# Cite-Finance API - Product Pivot for Maximum Monetization
**Goal:** Transform from "SEC citations API" to "Financial Intelligence API for AI Agents"
**Target:** $5K-10K MRR in 6 months (not $500 MRR)
---
## 🔍 Competitive Analysis - The Gap
### What Competitors Charge For:
| Feature | Alpha Vantage | Polygon.io | FMP | **Cite-Finance (Current)** |
|---------|--------------|-----------|-----|----------------------|
| Real-time quotes | ✅ Premium | ✅ $200/mo | ✅ $14+/mo | ❌ |
| Technical indicators | ✅ 50+ | ❌ | ✅ Limited | ❌ |
| Historical depth | ✅ 20+ years | ✅ 15 years | ✅ 30 years | ❌ 5 years |
| News/sentiment | ✅ Premium | ❌ | ✅ Yes | ❌ |
| Webhooks | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| **AI-ready insights** | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ (our edge) |
| **Consistency validation** | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ (unique) |
| **LLM-optimized** | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ (unique) |
### The Opportunity
**Nobody is building for AI agents specifically.** Everyone is stuck in 2015 REST API thinking.
**We can win by being the FIRST "AI Agent Financial Intelligence API"**
---
## 🚀 New Product: Cite-Finance Intelligence API
### Positioning Change
**OLD:** "LLM-ready financial data with citations"
**NEW:** "Financial Intelligence API Built for AI Agents"
**Tagline:** "Your AI agent's financial analyst"
### Core Value Props
1. **Agent-Native Design**
- Structured JSON optimized for function calling
- Pre-computed insights (not raw data dumps)
- Context-aware responses (understands what agents need)
2. **Multi-Source Intelligence**
- SEC filings + Market data + News sentiment
- Cross-validated with confidence scores
- Contradictions flagged automatically
3. **Real-Time + Historical**
- Live market data (15-min delayed on Starter)
- 10+ years historical
- Intraday data for Pro tier
4. **AI Insights**
- Trend detection (momentum, breakouts)
- Anomaly flagging (unusual volume, price spikes)
- Risk signals (debt ratios, cash burn)
- Sentiment scores from news
---
## 💎 New Feature Set (Revenue-Justified)
### Free Tier ($0 - Lead Gen Only)
- 50 calls/day (1,500/mo)
- End-of-day data only
- Basic metrics (revenue, assets, price)
- No AI insights
### Starter Tier ($49/mo) - **Target: Indie Devs**
- 5,000 calls/mo
- 15-min delayed market data
- Basic AI insights (trends, momentum)
- Consistency scores
- LLM-ready format
- Email support
**Justification:** More calls than Alpha Vantage free, AI insights unique to us
### Professional Tier ($199/mo) - **Target: Production Apps**
- 25,000 calls/mo
- Real-time market data
- Advanced AI insights (anomalies, risk signals, sentiment)
- Webhooks for price alerts
- Historical data (10 years)
- 99.9% SLA
- Priority support
**Justification:** Cheaper than Polygon ($200/mo) with AI features they don't have
### Enterprise Tier ($999/mo) - **Target: Hedge Funds, Fintechs**
- Unlimited calls
- Custom AI models fine-tuned on their data
- White-label options
- Dedicated infrastructure
- 99.95% SLA
- Dedicated support + Slack channel
**Justification:** Value-based pricing for high-margin customers
---
## 🛠️ Implementation Priority (4-Week Sprint)
### Week 1: Data Infrastructure Expansion
**Add Real-Time Market Data:**
- Integrate yfinance for real-time quotes (15-min delayed free)
- Add Alpha Vantage integration (for technical indicators)
- Implement data caching strategy (Redis TTL)
**Add Historical Depth:**
- Extend SEC data to 10+ years
- Add price history endpoints
**Deliverable:**
- `/api/v1/quotes/realtime?ticker=AAPL`
- `/api/v1/history/prices?ticker=AAPL&from=2015-01-01`
- `/api/v1/indicators/sma?ticker=AAPL&period=50`
### Week 2: AI Insights Engine
**Build Insight Generator:**
```python
# /api/v1/insights?ticker=AAPL&type=trend
{
"ticker": "AAPL",
"insights": [
{
"type": "momentum",
"signal": "bullish",
"confidence": 0.82,
"reason": "50-day SMA crossed above 200-day SMA (golden cross)",
"detected_at": "2025-11-20"
},
{
"type": "volume_anomaly",
"signal": "unusual",
"confidence": 0.91,
"reason": "Volume 3.2x higher than 30-day average",
"detected_at": "2025-11-24"
}
],
"risk_score": 0.3, // 0-1, lower is safer
"recommendation": "moderate_buy"
}
```
**Insight Types:**
- Momentum (SMA crossovers, RSI, MACD)
- Volume anomalies
