How to Validate Product Ideas Using Reddit and ChatGPT Before Building

Source: Dev.to

TL;DR

While lurking on r/footballmanagergames for the last few years, I could see I was far from the only one struggling to create the right tactics to get the most out of my team in Football Manager. As time went on, I started noticing more patterns around this and other similar questions and feedback requests. From here, I decided to use ChatGPT to analyze the subreddit at scale and quantify my assumptions.

The data was clear: tactics dominated at roughly 38 % of posts during the period I reviewed. The findings led me to build the tactic analyzer as my MVP, and as of writing this, Assman.ai has analyzed 1 891 tactics with 4 979 follow‑up messages. Player development came next at around 7 % of posts, with 450 players reviewed and 819 messages. While the squad‑review and transfer‑assistant features had a higher question frequency, they were both too large in scope for me to build at this time.

Starting Point

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” – Arthur Ashe

Football Manager became an addiction when I found it in 2023. As someone who loves soccer and strategy games, it hooked me immediately. Steam says I have 1 000+ hours in the series, doing play‑throughs in England, the Netherlands, and Germany, where I take a low‑tier team and work them through the league pyramid to the top league in their country.

I mention this to show that I already had some expertise and understanding of the ecosystem before I started this. I wouldn’t name something AssMan.ai unless I had an actual reason for it.

I wanted to keep the scope limited. I was testing what I could build as a solo founder using no‑code tools, so I needed to pick one feature to start with, validate it worked, and then move to the next.

Validation and Prioritization

I had my hypothesis about tactics based on my own experience and confidence from following r/footballmanagergames since I started playing, but I didn’t want to make assumptions. I needed to see if there was anything else I should consider before committing, so I went back to the subreddit to find any additional supporting data.

1. Review of recent posts – I examined the previous month of posts (FM 24 had been out for nearly two years; FM 25 never released). If the same questions were still showing up this late in the game’s lifecycle, the issues weren’t going away unless FM 26 made massive changes.
2. Pattern detection – “Why is my tactic not working?”, “Why is my striker not scoring?”, “Why is my tactic suddenly not working?” appeared repeatedly. I even used ChatGPT as an assistant manager in my last play‑through to get feedback on my tactics.
3. Other recurring themes –
   • Time commitment – Transfer periods can take hours searching a 100 k+ player database. Starting a new play‑through also requires many hours evaluating the squad, identifying weak spots, and planning changes.
   • Player development – Requests on how to train a player and where to play them to maximize potential appeared less frequently than tactics but were still consistent.

Manual browsing gave me a strong signal, but I wanted numbers to back it up. In late July/early August, ChatGPT relied more on Reddit data, making it easier to pull extensive information from the platform. I asked it to:

• Analyze the last month of posts from r/footballmanagergames.
• Create themes and categorize the volume.
• Generate a table showing the breakdown.

After massaging the themes to match what I was looking for, the data was clear:

Posts about tactics also received more engagement than posts about other topics.

Competitive Landscape

• ratemytactic.com – Users input tactics manually; the site provides feedback via an algorithm.
• fmdatalab.com – Calculates player‑role proficiency.
• Various forums and Reddit threads.

The existence of these tools actually increased my confidence: people are already willing to use external resources for help. I decided to build the tactic analyzer first, because there was an opportunity for instant, automated feedback with interactive follow‑up, differentiating it from current tools.

What Got Built

As of writing this, Assman.ai has:

• Analyzed 1 891 tactics.
• Generated 4 979 follow‑up messages delving deeper into suggested improvements.

The research showed a high correlation between high Reddit volume and high product usage.

Key Insight: Reduce Friction

One of the first things I realized was that friction kills adoption. If I wanted people actually to use this, the flow had to be dead simple.

User → Upload Tactic (or paste code) → Instant Score + Highlights → Interactive Q&A

The rest of the product roadmap (squad review, transfer assistant, player‑development advisor) will be tackled once the tactic analyzer proves its value and adoption.

Building the Tactic Analyzer

I let users shoot their tactic, upload it, and get feedback—no manual entry like ratemytactic.com required. The chatbot even improved the analysis. Users could ask follow‑up questions and iterate on the feedback in real time, something Reddit threads and static tools couldn’t offer.

Prototyping Other Features

Transfer Assistant

I eliminated this idea quickly. It would have required users to export a potentially 100 k‑row file from the game, then parse it and provide answers. Not impossible, but the custom data‑processing effort wasn’t worth it for an MVP.

Squad Review

I tried this and had some success, but I couldn’t generate more complex answers (e.g., suggested tactics and formations based on the squad) even with more expensive models. There may be an opportunity here in the future, but current AI capabilities didn’t deliver enough value.

Player Development

I built this next. It used the same upload flow—take a screenshot, get feedback—so I could reuse much of the tactics infrastructure.

• As of writing, Assman.ai has analyzed 450 players with 819 messages.
• Throughput was lower than for tactics, which matched the research: player development accounts for about 7 % of Reddit posts versus 38 % for tactics.
• The volume is lower, but consistent enough to validate that it was worth building.

Account Creation & Benefits

• In total, 125 people created accounts.
• Adding the option to sign up with a Gmail account significantly reduced friction and boosted sign‑ups.
• Users can now view all their historical tactics and player‑development feedback.

Overall Metrics

• Assman.ai has analyzed 2 341 images and received 5 798 messages to the chatbot.
• I ran ads for about a month, spending roughly $2 000. After learning what I needed about ad campaigns and Google Ads, I stopped. Traffic then dropped to a few people a day.

Current Focus

I’m pausing further development on AssMan.ai. The project proved I could build and validate a solo product using no‑code tools—exactly the goal. I’ll be adding a Patreon soon; if it gains enough traction, I’ll return to development. For now, I’m focused on other adventures.

Closing Thoughts

The research method worked:

• Manual browsing gave direction.

• ChatGPT gave confidence.

• Production data held up.

• Tactics led Reddit at 38 %, with 1 891 tactics reviewed.

• Player development represented 7 % of posts, with 450 players reviewed.

The numbers weren’t perfect, but they were directional—and that was enough.

Every subreddit has pain points that get discussed repeatedly. They may not be evident at first, but they’re there. I found one in a space I knew well, quantified it with actual data, and avoided building something no one would use.

You probably have a space you know well, too—a hobby, a profession, a personal problem. That’s your advantage. You understand the context, spot the patterns, and can tell the difference between real pain and noise. This method works when you lean into that knowledge and let the data confirm what you’re seeing.