end, in 10-45 minutes, the user receives a final verdict — GO or NO-GO with a level of confidence.

Separately, the developers emphasize the internal logic of the system: if there is not enough data, the service does not «catch up» the result, but honestly stops the research. All estimates can only decrease, not increase, and contradictions in the data are not smoothed out.

Technologies

The service is built on Node.js (backend), Python (AI agents), and Svelte 5 (frontend). The most difficult challenge was coordinating a large number of AI agents that go through several stages of analysis. If the process is interrupted, the system can continue working from the same place.

The first version had no interface at all — it was a set of scripts that generated an HTML report in the terminal, startupers say.

Investment and monetization

The project was created as a micro-product without significant investments: it was mainly time, cloud resources, and not investors or large budgets. Viktor did some of the work in the evenings/weekends, in parallel with other projects, and some of the funds went to hosting, AI-API, domains, basic UI-design, as well as the development of infrastructure for agents and Quality-gates.

NicheIQ currently operates as a tool for fast and affordable market research. Plans include subscription and one-time payment for research.

NicheIQ’s monetization model has several pricing plans:

• free «Start» mode: a brief overview of the niche, a basic list of pain points, a few quotes, a tip or idea, but no in-depth research.
• paid plans («Discovery», «Action Plan»): complete niche analysis, market assessment, competitors, specific product ideas, GO/NO-GO verdict, tools for creating a landing page and pre-order.
• Referral programs for influencers are also provided to ensure that product distribution is as organic as possible.

The following options are currently available on the site:

According to the team, 146 users have already used the beta version, conducting over 350 studies.

Initially, the team focused on developers and indie hackers, but the actual audience turned out to be broader.

The service is used by founders of their own products, entrepreneurs without a technical background, teams that want to better understand their audience. There has also been interest from the B2B segment and accelerators, the founders state.

Plans

By the end of 2026, the team plans to reach 1,000 paid users and $17,000 MRR. In the third quarter of 2026, it is planned to launch an AI advisor that will allow you to interact with research results in a dialogic mode. In 2027, a marketplace of ready-made niches and research will be launched.

The global goal is to use NicheIQ as an internal validator for launching over 100 of our own products.

«Global goal: NicheIQ is our own validator for all future ideas. We intend to launch more than 100 products. And each of them will first go through NicheIQ. We eat our own cuisine,» the founders note.

NicheIQ plans to become not just «another AI tool», but «step zero» for any solo project or micro-SaaS. The developers plan to implement the following options:

• Expanding data sources: gradually adding additional communities (Discord, Telegram, specific forums) and eliminating dependence on a single hub to analyze deeper and broader.
• More intelligent agents: improving the accuracy of pain level assessment, distinguishing «knee-deep pain» from «nice-to-have-features,» and better handling trends and seasonality.
• Modes for teams: the emergence of a mode where a team can jointly test several niches and compare their reports to come to an objective decision, rather than voting «by feel.»
• Integrations with solo founder tools: connect NicheIQ with players, email marketing, cloud hosting, so that a short click after «GO» opens the next step — creating an MVP.
• Additional monetization through partnerships: partners with infrastructure, AI tools, SaaS directories to close the entire path «from idea to first payer.»

Ultimately, the goal of startupers is to become the tool that solo founders turn on before they even start building their product, not after they’ve already wasted months.