Is Your Business Idea Any Good? An AI Sanity Check in 10 Minutes.

Your co-founder says yes. Your friends say yes. Your mother says yes. None of them is the market. An AI sanity check won't build your business — but it will tell you whether you should spend the next six months trying.

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What a real business idea sanity check tests

A proper sanity check is not "do I like it" or "is the category hot." It's four concrete questions, answered against live data:

Does demand exist? — Not in your head. In search trends, marketplace listings, forum complaints, subreddit questions.
Is there enough of it? — TAM you can actually defend with a public source, not a made-up figure.
Can you reach it? — A distribution channel with a realistic CAC, not hope.
Will the math work? — Revenue minus cost times volume that fits reality.

Most founders skip three of these four and convince themselves on the first one. That's why 90% of startups fail.

What happens in a Cortex AIF sanity check

We take your 2-3-sentence idea and run the classify block. It extracts industry, geography, target customer, and revenue model — from your own text. Then the research block pulls 10-20 live sources matching those parameters. Then the operations and financial_lite blocks run the four questions above.

Ten minutes later you have a weighted score, a verdict (GO / CONDITIONAL_GO / NO_GO), and a list of the specific dimensions your idea is weak on. Not a generic pep talk.

Common sanity-check red flags we see weekly

"Uber for X" where X has a 20-year incumbent — the TAM fight is not winnable at a startup's cost.
Marketplaces with no chicken-or-egg answer — you need one side first, and you don't have a plan for it.
B2B SaaS priced at $5-10/month — CAC will always exceed LTV by 3-5x at that price point.
"AI for [common task]" without a data moat — OpenAI can ship your feature next Tuesday.

Sanity-check your idea now

Paste your idea in 2-3 sentences. Free first scan, no account needed.

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Frequently asked questions

Is the sanity check really free?

Yes. The free tier runs classify + a short research pass and gives you the high-level answer. No credit card. No email confirmation beyond wanting to get the report to your inbox.

How brutal is 'brutal'?

The system is designed to prioritize false negatives over false positives. If your idea has a clear path to revenue, it will say so. If it doesn't, it will say NO_GO with specific reasons. It won't be cruel — it will be specific.

Do I need a landing page or website to sanity-check?

No. Paste 2-3 sentences describing what you'd build and for whom. The classify block infers the rest.

Can I get a free re-check if I revise the idea?

The free tier has a per-IP limit of 15 checks in 30 days to prevent abuse. For heavier iteration, the $9/month Pro tier on the /analyze page removes that cap.