# The Detective

> Niche-research desk for solo founders. Tell us your skills, budget, timeline, and refusals; we ship a verdict-grade niche analysis with sourced evidence.

The Detective takes a founder's profile — skills, budget, timeline, constraints, hard refusals — and produces a structured opportunity analysis on candidate business niches. Every analysis carries a GO / GO_WITH_CAVEATS / NO_GO verdict, with every claim anchored to a primary source URL. When the public evidence on a niche is too thin to support a verdict, the pipeline refuses the spend and surfaces three salvage angles instead.

Pricing tiers (all USD):
- Starter — $12.99 one-time. 1 analysis covering 5 niches.
- Explorer — $24.99/month. Weekly analyses, 5 niches each, 1 deep-dive.
- Hunter — $99/month. Analyses every 3 days, 5 niches each, 1 deep-dive, Project Tracker.
- Operator — $299/month. Daily analyses, 5 niches each, 1 deep-dive, Multi-Project Tracker, native exports.

## Core pages

- [Homepage](https://thedetective.io/): product overview, pricing teaser, methodology highlight
- [Pricing](https://thedetective.io/pricing): full tier breakdown + FAQ
- [Methodology](https://thedetective.io/methodology): the 5-stage research process from ideate to critic
- [How we built this](https://thedetective.io/how-we-built-this): the stack, the principles the code enforces
- [Sample analysis](https://thedetective.io/sample): a worked example
- [About](https://thedetective.io/about): the two founders + the rules we refuse to break
- [Intake](https://thedetective.io/intake): the founder-profile form that drives the analysis

## Content

- [Field notes](https://thedetective.io/field-notes): essays on niche research, founder strategy, why we refuse some ideas
- [Niche analyses](https://thedetective.io/analyses): public analyses of specific business niches (human-reviewed before publishing)
- [Comparison pages](https://thedetective.io/vs): The Detective vs other niche-research and idea-validation tools
- [Alternatives](https://thedetective.io/alternatives): honest comparisons with adjacent tools

## Optional

- [Free niche finder](https://thedetective.io/free-niche-finder): a free lightweight version of the analysis
- [FAQ](https://thedetective.io/faq): common questions about scope, refunds, the credit-then-refund flow
- [Refunds policy](https://thedetective.io/refunds-policy): how we make it right when an analysis falls short

## Hard rules

The Detective will not analyze regulated industries (insurance, medical, legal, financial advice, tax preparation, construction lien). The product is opinionated and refuses some questions; this is by design. When public evidence is too thin to ground a verdict, the analysis is refused and three salvage angles are surfaced instead of a fabricated answer.