Stage 3: VALIDATE

Validate gap opportunities against real user pain in Reddit/forums (last 7-14 days).

Prerequisites

Requires outputs/analyze/gap-opportunities-*.json from Stage 2.

Parameters

Parse from user input:

• --days: Days to look back (default: 14)
• --limit: Max opportunities to validate (default: 20)
• --subreddits: Override default subreddits (optional)

Process

Use the reddit-validator agent to:

1. Load latest gap analysis from outputs/analyze/

2. For each opportunity (top 10-20):

   a. Generate search queries from gap summary and tool category

   b. Search target subreddits:

   • r/SideProject, r/EntrepreneurRideAlong, r/nocode
   • r/AutomateYourself, r/ClaudeAI, r/ChatGPT
   • r/webdev, r/developers, r/SaaS, r/smallbusiness
   • Tool-specific subs if applicable

   c. Look for pain signals:

   • Complaints, frustrations, workarounds
   • "wish there was...", "looking for..."
   • "currently paying $X for...", "would pay for..."

   d. Score each mention:

   Metric	Weight	Description
   frequency	0.30	How many posts mention this pain
   intensity	0.25	How frustrated are users
   willingness_to_pay	0.30	Budget mentions, pricing signals
   recency	0.15	Recent posts weighted higher

3. Calculate validation score:

   validation_score = (
     frequency * 0.30 +
     intensity * 0.25 +
     willingness_to_pay * 0.30 +
     recency * 0.15
   )
   

4. Filter: Only pass opportunities with validation_score > 6.0

5. Attach evidence (links, quotes) to each validated opportunity

6. Save to outputs/validate/validated-opportunities-{date}.json

Output Schema

{
  "validated_at": "2025-11-25T12:00:00Z",
  "validated_opportunities": [
    {
      "name": "notion-database-sync",
      "opportunity_score": 8.2,
      "validation_score": 7.5,
      "evidence": [
        {
          "source": "r/NotionSo",
          "url": "https://reddit.com/...",
          "snippet": "I've tried 3 different sync tools...",
          "intensity": "high",
          "date": "2025-11-22"
        }
      ],
      "pain_summary": "Users frustrated with performance on large databases"
    }
  ]
}

Next Step

Run /mcp-pipeline:spec to generate buildable specs for top opportunities.