Roo Wright on testing demand before building for AI search
Roo Wright is founder of Signalto, which helps businesses and agencies improve their visibility in answers from AI platforms. The conversation traces the move from decades in Google search to AI search, including how agency feedback shaped the product and why customer testing should come before a full build.
Test a basic version of an idea with potential customers before investing months in a full build. Early feedback can show whether there is a real need, and where to focus next.
What’s the short story of how your business started, and what makes it genuinely different from the other options your customers have?
I spent 30 years building websites that ranked in Google. That included a network of 1,200 websites and a business we sold to a publicly listed company in a £10.5 million deal. Then I saw people starting to ask AI which products to buy and which businesses to use. Having a good Google ranking wasn’t necessarily getting you into those answers.
That’s why we built SignalTo.ai. We benchmark businesses across industries and locations to understand what’s associated with showing up in AI answers, then use that data to guide improvements. It’s built around what we’re seeing in the market, backed by decades of experience in search. My son is also a co-founder, which makes building this one particularly rewarding.
How did you win your first customers, and where does most of your new business come from today?
We started with agencies. We put a prototype in front of them, explained the problem we were trying to solve and listened to what they needed before building out the product.
Agencies, resellers and affiliates are now a big part of our approach to winning business. One example: we wanted to reach accounting firms, so we looked for affiliates already promoting software accountants use. That led us to an affiliate partner with access to the audience we wanted. We’re also testing ChatGPT ads and using media coverage and LinkedIn to get in front of potential customers.
What’s one decision that changed the direction of your business, and one mistake that taught you the most?
The biggest decision was to build for the shift towards AI search rather than carry on doing what had worked for me in SEO for years.
The mistake was assuming that because I’d built and sold one successful business, I could repeat that success in whatever I tried next. A number of failed startups taught me otherwise. Success is a poor teacher when it convinces you that you’ve got everything worked out. With SignalTo AI, we tested the prototype with agencies before committing to the full build. I wanted evidence that people needed it, rather than another business built around my own enthusiasm.
What has changed in your industry or in what your customers expect over the last couple of years, and how have you adapted?
People can now research a purchase, compare their options and get a recommendation inside ChatGPT without visiting your website. That changes what being visible actually means. Your Google ranking still matters, but it no longer tells the whole story.
We now check whether a business appears in AI answers, what those answers say and where the information comes from. We’ve done this on ourselves too. Google’s AI Overview once gave me a speaking appearance I’d never made and missed SignalTo altogether. We built out clearer information on our own site and supported it with coverage elsewhere. The answers have since improved significantly. That experience reinforced why accuracy matters just as much as getting mentioned.
If you were advising someone starting out in your industry today, what would you tell them to do first, and what would you tell them to ignore?
Get a basic version of your idea in front of potential customers and find out whether they’ll pay for it. Do that before spending months building something you think they want.
Ignore the promises of guaranteed rankings and magic fixes for AI visibility. Start small, test, look at the results and test again. I think of it as panning for gold. When you find a little fleck, keep working at it to see whether there’s a real opportunity. But you have to start. Doing nothing leads to nothing. Doing something will always lead to something.
Thank you to Roo Wright and the team at Signalto for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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