4 builders who never spoke to each other
Search your own name and read what comes back
Public posts already contain who uses the product, what they abandoned for it and which event preceded the purchase. Watching mentions across video, forums and short video rather than search alone turns an unpaid feed into roadmap input, and the thing a stranger compares you to can hand you a business model.
The method
- 01
Search your product's name on Twitter to find out who is actually using it and which task they are using it in place of.
- 02
Watch public posts for the trigger event that precedes a purchase, and time your pitch to that trigger.
- 03
Build the roadmap from two sources at once: the notes you keep from customer conversations, and what people volunteer publicly about which parts they like most.
- 04
Monitor what is being said about you on YouTube, Reddit and TikTok at scale, not just in search results, since opinions form there before anyone clicks through to you.
- 05
Pay attention to what strangers compare your side project to; the comparison can hand you the business model.
What it returned
- 2019
While planning V2 in summer 2019 they combined their file of customer wishes with what people were saying on Twitter about their favourite parts of the product.
Searching Screely showed developers and marketers using it rather than going to a designer for help.
One Twitter user posted about buying a new book almost daily, and five days later was weighing up Kindle Unlimited.
Three new Brand Radar indexes cover those platforms for all Ahrefs customers, and results carry the timestamp of each mention so you can check the context.
Sources
- Custom Prompt Tracking, and 9 Other New Ahrefs Features I Love - Detailed.comGlen Allsopp · detailed.com · 4. Monitor mentions on YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok with new Brand Radar indexes · 2026-01-13
- My simple silly idea made $2000 in 2 daysFlorin Pop · florin-pop.com · My simple silly idea made $2000 in 2 days · 2024-09-16
- Is this a good idea?Justin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · An example: Screely · undated
- What is jobs to be done?Justin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · Observation · undated
- From almost shutting down to tripling our MRR - Fathom AnalyticsPaul Jarvis · usefathom.com · From almost shutting down to tripling our MRR · 2019-11-04
the second source
Three plays a week, for the phase you are in
No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.
More in social
- Concentrate on one platform until it works11 unconnected · contested
- Gather the audience before there is a product6 unconnected · contested
- Fire the launch into the audience you already have6 unconnected · contested
- Post the numbers, not the commentary5 unconnected · contested
- Republish the winners with a new hook5 unconnected
- Cut one long piece into weeks of social posts5 unconnected