Common Questions
Direct answers on data sources, access tiers, and token pricing.
How do I validate that a startup or product idea has real paid demand?
The most reliable evidence isn't survey intent or social-media buzz — it's whether people have already paid real money for it, such as recurring, budget-backed paid tasks on outsourcing platforms. That's exactly what Idea Miner does: distilling those real paid tasks into a comparable demand ranking, instead of running another survey.
How do I know if a market is red ocean or blue ocean?
Look at two dimensions: are there already live competing products/tools (a red-ocean signal), and is mention volume/budget still growing while supply hasn't caught up (a blue-ocean signal). Idea Miner automates this by gathering competitor evidence and a four-dimension score (heat, momentum, competition, risk) for every demand feature — but the final call still depends on your own tech stack and resources.
How should an indie developer find a direction worth investing in?
Layer the signals by strength: discussion volume and search interest only reflect attention, not willingness to pay; survey/interview answers often don't match real paying behavior either; the signal closest to real willingness to pay is a paid task or order that has already happened. Prioritize that third layer, and treat the first two as context, not conclusions.
Is this only for indie developers? Can agencies or freelancers use it too?
No, it's not indie-developer-only. The core data -- demand trends distilled from real, budget-backed paid tasks on outsourcing platforms -- is just as useful for a team or studio deciding which direction to pursue for client work, or grounding a client pitch in real market data. Indie developers use it to answer "what product should I build"; agencies and freelancers use it to answer "what kind of service will clients actually pay for" -- same evidence, different question.
Where does demand data come from?
Paid projects from Freelancer.com come from its public API. freelancermap, PeoplePerHour, Workana, and Truelancer are collected only from search-result snippets returned by SerpApi or serper.dev; we do not represent these as official API coverage.
How are PII and source text handled?
Email addresses and phone numbers are replaced by rules before storage. Only PII-scrubbed data marked for summary use can be shown as evidence. We show summaries and outbound links, never full task text.
Why paid demand instead of social buzz?
Our primary signal is freelance work with an attached budget: someone is paying to solve a problem. Social mentions can provide context, but are not the same evidence of willingness to pay.
What are the four opportunity-score dimensions?
The dimensions are heat, momentum, competition, and risk, each normalized to 0–100. V1 weights are 35%, 25%, 25%, and 15%; competition and risk are inverted in the total. It is a ranking aid, not a business-outcome guarantee.
How often is data updated?
Raw tasks are collected daily at 03:00 and 15:00; clustering at 04:00, auto-publishing at 04:30, statistics snapshots at 05:00, trend validation at 05:30, and trend reports every Monday at 06:00.
What can Pro users see?
Public pages provide summaries. Pro details include opportunity dimensions and risks, full development briefs, and competition detail. During pre-launch, all signed-in users currently have full Pro access.
What are tokens used for, and what do validation and comparison produce?
Tokens are only for real-time validation and comparison. Reports are generated from retrieved evidence and retain source links; this is not real-time coverage of the whole web and does not guarantee absolute accuracy.
What happens when my balance is insufficient?
The balance is checked before search or AI calls begin. With insufficient balance, the action does not run and you are directed to pricing.
How do cancellation and refunds work?
Subscriptions cancel at the end of the current paid period. There are no partial cash refunds and consumed tokens are not refunded. For help, contact [email protected].