I Built Testimonial Genius in 3 Days: Here's the Thought Process

Over the last few days, I built and launched TestimonialGenius.com — a simple AI-powered tool that turns raw customer testimonials into clean, categorized, marketing-ready quotes and insights.

It extracts themes, ranks the best quotes, tags sentiment, and outputs a beautiful branded PDF or CSV — all in seconds.

But this wasn't just another "AI wrapper." This was my experiment in what a micro-SaaS can be in 2025 — fast to build, niche in scope, and useful from day one.

Where the Idea Came From

It started with a pattern I noticed across startups and agencies I've worked with: everyone has customer testimonials. Almost nobody actually uses them well.

They're scattered across Notion docs, Shopify exports, G2, or Google Reviews — just sitting there. But hidden in that mess are valuable patterns and high-converting quotes.

So I asked myself:

What if I could build a tool that makes use of those quotes automatic? What if I could turn unstructured praise into a marketing asset?

The Build Stack (AKA, "Let AI Build the AI Tool")

The stack came together surprisingly fast thanks to AI-native tools:

• Frontend: Next.js (generated mostly using V0.dev)
• Backend: FastAPI (Python)
• AI Engine: Gemini (for theme extraction, quote curation, sentiment tagging)
• Development flow: Cursor was a huge accelerator

Within 3 days, I had it out the door, deployed and live.

This build felt like a new way of working — idea to product in days, not months.

Thought Process Behind the Product

I used this framework to keep the scope focused:

• Problem: Businesses are sitting on testimonials they don't use.
• Promise: We'll turn them into clean, usable insights with no extra work.
• Outcome: Beautiful, AI-generated reports you can drop into a pitch deck, landing page, or email campaign.

What I didn't want was another "chat with your data" tool. I wanted opinionated UX, built for a single use case with clarity and polish.

Why Micro-SaaS is More Viable Than Ever

This project reminded me how doable small SaaS ideas are now. Thanks to AI coding tools, you can:

• Build fast (with quality)
• Design with AI (V0, AI UI agents)
• Iterate quickly
• Solve a real problem for a specific audience

It's a far cry from the old days of needing a team, weeks of scoping, or raising capital just to test a hypothesis.

The new MVP is something that works, solves a problem, and looks good enough to sell itself — all in under a week.

What's Next

• Adding a quote-to-image feature for easy social sharing
• Building integrations (Shopify, Google Reviews)
• Launching on Product Hunt
• Talking to marketers, agencies, and indie founders to improve usability

Try It & Give Feedback

If you've got testimonials sitting in a spreadsheet somewhere, give TestimonialGenius.com a spin.

I'd love feedback — good, bad, or brutally honest. Let's keep building cool things, faster than ever.