I did exactly that with a custom GPT and it works pretty well. I did my best to push it to respond with its training knowledge about brand reputation and avoid searches. When it has to resort to searches I pushed it to use trusted product information sources and avoid spammy or ad-ridden sites.
It allowed me to spot the best brands and sometimes even products in verticals I knew nothing about beforehand. It’s not perfect but already very efficient.
That was indeed a big parameter. We missed someone on the team able to connect to us to one or two large early adopters. We learned that building a good product and building a company selling it are two very different things !
Lack of traction basically. We ran out of time and money. Also we, maybe wrongly, did not feel like we could compete with the big ones without clustering. Yet we had a lot of fun building it. It was a thrill to see our product deliver performance on par or above in-memory messaging systems while being fully persisted and fsync’ed. I’m sure you know what I mean ! Good luck with Iggy anyway. Looks like you are on the right track !
They make money because growth. Any strategy that is not based on information asymmetry or unique clever use of information makes less than the market on average.
You couldn’t feel that way if you had no doubt or did not care about your level or worth as a developer. So you do care about how others perceive your level and you are not totally convinced that your self evaluation is right.
I would say don’t judge yourself too much. You don’t have to be perfect (especially if you are not, and nobody is). You probably are in this business to learn, so give yourself some room to learn a bit (or a lot!) more. People that criticize your work may be wrong. Don’t take their criticisms as absolute truth. In case you feel they may be right, drop your ideas right away, ruthlessly steal theirs and make them yours. This is how you don’t get stuck in local minima. You don’t have to care about having been wrong, there are more constructive things to do.