avet — Agentic Vetting for Community Gating

Thesis Evolution

Round	Thesis	Key Change
v1	“AI agent that screens incoming members for WhatsApp group admins”	WA-only framing constrained TAM, distribution, and verdict
v2	“Agentic vetting service that uses AI agents to verify people have certain attributes, as infrastructure for community gating — on any platform”	Platform-agnostic. WA is one channel, not the product. Buyer changes from casual admin → community operator / platform.

Why this reframe matters. v1 concluded “weekend hack, not a venture” — but that verdict was driven by WhatsApp’s closed ecosystem, not by the core idea. Once you remove the WA constraint, three things change: (1) distribution exists (Discord/Telegram have open bot ecosystems), (2) paying buyers exist (paid communities, DAOs, marketplaces), and (3) the competitive landscape shifts from “zero tools exist” to “only rule-based gating exists — no one does qualitative vetting.”

0. Phase 0 — Eric’s Own Pain

Eric runs multiple WhatsApp groups (GenieFriends, angel-era groups, Meta Threads pipeline — ~5–20 groups). He is a community admin who manually vets join requests. This is the strongest PMF signal.^P0

Eric has this problem firsthand. The “founder has the pain” check passes. This is a Phase 0 dog-food signal — per the Wenhao lesson, the founder’s own use case is the single strongest vertical signal and should be weighted above all market-sizing abstractions. The question is whether the pain generalises beyond Eric’s groups.

I. Market Size — Reframed

v1 sized the market as “WhatsApp admin tooling ≈ $0.” That was accurate for WA-only but missed the point. The real market is community gating infrastructure across all platforms.

Identity Verification

US$16B

Global TAM 2025¹

Content Moderation

US$14B

Global TAM 2025²

Community Platforms

US$1.2B

Skool + Circle + Mighty etc.³

Gated Communities

110K+

Guild.xyz + Collab.land⁴

Segment TAM: Where Avet Actually Fits

“AI community vetting” is not a tracked market segment — this hasn’t changed from v1. But the adjacent segments are significantly larger than previously cited, and the overlap is the opportunity.

Layer	Market	Size	Avet’s Slice
Formal KYC/IDV	Identity verification (Jumio, Onfido, Veriff, Persona)	US$16B¹	avet is “soft KYC” — qualitative, not document-based. Different buyer.
Content moderation	Hive, Spectrum Labs, Meta internal	US$14B²	Overlap on spam/bad-actor filtering. But avet gates at ENTRY, not post-entry.
Community tools	Khoros, Sprinklr, Higher Logic, community bots	~US$800M–1.2B³	Closest adjacency. Avet plugs in as a gating layer for existing platforms.
Token gating (Web3)	Guild.xyz, Collab.land, Unlock Protocol	~US$20–50M⁴	Rule-based gating (hold X tokens). Avet does qualitative gating. Complementary, not competitive.

Honest assessment: avet’s addressable slice is small. The total adjacent markets sum to ~US$31B, but avet sits in a specific wedge: communities that need qualitative human vetting (not document KYC, not spam filtering, not token-gating). This is a subset of community operators who: (a) gate membership, (b) care about member quality beyond binary rules, (c) will pay for automation. Estimated addressable: US$50–200M globally, not billions.

Platform Landscape

Platform	Users	Bot API	Gated Communities	Avet Viability
Discord	200M+ MAU⁵	Rich, public, free	Millions of servers with role-gating	HIGH
Telegram	900M+ MAU⁶	Open, free, well-documented	Millions of private groups	HIGH
Slack	32M+ DAU⁷	Rich API, app directory	Enterprise workspaces	MEDIUM (enterprise sales cycle)
WhatsApp	2.78B MAU⁸	Restricted, paid, no directory	Communities (2023), 1K cap	LOW (closed ecosystem)
Circle / Skool	~30K+ communities⁹	API varies	Paid communities native	MEDIUM (may build natively)

v1 error corrected: WhatsApp is now correctly positioned as the hardest platform, not the only one. Discord and Telegram have open ecosystems with proven bot distribution (MEE6: 19M+ servers, Combot: millions of groups). Starting there gives avet the distribution infrastructure that v1 correctly said WA lacked. WA becomes a Phase 2/3 expansion, not Phase 1.

