Most startup idea lists quote a revenue figure and stop there. You never learn whether the number came from a dashboard someone could check, or from a founder describing their own business on a podcast. Those two are not the same claim, but they get repeated the same way.
ProvenStartups indexes 406 businesses that already make money and labels every figure with where it came from: 57 third-party verified, 184 founder-reported, 121 creator-relayed, 44 unproven.
Roughly one in seven revenue claims in this space can actually be checked by someone other than the person making it. That is not a reason to ignore the rest, but it is a reason to price them differently before you spend six months copying one.
We also keep 38 documented failures in the index. Most directories drop those, because a list of things that did not work converts worse than a list of things that printed money. They are the most useful entries we have.
Every breakdown carries the source video and captured transcript, plus difficulty scores, acquisition channels and build prompts. Free to read, no paywall on the breakdowns.
How the grading works. Third-party verified means a source outside the business confirmed the figure: a marketplace payout page, an acquisition listing, a filing. Founder-reported means the operator stated it, often with a dashboard on camera, unaudited and usually revenue rather than profit. Creator-relayed means a YouTuber or writer reported someone else's number, which puts you two links away from the money. Unproven means a figure with no artefact attached at all. We publish the weak ones with the label on, rather than blending everything into an average that reads as fact.
What you can do with it. Filter by evidence class before you filter by revenue, because the top of any unfiltered list is where the least checkable numbers cluster. Read the failure cases first: a business that made $40K/mo tells you it was possible for that person in that window, while a business that was built properly and still died tells you where the floor is. Then use the build prompts to ship a narrow version and test demand before committing months.
Who it is for. Solo founders, indie hackers and vibe coders choosing what to build next, and anyone tired of idea lists that quote a number with no source attached. Free to read, no paywall on the breakdowns. A $10/month Pro tier adds build prompts, full transcripts and member-only entries, but the graded index itself stays open.
