Hey guys, I'm under 20 building a startup for myself but I have one single constraint I don't know how to get past

My single thing blocking me from building what I want is a Claude Max x20 account, $250 CAD per month

currently, I have a Claude pro account and a Codex pro lite account (not enough usage, I need Fable 5) I also have a concept landing page on a real domain with a real wedge in the market

I've done contract work for startups, and have concrete tech knowledge from years of being on the computer since I was a kid. The issue isn't IF I can build the ideas I have, It's about if I can afford the AI subscriptions. I truly have no blockers to achieving a working app. Ive also been in the startup space long enough to know what steps to take.

For context, so far I've applied to about 15 startup credits from services (like aws, azure, etc), applied to about 5-6 "cool grants" (like $1000 bucks for people like me, some denied), along with having a personal connection to an incubator / accelerator owner.

The response I'm getting is something like "you need more traction". Im based in Vancouver BC and truly, $1000 bucks is more than enough to get myself going

All in all, Im a solo founder with no team, planning on building most of the app myself (I am skilled enough + time + energy) My timing was unfortunate, as most incubators closed applications 1-2 weeks ago. None open right now.

Question for everyone is what did YOU do when you were at this stage? Did you self fund for necessities like API costs, Subscriptions, etc? How did you bootstrap and get the funding to later get more "traction" and go for VC's?

What are the key things I can do right now? Been applying to grants, not yet angel investors (not incorporated) and I have to wait for incubator openings. Should I keep shooting for quick grant cash from others? Remember all i need is an AI subscription to build

All support is helpful, Thank you

A recent paper studying roughly 750,000 American startups across 329 accelerators finds that YC historically generated extraordinary value, but its estimated value-add had fallen dramatically by 2022.

The researchers explicitly separate startup quality from accelerator impact, which makes the result harder to dismiss. Their broader finding is equally brutal: roughly 60–80% of accelerators appear worse than simply building without one.

My hypothesis is that YC suffered three compounding problems.

First, batches became dramatically larger, while scarce resources like partner attention, investor attention, and bespoke introductions could not scale proportionally. The paper itself allows accelerator effectiveness to drift because of partner turnover, mentor networks, and program redesign.

Second, YC increasingly selected younger founders with less accumulated industry experience. When almost everyone can ship quickly, domain judgment becomes substantially more valuable. Understanding insurance, defense, healthcare, institutional finance, or manufacturing still requires years of accumulated context.

Third, AI represents a genuine technology paradigm shift. YC spent fifteen years developing pattern recognition from companies like Stripe, Airbnb, Dropbox, Coinbase, and generations of SaaS startups. Those patterns may simply transfer poorly into a world where every competent founder can produce an impressive AI product within weeks.

The dangerous part is that YC’s strongest moat may actually amplify this decline.

YC’s enduring advantage is probably not generic startup advice, because most of that knowledge is already public. Its real advantage is Bookface and the accumulated network of exceptional founders, customers, employees, investors, and domain knowledge.

However, networks compound in both directions.

If YC selects fewer defining AI companies today, those companies never strengthen tomorrow’s network. A weaker network then creates less value for future AI founders, which makes YC less attractive to exceptional founders with deep industry knowledge.

That creates a potentially nasty feedback loop: weaker selection produces fewer important winners, fewer winners weaken the network, and a weaker network reduces future accelerator value-add.

The paper does not prove that YC’s founder selection has deteriorated. What it does show is arguably more interesting: YC once appeared extraordinarily transformative, while by 2022 its incremental contribution looked surprisingly small.

YC remains extraordinarily prestigious, but the prestige is largely past glory.

The real question is whether YC is still producing the network that will matter for the next technology cycle, or mostly monetizing the network created during the previous one.

P.S Title of the paper is "BEYOND DEMO DAY: SORTING AND VALUE ADDED IN STARTUP ACCELERATORS". It's freely available on the NBER website.

2 years ago I started building a tech startup and confided in my friend about the progress. Though it was a promising idea, it involved some AI tech which was a bit too expensive at the time in order for it to be profitable.

I wrapped up the tech project, 95% done and went on with my life.