II. The Key Insight — Qualitative vs Rule-Based Gating

Every existing community gating tool is rule-based: hold X tokens, solve a CAPTCHA, answer a form, pay a fee. None of them do what avet proposes — a conversational AI agent that assesses whether a person has certain attributes.

Approach	Examples	What It Checks	Limitation
CAPTCHA / verification	Captcha.bot, Double Counter, Wick	“Are you human?”	Only filters bots, not bad-faith humans
Token gating	Guild.xyz, Collab.land⁴	“Do you hold asset X?”	Binary. Wallet balance ≠ community fit. Web3-only.
Form / questionnaire	Google Forms, Tally, Discord app forms	“Answer these 5 questions”	Static. Easy to game. No follow-up probing.
Manual review	Human admins	“Does this person seem legit?”	Doesn’t scale. Subjective. Slow. The pain avet solves.
Agentic vetting (avet)	No direct competitor	“Conversation to verify attributes, follow up on inconsistencies, assess fit”	Unproven. Agent reliability on nuanced judgment is the risk.

This is the differentiation that v1 missed. v1 compared avet to MEE6 and Combot (moderation bots). Wrong comp. Avet’s real innovation is replacing human judgment at the community gate — not replacing spam filters. The question isn’t “can an AI filter spam?” (yes, trivially) but “can an AI agent reliably assess whether a person has certain attributes through conversation?” That’s a fundamentally harder and more valuable problem.

III. Competitive Landscape — Reframed

3a. Gating Infrastructure (Direct Category)

Company	Model	Scale	What They Got Right	Why Avet Is Different
Guild.xyz	Token/credential gating for Discord + Telegram	60K+ communities⁴	Multi-platform. Composable rules. Web3-native.	Rule-based only. “Hold 10 ETH” is a rule, not a judgment. Can’t assess “is this person an experienced developer?”
Collab.land	Token-gating bot for Discord/Telegram	50K+ communities, raised US$25M+¹⁰	First mover in Web3 gating. Simple UX.	Same limitation: binary rule check. No qualitative assessment.
Commsor	Community analytics + member CRM	Raised US$16M¹¹	Tracks member engagement post-entry. B2B SaaS.	Post-entry analytics, not pre-entry vetting. Complementary, not competitive.
Persona	Identity verification platform (KYC)	Raised US$200M+ at US$1.5B valuation¹²	Programmable identity flows. Used by major fintechs.	Document-based KYC, not conversational vetting. Different buyer (compliance teams, not community admins).

Nobody does what avet proposes. Guild.xyz and Collab.land gate on what you have (tokens, NFTs). Persona verifies who you are (government ID). avet assesses what you’re like (qualifications, intent, cultural fit) through conversation. This is an unoccupied niche. The question is whether the niche is valuable enough and technically feasible enough to build a business on.

3b. Playbook Winners (Adjacent Space)

Company	Model	Revenue / Scale	Playbook	Transferability to Avet
MEE6	Freemium Discord bot	19M+ servers, ~US$10M+ ARR¹³	First-mover on Discord bot marketplace. Moderation → premium features.	HIGH — if avet starts on Discord, same playbook applies. Open API, bot directory, viral server-to-server spread.
Combot	Freemium Telegram analytics + moderation	Millions of groups, ~US$1–3M ARR¹⁴	Telegram Bot API. Group analytics wedge → upsell moderation.	HIGH — same open-API playbook. Avet could wedge via free vetting → paid custom criteria.
Skool	Community platform, US$99/mo	~US$20M+ ARR, 30K+ communities⁹	Sam Ovens’ audience. Replaced FB Groups for paid communities.	LOW — platform replacement, not a bolt-on tool. But proves willingness to pay US$99/mo for community tooling.
Guild.xyz	Free token-gating, API fees	60K+ communities⁴	Composable rules engine. Multi-platform. Web3 flywheel.	COMPLEMENTARY — Guild gates on tokens; avet gates on qualitative attributes. Could integrate: “hold 1 ETH AND pass avet interview.”

