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- May 17, 2023
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I’ve had several business ideas over the years, but the same uncertainty kept bothering me:
Is there actually a market for this, or am I about to waste months and money building something nobody wants?
When I considered using ads to test an idea, I encountered another problem: I didn’t know what to write in them.
I could invent headlines, benefits and promises, but they would still be guesses. I didn’t know which problems customers cared about most, what they had already tried, what they distrusted, what outcome they really wanted, or which words they used to describe those things.
Later, I took a copywriting course and learned how proper research is conducted before writing copy.
The process involved studying:
- the product, its features and real-life benefits;
- the intended customer;
- competitors, offers, pricing and positioning;
- advertisements and landing pages;
- reviews, forums, social media and customer conversations;
- recurring pains, fears, desires, objections and beliefs;
- the exact words and phrases customers repeatedly use.
The same research required to write good copy could also help someone evaluate an idea, understand the market, identify demand signals, position the product and design a more informed validation test.
It cannot prove product-market fit. Only behavior, such as deposits, purchases, repeated usage and retention can do that.
But it could replace a large number of unsupported assumptions with organised evidence before someone invests heavily.
I’m considering offering this type of research as a service for founders who have a business or product idea but are unsure whether it deserves further investment.
What the report would contain
1. Product and opportunity research
The report would examine:- the proposed product or service;
- its facts and features;
- the practical benefit associated with each important feature;
- possible unique selling propositions;
- which customer problems it can genuinely solve;
- which problems it cannot solve and should not claim to solve;
- visible demand signals;
- evidence both supporting and contradicting the opportunity.
2. Ideal-customer profile
The research would attempt to identify one clear initial customer rather than pretending the product is for everyone.It would examine, where evidence is available:
- relevant demographic and situational characteristics;
- job, income or business context;
- family or lifestyle context;
- where these people spend time online;
- why they may need the product;
- what alternatives they currently use;
- how aware they are of the problem and existing solutions.
3. Competitor research
The report would examine several direct and adjacent competitors, including:- their central message or “big idea”;
- positioning and unique selling proposition;
- products, pricing and offers;
- pains and desires emphasized in their marketing;
- social-media activity;
- current and historical advertising where available;
- praise from customers;
- recurring complaints;
- possible gaps or underserved segments.
4. Voice-of-customer evidence
The report would collect relevant customer language from sources such as:- reviews;
- Reddit and specialist forums;
- YouTube comments;
- social-media discussions;
- Amazon and other marketplaces;
- competitor advertisements;
- Quora;
- existing customer feedback, if supplied by the client.
They would then be organised into:
- Pains and fears — what is difficult, frustrating or risky now;
- Desires — what outcome or future state people want;
- Objections — why they hesitate to buy or distrust existing solutions;
- Firm beliefs — assumptions they currently treat as facts;
- Shakable beliefs — beliefs they would prefer not to be true and may reconsider with sufficient proof;
- Common words and phrases — the natural language repeatedly used by the market;
- Other relevant patterns that do not fit neatly into those categories.
5. Evidence ranking and benefit mapping
The strongest recurring customer patterns would be ranked and connected to relevant product benefits.If the proposed product cannot credibly address a particular pain or desire, the report would say so rather than forcing an artificial connection.
This should help identify:
- which problems deserve priority;
- which benefits matter most;
- which claims require proof;
- which messages are supported by customer evidence;
- which attractive-sounding ideas should be discarded.
6. Positioning, offer and copy direction
The research would then feed into a practical copy-planning structure:- One Reader — the specific person the initial message should address;
- One Idea — the main benefit and the mechanism or opportunity that makes it possible;
- One Offer — what the customer actually receives, how it works, its components, cost, guarantees and possible bonuses;
- One Action — the single next step the prospect is asked to take.
- positioning;
- landing-page copy;
- advertising angles;
- headlines and hooks;
- offers;
- objection handling;
- customer-language briefs for a copywriter or marketing team;
- a practical validation campaign.
How AI would be used
AI would assist with organising, deduplicating, classifying and analysing the collected material.However, the report would not simply be an unreviewed AI answer.
I would personally supervise the research and verify every material evidence item before it enters the final report. Each important finding would remain traceable to its original source, and company-controlled marketing would be clearly separated from independent reviews and organic customer discussions.
“Verified” would mean that the evidence was checked against the cited source and represented accurately—not that every customer claim, review or testimonial was assumed to be objectively true.
Contradictory evidence and missing information would be included rather than removed to make the idea appear stronger.
The question I’m struggling with
Today, anyone can describe a business idea to ChatGPT and ask for market research, competitor analysis, customer pains, positioning and advertising ideas.So I’m genuinely unsure whether a separately researched and human-verified report still provides enough additional value for someone to pay for it.
I would like to understand:
- Would ChatGPT be sufficient for you?
- If not, what would you distrust or find incomplete in its answer?
- What would a paid report need to contain or do differently?
- Would access to the collected source material and verbatim customer evidence matter to you?
- Would you want someone else to perform and verify the research, or would you prefer to do it yourself with AI?
- For which business decision, if any, would you consider paying for this?
- Have you already used ChatGPT for this purpose? What happened afterward?
I would appreciate brutally honest feedback
- Have you faced this uncertainty when considering a new business or product?
- What did you do to investigate the market?
- Which parts of this proposed report would genuinely help you make a decision?
- Which parts sound unnecessary?
- Would the copy, positioning and advertising direction make the report more useful than idea validation alone?
- What source evidence would you need before trusting its findings?
- Have you previously paid for competitor, customer or market research? What did you receive, and did it help?
- Would anyone here be willing to test this process using a real business idea and provide detailed, critical feedback?
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