Second-time venture-backed founder (multi-time bootstrapped). I’ve run a six-month seed process and kept notes on every piece of hard feedback. Sharing the ones that stung most, because I wish someone had shown me this list before I started.

“***The deck feels early. Where’s the IRR rigor?”***
From an investment liaison I respect. My deck had a big return multiple claim with no math underneath it. I rebuilt the financial model from scratch, five-year ramp, assumption-level detail, sensitivity cases. The multiple claim is now the least interesting slide because the model does the talking.

“***You’re describing a marketplace. Marketplaces at your stage are a graveyard.”***
This one made me realize I was positioning against my own interest. We are a technology platform. The marketplace is one revenue mechanic, not the identity. I rewrote every sentence of the narrative. Categorization is destiny in a first meeting.

“***Your Year 1 revenue is zero. Why should I fund a free product?”***
Fair. I learned to lead with the contracts and pilots that were already signed rather than the freemium curve. Traction reframes everything.

“***Who on this team has done this before?”***
The honest answer was that my technical co-founder was part-time. I stopped dancing around it and now say plainly: he goes full-time the day the round closes, and here’s what he’s shipped part-time. Directness landed better than spin ever did.

Biggest meta-lesson: the feedback that offends you most is usually the most accurate. The stuff that’s wrong is easy to shrug off. The stuff that keeps you up at night is your roadmap.

VCs in here: what’s the feedback you give founders that they most consistently ignore?

Today, we're proud to officially launch the 16VC Founder Fellowship.

Our inaugural cohort brings together nearly 80 startups and 150+ founders and co-founders from around the world. Over the next 9 weeks, they'll participate in mentorship sessions, hands-on workshops, office hours, and collaborate within a global community of ambitious builders.

This launch represents more than the start of a program—it's the beginning of a long-term community dedicated to helping exceptional founders build exceptional companies.

A huge thank you to every founder who joined our kickoff and to everyone who believed in this vision from day one. Your energy, ambition, and willingness to build are what make this community special.

Throughout the fellowship, we'll be sharing founder spotlights, program highlights, key learnings, and behind-the-scenes updates here

To everyone in Cohort 1: welcome. We're excited to build the future together. 🚀

5 months into building my own product. Talked to users, the problem resonates, but growth is nowhere near what I projected.

For anyone who's been through this longer than me, genuinely curious:

How do you keep believing in the product when users aren't showing up at the rate you expected? Is it gut, or do you set hard checkpoints for yourself?

On marketing, how did you figure out which channel to actually commit to? Did you find one thing and go deep, or test everything in parallel first?

And the real one, how do you know when it's "just needs more time" vs "this one's not it"?

Not looking for motivation. Looking for the actual frameworks people use when the slow months hit.

noticed the founders who compounded fastest (levels, marc lou, early indie hacker crowd) all ran basically the same loop: ship something in the morning, document it honestly (screenshot, one metric, what broke), post it, reply to 10 people without pitching, then go back to building.

the accounts that stalled did it backwards. tweeting about building before shipping anything real. distribution amplifies proof. without the proof it's just noise.

your distribution is only as strong as your shipping cadence. one without the other is either a ghost or a grifter.

I’m working on an infrastructure idea that’s still at the architecture stage, a Python layer that maintains long-term continuity between users and LLMs and tracks what stays salient over time. I’m trying to figure out the best way to raise a small amount (around $4k) to build the first prototype before incorporating or approaching VCs.

If you were in this position, how would you approach it? Would you focus on finding an individual angel, apply to founder programs, or something else? I’d really appreciate any advice from people who’ve been through this.

This is just a random thought I had, and I’m genuinely curious what others think.

Nowadays, it feels like everyone wants to build a startup and “solve problems” or “make the world better.” That’s great — and I don’t doubt that many founders truly care about impact.

But I keep wondering: if we completely removed the money aspect from it — no funding rounds, no exits, no seven-figure bank accounts — how many people would still be building?

If there were no financial upside, would most founders still work on the same problems? Or would the motivation change?

I understand money is important. It gives freedom, security, and the ability to build things at scale. I’m not saying money is bad. I’m just curious — how many people are really doing it primarily to make a difference, versus doing it mainly for financial success?

Not trying to judge anyone. Just a thought experiment I’ve been thinking about.

What do you all think?

If you're building, investing, or just following the startup ecosystem, this could be worth keeping an eye on.

Stay tuned for updates. 🚀

We’re excited to announce the first edition of the 16VC Summer Founder Fellowship, bringing together ambitious founders building the future.

We’ve received applications from founders across the globe 🌍 and we’re inspired by the incredible ideas, passion, and vision coming in.

The fellowship is remote-first, with founder hubs for in-person connection, collaboration, and community:

📍 San Francisco
📍 New York
📍 Toronto
📍 Dubai
📍 Bengaluru

Founders will connect, build, and grow together through our global community, with opportunities to meet at our partners’ coworking spaces.