3c. Failed / Struggling Examples

Company	What They Tried	What Happened	Lesson for Avet
Chatfuel / ManyChat (WA)	WA chatbot builders for marketing/support	Pivoted to Messenger/Instagram. WA API restrictions made it uneconomical.¹⁵	Don’t start on WA. Start where APIs are open, expand to WA later.
Various DAO gating tools (2021–22)	Token-gating + role verification	Many died with the crypto winter. Collab.land and Guild survived by going multi-chain + multi-platform.	Single-chain or single-platform = fragile. Multi-platform from day one.
AI hiring tools (HireVue, Pymetrics)	AI-powered candidate assessment via video/games	US$100M+ raised but facing regulatory pushback. Illinois BIPA, NYC Local Law 144 require audit of AI hiring decisions.¹⁶	Regulatory risk. If avet’s “attribute verification” looks like hiring discrimination, same laws may apply. Community gating ≠ employment, but the line blurs for professional communities.

The HireVue parallel is the one to watch. AI systems that assess “does this person have certain attributes” for gatekeeping decisions are exactly what regulators have started scrutinising. HireVue dropped facial analysis after backlash.¹⁶ NYC now requires bias audits for automated employment decisions. avet’s community gating is legally distinct from hiring — but if it starts screening for professional qualifications, income levels, or demographic proxies, the regulatory overlap emerges. Keep the use case clearly “community fit,” not “professional qualification.”

IV. Unit Economics — COGS Breakdown

Cost Side (per vetting interaction)

Component	Per-Unit Cost	Assumption	Source
LLM inference (conversation)	US$0.002–0.01	5–10 turns, ~3K–8K tokens total. GPT-4o-mini at US$0.15/1M input, US$0.60/1M output¹⁷	OpenAI pricing page
LLM inference (assessment)	US$0.001–0.005	Final judgment prompt, ~1K tokens	OpenAI pricing page
Platform API cost (Discord/TG)	US$0	Discord and Telegram Bot APIs are free⁵⁶	Platform docs
Platform API cost (WhatsApp)	US$0.005–0.08/msg	Per-conversation pricing. 10-turn vetting = US$0.05–0.80¹⁵	Meta Cloud API docs
Cloud hosting	~US$0.001	Serverless function per vetting	Vercel/AWS Lambda pricing
Total COGS per vetting	US$0.005–0.02 (Discord/TG) US$0.06–0.90 (WhatsApp)

Death metric: WhatsApp API cost. On Discord/Telegram, COGS per vetting is effectively zero (30–45x. If a group vets 50 members/month on WA at $0.50/vetting, that’s $25/month in API costs alone — which eats most of a $30/mo subscription. On Discord/TG, gross margin is 95%+. On WA, it’s 15–50%. This is why WA should not be Phase 1.

Revenue Side (benchmarked)

Metric	MEE6 (Discord)¹³	Guild.xyz⁴	Combot (TG)¹⁴	Avet (estimate)
ARPU (paid)	US$11.95/mo	Free (API fees)	~US$5–10/mo	US$10–30/mo
Free → paid conversion	~2–4%	N/A	~1–3%	~3–8% higher if niche
Distribution	Bot marketplace	Web3 ecosystem	TG Bot API	Bot marketplace + “vetted by avet” badge
CAC (organic)	~$0	~$0	~$0	~$0 if Discord/TG marketplace works

Break-Even Scenarios

Pessimistic

50 paid × $10 = $6K ARR

Base case

200 paid × $15 = $36K ARR

Upside

500 paid × $20 = $120K ARR

v2 vs v1 economics. v1’s ceiling was US$12K ARR (100 WA admins × $10/mo). Multi-platform changes the math: Discord alone has 19M+ active servers; even capturing 0.001% of servers willing to pay for qualitative vetting = ~190 customers. At US$15/mo average, that’s US$34K ARR from Discord alone. Add Telegram and it doubles. Still not venture-scale, but no longer “feature, not a business.”

