Painkiller or Vitamin: How We Read Demand

Is anyone actively looking for a solution?

The painkiller test. A product is red if the need is nice-to-have with no nameable pain. It is solid if the pain is clear, experienced weekly, and describable in one sentence — “this happens to me every week.” It is strong when the pain is acute or chronic and people are already searching for a way out, visible as rising problem keywords rather than product keywords.

That distinction is the whole thing. Searches for the problem mean demand exists without you. Searches for the product mean somebody else already created the demand.

Is the demand real, and is it going somewhere?

Search volume plus a 24-month trend line. Declining or micro-niche without substance is red. Stable with real volume is solid. Strong is rising with a base underneath it — growth, not a spike.

The base matters more than the slope. A vertical line with nothing below it is a fad, and a fad prices your inventory at the exact moment it stops.

Do they come back?

Expected 12-month category repeat rate. Under 15% is red — the electronics pattern, one purchase and goodbye. 20–30% is solid, and the DTC average sits around 28%. Above 35% is strong, the consumable and subscription pattern: supplements, pet, beauty.

Repeat rate is where lifetime value comes from, and lifetime value is what lets you pay more than a competitor for the same customer.

Does it sell all year?

More than 60% of revenue in a single quarter is red. Seasonal businesses are real businesses, but they need a cash plan the other nine months, and they give you one shot a year to be wrong.

Has anyone actually paid?

The factor we added after reviewing the field evidence: scores without ground truth predict very little on their own. So verifiable traction is weighted heavily and links count double. No sales, no pre-orders, no proof is red. First real sales or committed pre-orders with numbers is solid. Repeatable sales across three or more months, or named retail interest, is strong.

“None yet” is an acceptable answer. A vague something is not. Honest zeros score better than unverifiable claims, because we check.

Demand is half of it. The three-second test covers whether the product can actually be sold in a feed.