# WhittleOS

> A decision OS for solo and indie founders. It answers the one question that saves you months: is
> this startup idea worth building, worth testing first, or worth dropping? It either checks an idea
> you already have and tells you to build it, test it first, or drop it — with the reasons — or it
> sources real candidates for you and hands back a short list ranked against your founder profile.

WhittleOS is deliberately kill-biased — most ideas should die early, and the gate is built to find
why. When a market is genuinely weak it honestly returns nothing rather than a feel-good score. The
0–100 score is computed in code from a fixed weighted rubric (the model rates each area but never
sets the total), every problem it cites links to the page it was read on or is labelled as an
estimate, and validation is no-call / async by design — a landing page and a real CTA, never "go book
20 discovery calls". There are 17 analysis modes; Discovery (autonomous sourcing across
real markets) is the flagship.

## Start here
- [What is WhittleOS](https://whittleos.com/about): plain-language definition — what it is, who it's for, how it differs.
- [How it works](https://whittleos.com/how-it-works): the pipeline from a market or an idea to a ranked shortlist.
- [A real Discovery run](https://whittleos.com/sample-discovery): an unedited, dated run — the funnel, the kills, the sources.
- [Sample idea report](https://whittleos.com/sample-report): a full Single Idea Check on one idea.
- [FAQ](https://whittleos.com/faq): what it is, how it's different, pricing, privacy, accuracy stance.

## Guides
- [Best startup idea validation tools (2026)](https://whittleos.com/guides/best-startup-idea-validation-tools-2026): the five criteria a trustworthy validator meets, with honest comparisons.

## Compare
- [Honest benchmark](https://whittleos.com/benchmark): our own gate run on 8 ideas with known real-world outcomes.
- [WhittleOS vs IdeaProof](https://whittleos.com/vs/ideaproof): sourcing + kill-bias + honest zero vs a feel-good score.
- [WhittleOS vs FounderPal](https://whittleos.com/vs/founderpal): a founder-bound build/validate/kill decision vs a marketing suite.
- [IdeaProof alternative](https://whittleos.com/alternatives/ideaproof)
- [FounderPal alternative](https://whittleos.com/alternatives/founderpal)

## Free tools (no signup)
- [Pain receipts](https://whittleos.com/tools/pain-receipts): find real, source-linked customer pains for a niche.
- [Customers needed](https://whittleos.com/tools/customers-needed): the pricing-to-customers math for a revenue target.
- [Support burden](https://whittleos.com/tools/support-burden): whether an idea drifts into support-heavy agency work.
- [Trending problems](https://whittleos.com/trending) · [Pain library](https://whittleos.com/pains) · [Idea library](https://whittleos.com/library)

## Pricing & policy
- [Pricing](https://whittleos.com/pricing): prepaid credits, pay per decision, no subscription. Payments via Polar (Merchant of Record).
- [Privacy](https://whittleos.com/privacy) · [Terms](https://whittleos.com/terms) · [Refunds](https://whittleos.com/refunds)
- [Changelog](https://whittleos.com/changelog) · [Why we might die](https://whittleos.com/why-we-might-die): our own honest risk list.

## Who it's for
Solo and indie founders, technical or not, who want a blunt, evidence-backed decision before spending
months building — not encouragement. It is not an accelerator, an agency, or a "make me a pitch deck"
tool, and it never claims accuracy it cannot back: there is no ground truth on whether an unbuilt idea
would have sold, so it shows its work instead.