How We Research — and Where We Draw the Line
Every MicroGaps report is built on verified data from real sources. Here's exactly how.
How we select topics
We don't publish just anything. Every report starts from a pool of 10+ candidate opportunities — most of which get filtered out before research even begins.
A topic only moves forward if it meets all of these:
Multiple independent demand signals — not just a single Reddit post
Viable monetization in the $10–100/mo per customer range
MVP buildable by a solo founder in 2–8 weeks
Healthy competitive landscape — fewer than 5 established players (not a desert, not saturated)
Easy to understand for an average developer — no deep domain expertise required
Every candidate is also checked against our existing catalog of 105+ reports to avoid duplicates or overlap.
How we investigate
Each report follows a structured 5-phase process. Every phase involves real-time web research — not cached data, not guesses.
Opportunity discovery
Scanning Reddit, Indie Hackers, HN, and niche communities for unmet demand signals.
Demand validation
Fetching real threads and posts. Extracting quotes with dates and context. No paraphrasing, no fabrication.
Competitor verification
Visiting competitor websites directly. Pulling pricing from their actual pricing pages. If we can't verify it, we don't include it.
Revenue modeling
Building conservative, base, and optimistic projections from real indie hacker revenue data and verified competitor pricing.
Quality control
Automated QC audit before any report goes live. Checks data integrity, source validity, and internal consistency.
Each report involves 12+ real-time web searches across multiple sources.
How we use AI
AI is our engine — but the fuel is real data. Here's the distinction:
AI structures and connects. It organizes findings, builds the narrative, and generates technical recommendations like SQL schemas and go-to-market plans.
Real searches provide the data. Every competitor, every price, every demand signal comes from a live web search — not from the AI's training data.
We never use training data as facts. AI models "know" things from training — we don't treat that as reliable. Everything gets verified in real time.
AI gives us speed and consistency. The research methodology gives us accuracy.
How we verify
Competitor pricing
Fetched directly from competitor websites at research time. We load their pricing pages, extract the actual numbers, and cite the source.
Market demand
Real quotes from Reddit, Indie Hackers, and Hacker News — with dates and context. We fetch the actual thread HTML, not summaries.
Revenue estimates
Based on published indie hacker revenue data and verified competitor pricing. Three scenarios: conservative, base, optimistic.
Quality assurance + human review
Every report goes through automated quality checks and a human editorial review. Our team reads each report, adds context where needed, and makes sure it makes sense for a real founder — not just an AI. Reports that don't meet the bar are revised or discarded.
How we score reports
Every report receives an Opportunity Score from 0 to 100 — calculated automatically after the report is written. It doesn't affect topic selection; it helps you compare opportunities at a glance.
Market Demand
25%Volume and quality of demand signals found across communities.
Revenue Viability
25%Conservative and optimistic MRR projections based on real pricing data.
Competitive Gap
20%Number of competitors and median market pricing. Sweet spot: 4–8 players.
Buildability
20%Technical difficulty and estimated time to MVP for a solo developer.
Research Quality
10%Source diversity, content depth, and technical completeness of the report.
Publishing process
Research & generation
Report is created through our 5-phase research process with 12+ web searches.
Quality assurance + editorial review
Automated quality checks followed by human editorial review. Reports that don't pass are revised or discarded.
Early Access for Founders
Founder-tier members get 48-hour early access to new reports before they're available to Pro users.
Public release
Report becomes available to all users based on their tier access level.
What we don't do
We don't publish reports on markets we can't verify with real data.
We don't fabricate Reddit quotes or community discussions.
We don't include competitors without publicly verified pricing.
We don't claim revenue projections are guarantees.
What we can't promise
Research has limits. Here's what we're honest about — so you can use these reports with the right expectations.
Revenue estimates are projections based on market data — not guarantees of income.
Reddit demand may not represent the total addressable market.
Competitor pricing is accurate at research time but can change.
Technical feasibility depends on your stack and experience level.
Judge for yourself
Read a full report — with competitor data, demand validation, revenue estimates, and technical specs. No account needed.
Read a free report