LaunchRadar

Monitor Reddit and Hacker News for high-intent conversations where people are asking about problems your product solves. LaunchRadar scores each match with AI, surfaces the best opportunities in a dashboard, and emails you a daily digest with ready-to-use reply suggestions.

Live demo: https://launchradar-five.vercel.app

---

How it works

1. Onboarding — describe your product in one sentence; OpenAI infers your target customer and generates keywords and subreddits automatically
2. Instant first scan — as soon as onboarding completes, a scan runs immediately and results appear within 30–60 seconds
3. Daily fetch — a cron job scrapes Reddit and Hacker News for new posts, scores each one 0–100 for relevance and tags intent (high / medium / low)
4. Dashboard — browse and filter opportunities; each card shows the post title (clickable link), a body preview, AI reasoning, and an inline suggested reply with a one-click copy button
5. Digest email — receive a daily summary of the top opportunities with AI-generated reply suggestions
6. Manual scan — trigger an on-demand scan any time from the Settings page; configure how many HN posts to fetch per scan (default 50)

---

Tech stack

Layer	Technology
Framework	Next.js 16 (App Router) + TypeScript
Database	PostgreSQL via Supabase
ORM	Prisma v7 with @prisma/adapter-pg
Auth	Supabase SSR (@supabase/ssr)
AI	OpenAI (GPT-4o-mini for scoring, GPT-4o for keywords + reply generation)
Payments	Stripe (hosted Checkout, $19/month)
Email	Resend + React Email
Caching	Upstash Redis (deduplication)
UI	Shadcn/ui + Tailwind CSS v4
Hosting	Vercel (serverless + cron jobs)

---

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• A Supabase project (free tier works)
• An OpenAI API key
• A Stripe account (test mode is fine)
• A Resend account (free tier works)
• An Upstash Redis database (free tier works)

---

Local development

1. Clone and install

git clone https://github.com/your-username/launchradar.git
cd launchradar
npm install

2. Set up Supabase

1. Create a new project at supabase.com
2. Go to Project Settings → Database → Connection string
3. Copy the Transaction Pooler URL (port 6543) — this is your DATABASE_URL
4. Copy the Direct connection URL (port 5432) — this is your DIRECT_URL (used only for migrations)
5. From Project Settings → API, copy your NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL, NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY, and SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY

Why Transaction Pooler? Serverless functions can't hold persistent database connections. The Transaction Pooler (port 6543) handles connection management; the direct URL (port 5432) would cause P1001 errors in production.

3. Set up Stripe

1. Create a product and price in the Stripe Dashboard (or use test mode)
2. Set the price to $19/month recurring — copy the price_... ID as STRIPE_PRICE_ID
3. Copy your Secret key (sk_test_...) as STRIPE_SECRET_KEY
4. You'll add STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET after setting up the webhook (step 7)

4. Set up Resend

1. Create an account at resend.com
2. Copy your API key as RESEND_API_KEY
3. For RESEND_FROM_EMAIL, use onboarding@resend.dev until you verify a custom domain

5. Set up Upstash Redis

1. Create a Redis database at upstash.com
2. Copy the REST URL and REST Token as UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_URL and UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_TOKEN

6. Configure environment variables

Copy the example file and fill in all values:

cp .env.example .env.local

# Supabase
NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL=https://your-project.supabase.co
NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY=eyJ...
SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY=eyJ...

# Database — MUST be Transaction Pooler URL (port 6543)
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://postgres.[ref]:[password]@aws-0-[region].pooler.supabase.com:6543/postgres?pgbouncer=true
# Direct URL (port 5432) — used only by `prisma migrate`
DIRECT_URL=postgresql://postgres:[password]@db.[ref].supabase.co:5432/postgres

# App
NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_URL=http://localhost:3000

# OpenAI
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-proj-...

# Upstash Redis
UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_URL=https://...
UPSTASH_REDIS_REST_TOKEN=...

# Resend
RESEND_API_KEY=re_...
RESEND_FROM_EMAIL=onboarding@resend.dev

# Stripe
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_test_...
STRIPE_PRICE_ID=price_...
STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET=whsec_...   # leave blank until step 7

# Cron authentication (any random secret)
CRON_SECRET=your-random-secret    # generate with: openssl rand -base64 32

# Registration gate — set to 'true' to allow new sign-ups, 'false' to lock registration
NEXT_PUBLIC_REGISTRATION_OPEN=true

7. Run database migrations

npx prisma migrate dev

8. Start the dev server

npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000.

