Honesty model
We do not pretend to know what we do not know.
When researching a startup idea, the most dangerous thing is accepting something you do not know as something you do. “This market is roughly $2 billion” sounds good — but without a source it means nothing. At Premisey a piece of information either rests on a credible source or we say plainly that it has not been verified.
“This market is roughly $2 billion.”
A nice sentence. But without a source it means nothing.
Three labels, three different levels of confidence.
Finding a number or a claim on the internet does not mean it is true. Premisey separates research results by source and by level of confidence.
It has a source. You can check it yourself.
If a value rests on a credible source it is shown together with that source — official data, disclosures in acquisition listings, statements by the company or founder. Without a source this label cannot be used.
Not certain. But we know how it was derived.
If no direct source can be found, a reasonable inference can sometimes be drawn from available data. In that case Premisey states plainly that this is an estimate and shows from which data and how it was derived. Whether to accept it is up to you.
If there is no data, we do not fill the gap with a number.
Some information simply has no credible source. In that case, rather than inventing a number that sounds convincing, Premisey says “not enough data was found on this” — because a wrong number can cost more than no number at all.
We do not pretend to know what we do not know.
If we do not know the size of a market, we do not fill the gap with a number that merely sounds convincing. A piece of information either rests on a credible source or we say plainly that it has not been verified — because sometimes the most valuable answer is not a number but the sentence “we do not know this yet”.
This is not just a slogan.
- A value is evaluated together with its source, confidence level and reasoning — that separation is built into the data structure of the research itself.
- The rule is not merely requested in prose; it is enforced in the report's data schema.
- A value without a source cannot be displayed as “verified”.
- When a source cannot be reached, the information is not silently dropped either; which data is missing is stated explicitly.
This is where the data in the report comes from
Premisey does not speak from a closed data pool; it scans sources anyone can reach and writes down where everything it finds came from. Every address below is open — when you see a number in the report you can click through to the source that produced it and check it yourself.
Which source gets scanned depends on the type of your idea: review sites and category listings for a B2B tool, app store reviews for a mobile product, local complaint platforms for an idea aimed at the Turkish market. If no data is found in any of them, that too is written in the report as missing — the gap is not filled with a guess.
We are especially careful about revenue
Verifying a startup's real revenue from the outside is usually impossible. So Premisey starts from the strongest source available and works downwards; if data is found on a higher rung, the lower ones are not needed. An indirect signal is never presented as real revenue — if none can be found, the value becomes an estimate or unknown.
Verified revenue data
Monthly revenue verified by connecting to a payment provider. The most reliable rung; when found, it is reported with its source directly.
Acquisition listing revenue
Revenue and multiples declared by products listed for sale on marketplaces such as Acquire.com and Flippa.
Sourced founder disclosure
Figures founders share themselves on Indie Hackers, OpenStartup and open revenue pages. The disclosure is not verified; the label reflects that.
Traffic and download proxy
App store data and traffic estimates. Not revenue itself but an indirect signal about scale — always marked as an estimate.
If none of these exist
The value is written as “unknown”. That is not a shortcoming of the report; it is the information that this part of the market is not transparent.
What we do not do
- We do not invent market sizes without a source.
- We do not adjust scores to make an idea look better.
- We do not produce customer reviews or usage figures that do not exist; the same applies to this website.
- We do not present a source we could not reach as though we had.
- If the result goes against the idea, we do not hide it.
Because Premisey's purpose is not to sell you your idea; it is to prepare firmer ground for you to make the right decision.
Get an honest second opinion
Write your idea; we will tell you what we know with its source, and what we do not know plainly.