Why I Built an AI Act Scanner Instead of Another GDPR Tool

When I moved from Croatia to Germany in May 2025, I had one clear goal: alongside my regular work, I wanted to build my own SaaS. Something small, useful, and profitable. A real solution to a real problem.

Like 90% of developers in Europe going down this path, my first thought was—GDPR. Everyone hates cookie banners and privacy policies, but every website needs them. It seemed like the perfect market. But then I started digging.

Fighting Windmills

I quickly realized the GDPR market is completely saturated. There are massive, well-funded companies dominating this space. To compete with them, I would have to spend months just building the baseline features, and then fight for years for every single user in a sea of identical tools. As a solo developer, you just don't have the budget for that kind of war.

I needed something new, a space where the "big players" hadn't set the rules yet. That's when I kept seeing the same term popping up while playing with the OpenAI and Gemini APIs: the EU AI Act.

The "Is My App Illegal?" Panic

Honestly, at first, I thought the AI Act was just "GDPR for AI." I figured it would boil down to adding another checkbox on your website saying, "Yes, we use AI." I was wrong.

The EU AI Act isn't a data privacy law; it's a product safety law. It classifies AI systems by risk level. And here is the terrifying part for anyone building software today: the penalties for getting it wrong can reach up to 7% of your global revenue or €35 million. Suddenly, the developer community was facing a massive problem. I saw startup founders and CTOs panicking on forums and Discord servers, asking the same questions: "I just added an AI resume parser to our HR app. Is that High-Risk?" "We use a custom RAG chatbot for customer support. Do we need a CE mark?" "If I just use the OpenAI API, am I responsible, or is OpenAI?"

The deadline is hard: August 2026. If you are deploying a high-risk AI system and you aren't certified by then, you are legally barred from operating in the EU market.

The Problem with the Current Solutions

When I tried to find a tool online that would answer these simple questions, I found two extremes:

• The €300/hour Lawyers: You can hire a legal consultant to review your architecture. They will charge you thousands of euros just to give you a "maybe" wrapped in legal jargon.
• "Enterprise Compliance" Monsters: Massive platforms that cost thousands of euros a month, take 6 months to integrate, and require you to attend a training seminar just to navigate their dashboard.

There was absolutely nothing for solo developers, small agencies, or mid-sized startups. Nothing where you could simply describe your AI feature and get a clear, developer-friendly answer: "This is low risk, here is your to-do list."

So, I decided to build it myself.

Enter ComplianceRadar: Two Weeks of Code and a "Kleingewerbe"

Instead of planning for months, I sat down and started coding. It took me a solid two weeks of late nights and weekends to get it right.

I used AI to help me parse the dense, 150-page legal text of the EU AI Act and turn it into a logical, executable decision tree. After those intensive two weeks, I had a working MVP. The very next Monday, I went to register my Kleingewerbe (small business) in Germany.

That's how ComplianceRadar was born.

I didn't want to build an "All-in-One" bloated platform. I built a highly focused tool designed to save you from reading legal PDFs and paying exorbitant consulting fees.

Here is exactly what ComplianceRadar solves for you:

• Instant Risk Classification: You input your website URL or describe your AI system. In 15 seconds, the scanner analyzes your use case and tells you exactly which category you fall into (Minimal, Limited, High, or Unacceptable Risk).
• Actionable Developer Checklists: No legal mumbo-jumbo. If your system requires transparency disclosures (Article 52), the tool gives you a specific checklist of what you need to add to your UI.
• Peace of Mind & Speed: You don't have to pause development for weeks waiting for a legal review. You scan, you fix, and you ship faster.

The Lesson for Other Developers

If you're thinking about building your own SaaS, my advice is simple: Run away from solved problems. Don't build another To-Do app, CRM, or cookie banner generator.

Find a regulation, a technology, or a problem that is causing genuine anxiety right now—something where people are Googling for solutions and only finding expensive consultants. Today, that's the AI Act.

If you solve a painful, expensive problem simply and affordably, people will use your product.

Don't wait until August 2026 to find out your AI feature is illegal. Save yourself 20 hours of reading legal texts and thousands in consulting fees.

Scan your AI system for free at complianceradar.dev ↗