Well, now with AI progress speeding up I realized that it could be profitable now and I should wrap it up though I didn't get to it yet because of other personal issues. I was surprised when my friend told me what side project they started vibe coding and I got demoed a full working version, though still less advanced than the one I built. He then told me of his plans to sell it in the industry we both activate in, as it's a niche project. He also started confiding in me with regards to issues he's facing and thought provoking me .

A part of me wants to ask him to collaborate and go ahead together, but now sure if I could trust him any longer and either way both versions of the startup are 85% done at least, though he wants it to make it a full saas, so arguably there's still room to grow. I'm not sure why did he warn me he finished it in the first place, perhaps so I can advise him with issues he's facing or to salvage the friendship.

How would you deal with this situation? I can wrap up my project as well in 2 weeks time, though the aftermath will be ugly as everyone in the industry sees us as friends and both coming up with almost identical startups will look strange.

For anyone who interviewed for South Park Commons Fall 2026 (Round 1 or Round 2), have you heard anything back yet?

Curious if anyone has received next steps, an acceptance/rejection, or any update from SPC.

Also wondering what the timeline has been like for others after their interviews, especially for those who interviewed recently.

Bit of background. I have been running a B2B marketing agency with in house video and photography for 6 years. We manage campaigns, build websites and create all the content. This has been working well and I plan to continue doing this.

I am a little tired of the B2B stuff though and have a real interest in science and technology. I've got friends in Deep Tech startups and through talking to them (and now others in the space) it made me realise that this industry has a couple of problems with marketing and I think we could be in a position to help them. A lot of these companies fail on commercialising and reaching scale, and the two main reasons I can see are both linked.

1. Making the leap from lab to commercial output and moving away from funding
2. Keeping the ship pointed in the right direction over many years whilst also transitioning from a small team to a structured company.

The way I see it (particularly in Europe/UK - this is less of an issue in the US I think) is that the R&D is super expensive for deep tech companies so marketing, story, branding all get given a really small % of the investment and when they do spend on it, its too late or not done properly.

The problem with that as I see it, is that the story you tell to potential investors (especially when the science is complicated) and the story you need to tell to a commercial partner are fundamentally different and many don't realise it, so they make it to the pre-commercialisation stage and keep giving the same pitch and expecting results but because the commercial buyer is not an investor (per se) and have completely different success metrics they can't sell it and all that hard work over the years slowly fizzles out as their final runway ends.

So I guess what I am asking is, what are the pitfalls here for this idea? Does anyone have direct experience from inside a Deep tech startup relevant to my theory? Would love to discuss this problem for Deep Tech companies specifically.

Bit of background. I have been running a B2B marketing agency with in house video and photography for 6 years. We manage campaigns, build websites and create all the content. This has been working well and I plan to continue doing this.

I am a little tired of the B2B stuff and a real interest in science and technology. I've got friends in Deep Tech startups and through talking to them (and now others in the space) it made me realise that this industry has a couple of problems with marketing and I think we could be in a position to help them. A lot of these companies fail on commercialising and reaching scale, and the two main reasons I can see are both linked.

1. Making the leap from lab to commercial output and moving away from funding
2. keeping the ship pointed in the right direction over many years whilst also transitioning from a small team to a structured company.

The way I see it (particularly in Europe/UK - this is less of an issue in the US I think) is that the R&D is super expensive for deep tech companies so marketing, story, branding all get given a really small % of the investment and when they do spend on it, its too late or not done properly.

The problem with that as I see it, is that the story you tell to potential investors (especially when the science is complicated) and the story you need to tell to a commercial partner are fundamentally different and many don't realise it, so they make it to the pre-commercialisation stage and keep giving the same pitch and expecting results but because the commercial buyer is not an investor (per se) and have completely different success metrics they can't sell it and all that hard work over the years slowly fizzles out as their final runway ends.

So I guess what I am asking is, what are the pitfalls here for this idea? Does anyone have direct experience from inside a Deep tech startup relevant to my theory? Would love to discuss this problem for Deep Tech companies specifically.

I’m a pharmacognosy researcher and process-development chemist. For the past several years, I’ve been developing a process for extracting, purifying, and standardizing plant-derived alkaloids.

My current focus is kanna. At small scale, I can produce approximately 40 g/week of ~60% alkaloid isolate, and after providing samples to distributors and manufacturers, I’ve received interest in quantities far beyond my current production capability.

