What is SMB Insights and how do I start?
SMB Insights is an AI analyst that turns business news into concrete growth ideas for small and medium businesses. Three steps to get going:
1Load news — pull fresh articles from the sources (this also runs automatically in the background).
2Generate insights — the AI reads the latest news and proposes up to 4 business hypotheses, each with an audience, monetization and first steps. This costs 1 credit.
3Review — open any insight for the details, set a status, and Explore the ones worth a deeper look.
How does the “News” section work?
After loading, the News section lists every article. Each one shows:
- Score ★ — a priority hint for how promising the article is as the basis for a business idea: the higher it is, the more likely it feeds into generation. Computed instantly, costs nothing.
- EN/RU flag — the article’s language. English ones are translated automatically during generation.
- “in insight” — the article has already been used.
Use the search box and category filter to navigate.
How do I generate insights?
Click Get insights in the top bar. The AI analyzes the latest news and produces up to 4 insights at once, for 1 credit. Each insight includes a product name, a description (format, target audience, monetization and a margin estimate), a first MVP step, three tests to validate the hypothesis, tags, and a priority. To take an insight further, use Explore.
How do I work with insights?
Click an insight to open its detailed card. You can set a status:
- ⭐ Favorite — interesting, come back later
- 🔥 In progress — actively exploring
- ✓ Verified — tested on the market
- ✗ Rejected — doesn’t fit, hide it
Statuses are saved and sync across your devices. To find an insight later, the Insights section has a search box (title, description, first MVP step and tags) and a category filter.
What does “Explore” do?
The Explore button runs a deeper analysis on top of the original hypothesis. It adds unit economics, a P&L for the first three months, and a concrete action plan. These sections adapt to your role — a marketer gets a test budget, a finance person gets cash-flow scenarios. Exploring an insight costs 1 credit, and the result is saved to that insight, so you pay only once for it.
How do Trends work?
The Trends tab looks across many recent articles in a topic and summarizes what’s moving — recurring themes and shifts, rather than a single idea. Pick a period (the last 7 or 30 days) and a topic, then generate a report for 1 credit. A fresh report opens instantly; once it’s marked as outdated, you can refresh it for 1 credit to pull the latest picture.
How do I email an insight to myself?
The Email (✉) button on a card sends the insight to your account’s email address as a Word (.docx) document. For a worked-through insight, that document also includes the explored analysis — unit economics, P&L and action plan.
How do I publish an insight to Ideas?
You can publish an insight to the public Ideas page so others can see it (publishing is available once an insight has been explored). Use the Share action and confirm; you may optionally show your name as the author or stay anonymous. Published ideas appear on the public Ideas page, and you can unpublish yours at any time.
How do credits work?
Credits are the app’s internal currency. You spend them on transactions such as creating an insight, exploring an insight, or generating a trends report — 1 credit per transaction. Credits don’t expire, so you can use them whenever you like. Collecting and scoring news, browsing and search don’t cost credits.
How do I buy credits?
To buy credits, click the balance pill — the ⚡ icon with your credit count, next to the Get insights button in the top bar. This opens the Buy credits window. Pick a credit pack and click Buy, then follow the Stripe checkout to enter your card details and confirm. Purchases are one-time — no subscription, no auto-charges — prices are in US dollars, and the credits appear on your balance as soon as the payment completes.
What about refunds?
If a generation fails for a technical reason, the credit for it is refunded automatically — you don’t need to ask. Credits spent on successful operations aren’t refundable, since the AI work has already been done.
What is a “role” and why change it?
Your role sets who the AI writes insights for — which metrics, sections and emphasis it uses. There are six: Founder, Marketing, Product, Finance, Sales, HR. A marketer sees channel performance (CPC, CR); a finance person sees scenarios and payback; a product person sees activation and retention. You pick your role during onboarding and can change it later. Role isn’t the category filter: the category is the topic of the input news, while the role is the angle of the output — a marketer can read crypto news and still get marketing insights. Switching role affects new insights; ones you already explored stay as they were.
What is the focus category?
Focus is the default category filter on the News feed — it sets what you see first when you open the feed. Change it right in the filters above the feed (click a category to switch). Focus doesn’t hide the other categories; it just decides your starting view.
How do I change the interface language?
The app is available in English, German and Russian. Switch the language from the account menu; your choice is remembered across sessions. Some source articles are in English — these carry an EN flag, and during generation the AI translates and adapts them to your interface language automatically, so your insights always come out in your language.
What's in the account menu?
Click the avatar with your name in the top-right to open the account menu. It holds your name and email, the interface language (EN/DE/RU), a link to Help & FAQ, and Logout.
How do I enable or disable sources?
Open the Sources tab to see every source you draw from. Use the category filter to group them and toggle individual sources on or off. Disabled sources are skipped on the next collection run, and your changes are saved.
How does auto-collection work?
Articles are collected automatically in the background roughly once per hour — no action needed on your side. So when you open the News section, fresh items are usually already there. The load button in the header is only for pulling news right now, without waiting for the next automatic run.
Can I redo the onboarding?
Yes — you can go through onboarding again. It restarts the role and focus setup wizard; your insights, hypotheses and publications are untouched.
Why are few or no insights generated?
A few common reasons: there are too few fresh, relevant articles (click the load button to pull new ones); the suitable articles were already used in earlier generations; or similar insights already exist in your archive and near-duplicates are dropped. Since news is collected hourly, waiting a little and trying again often helps.
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