Your first idea

Once you’ve signed up, your first task is to create something to validate. This page walks through workspaces, creating an idea, branching variants, and the status workflow that tracks an idea’s life.

Step 1: Create a workspace

Workspaces are how idea_builder keeps your ventures organized. Each workspace holds a group of related ideas — for example “My main venture” or “Side project experiments.” Create one from the dashboard, give it a name, and you’re ready.

You can create multiple workspaces on most plans, which is handy when you want to keep separate ventures — or shelved ones — cleanly apart.

Step 2: Create your first idea

Inside a workspace, click New idea and pick one of two paths:

• AI brainstorm — describe a domain or problem in your own words (for example “an app that helps independent coffee shops manage subscriptions”), and idea_builder generates a fleshed-out idea with a description, target audience, and problem it solves.
• Idea templates — start from a proven structure and fill in your specifics:
  • SaaS — subscription software for businesses or consumers.
  • Marketplace — a two-sided platform connecting supply and demand.
  • DTC — a direct-to-consumer physical product.
  • Developer Tool — a library, API, CLI, or SDK for developers.
  • Content Creator — a newsletter, course, community, or podcast.
  • E-commerce — an online store selling a product category.

Either way you’ll get a starting point you can edit any time — the description, target audience, and problem statement are all yours to refine.

Step 3: Branch variants (optional)

Not sure which angle to pursue? You can branch an idea to create a variant — a copy that shares the same parent but can be tweaked, tested, and scored independently. This is great for comparing two positioning angles, price points, or target segments against each other without losing the original.

Step 4: Move it through the status workflow

Every idea has a status that reflects where it is in its lifecycle. The six statuses are:

1. Draft — just created, not yet worked on.
2. Researching — going through the research pipeline.
3. Validating — testing demand with surveys and fake-door pages.
4. Building — you’re building the MVP.
5. Launched — out in the world.
6. Dead — you’ve shelved or abandoned it.

The status bar on each idea card shows where things stand, and you can move an idea between statuses as it progresses (a launched idea can later be marked dead, a dead one revived to draft, and so on). The workflow keeps your pipeline honest — every idea has a clear next step.

Where to go next

Now that you have an idea, the validation pipeline overview shows how to run it through research, scoring, validation, comparison, and the final go / no-go decision.

Tip

You can edit an idea’s description, audience, and problem statement at any time — changing an idea’s wording doesn’t delete any research already attached to it.