Find "boring-monetized" niches for indie hackers — groups already paying for bad solutions — using 6 bulletproof principles (PROVEN PAYMENT, DOLLAR PAIN, REACHABLE AUDIENCE, SCHLEP MOAT, WORKFLOW LOCK-IN, 24-HOUR SALE TEST). Use when the user wants to hunt for a startup idea, find a side project to monetize, validate a niche before building, or asks "what should I build", "find me a niche", "find an idea", "indie hacker ideas", "boring business ideas", or "niche research". Not for brainstorming new features for an existing product.
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Find "boring-monetized" niches for indie hackers — groups already paying for bad solutions — using 6 bulletproof principles (PROVEN PAYMENT, DOLLAR PAIN, REACHABLE AUDIENCE, SCHLEP MOAT, WORKFLOW LOCK-IN, 24-HOUR SALE TEST). Use when the user wants to hunt for a startup idea, find a side project to monetize, validate a niche before building, or asks "what should I build", "find me a niche", "find an idea", "indie hacker ideas", "boring business ideas", or "niche research". Not for brainstorming new features for an existing product.
"find underserved markets" / "who's paying for bad solutions"
Do NOT activate for: feature ideation on an existing product, market sizing (use market-research), YC-style office hours on a pre-existing idea (use office-hours).
Intake Phase
Batch ALL intake questions in a SINGLE AskUserQuestion call. Do not ask one at a time. If the user invoked with no context, ask all six. If a seed was provided, skip what's already known.
#
Header
Question
Options
1
Mode
"How should I hunt?"
"Cold hunt — no constraints" / "Constrained — I have a domain/audience in mind" / "Validate — pressure-test a specific niche I'll describe"
"$0 (scrappy)" / "<$500" / "<$5k" / "Time, not money"
After intake, restate the hunting brief in 3-4 lines and confirm before running the hunt.
Hunt Phase
Run searches in parallel. Every claim cites a URL.
Source → Principle map (ranked by user-voice purity)
Not all sources are equal. A "complaint" on Twitter is 90% performance. A 1-star review on G2 is 90% real pain. The skill ranks evidence by how likely the author had zero incentive to perform. Sources where writing takes effort and no one is watching > sources where the author is building a personal brand.
Core insight: The biggest lie of indie-hacker source hunting is that the goldmine is r/SaaS, r/Entrepreneur, r/SideProject, Twitter, or Indie Hackers. Those are founder echo chambers — people selling to each other. The real goldmine is vertical pro subs and industry forums where members don't know the word "indie hacker" — they're just complaining about tools they use every day. Examples: r/PropertyManagement, r/Bookkeeping, r/Esthetics, r/Veterinary, r/Plumbing, r/Mortgages, r/dentistry, r/accounting, r/LawFirm, r/RealEstate, r/HumanResources.
TIER 1 — 90%+ pure (no performance incentive)
Use these as the primary evidence for P1/P2/P5. Every QUALIFIED niche needs at least 2 P-signals anchored in a Tier-1 source.
Source
Why clean
How to hunt
GitHub Issues
Writing an issue is pure cost; author gets zero reward
site:github.com/{repo}/issues "{pain keyword}" → WebFetch. Filter: is:issue label:bug OR label:feature-request with 👍 count ≥ 3
App Store 1-3★ reviews (iOS)
User paid money and is still angry = real pain, quantified spend
Use as secondary corroboration, not primary evidence. Prefer deep comments over top-level posts because comments are cheaper to write and less branded.
Source
Note + hunt pattern
Reddit comments in vertical pro subs
Members don't know what "indie hacker" means — they just vent. site:reddit.com/r/{vertical-pro-sub} "I hate" OR "wish" OR "every week". Read comments under top posts, not the posts.
YouTube comments on "best X tool" videos
Comments under tool-review videos often say "tried X, still wish it did Y"
Hacker News comments (not Show HN posts)
Comment section is 10× more honest than submissions. site:news.ycombinator.com {domain} → WebFetch thread → comments with ≥3 children
Substack paid-newsletter comments
Paying audience = high-quality signal
Discord help/support channels
Private + asking for help = real unmet need. Not auto-crawlable — use P3 user-supplied fallback; ask user to paste pain-rich quotes
TIER 3 — <30% pure (mostly marketing/performance — AVOID)
Do not use as primary evidence. If a niche's only support comes from these sources, it's KILLED on P1. If cited at all, flag as [TIER-3] in shortlist.md.
