Karen, it has been such a privilege and joy to help beta test Future Scan. This post demonstrates why people want to work with you. Because you listen to feedback without prejudice, implement it without difficulty (or at least that's how it looks to me!), and engage without ever taking advantage. I love what you are building and will always continue to be a champion for your work. Ad astra! 🚀
Thank you so much! The feedback you’ve provided on Future Scan has been invaluable, especially as I am now shaping the tool for researchers, a community I’m only now just getting to know. I’m so grateful you agreed to beta test and I’m looking forward to continued collaboration. 🙏❤️
Thank you so much! I’m excited that the research from the tool may support your book…a real-life use case that’s so important! Looking forward to getting your thoughts on the latest enhancements. 🙏❤️
You’re on the right track for audience. Corporate researchers are a great fit for Future Scan. (I used to be one, but since I’m focused on AI at a different level now, that’s why I didn’t sign up to beta test ;) So are grad students who need to do literature reviews.
Grad students tend to be on tight budgets though, and their advisors may have specific expectations for sources. Have you thought about academic pricing and how to keep runtime costs from exceeding what you can charge? Maybe taking a list of preferred authors or organizations to search more narrowly?
Completely agree that FS will need different pricing tiers for corporate research and academic users. I was thinking about a pay-as-you-go model, but limiting the search scope as you suggest could work, too!
And THANK YOU for the visualizations link…I believe the consensus now is that the scatterplot must die! 🙏 🤗
I personally love that it’s so technical. For a more general audience papers can be pretty confusing to read and people usually prefer guides that simplify things curated by people who can speak their language. So your discovery that this kind of tool is way more useful for researchers, technical creators, operators and all kinds of people who don’t need diluted info that loses nuance - makes complete sense.
On reaching them, you could try direct outreach to universities or R&D teams. I’ve used HeyReach for LinkedIn and it does an amazing job - just careful about the limits you set so LinkedIn doesn't "notice" the automation (ping me if you need help, I can send you a few screenshots with my setup). They also just added this week (I think) an integration for enriching your LinkedIn leads so you can email them as well
Agree that, once I tweak a few more things in the tool, direct outreach is in my future! Will take a look at Hey Reach and will definitely reach out if I have any questions! 🙏❤️
Karen, this was a great read. What I liked was how the beta testers didn’t just help you tune the tool, they helped you find the real audience. I think a lot of us build the first version for ourselves and then discover who actually needs it once it is out in the world. That pivot is the real story I see here, and you handled it well.
💯 Version 1.0 was built to help me set up a newsletter feature on “new developments in AI” and then it morphed when I realized the new developments in actual AI research papers are reaaaalllly technical—cool and interesting but not necessarily for a general audience
I would say that academics and investors are two very different audiences that would most likely want different features / results and would require different marketing messages to attract them. Maybe create dedicated landing pages with features geared toward that audience with a clear outcome.
AI investors - Go from hype-driven market trends to verified, emerging research opportunities in minutes using automated semantic clustering and literature-driven trend reports.
AI researchers and graduate students - Go from overwhelming, scattered literature to concise, methodology-aligned trend reviews in minutes using automated, cluster-based analysis of arXiv papers.
Beta testers are awesome but they can also be brutal. It's almost like you don't want to hear their feedback sometimes 🤣 but wow, what a great feedback you got! I'm so happy for you.
Karen, it has been such a privilege and joy to help beta test Future Scan. This post demonstrates why people want to work with you. Because you listen to feedback without prejudice, implement it without difficulty (or at least that's how it looks to me!), and engage without ever taking advantage. I love what you are building and will always continue to be a champion for your work. Ad astra! 🚀
Thank you so much! The feedback you’ve provided on Future Scan has been invaluable, especially as I am now shaping the tool for researchers, a community I’m only now just getting to know. I’m so grateful you agreed to beta test and I’m looking forward to continued collaboration. 🙏❤️
per aspera! ❤️
Agree with Sam’s comments. Honored to be a part of beta and I love your transparent approach to building. Will do more testing this weekend!