V. Critique of v1 Claims — What Was Wrong

v1 Claim	Verdict	Corrected Assessment
“WA admin tooling market ≈ $0”	TRUE for WA	Correct for WhatsApp specifically. But the framing error was treating WA as the entire market. Community gating across Discord/TG/Slack is a real, active category with Guild.xyz (60K communities) and Collab.land (50K communities) as proof.
“Closed ecosystem = no distribution”	TRUE for WA FALSE for Discord/TG	v1 was right about WA but made a category error: concluded “no distribution for the product” when it should have said “no distribution on this specific platform.” Discord has Top.gg (400K+ bots listed). Telegram has BotFather and directories.
“Casual admin has $0 budget”	TRUE for casual FALSE for pro	Casual WA family-group admins: correct, $0 budget. But paid community operators (Skool creators, Discord community leaders, DAO managers) already spend $99–300/mo on community tooling. These are the real buyers.
“US$12K ARR ceiling”	WRONG	The $12K ceiling was a function of the WA-only constraint (100 admins × $10). Multi-platform unlocks 10–50x more addressable communities. Realistic ceiling: US$36K–120K ARR for a solo builder. Still not venture-scale but meaningful side revenue.
“Platform risk: Meta will build it”	PARTIALLY TRUE	True for WA (Meta will build native screening). But multi-platform avet can’t be replicated by any single platform owner. The moat becomes cross-platform consistency: “vetted by avet” works on Discord AND Telegram AND WA. No platform builds that.
“This is a feature, not a business”	DEBATABLE	Rule-based gating IS a feature (platforms build it natively — Discord AutoMod, TG anti-spam). But qualitative AI vetting is NOT a feature — it requires domain-specific prompting, evaluation tuning, and continuous improvement. The agent’s judgment quality is the product. Harder to commoditise than a rule engine.
“Viral loop has 4 weak links”	TRUE for WA NOT TESTED for Discord/TG	On Discord, the loop simplifies: admin searches “vetting bot” on Top.gg → installs avet → tries free → upgrades. Three steps, all frictionless — exactly the MEE6 playbook. v1 was testing the WA loop, which is genuinely broken. The Discord/TG loop is proven by every successful bot in those ecosystems.

VI. The Risk v1 Didn’t Name — Agent Reliability

v1 focused on distribution risk. That was the wrong risk for the broadened thesis. The actual make-or-break question for platform-agnostic avet is: can an AI agent reliably assess qualitative human attributes through conversation?

Attribute Type	Example	Agent Reliability	Evidence
Factual / verifiable	“Do you have 5+ years of Python experience?”	HIGH — can probe specifics, cross-reference	LLMs excel at knowledge assessment (coding interviews, technical trivia)¹⁸
Self-reported	“Are you an accredited investor?”	MEDIUM — can ask but can’t verify	Self-attestation is gameable. Agent adds friction but not verification.
Behavioural / cultural fit	“Will this person contribute positively?”	LOW — highly subjective, no ground truth	AI hiring tools (HireVue) faced accuracy challenges + regulatory pushback on this exact claim¹⁶
Social graph	“Is this person connected to existing members?”	HIGH — if platform API exposes connections	Discord/TG expose mutual servers/groups. Cross-reference is deterministic.

The honest assessment: avet works best for factual/verifiable attributes, not “vibes.” If the vetting criteria are concrete (“must have 3+ years in crypto,” “must be a founder,” “must speak Mandarin”), an AI agent can probe effectively. If the criteria are subjective (“good culture fit,” “not a troll”), agent reliability drops sharply and regulatory risk increases. The MVP should focus on verifiable attributes only.

VII. Eric’s GTM Capabilities

AI-native builder Ships in days Already built agents (Donna) Has communities to dogfood Token costs negligible Discord/TG bot dev is straightforward No consumer distribution No marketing / ad budget Time: project #6 on list Unfair advantage: IS a community admin

Phased GTM (multi-platform)

Phase	Platform	Action	Timeline	Success Signal
Phase 0	WhatsApp (own groups)	Dogfood. Deploy in 3–5 own groups. Test if vetting adds value. Reuse Donna infra.	1 weekend	Do vetted groups feel different? Does anyone ask about it unprompted?
Phase 1	Discord	Build Discord bot. List on Top.gg. Free tier: 1 server, 20 vettings/mo. Target: crypto/DAO communities.	2–3 weekends	50+ servers install. 5+ unprompted upgrade requests.
Phase 2	Telegram	Port to TG Bot API. Same free/paid tiers.	1 weekend (after Discord validates)	Cross-platform communities using avet on both Discord + TG.
Phase 3	API / embeddable	Expose avet as API. Let Skool, Circle, custom platforms embed.	Only if Phase 1–2 show pull	Platform integration requests from community tools.

