Is my business idea good?
Short answer: good enough is not a property of the idea. It is the relationship between the idea and the evidence you have for it. The same idea is reckless on Monday and sensible on Friday, if you spent the week finding out things.
So instead of scoring the idea, score what you know about it. Answers that begin with “I think” count as blanks.
Free · No signup · Nothing leaves your browser
Score your idea in nine questions
This scores what you know about the idea, not the idea. Answer honestly; the score is only useful if you are willing to score yourself badly.
1.Can you name three people who have this problem?
By name, people you could message today — not "small business owners".
2.What do they do about it right now?
A specific workaround: a spreadsheet, an agency, someone they pay, or ignoring it.
3.What does the current fix cost them?
A number in money, hours, or something they are embarrassed about.
4.Who else sells a solution, including the boring ones?
Named competitors plus substitutes. "Nobody" usually means no market.
5.Why would someone leave what they use now?
One sentence a customer would repeat to a colleague.
6.Has anyone paid for anything in this direction?
A deposit, a pre-order, a signed letter, an existing paid tool. Said and paid are different verbs.
7.How will the first hundred customers find out?
One channel you can describe in detail, with its cost.
8.What has to be true for this to work?
Two or three assumptions, ordered by how badly it dies if wrong.
9.Will you still care in six months?
A reason connected to you specifically, not to the size of the market.
0 of 9 answered
The nine questions
Answer each with something that happened — a person who said a specific sentence, a number you looked up, a competitor you actually used.
| # | Question | Counts as an answer | Does not count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Can you name three people who have this problem?A category cannot tell you anything. A person can. | Three real people you could message today, by name. | A category: "small business owners", "busy parents". |
| 2 | What do they do about it right now?If nobody does anything about it, it is usually not painful enough to pay for. | A specific workaround: a spreadsheet, an agency, a person they pay, ignoring it. | "Nothing, that is why this is needed." |
| 3 | What does the current fix cost them?Your price has to live inside the gap between their cost and zero. | A number in money, hours, or something they are embarrassed about. | "It is inefficient." |
| 4 | Who else sells a solution, including the boring ones?No competitors usually means no market, not an open one. | Named competitors, plus substitutes like doing it manually. | "Nobody, this is a completely new market." |
| 5 | Why would someone leave what they use now?Switching costs are real. Being better is not automatically enough. | One sentence a customer would repeat to a colleague. | A list of features you plan to have. |
| 6 | Has anyone paid for anything in this direction?Said and paid are different verbs. | A deposit, a pre-order, a signed letter, an existing paid tool. | "Several people said they would definitely use it." |
| 7 | How will the first hundred customers find out?A named channel is a plan. Three unnamed ones are a wish. | One channel you can describe in detail, with its cost. | "Social media, SEO, word of mouth." |
| 8 | What has to be true for this to work?The assumption you cannot name is the one that kills you. | Two or three assumptions, ordered by how badly it dies if wrong. | "It just needs execution." |
| 9 | Will you still care in six months?The most common cause of death is the founder losing interest, and no market analysis predicts it. | A reason connected to you specifically, not to the market size. | "The market is huge." |
Reading your score
Not worth building yet — testing. Take the weakest of the nine and go find out about that one thing.
The next month goes to conversations rather than code. The questions you could not answer are your list.
The idea is not bad, it is untested. Every founder starts here. The mistake is building from here.
Notice what the scoring leaves out: whether the idea is exciting, whether the market is large, whether AI is involved. None of those change whether the thing works.
Get asked the nine questions
The hard part is not the questions, it is answering them honestly about your own idea. GoNoGo asks them back in a 15-minute voice conversation, pushes when an answer is thin, then does the research you would otherwise skip: competitors pulled live, key claims checked by three independent models, and a verdict computed from thresholds rather than composed by a model.
Start free — 3 projects →15 min · No credit card · up to 20 reports