Thank you so much! I’m excited that the research from the tool may support your book…a real-life use case that’s so important! Looking forward to getting your thoughts on the latest enhancements. 🙏❤️
You’re on the right track for audience. Corporate researchers are a great fit for Future Scan. (I used to be one, but since I’m focused on AI at a different level now, that’s why I didn’t sign up to beta test ;) So are grad students who need to do literature reviews.
Grad students tend to be on tight budgets though, and their advisors may have specific expectations for sources. Have you thought about academic pricing and how to keep runtime costs from exceeding what you can charge? Maybe taking a list of preferred authors or organizations to search more narrowly?
On the visualizations, see Connected Papers: https://www.connectedpapers.com/
Completely agree that FS will need different pricing tiers for corporate research and academic users. I was thinking about a pay-as-you-go model, but limiting the search scope as you suggest could work, too!
And THANK YOU for the visualizations link…I believe the consensus now is that the scatterplot must die! 🙏 🤗
I personally love that it’s so technical. For a more general audience papers can be pretty confusing to read and people usually prefer guides that simplify things curated by people who can speak their language. So your discovery that this kind of tool is way more useful for researchers, technical creators, operators and all kinds of people who don’t need diluted info that loses nuance - makes complete sense.
On reaching them, you could try direct outreach to universities or R&D teams. I’ve used HeyReach for LinkedIn and it does an amazing job - just careful about the limits you set so LinkedIn doesn't "notice" the automation (ping me if you need help, I can send you a few screenshots with my setup). They also just added this week (I think) an integration for enriching your LinkedIn leads so you can email them as well
Agree that, once I tweak a few more things in the tool, direct outreach is in my future! Will take a look at Hey Reach and will definitely reach out if I have any questions! 🙏❤️
Karen, you’re really showing how to build a tool the right way!
I read through all the user feedback, it all made so much sense to me, especially the tweak with the landing page and FAQs resonate with me sooo much.
Thank you! I was so glad the folks testing took the time to share details.
Exciting to see how FutureScan is developing ✨
🙏 It’s been a fun project so far!
Valueable lessons. So important to stay tuned into what's happening as it changes weekly.
💯
This is why 'building in public' is so powerful. Karen, thanks for showing us how you're building trust.
Thank you! 🤗
no comment. just encouraging you to continue
Appreciate it! 😊
Karen, this was a great read. What I liked was how the beta testers didn’t just help you tune the tool, they helped you find the real audience. I think a lot of us build the first version for ourselves and then discover who actually needs it once it is out in the world. That pivot is the real story I see here, and you handled it well.
💯 Version 1.0 was built to help me set up a newsletter feature on “new developments in AI” and then it morphed when I realized the new developments in actual AI research papers are reaaaalllly technical—cool and interesting but not necessarily for a general audience
I would say that academics and investors are two very different audiences that would most likely want different features / results and would require different marketing messages to attract them. Maybe create dedicated landing pages with features geared toward that audience with a clear outcome.
AI investors - Go from hype-driven market trends to verified, emerging research opportunities in minutes using automated semantic clustering and literature-driven trend reports.
AI researchers and graduate students - Go from overwhelming, scattered literature to concise, methodology-aligned trend reviews in minutes using automated, cluster-based analysis of arXiv papers.
Great insights, thank you! 🙏 Agree I may need a “satellite” LP for each group.
Super inspiring, Karen. I’m not a beta tester, but I’m also deep in dev right now, way less technical stack, but honestly the same kind of challenges.
Love seeing you share the journey. Got me hyped to ship and start my own beta soon
Thank you! 🤗 I definitely recommend shipping sooner rather than later…it will save you a bunch of dev time!
It's impressive that you were able to pivot the entire target audience so early in the process based on direct user experience.
Well done, Karen. Excited to see where this new direction takes it.
Thank you! It’s been an amazing experience so far!
Absolutely incredible what a week on feedback can produce. Taking notes for my own work.
💯 I’m so glad I didn’t wait to have other people test the tool!
Beta testers are awesome but they can also be brutal. It's almost like you don't want to hear their feedback sometimes 🤣 but wow, what a great feedback you got! I'm so happy for you.
I was really lucky to have beta testers who have managed the art of being direct and kind at the same time! 😊