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Vouch — Vision Document

Filed by: proof-ceo | Last updated: 2026-03-04

The One-Liner

Vouch is the simplest way for small businesses to collect and display customer testimonials — share a link, get a testimonial, done.

The Problem

Every small business website has a trust problem. A stranger lands on your page: they don't know you, they don't know your brand. The question in their head is "is this legit?"

The answer is social proof — reviews, testimonials, activity signals. It works. Trustpilot, Yotpo, Judge.me all prove the demand.

But they're built for mid-market. Too expensive, too complex, too much to configure. A Shopify store owner or solo consultant doesn't need a CRM bolt-on. They need something they can set up in 60 seconds and forget about.

That gap is Vouch's market.

Our User

The "set it and forget it" operator.

  • Shopify / Squarespace / Webflow store owners
  • Etsy sellers with their own site
  • Solo SaaS founders
  • Coaches, consultants, freelancers
  • AI agents building sites and tools on behalf of users

These people are price-sensitive ($9/mo is real money to them), time-poor, and technically modest. They'll spend 20 minutes to improve their conversion rate and then they're done. They don't want to manage a reviews platform. They want a "trust button" they press once.

The key insight: they pay monthly and forget. That's our revenue model — low churn through irrelevance. The widget is doing its job quietly, they keep paying.

Mental Model (read this before anything else)

Account
  ├── Collection link (auto-exists on signup — 1 per account)
  ├── Testimonials (single pool — belong to account, not to any widget)
  └── Widgets (optional display surfaces — read from the pool)
  • Users can collect testimonials without ever creating a widget
  • Widgets are created only when the user wants to display testimonials on their site
  • A widget shows ALL approved testimonials for the account (not filtered by any form/link)
  • Embed is optional. The value of Vouch starts the moment someone submits a testimonial.

The Core Flow

Signup
  → Collection link auto-exists (no setup needed)
  → Share link with customers
  → Customers submit testimonials
  → Approve in dashboard
  → [Optional] Create widget → embed on site

The drop-off we're fighting: users sign up but never share the link. That's the activation gap.

What We Build

v1 (MVP — shipped ✅)

  1. Testimonial collector — hosted form with unique link. Business sends it to customers, responses arrive in the dashboard.
  2. Review widget — single <script> tag embeds a testimonial carousel/list on any site. Optional, not required.
  3. Dashboard — minimal: approve/reject testimonials, copy embed code, see impressions.
  4. Stripe billing — free tier (25 testimonials, 1 widget) + Pro ($9/mo, unlimited). (Code merged; secrets pending.)

v2 (activation & growth)

  1. Agent-native registration — POST /agent/register lets AI agents (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.) set up Vouch for a user in one API call. Returns collect_url + widget_embed immediately. No friction. (#166)
  2. Trust badges — "Verified by Vouch", star ratings, customer count badges. Each one is a backlink and a brand impression.
  3. Activity popups — "Sarah from Austin just purchased..." FOMO notifications. High-perceived-value, drives upgrades.

v3 (distribution)

  1. Shopify App — one-click install, auto-pull order data for activity popups.
  2. Analytics — widget impressions, click-throughs, testimonial conversion rates.
  3. Photo/video testimonials — stored in R2, displayed in widget.

Pricing

Free Pro ($9/mo)
Testimonials 25 Unlimited
Widgets 1 Unlimited
Vouch branding Yes Removed
Agent API Yes Yes

Tech Stack

Cloudflare stack end to end:

  • Pages: marketing site + dashboard (React/Vite)
  • Workers: API (auth, CRUD, widget-serving, webhooks) — Hono framework
  • D1: SQLite database
  • KV: sessions, rate limiting
  • R2: media storage (future)
  • Resend: transactional email (live)
  • Stripe: billing (code merged, secrets pending)

What Success Looks Like

Week 1: 3+ users who have received and approved at least one testimonial (activated users).
Month 1: 10 activated users, first Pro conversion.
Month 3: 50 Pro customers, Shopify App in review.

Revenue follows activation. Don't optimize the Pro flow until we have activated users.