sales-skills/sales-ideagrape

Ideagrape Platform Help

Ideagrape (ideagrape.com) is a free-tier + paid IdeaBrowser alternative that blends two jobs in one tool: idea discovery (browse a database of 700+ AI-validated SaaS ideas with market data — plus Idea of the Day, Trending Keywords, and a Market Analytics dashboard) and idea validation (generate a custom idea from your skills, then run it through an opportunity score, a Willingness-to-Pay Analyzer, an Assumption Validator, a Build Blueprint, and a Startup Growth Matrix, with an AI Chat & Strategize helper on Pro). Its pitch is speed + price: "conviction in minutes" at a fraction of IdeaBrowser's cost. It's a UI web app — no public API — and both the browsable scores and the AI validation are directional estimates, not proof anyone will pay.

Step 1 — Gather context

If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated platform knowledge.

Ask only what you can't infer:

1. What do you want from Ideagrape?
   • A) Browse/generate to find a niche or idea worth building (discovery side)
   • B) Validate one idea — opportunity score, WTP analyzer, assumption validator, build blueprint
   • C) Interpret an opportunity score / market number / WTP it produced
   • D) Compare it to the paid IdeaBrowser (or other validators/discovery tools)
   • E) Understand pricing — the free tier's daily generation limit, or the Starter/Pro annual plans
   • F) Get the ideas out / automate them (export / API reality)
2. What's the real question — "what should I build / is this idea worth building?" or "how do I use this tool?" If it's the go/no-go decision or a cross-market validator comparison, that's /sales-idea-validation (a browsable idea and an AI score are not demand) — route in Step 2.

Skip-ahead: if the user wants the validate-before-building method or to rank validators across the market, route to /sales-idea-validation immediately.

Step 2 — Route or answer directly

| If the user's question is about… | Route to | |---|---| | The validate-before-building method, or the go/no-go decision itself | /sales-idea-validation {question} | | Comparing Ideagrape against other validators/discovery tools (IdeaBrowser, VentureVault, BuildOrNot, DimeADozen…) | /sales-idea-validation {question} | | Deep Reddit demand-signal discovery / scoring as its own workflow | /sales-trendseeker {question} | | Building the smoke-test / fake-door landing page to test real demand | /sales-funnel {question} | | Growing a pre-launch waitlist / capturing real demand | /sales-audience-growth {question} |

When routing, give the exact command: "This is a {domain} question — run: /sales-idea-validation {original question}"

Otherwise, answer Ideagrape-specific questions using Step 3.

Step 3 — Ideagrape platform reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for the full reference — the discovery modules (idea database, Idea of the Day, Trending Keywords, Market Analytics) and the validation modules (Idea Generator, opportunity score, WTP Analyzer, Assumption Validator, Build Blueprint, Growth Matrix, AI Chat), the free/Starter/Pro pricing and the free tier's daily generation limit, the no-public-API automation reality, and the IdeaBrowser comparison.

Answer using only the relevant section — don't dump the full reference.

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

• Separate its two jobs, and don't let either stand in for demand. The discovery side (browsing 700+ scored ideas, Idea of the Day, trending keywords) hands you a shortlist; the validation side (generate → opportunity score, WTP, assumptions, blueprint) hands you a structured AI opinion. Keep the useful structured parts (competitor list, market angle, assumptions to test) to sharpen the pitch, but take the go/no-go from a real behavior test (smoke test / pre-sale), routed to /sales-idea-validation. Neither a browsable idea nor an AI score is a paying stranger.
• Treat every number as an AI/data estimate — verify it. Opportunity scores, "market size," search volume, growth trends, and the WTP analyzer's price are model-/data-derived, not audited. Tell the user to cross-check any market-size or search-volume figure against a primary source (a keyword tool, Google Trends, real competitor pricing) before quoting it. The WTP number is a hypothesis to test with a real pre-sale, not a price to set.
• Frame it against IdeaBrowser honestly. Ideagrape positions as the cheaper IdeaBrowser alternative — same browse-scored-ideas + validate shape, undercutting IdeaBrowser on price (annual Starter/Pro vs IdeaBrowser's pricier tiers). Present that as a best-effort tradeoff: it's a smaller, solo-maker tool, so don't promise parity on idea depth, freshness, or catalog size — point the user to the live site to confirm.
• Present pricing as best-effort and plan-gated. Note the free tier is capped (a daily generation limit and a limited window of recent ideas), that AI Chat & Strategize is Pro-gated, and that generation counts differ by plan (Starter vs Pro) — flag all specifics as best-effort and point to ideagrape.com/pricing, since a small tool's tiers change.
• There's no public API — don't plan an integration around it. If asked to export or automate, say plainly there's no documented public API, no webhooks, no Zapier/Make, no MCP — it's a UI web app. Give the workable fallbacks: copy the ideas/analysis you can see into your own store (mind their terms), or pull the underlying signals from source (a keyword-volume API, Google Trends, Reddit, Product Hunt) if you need it scripted. The thing worth automating is a real demand signal, not a directory.

If you discover a gotcha or tip not in references/learnings.md, append it there with today's date.

Gotchas

Best-effort from research (2026-07) — Ideagrape is a small, solo-maker tool with a JS-rendered site and little review coverage; verify pricing, the free-tier limits, catalog size, and scoring specifics at ideagrape.com.

