Solo dev builds MentionScout to track AI answers; SnapWidget cited in only 1 of 8 queries
hermanschutte · x · 2026-10-26
South African indie developer Herman Schutte (SnapWidget, SiteSpeakAI) launched MentionScout, a tool that daily asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok and Google's AI answers whether your product gets mentioned — "Search Console, but for AI answers."
Motivation: Google traffic to SnapWidget kept sliding while ChatGPT referrals grew and converted well. Splitting the data revealed the gap: when asked by name, AI recommends SnapWidget almost always; on natural questions like "best Instagram widget," it appears only 1 in 8 times.
Built starting May with Claude Code in a few days, with the author as first user. A textbook AEO indie-hacker case.