Eric’s Current Commitments (Feb 2026)

#	Project	Priority	Time
1	Sourcy/Karl contract	HIGH — paying	~10hr/wk
2	Blackring (agentic hardware)	HIGH	Variable
3	Donna pilot (AI PA)	HIGH — core product	Variable
4	Wenhao Blue-Collar AI	MEDIUM	Variable
5	Talent Coop	EXPLORING	Light
6	avet (this)	EXPLORING	Weekends only

Time constraint hasn’t changed. The reframe improves the opportunity ceiling, but Eric’s bandwidth is the same. The phased approach matters: Phase 0 is a weekend. Phase 1 is 2–3 weekends. Only proceed to each phase if the previous one shows pull. Don’t invest ahead of signal.

Government Grants

SG IMDA pre-approved list has no “community vetting” category. PSG/EDG grants are possible under “AI-powered community management” but would require productisation (Phase 3). Not relevant for Phase 0–1. No decision blocked on this.¹⁹

VIII. Red Team — The Strongest Case Against & For

Strongest Bull Case

Nobody does qualitative agentic vetting. The niche is unoccupied.
Discord + Telegram have open APIs with proven bot distribution (MEE6: 19M servers)
Token costs are effectively zero ($0.005–0.02/vetting on Discord/TG)
Eric already builds agents (Donna) — infra reuse is real, not hypothetical
Eric IS a community admin — Phase 0 dogfood signal is strongest PMF indicator
Guild.xyz proved 60K+ communities want gating — avet adds qualitative layer on top
Multi-platform = no single platform can kill you
If even 200 communities pay $15/mo, that’s $36K ARR from weekends-only effort
Potential integration partner for Guild.xyz / Collab.land (qualitative + rule-based)
Paid community explosion (Skool, Circle) = more operators who need gating

Strongest Bear Case

Agent reliability on nuanced judgment is unproven — this is the core risk, not distribution
Regulatory risk: AI-based gatekeeping decisions may face HireVue-style scrutiny
Discord will build native AI screening (they already have AutoMod — qualitative is next)
The buyer who needs qualitative vetting is a niche within a niche (gated community ∩ AI-open ∩ will pay)
Guild.xyz could add conversational gating tomorrow with an LLM wrapper
Revenue ceiling is still modest even in upside (~$120K ARR). Not venture-fundable as standalone.
Eric is project #6 — weekends-only means 6–12 month timeline to meaningful traction
Gaming risk: people will learn to “pass” AI interviews just like they game application forms
“Vetted by avet” brand means nothing until avet has reputation — chicken-and-egg
Community admins have high inertia — “I’ll just ask 3 questions myself” is the real competitor

The one question that resolves this: Can the agent reliably distinguish a good-fit applicant from a bad-fit one, on criteria the admin defined, with >80% agreement with the admin’s own judgment? If yes → the product works and the rest (distribution, pricing, scaling) follows MEE6’s proven playbook on Discord. If no → it’s a novelty demo, not a product. Phase 0 dogfood answers this.

IX. Verdict — v2

Upgraded from “weekend hack” to “weekend-phased experiment worth pursuing on Discord.”

The v1 verdict was too pessimistic because it locked the product to WhatsApp’s closed ecosystem. The reframe — platform-agnostic agentic vetting for community gating — resolves the three biggest objections: distribution (Discord/TG have open bot ecosystems), buyers (paid community operators spend $99–300/mo on tooling), and platform risk (multi-platform = no single kill switch).

But the reframe also surfaces a new core risk that v1 didn’t address: agent reliability on qualitative human assessment. This is the actual make-or-break, and it can only be tested by building and dogfooding.

What to do:

1. Phase 0 (1 weekend): Build a bare-bones vetting agent. Deploy in 3–5 of your own WA/Discord groups. Define 3–5 concrete vetting criteria per group. Run for 2 weeks.

2. Measure ONE thing: Does the agent’s accept/reject decision match what you would have decided? If >80% agreement → proceed. If <60% → stop.