• A browsable or AI-scored idea is not validated demand. Both the vault entry and the opportunity score are research/opinion, not proof anyone will pay — follow with a real-behavior test (smoke test / pre-sale). The go/no-go is a stranger taking an action.
• Opportunity scores, market size, and search/growth numbers are estimates. Model-/data-derived and not audited — verify any figure against a primary source before acting on it.
• The WTP Analyzer's price is a hypothesis, not a validated price. "Willingness to pay" from an AI tool is a starting guess; only a real pre-sale confirms what people actually pay.
• Free tier is capped and plan-gated. A daily generation limit and a limited window of recent ideas on free; more generations on Starter, AI Chat + the most generations on Pro. Confirm current counts.
• Cheaper IdeaBrowser alternative — parity is unproven. It undercuts IdeaBrowser on price, but idea depth/freshness/catalog size are best-effort; don't promise it matches the paid original.
• No public API, no webhooks, no Zapier/Make/MCP. UI web app — you can't script or batch-export the ideas or reports. Copy manually or pull signals from source.

Related skills

• /sales-idea-validation — The tool-agnostic validate-before-building method + the full validator/discovery landscape (use this to actually decide build-or-not; a browsable idea + AI score is not demand)
• /sales-ideabrowser — IdeaBrowser platform help (the pricier original Ideagrape undercuts — Greg Isenberg's market-leader idea-discovery catalog with a free Idea of the Day, a 1,000+ Idea Database, AI agents, and a 40-step Research Agent; ~$499–$2,999/yr, UI-only/no API)
• /sales-venturevault — VentureVault platform help (the closest analog — a free IdeaBrowser-clone idea vault; Ideagrape adds active validation tools and a paid tier)
• /sales-buildornot — BuildOrNot platform help (another discovery-data + AI-evaluator sibling — datasets of revenue-ranked tools, Reddit ideas, trending topics)
• /sales-trendseeker — Reddit-based demand discovery + evidence scoring (a real-signal sibling to a curated idea database)
• /sales-funnel — Build the smoke-test / fake-door landing page the real demand test runs on
• /sales-audience-growth — Grow a pre-launch waitlist and capture real demand
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do -a claude-code

Examples

Example 1: "I don't have an idea yet — can Ideagrape find me one?"

User says: "I want to build a SaaS but have no idea what. Is Ideagrape good for finding one?" Skill does: Points the user at the discovery side — the database of 700+ market-scored ideas, Idea of the Day, and Trending Keywords — to build a shortlist of candidate niches, while explaining the opportunity scores and market numbers are AI/data estimates to sanity-check, not facts. Then it can generate a custom idea from their skills, but insists the go/no-go comes from a real demand test — routing the decision to /sales-idea-validation and deeper Reddit signal to /sales-trendseeker. Result: The user gets a curated + generated shortlist to research, not a false sense that a scored idea equals demand.

Example 2: "Ideagrape scored my idea high and gave me a WTP price — build it?"

User says: "The opportunity score is strong and the WTP Analyzer says I can charge $49/mo. Good to go?" Skill does: Reframes both as directional AI outputs, not demand — keeps the structured parts (competitors, market angle, the assumptions the Assumption Validator surfaced) to sharpen the pitch, but tells the user to verify the market/search numbers against a primary source and treat $49 as a hypothesis. Prescribes the real test: a smoke-test landing page with a pre-committed conversion threshold, then a pre-sale at that price to see who actually pays — routing the build to /sales-funnel. Result: The founder earns a go/no-go and a real price from stranger behavior instead of trusting a score.

Example 3: Can I export Ideagrape's ideas via an API? (developer/automation)

User says: "I want to pull Ideagrape's scored ideas into my own database via API." Skill does: States plainly there's no documented public API, no webhooks, no Zapier/Make, no MCP — it's a UI web app, so there's no supported way to export programmatically. Suggests the fallbacks: copy the ideas/analysis you can see into your own store (mind their terms), or pull the underlying signals from source (a keyword-volume API, Google Trends, Reddit, Product Hunt). Notes the thing worth automating is a real demand signal (landing-page conversions), not a directory. Result: The user avoids building on a non-existent API and picks a workable path to the signal.

Troubleshooting

The opportunity scores feel optimistic / every idea looks buildable

Symptom: The database and the analyzer make most ideas look promising. Cause: The opportunity scores, market size, and search/growth numbers are AI-/data-generated estimates, not audited — they read directional and can skew encouraging. Solution: Use the scores to rank and shortlist, not to decide. Verify any market/search figure against a primary source, then run a real demand test (smoke test / pre-sale) via /sales-idea-validation.

I hit a generation limit / ran out of ideas on the free plan

Symptom: The generator stops or the recent-ideas list is capped. Cause: The free tier is capped — a daily AI-generation limit and a limited window of recent ideas; more generations require Starter, and AI Chat + the highest generation count require Pro. Solution: Confirm current limits at ideagrape.com/pricing; decide whether an annual Starter/Pro plan is worth it for how much you'll iterate. Because you'll re-validate the same idea across pivots, budget for re-runs rather than assuming one generation is enough.

I want an API or a way to export/automate the ideas and reports

Symptom: Want to script Ideagrape or pull its scored ideas/analysis into another system. Cause: Ideagrape has no documented public API, webhooks, or iPaaS connectors — it's a UI web app. Solution: Copy the visible ideas/analysis into your own store (mind their terms), or pull the underlying signals from source (a keyword-volume API, Google Trends, Reddit, Product Hunt). Automate a real demand signal (landing-page analytics) instead. See /sales-idea-validation.