About Buteo
Buteo is an AI idea validator. It exists to tell founders what the published evidence says about their idea, including the part they would rather not hear, and to show them every page it read.
By Buteo · Updated
What is Buteo?
Buteo is an AI idea validator for founders. You describe a startup idea in a paragraph. Buteo turns it into testable claims, researches them on the open web, checks every source it cites, and gives you a Continue, Pivot or Kill recommendation with the evidence behind it. You make the decision.
The name is shared with a genus of hawks. This Buteo is software, and you will usually see it written as “Buteo, the AI idea validator” so the two are not confused.
Why does it exist?
Because most feedback on a startup idea is opinion, and opinion is usually kind. Friends are encouraging. A chatbot asked whether an idea is good tends to agree. A score with no sources cannot be checked.
Buteo is built on the opposite assumption: the useful thing to know about an idea is what would prove it wrong, and the only evidence worth having is evidence you can open and read for yourself.
What does it do?
- Find an angle. Start from a problem space and get distinct angles worth testing.
- Validate an idea. Claims, parallel research, a checked evidence ledger, a competitor map, and a Continue, Pivot or Kill recommendation.
- Test it for real. Proposed experiments for the claims research could not settle, and a re-evaluation when you report what happened.
- Take it to market. A cited go-to-market study: channels, demand, pricing and a 90-day plan.
- Plan the build. What goes in version one, the stack and the roadmap, drawn from the evidence the validation found.
What will Buteo not do?
These are rules the product is built to enforce, not aspirations.
- It will not give you one viability score. Nothing in the analysis computes one. Confidence means evidence strength, lens by lens.
- It will not kill an idea for you. It recommends, and a person decides.
- It will not hide a finding that failed its check. A claim the cited page does not support is labelled and counted, in plain sight.
- It will not let a model grade its own sources. Evidence quality is a fixed formula.
- It will not show a rating or a testimonial it does not have.
How each of these works, and where the method is weak, is on the methodology page.
How is Buteo paid for?
By the people who use it. There are no adverts and no sponsored results, and nobody pays to appear in a verdict.
Your first validation is free and needs no card: 10 credits, which is one full run. After that Buteo runs on credits. A validation costs 10, and a pack of 30 credits is $19 and never expires. The full price list is on the pricing section.