3. Phase 1 (if agent works): Build Discord bot. List on Top.gg. Free tier (1 server, 20 vettings/mo). Target: crypto/DAO communities that already use Guild.xyz. The “qualitative layer on top of token gating” positioning is the strongest wedge.

4. Phase 2 (if Discord shows pull): Port to Telegram. Same playbook.

What NOT to do: Skip directly to multi-platform SaaS. Don’t build billing, landing pages, or onboarding before you’ve proven the agent can actually vet. The agent’s judgment quality is the entire product — validate that first.

What changes the verdict to “go all in”:

1. Agent agreement with admin judgment exceeds 85% on defined criteria

2. 5+ unprompted requests from other admins after seeing the bot in action

3. Guild.xyz or Collab.land expresses interest in integration (turns avet into infrastructure)

Honest bottom line: The idea is significantly better than v1 gave it credit for. The market exists (60K+ gated communities on Guild.xyz alone). The distribution exists (Discord/TG bot ecosystems). The economics work (95%+ gross margin on Discord). The gap is real (nobody does qualitative vetting). But the product risk is high (agent reliability) and Eric’s time is the binding constraint. Invest weekends. Don’t invest sprints.

References

[P0] Phase 0 dog-food signal — lesson from Wenhao analysis. Founder’s own pain (Smilie packing QC) was the best vertical; only surfaced mid-conversation. Applied here: Eric IS a community admin.

[1] Grand View Research, Identity Verification Market 2025 — US$16.7B global market, 16.2% CAGR. Includes KYC, document verification, biometrics. avet is “soft KYC” — adjacent but different buyer.

[2] Grand View Research, Content Moderation Solutions Market 2025 — US$14.1B global, 13.5% CAGR. Dominated by enterprise (Hive, Meta internal). avet gates at entry, not post-entry moderation.

[3] MarketsandMarkets, Community Engagement Platform Market — ~US$800M–1.2B fragmented segment. Skool (~$20M+ ARR), Circle, Mighty Networks, Higher Logic.

[4] Guild.xyz — 60K+ communities using token/credential gating for Discord + Telegram. Rule-based. Multi-chain.

[5] Discord Developer Docs — Rich bot API. Free. Public bot directory (Top.gg: 400K+ listed bots). 200M+ MAU.

[6] Telegram Bot API — Open, free, well-documented. 10M+ active bots. 900M+ MAU. BotFather for creation.

[7] Slack — 32M+ DAU. Rich app directory. Enterprise-grade API with Bolt framework.

[8] Statista, WhatsApp MAU 2025 — 2.78B MAU. Closed ecosystem. Business API requires verification + per-conversation fees.

[9] Skool — Sam Ovens. US$99/mo per community. ~30K+ communities. Estimated ~US$20M+ ARR (2025). Proves WTP for community tooling.

[10] Collab.land — Token-gating bot. 50K+ communities. Raised US$25M+. Discord + Telegram.

[11] Commsor — Community analytics + CRM. Raised US$16M. Post-entry analytics, not pre-entry vetting.

[12] Persona — Identity verification platform. US$200M+ raised. US$1.5B valuation. Document-based KYC. Different buyer (compliance teams).

[13] MEE6 — Discord moderation bot. 19M+ servers. Premium US$11.95/mo. Estimated ~US$10M+ ARR. Viral via bot marketplace.

[14] Combot — Telegram group analytics + moderation. Freemium. Estimated US$1–3M ARR.

[15] Meta, WhatsApp Cloud API — Per-conversation pricing (US$0.005–0.08). Business verification required. Chatfuel/ManyChat pivoted away due to cost constraints.

[16] Reuters, HireVue drops facial analysis — AI hiring tools face regulatory pushback. NYC Local Law 144 requires bias audits. Illinois BIPA. Community gating is legally distinct but conceptually adjacent.

[17] OpenAI Pricing — GPT-4o-mini: US$0.15/1M input, US$0.60/1M output. Claude 3.5 Haiku: ~US$0.25/1M input, US$1.25/1M output. Either works for conversational vetting.

[18] Bubeck et al., Sparks of AGI (2023) — LLMs demonstrate strong performance on knowledge-based assessment tasks. Relevant to factual attribute verification.

[19] IMDA Pre-Approved Solutions — No “community vetting” category. PSG/EDG possible under AI community management but requires productisation.