Source
Why dirty
Reddit top-level posts in meta-subs (r/SaaS, r/Entrepreneur, r/SideProject, r/startups)
30%+ is founder shilling + SEO; another 30% is ideation theater
Twitter / X
90% performative. "I wish there was" = building personal brand, not paying
LinkedIn posts
~100% performative
Indie Hackers posts (the comments can be OK)
Founders plugging each other; selection bias toward "I'm shipping!"
Product Hunt
100% launch marketing. "Looks amazing!" ≠ will pay
Medium / dev.to listicles
SEO-farmed "top 10 tools for X" content
Quora
Overrun with AI slop
Any "Alternatives to X" marketing page
SEO-bait, often paid placement
Use Twitter/LinkedIn/ProductHunt only for tertiary confirmation of a specific claim (e.g., you already have Tier-1 evidence and want one more data point). Never as the anchor.
TIER 1/2 Chinese-market sources
Activate when intake specifies non-English market OR user requests 中文. Same purity tiering applies.
TIER 1:
Source
Why clean
Hunt pattern
App Store 中区 / 酷安 1-3★
Paid + angry
site:coolapk.com {app} → WebFetch; 苹果中区 via iTunes RSS
GitHub Issues on Chinese-maintainer repos
Same purity as EN
site:github.com {repo} is:issue + 中文 keyword
V2EX 吐槽 / 求助帖
Dev community, low performance incentive in /t/ threads
site:v2ex.com/t "{domain}" ("吐槽" OR "求助" OR "替代")
小众软件 / 少数派 tool-review long comments
Long-form negatives under tool reviews
site:appinn.com {tool} / site:sspai.com {tool} → read comments, not post
TIER 2:
Source
Note
知乎 长负面回答 (≥500 字 且反对多)
Long contrarian answers are real; short vote-farming answers are noise. Filter: site:zhihu.com "{domain}" → WebFetch → answers with ≥500 chars and clearly negative
Discord, Slack, and closed Facebook Groups are not publicly indexed — WebSearch cannot verify them. If WebSearch cannot produce ≥3 qualifying community URLs with buyer-density evidence for a candidate niche, pause and ask the user via a single AskUserQuestion call:
"I found {0|1|2} public venues for this niche. Can you name Discord servers, Slack workspaces, FB groups, or private forums where ≥100 buyers cluster? (One venue per line. If none you know of, this niche fails P3 and will be killed.)"
Rules:
User-supplied venues count toward P3 only if the user confirms buyer density (not just "members").
The skill still records the community URL in shortlist.md but marks [USER-SUPPLIED] alongside it for audit.
If the user can name fewer than 3 after search + prompt → P3 = 0 → KILLED. No exceptions.
Scoring Rubric
Five hard gates (each scored 0 or 1)
Gate
1 if…
0 if…
P1 PROVEN PAYMENT
Named ≥3 existing paid solutions with URLs (Fiverr / SaaS / consulting / Excel template store)
Fewer than 3, or only aspirational ("I wish")
P2 DOLLAR PAIN
Wrote the sentence "If unsolved, costs $X/month or wastes Y hours" with a cited anchor (e.g., "3 Reddit users report 4-8 hrs/week on this")
Pain is vague, unquantified, or only emotional
P3 REACHABLE AUDIENCE
Named ≥3 specific venues with URL + ~member count ≥ 100 buyers each (not 100 visitors — 100 buyers). Auto-hunted via Tier-1 sources; if <3 found, fallback to user-supplied Discord/Slack/FB via AskUserQuestion (see P3 community fallback).
