Written by the team behind SoloLens (AIOTFY / Aiotfy Pty Ltd, Adelaide).
Writing code feels like progress. Comparing ideas feels like delay. That instinct is why many solo founders skip the scoring step and jump straight to a repository. A score out of 100 gives you a structured comparison before a long build. It does not remove risk, and a high score is not a promise that the idea will work.
Why a score exists at all
A score is a forcing function. It makes you write down what you believe and what you can show. Without that, debates stay based on instinct:
- "This market is huge." According to whom?
- "Users will pay." Which users, and for which outcome?
- "It is a weekend build." What happens when auth, billing, and support arrive?
The point is not to worship the number. The point is to make disagreement visible before you spend months building the wrong shape.
How the SoloLens score is calculated
The live score starts with a weighted base:
- Validated problem strength: 25%.
- Technical feasibility: 25%.
- Commercial viability: 35%.
- Defensibility: 15%.
The total is 70% of that base plus a 30% certainty adjustment, which is versioned and deterministic. The adjustment reflects how certain the underlying assessment is without changing the four base weights.
SoloLens can also show a five-dimension radar: Tech barrier, Operation complexity, Market competition, Revenue potential, and Demand certainty. That radar is explanatory only. It is not part of the 0 to 100 total, and the total is not its sum or average. Tech barrier, Operation complexity, and Market competition are lower-is-better. Revenue potential and Demand certainty are higher-is-better. When reliable evidence is missing, a dimension can be shown as Not assessed instead of being guessed.
The operating thresholds are:
- 60 or above: publishable once the content and evidence gates also pass.
- 50 to 59.9: watch.
- Below 50: stop.
These thresholds support a decision process. They do not guarantee commercial success.
Three research habits that support the score
Evidence, business, and technical checks are useful families of questions to ask while researching. They are research habits, not the weighted score formula described above.
Evidence checks
Evidence asks what exists outside your head:
- Are people already paying for a painful workaround?
- Can you point to public demand signals that are not your own enthusiasm?
- What disconfirming evidence did you find and keep anyway?
If your evidence is empty, the assessment should reflect that uncertainty. Optimism is not a citation.
Business checks
Business checks ask whether the idea can survive contact with money and distribution at a small scale:
- Who pays, and what budget line does this replace?
- How will the first ten customers find you without a fantasy launch?
- What is the smallest paid version that still deserves a price?
A clever demo with no path to a first payment is a hobby with better typography.
Technical checks
Technical checks ask what load you are volunteering for:
- How much original infrastructure do you need on day one?
- Which parts depend on third-party APIs you do not control?
- What becomes expensive only after the first delighted user arrives, such as support, abuse, or compliance?
"Easy to build" and "easy to operate" are different sentences. Keep both in your notes even when a product interface summarises the research.
How to use a 0 to 100 result without lying to yourself
- Compare ideas relative to each other, not against an imaginary perfect 100.
- Re-score after one week of customer conversations. If the number cannot move when the evidence changes, your process is theatre.
- Read the weakest base input and the underlying evidence before celebrating the total.
- Keep a written limit sentence next to the number: research aid, not a verdict.
What Free and deeper reports are for
On SoloLens, the public pricing page separates lightweight looks from deeper reports:
- Free browsing and a light evaluation path for early filtering.
- Full evaluations and full plans when you need more depth.
- Pro limits for people who score and compare more often.
Exact USD figures change only when the pricing page changes. Always trust https://solo.aiotfy.com/pricing over a screenshot in a social post.
Common failure modes
- Treating AI-assisted research as customer discovery. It can prepare questions; it cannot interview your buyer for you.
- Optimising the score instead of the decision. If you only tweak inputs to get a preferred number, you are playing the meter.
- Ignoring operations. A beautiful prototype with no support model still becomes a support model the day a stranger pays.
- Mixing brand names. SoloLens is the public product name on solo.aiotfy.com; do not substitute lookalike domains.
A short pre-code ritual you can steal
Before you open the editor:
- Write the idea in one sentence.
- List three evidence links or admit you have zero.
- Name the first paying persona and the outcome they buy.
- List the heaviest technical dependency you are accepting.
- Only then decide: kill, park, or build a bounded spike.
If step 2 is empty, your first feature is research, not scaffolding.
Where SoloLens fits
SoloLens is a product by AIOTFY (Aiotfy Pty Ltd). It scores business ideas out of 100 using the four-part base and certainty adjustment described above. Evidence, business, and technical questions help with the research, but they are not a substitute formula. SoloLens offers Free and Pro paths described on the pricing page. We built it for solo founders and small teams who want a structured comparison before a long build. We do not promise that a high score means an idea will succeed.
Closing
Score to slow down the wrong build, not to decorate the right mood. The score will not remove risk. It can stop you from pretending the risk was invisible.
Start with SoloLens, or compare the Free and Pro paths on the pricing page.
Disclosure: SoloLens is a product by AIOTFY (Aiotfy Pty Ltd). This article explains its live scoring method and practical use. A high score is not a promise of success.