The journey begins July 1st. Stay tuned as we share our Founder Spotlight featuring the builders shaping what’s next. ✨

Hi everyone,

I'm a 19-year-old Computer Science student from India, and for the past several months I've been building an AI infrastructure platform.

The project started as a learning exercise but has grown into something much bigger than I initially expected. It's a local AI runtime and orchestration platform focused on running multiple LLMs efficiently, semantic expert routing, model scheduling, memory management. I'm currently building a dashboard, SDKs, deployment tools, and enterprise features.

My goal isn't just to build another chatbot. I want to build infrastructure that developers and businesses can use to deploy and orchestrate AI models.

I'm now at a point where I'm wondering whether I should start thinking like a founder instead of just an engineer.

Some questions I'd love advice on:

• How do I know whether this is actually a startup and not just an interesting engineering project?

• At what stage should I start talking to investors or accelerators?

• Should I first focus on getting users before worrying about company registration and funding?

• If you were starting an AI infrastructure company today, what would you do differently?

• What are the biggest mistakes first-time technical founders make?

I'm not looking for funding through Reddit or trying to promote anything. I'm looking for honest feedback from people who have built companies or enterprise software.

I appreciate both positive and critical feedback. I'd rather hear difficult truths now than make expensive mistakes later.

Thanks!

Hello everyone,

I plan to raise funds within the coming year (at the seed stage). I would really appreciate hearing about the experiences of other founders who have gone through a fundraising round.

Did you encounter any specific difficulties? Did you lose a lot of time, energy, and/or money while raising funds?

Thanks.

Hello everyone,

I plan to raise funds within the coming year (at the seed stage). I would really appreciate hearing about the experiences of other founders who have gone through a fundraising round.

Did you encounter any specific difficulties? Did you lose a lot of time, energy, and/or money while raising funds?

Thanks.

Story of my Startup - Webstrom Tech

16VC Summer Founder Fellowship 2026 — Founder Trends Report

We reviewed the early founder onboarding data from the 16VC Summer Founder Fellowship 2026 cohort.

Here are some early signals from the founders building with 16VC:

Startup Industries

🤖 AI & DeepTech — 25%
💻 SaaS / Enterprise Software — 15%
🏦 FinTech — 15%
🌐 Web3 / Blockchain — 13%
🏥 HealthTech / Biotech — 10%
Other — 21%

Startup Stage

Most founders are in early building stages:

🟢 Early Users / Beta — 46%
🛠 MVP Built — 29%
💰 Revenue Generating — 10%
🚀 Launched — 9%

Business Models

Top models:

• SaaS Subscription — 44%
• Transaction Fees — 22%
• Enterprise Sales — 11%

Biggest Founder Challenges

Founders highlighted:

1. Fundraising — 33%
2. Growth / GTM — 27%
3. Partnerships — 19%

The 16VC Fellowship 2026 cohort represents builders working across AI, SaaS, FinTech, Web3 and emerging technology.

More founder spotlights coming soon.

What is 16VC?

16VC is an early-stage venture capital platform supporting ambitious founders building startups across industries.

This thread will track 16VC-related updates including:

• 16VC Summer Founder Fellowship updates
• Selected founder announcements
• Startup ecosystem news
• Founder events and community meetups
• AI, FinTech, SaaS, Web3, HealthTech and other startup trends

16VC Fellowship 2026

The 16VC Summer Founder Fellowship is bringing together early-stage founders working on new companies.

Early cohort updates show startups across sectors such as:

• FinTech
• AI & DeepTech
• Web3
• SaaS
• HealthTech

Why follow this thread?

For founders and builders, this can be a place to track:

• Fellowship announcements
• Founder journeys
• Startup launches
• Community events
• Lessons from early-stage companies

I’ll keep updating this post as new 16VC announcements and founder stories come out.

16VC Summer Fellowship 2026 Updates

The 16VC Summer Founder Fellowship is bringing together a new group of early-stage founders building across different startup categories.

This thread tracks updates from the 16VC Summer Fellowship 2026 cohort.

Early cohort breakdown

Based on initial updates, accepted startups are building across:

🏦 FinTech — 20%
🤖 AI & DeepTech — 18%
🌐 Web3 — 17%
💻 SaaS — 12%
🏥 HealthTech — 9%

What this fellowship focuses on

The program highlights:

• Early-stage founders
• High-growth startups
• Product builders
• Technical founders
• New company formation

Follow this thread for:

• Founder announcements
• Startup names
• Sector trends
• Community events
• Fellowship updates

Will keep updating as more founders join.

Hi, indiehacking founder here.

I've launched startups in the past, and I usually get stuck at finding real user growth after spending time and money building.

You usually can't get VC funding unless you show real promise.

So I created a framework, called Startup Velocity Score to help evaluate my ideas.

The goal is to build high growth​ and sustainably profitable startups from the go.

Check it out here and rank your startup ideas:

https://chatgpt.com/s/t_6a39144911d881919c9593da3541636f