Still <3 after search + user prompt, or venues are broad consumer spaces
P4 SCHLEP MOAT
Core value requires dirty work an LLM-in-a-weekend can't replicate: weird API integrations, data labeling, compliance lift, domain ontology, manual intake, human-verified data, relationship moats
Pure LLM wrapper / prompt / standard CRUD
P5 WORKFLOW LOCK-IN
Named a specific lock-in mechanism: accumulating data (history, records, templates), deep integrations (calendar, inbox, git), habit formation (daily ritual), team/social adoption, proprietary workflow artifacts
Use-once-and-done; no compounding artifact
Sum must equal 5. 4/5 → KILLED. 5/5 → QUALIFIED (subject to soft gate below).
Soft gate (downgrade, not kill)
Gate
Pass
Fail
P6 24-HOUR SALE TEST
You can sketch a concrete 60-day path-to-paid: specific channel → specific offer → specific price → realistic % → first $1 inside 60 days from a stranger
Only "build audience first, monetize later" — DOWNGRADE to secondary shortlist
Secondary scores (0-5 each; rank within the 5/5 QUALIFIED set)
Dimension
Notes
Paid-demand strength
($/customer) × (plausible reachable n). Cite the anchor.
Community accessibility
Can you reach them without ads? Posting rules allow builders?
Build feasibility
MVP shippable in ≤2 weeks by a solo dev with the stated skills?
Schlep depth
How ugly is the dirty work? Uglier = better moat.
Lock-in strength
How many weeks of use before switching is painful?
Anti-signal flags (any one → KILLED regardless of 5/5)
Requires VC-scale capital (marketplace liquidity, hardware, field sales)
Regulated (HIPAA / FINRA / ITAR) beyond a weekend of due diligence
Network effects required to deliver value on day one
B2B enterprise with procurement cycles (>$5k ACV with security review)
Depends on future behavior change ("once everyone adopts X...")
Incumbent is free + ad-funded and good enough
Incumbent is a FAANG-owned feature (they'll squash you)
Anti-Patterns (Kill List)
Kill immediately if the pitch contains:
"It would be cool if..." — nobody's paying (P1 fail)
"I wish there was..." — aspiration, not demand (P1 fail)
One-Pager Template (per QUALIFIED niche in shortlist.md)
## {Niche name}**Pain (one-sentence, quantified):** "I hate that I have to {X} every {Y} — it costs me ${Z}/month or {N} hours/week."
*Source: [verbatim-quote URL]***Who feels it (tight ICP):**- Role: {e.g., Shopify store operator}
- Industry: {e.g., DTC apparel}
- Size: {e.g., $100k-1M GMV}
- Geography: {e.g., US + CA}
---
### P1 PROVEN PAYMENT — ≥3 existing paid solutions- {Incumbent A — SaaS}: {price} — [link]
- {Incumbent B — Fiverr/Upwork gig}: {price per job, order count} — [link]
- {Incumbent C — consultant/agency or Excel template}: {price} — [link]
### P2 DOLLAR PAIN — quantified- "${Z}/month lost" or "{N} hours/week wasted" — anchored to: [source]
### P3 REACHABLE AUDIENCE — ≥3 venues with 100+ buyers- {Community 1 URL} — ~{N} members — buyer-density evidence: [link]
- {Community 2 URL} — ~{N} members — [link]
- {Community 3 URL} — ~{N} members — [link]
### P4 SCHLEP MOAT — what's the dirty work?
{Specific dirty work: e.g., "scraping and normalizing 40 weird supplier APIs that each break monthly", or "manually verifying every listing against a trademark database", or "maintaining a domain ontology of 2,000 weird SKUs"}
*Why an LLM-in-a-weekend clone fails:* {reason}
### P5 WORKFLOW LOCK-IN — what accumulates?
{Specific lock-in: e.g., "user's 12-month reconciliation history", "deep Shopify webhook integration", "team-shared templates", "daily morning ritual"}
*Migration cost after 3 months of use:* {concrete description}
### P6 24-HOUR SALE TEST- Channel: {specific post/DM/cold-email channel}
- Offer: {what the stranger gets}
- Price: ${X}
- Path-to-$1 in 60 days? {Yes / No — if No, this niche goes to secondary.md}
---
**Competing bad solutions (with links):**- {Name}: why it's bad — [1-star reviews link]
- {Name}: why it's bad — [link]
**Why indie-fit:**- Buildable in {N} days with {stack}
- No enterprise sales (self-serve ≤${X} ACV)
- No network effects needed for day-1 value
- No regulated workflow
**Kill condition (what disproves this?):**- e.g., "If >60% of 1-star reviews cite pricing not function, buyers are price-sensitive not pain-sensitive."