9. Set up Stripe webhooks (local)

In a separate terminal:

stripe listen --forward-to localhost:3000/api/stripe/webhook

Copy the whsec_... secret that appears and set it as STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET in .env.local.

10. Test the cron jobs

# Fetch Reddit + HN posts, score them, store opportunities (all users)
curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/api/cron/fetch-posts \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CRON_SECRET"

# Send digest emails to all users with email enabled
curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/api/cron/send-digests \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CRON_SECRET"

# On-demand scan for the logged-in user (session auth — run from browser or with session cookie)
curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/api/opportunities/refresh \
  -H "Cookie: <paste session cookie from browser>"

---

Deployment (Vercel)

1. Push to GitHub and import the repo in Vercel
2. Set all environment variables in Project Settings → Environment Variables (use production Stripe keys and your live domain for NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_URL)
3. Add a Stripe webhook endpoint in the Stripe Dashboard pointing to https://your-domain.com/api/stripe/webhook with the checkout.session.completed and customer.subscription.deleted events. Copy the signing secret to STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET
4. Cron jobs are pre-configured in vercel.json to run daily at 08:00 UTC

---

Project structure

├── app/
│   ├── page.tsx                          Landing page
│   ├── dashboard/page.tsx                Dashboard (server component)
│   ├── onboarding/page.tsx               Single-input onboarding form
│   ├── settings/page.tsx                 Settings page
│   ├── auth/
│   │   ├── login/                        Supabase email/password auth
│   │   └── register/                     Supabase email/password auth
│   └── api/
│       ├── cron/
│       │   ├── fetch-posts/              Scrapes Reddit + HN, scores with OpenAI, stores opportunities
│       │   └── send-digests/             Sends daily digest emails via Resend
│       ├── stripe/
│       │   ├── checkout/                 Creates Stripe Checkout Session
│       │   └── webhook/                  Handles Stripe events (raw body — do not change to .json())
│       ├── opportunities/
│       │   ├── [id]/reply/               Marks opportunity as replied
│       │   ├── refresh/                  On-demand per-user fetch + score
│       │   └── count/                    Returns opportunity count for current user
│       ├── onboarding/                   Generates keywords + marks onboarding complete
│       ├── settings/                     PATCH profile settings
│       └── feedback/                     Records opportunity relevance feedback
│
├── components/
│   ├── DashboardClient.tsx               Filter tabs + opportunity feed
│   ├── OpportunityCard.tsx               Individual opportunity with action buttons
│   ├── ReplyModal.tsx                    AI-suggested reply viewer
│   ├── BuyModal.tsx                      Stripe subscription checkout modal
│   ├── SettingsClient.tsx                Settings forms
│   ├── StatsBar.tsx                      Stats counters (found / replied / skipped)
│   └── Header.tsx                        Top nav
│
├── lib/
│   ├── db/client.ts                      Prisma singleton — always import from here
│   ├── supabase/
│   │   ├── server.ts                     Server-side Supabase client
│   │   └── client.ts                     Browser Supabase client
│   ├── scorer.ts                         OpenAI relevance scoring (0–100 + intent + reply suggestions)
│   ├── keyword-generator.ts              OpenAI keyword + subreddit generation
│   ├── refresh-opportunities.ts          Shared fetch/score/save logic for a single user
│   ├── reddit.ts                         Reddit public .json API fetcher (no OAuth needed)
│   ├── hn.ts                             Hacker News Algolia API fetcher
│   ├── digest.ts                         Selects top opportunities for digest email
│   └── email-templates/digest.tsx        React Email digest template
│
└── prisma/
    └── schema.prisma                     Database schema (Profile, Opportunity, Feedback)

---

Database schema

Profile — one per user; id matches the Supabase auth UID

Opportunity — one per matched post; userId → Profile; stores relevance score (0–100), intent level, AI reasoning, and suggested replies

Feedback — records thumbs-up/down on each opportunity for future model improvements

See prisma/schema.prisma for the full schema.

---

Key implementation notes

• No Reddit OAuth — all Reddit fetching uses the public .json API (reddit.com/r/{sub}/new.json). No credentials required.
• Prisma v7 requires an adapter — always use lib/db/client.ts; never call new PrismaClient() without the @prisma/adapter-pg adapter.
• Stripe webhook uses request.text() — the raw body is required for signature verification; request.json() breaks this.
• Auth model is Profile — there is no User model in Prisma; the Supabase auth UID is used as the Profile.id.

---

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. For significant changes, open an issue first to discuss what you'd like to change.

1. Fork the repo and create a branch: git checkout -b my-feature
2. Make your changes and test locally
3. Open a pull request with a clear description of what changed and why

---

License

MIT