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Evaluate your project idea before building it

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Having a lot of queued project ideas won’t let you build any of them if you’re not able to pick the right one, so I built a framework to evaluate them from a business and technical perspective.

Introduction

We’re all dreaming of building that one project that will help you get some sustainable passive income, so by default all your thoughts will be reshaped to think of everything from a business perspective, everything is a SaaS, everything can be automated or enhanced with tech or AI in the past 2 years…

For the past 5 years as an IT guy, I was always thinking this way, my brain can’t stop braining hh, I see everything as a new project opportunity, like literally everything and anything, starting from the local grocery shop, which I believed could be very profitable to make the whole process automated via a location-based app, and delivery won’t take longer than 4 minutes… [you can work on this idea if you like it hh, I’m no longer interested, otherwise I’m not exposing it here hh]

Problem

The problem with that is you become an ideas machine, a man with thoughts and no action, with thousands of project ideas and ZERO implementation [Only if you’re willing to sell those ideas hh, and that would be another project idea actually hh].

Additionally, in my case, there was another problem. Besides thinking of everything as a project idea, I started thinking of everyone in my network as a project partner, it’s like I’m hiring dozens of people in my imagination without their knowledge [Just kidding, they know, and they also feel excited and ready to work with/for me]

But lately most of them are asking me when to start something together, my answer always was ‘I have a lot of ideas, and I don’t know which one to start with, once I decide, I will keep you updated’

Previous Projects

Despite mentioning that I always procrastinate starting new products for the above-mentioned reasons, I surprisingly managed to build over 15 products/websites in the past two years, including the ones that I’m publicly referring to myself like:

How I managed to build those projects !! Because I didn’t spend too much time thinking of this question “Do I really have to build this ?” I just started to develop them without overthinking, and most of them took me only few hours/days.

But saying that, doesn’t mean I’m against evaluating projects before starting it, because that not the case for projects that have to give you a return, and not built for fun like Telegdash. And here comes the solution of this dilemma.

Solution

I was looking for a better way to evaluate projects before starting them, so at least I can ignore hopeless projects. I found some really good measurements and criterias from a business perspective, but there were a few missing things.

At least for me, a technical discussion and a few criteria should be included in the decision-making phase. Also as a solo-dev aka Indie and [jobless broke student hh], the resources are very limited, so I had to pay more attention to this detail, which is likely common for most indies that cannot compete against giant companies with unlimited funds when it comes to resources.

This is why I am introducing ‘Build This’ app.

You're looking for the link? please wait hh.

But if you insist, here it is hh BuildThis, please come back to finish reading this blog hh.

  • BuildThis

Is a weighted criteria-based scoring system. I would also say it’s a methodology that evaluates projects across over 15 different criteria, ranging from market opportunity and technical feasibility to personal motivation and competitive landscape. Each criterion is assigned a priority weight (Critical, Significant, or Moderate) to ensure the most impactful factors carry appropriate influence in the final evaluation result.

  • Criterias

When it comes to business and money, choosing the best criterias that will impact your project is very crutial.

That is why criteria selection was the hardest part. I did tons of research, watched presentations from founders and CEOs, read dozens of articles…

And finally I came up with the most common and impactful criterias, that no one should skip or ignore when building something. In addition I included some more to adjust it to a smaller scale. Indies are not big corps so criteria need to be adjusted. I want to discuss those criteria, but the blog will be too long and honestly I’m too tired and lazy hh, they are fully documented here.

Also you can download criterias from json file Criterias

Framework

Scoring Process

Basic maths hh:

  • Input Collection: Each criterion is rated according to its specific measurement unit
  • Score Conversion: Ratings are converted to a standardized 1-5 scale
  • Weight Application: Scores are multiplied by their priority weight
  • Total Calculation: Sum of all weighted scores for each project
  • Percentage Derivation: Total score divided by maximum possible weighted score
  • Ranking: Projects sorted by final percentage score Example:
   Criterion Score: 7/10 → Converted Score: 4/5
Weight: Significant (2x) → Weighted Score: 4 × 2 = 8
Final Project Score: Sum of all weighted scores / Maximum possible score × 100%

Features

  • Multi-Project Comparison: Compare up to 4 projects simultaneously
  • Structured Evaluation: Over 15 comprehensive criteria covering market, technical, and business aspects
  • Weighted Scoring System: Three-tier priority weighting (Critical 3x, Significant 2x, Moderate 1x)
  • Automated Scoring: Instant calculation and ranking of projects
  • Persistent Storage: Local storage of project data and selections
  • Project History: Save and manage multiple project evaluations
  • Load Previous Projects: Access and reuse previously saved project evaluations
  • Workspace Management: Save current workspace or clear for fresh start
  • Editable Project Names: Customize project identifiers [Silly right ? but you will need it hh]

Idea Protection

I know you’re afraid of exposing your Trillion dollar idea to a random website, and you won’t get richer than Elon Musk.

You don’t have to worry about this, you will beat Elon Musk hh, and no one will steal your IDEA hh, and here is why:

  • BuildThis is a fully stateless application that operates entirely on your device with no backend infrastructure. Your project data never leaves your browser.
    • No database connections - all data remains on your device
    • No server sessions - no user accounts or login systems
    • No data transmission - project details never leave your browser
    • Offline capable - works without internet after initial load
  • Local Data Storage
    • Complete privacy of your project evaluations and business ideas
    • Instant access without network dependencies
    • Full user control over data retention and deletion

Conclusion

After all, building software for business purposes is not just about idea selection or technical decisions. The market is saturated, shipping a product doesn’t make you any better if you don’t iterate and keep up with news and trends, also building something just because you love it, is not enough.

   “Wealth is built through practicality, not passion."

I may sound wise, but that was ‘Iman Gadzhi’s’ quote hh.

Anyways, if you have reached this point, it means I should say thank you for reading this whole blog [Actually you probably liked it, so you’re the one who should thank me hh]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the website is fully vibe coded, since there is no security needed or future scale… And also because I suck when building frontend hh. Bye hh.

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