- e.g., "If target subreddit mods ban all tool promotion, acquisition collapses."
**First 10 customers plan (no ads):**1. {Specific post in {specific community} on day 1}
2. {DM N writers of the source complaint quotes}
3. {Cold email N Upwork job posters with an offer}
4. {...}
Go-to-Market (for #1 pick only, in go-to-market.md)
## {Niche} — 3-Day MVP + 24-Hour Sale Test### 3-day MVP scope (actually 3 days)- Day 1: {core loop — ingest + transform, the schlep part}
- Day 2: {UI shell + auth + Stripe + the one lock-in hook}
- Day 3: {polish + deploy + landing page}
Cut ruthlessly. No dashboards. No teams. No extra integrations.
### Pricing anchor- ${X}/mo or ${X}/job — matches current Fiverr / incumbent spend
- Free tier: none (paying customers are the point)
- First 10: ${X} lifetime deal or 50% off year one (for testimonials)
### 24-Hour Sale Test (Principle 6)**Goal:** First $1 from a stranger within 60 days.
Week 1 (build + pre-sell):
- Day 1-3: ship MVP
- Day 4: post in {specific community} with free-tier + paid upgrade
- Day 5-7: DM {N} people who wrote the source pain quotes
Week 2-4:
- Cold email {N} Upwork job posters who posted this task in last 30 days
- Guest post / AMA in {community}
- Comment (not spam) on {specific Reddit threads} with a free-tool version
Week 5-8:
- SEO page for "{incumbent} alternative"
- Weekly retro: did anyone pay? If no in 60 days → kill and return to shortlist #2
### Kill date
No paying customer by day 60 → archive this niche to `killed.md`, move to shortlist #2.
Quality Gate (before delivery)
Run this checklist. Any fail → do not deliver; fix and re-hunt.
Every P1 claim names ≥3 existing paid solutions with URLs
Every P2 claim has a $ or hour anchor cited, not invented
Every P3 claim names ≥3 specific venues with URL + buyer-count estimate (auto-hunted + any [USER-SUPPLIED] tagged for audit)
Every P4 claim describes dirty work an LLM can't weekend-clone, with a reason
Every P5 claim names a specific lock-in mechanism (data / integration / habit / artifact)
P6 sketch exists — specific channel + offer + price + 60-day plan
At least 2 of the 5 P-signals are anchored in a TIER-1 source (GitHub Issues / App Store / G2 / Trustpilot / Stack Overflow bountied / Upwork budgets). Tier-3-only evidence → niche is KILLED.
No QUALIFIED niche sources only from r/SaaS / r/Entrepreneur / Twitter / LinkedIn / ProductHunt / IH posts (founder echo chambers — see Tier 3)
Reddit evidence comes from vertical pro subs (r/PropertyManagement, r/Bookkeeping, r/Esthetics, r/Veterinary, etc.) — not meta founder subs
No 4/5 niches sneaking through as "promising"
Anti-pattern checklist run — no "wish there was", no LLM-wrapper, no use-once utility, no VC-scale bets
3-day MVP scope is actually 3 days (no "and also integrations with...")
Price anchor is a real number from a real competitor/Fiverr gig
killed.md captures patterns, not just rejections (so next session compounds)
secondary.md holds 5/5 hard + P6-fail niches (downgraded, not discarded)
Voice
Direct. No filler. No "as an AI..." No "it's worth noting..."
Decision-oriented: every section ends in a verdict or a next step.
Evidence-first: quotes with URLs beat summaries.
Small numbers beat big numbers. "50 people on r/X paying $30/mo" beats "$2B TAM."
Kill more than you keep. A good session is often 1 QUALIFIED + 1 DOWNGRADED + 6 KILLED.