- Price anomalies (gaps, spikes)
- Risk signals (debt/equity, cash burn)
- Sentiment (from news - Phase 2)
**Deliverable:**
- `/api/v1/insights/trend`
- `/api/v1/insights/anomalies`
- `/api/v1/insights/risk`
### Week 3: Webhooks + Real-Time Alerts
**Build Webhook System:**
```python
# Customer registers webhook
POST /api/v1/webhooks
{
"url": "https://customer.com/alerts",
"events": ["price_change", "insight_generated"],
"filters": {
"tickers": ["AAPL", "MSFT"],
"price_change_threshold": 5.0 // %
}
}
# We push alerts
POST https://customer.com/alerts
{
"event": "price_change",
"ticker": "AAPL",
"old_price": 180.00,
"new_price": 189.00,
"change_percent": 5.0,
"timestamp": "2025-11-24T14:32:00Z"
}
```
**Deliverable:**
- Webhook registration system
- Event queue (Redis + Celery)
- Delivery + retry logic
- Customer webhook logs
### Week 4: User Dashboard + Analytics
**Build Customer Portal:**
- Usage analytics (calls/day, most-used endpoints)
- API key management
- Webhook configuration UI
- Billing history
- Documentation with examples
**Deliverable:**
- `/dashboard` - Customer portal
- Usage charts (Chart.js)
- API key create/revoke
- Webhook config UI
---
## 📊 New Pricing Justification
### Why People Will Pay $49/mo
**Current market:**
- Alpha Vantage free = 25 calls/day (750/mo)
- Cite-Finance Starter = 5,000 calls/mo (6.6x more)
- **PLUS:** AI insights (unique to us)
- **PLUS:** Consistency scores
- **PLUS:** LLM-ready format
**Value prop:** "6x more calls than Alpha Vantage free + AI insights for agent workflows"
### Why People Will Pay $199/mo
**Current market:**
- Polygon.io Developer = $200/mo (real-time + 15 years)
- Cite-Finance Pro = $199/mo (same) + **AI insights + webhooks**
**Value prop:** "Same data as Polygon.io, but optimized for AI agents with built-in intelligence"
### Why People Will Pay $999/mo
**Current market:**
- Polygon.io Advanced = $500/mo (unlimited + full history)
- Bloomberg Terminal = $2K+/mo (institutional)
**Value prop:** "Custom AI models + white-label + SLA for hedge funds/fintechs"
---
## 🎯 Go-To-Market Strategy (Revised)
### Target Customers (Ranked by $$$)
**1. AI Agent Platforms ($999/mo)**
- LangChain commercial users
- AutoGen enterprise
- Custom agent builders at big companies
- **Pitch:** "Your agents need financial intelligence, not raw data"
**2. Trading Bot Builders ($199/mo)**
- Algo trading platforms
- Crypto trading bots (they have $$$)
- Quant shops
- **Pitch:** "Real-time data + AI anomaly detection = alpha"
**3. Fintech Startups ($199/mo)**
- Roboadvisors
- Portfolio trackers
- Investment research tools
- **Pitch:** "Better data than competitors at 1/10th the cost of Bloomberg"
**4. Indie Developers ($49/mo)**
- Financial chatbots
- Personal finance apps
- Stock screeners
- **Pitch:** "AI-ready data that doesn't break the bank"
### Launch Sequence
**Month 1: Soft Beta**
- Launch to 20 hand-picked beta users
- Free access, ask for feedback
- Iterate on AI insights
- **Goal:** 10 users say "I'd pay for this"
**Month 2: Paid Launch**
- Turn on billing
- Launch on Product Hunt
- Target: 20 paying customers
- **Revenue Goal:** $2K MRR
**Month 3: Scale**
- Add enterprise features
- Outreach to 50 AI agent companies
- Target: 50 paying customers
- **Revenue Goal:** $5K MRR
**Month 6:**
- 100-150 customers
- **Revenue Goal:** $10K-15K MRR
---
## ✅ Success Metrics (Revised)
| Metric | Month 1 | Month 3 | Month 6 |
|--------|---------|---------|---------|
| Free Signups | 100 | 500 | 1,500 |
| Paying Customers | 10 | 50 | 150 |
| MRR | $1K | $5K | $15K |
| Churn | <15% | <10% | <5% |
| NPS | 40+ | 50+ | 60+ |
**Break-even:** ~30 customers ($3K MRR) covers Heroku + ops costs
**Profitability:** 50+ customers ($5K+ MRR)
---
## 🚀 Decision Point
**Option A: Build This (4 weeks)**
- Implement real-time data + AI insights
- Build webhooks + dashboard
- Target $5K MRR in Month 3
**Option B: Validate First (1 week)**
- Build landing page with NEW positioning
- Waitlist with feature voting
- Launch if 100+ signups
**Option C: Abandon**
- Too competitive, pivot to something else
**My recommendation:** **Option B** - Validate the AI Intelligence positioning before building.
If we get 100+ emails saying "I want AI financial insights for my agent", THEN we build this.
---
**Your call. What do you want me to do next?**