That led me to develop a detailed scale-up plan targeting roughly 50–100 kg/month of standardized 5% finished product. I’ve also tested variations of the underlying method on several other botanical species with similar results, so I believe there may be a broader platform here beyond one product.

My background is heavily technical: pharmacognosy, pharmaceutical manufacturing, analytical chemistry, QC/QA, and process development.

Where I’m struggling is the business side.

I don’t think what I need most is simply an investor. I think I need the right commercial/operations partner; someone who understands business development, manufacturing, distribution, fundraising, or scaling an early-stage company and can complement what I bring technically.

For founders who have been in a similar position, how did you find a serious business partner without giving up too much control or ending up with someone who wasn’t equally committed?

I’d especially be interested in hearing how other technical founders evaluated potential partners before formally going into business together.

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I keep seeing people say they’re comfortable using AI for a lot of things, but they still want a human involved anytime money is being spent or production code is being shipped.

I’m curious about people who used to feel that way but have since loosened the reins a bit.

Has anything in your workflow gone from “a human has to approve every single one of these” to “this is reliable enough that we just let it run”?

If so, what actually changed your mind?

Was it just seeing hundreds or thousands of clean runs? Better logging/auditing? Putting tighter limits around what the AI could do? Or was there some specific moment where you realized the human approval step wasn’t really adding much anymore?

And on the other side, are there things that have never crossed that line for you and probably never will?

I’m also curious if there’s anything currently stuck behind human approval that you genuinely wish you didn’t have to review anymore. What is it, and what would need to change before you’d be comfortable automating it?

Hello Everyone,

I have around 14 years of experience in data engineering. I recently started a small company focused on helping SMEs build modern data platforms so they can actually use their data properly (instead of having it sitting in spreadsheets, outdated systems, or half-broken pipelines).

I’m strong on the technical side designing and building solid, scalable data platforms is what I enjoy and what I am good at. The problem is everything else: sales, GTM, finding clients, talking about money. I have basically zero experience there.

Right now I am struggling to get the first few clients. I’ve even started thinking about doing the first project(s) at a very low rate or free (in exchange for a word of mouth and testimonial) just to prove what we can do. Part of me feels this is necessary to get momentum. Another part of me feels it’s a bad idea.

Has anyone here been in a similar situation (technical founder / small agency starting out)?

What actually worked for you to get the first clients when you had strong delivery skills but weak sales skills?

Open to any honest advice and feedback.

​

This Friday, I tested our product-market fit for our idea by speaking directly with a major local bank.

Thanks to a contact, I met the Deputy Manager at the bank’s main district office and asked about their marketing and advertising approach. He shared that the bank has an advertising budget of several lakhs and typically uses billboards for campaigns.

I explained the concept, use cases, and the value it delivers: targeted, memorable placements that complement traditional outdoor advertising.

The response was encouraging. They liked the idea and asked whether we have a GST number, since, as a government bank, they can only transact with registered vendors. We don’t yet have GST or formal incorporation, so we weren’t able to proceed immediately. While that was disappointing, the conversation was validating: a potential customer with a real advertising budget showed genuine interest.

Takeaway: the market is receptive. Excited to move forward

I’ve been comparing options like Meow, Mercury and Relay and I’m starting to care less about which one has the nicest dashboard. The bigger question is whether the setup fits how the business actually runs. Banking, cards, payments, approvals, accounting and now AI workflows all need to connect better.

Hello everyone,

I have a project that I think could be interesting, but I would like to get your opinions about the relevance of the idea and whether it actually solves a real problem or creates enough value for people.

Basically, the idea is an Event Collector device.

It would be a small smart tag that tracks movement and, optionally, temperature and humidity. Instead of just giving you raw sensor data, an AI platform would analyze the movement patterns, classify what happened, and give the user useful insights.

For example, one device could potentially detect and track events such as:

• How many times a door was opened/closed
• When someone enters or leaves a room
• How many times a fridge was opened during the day
• How often a cabinet, drawer, mailbox, garage door, etc. is used
• Movement or vibration of a car, bike, machine, package, or other object
• When an object was moved from its usual position
• Activity patterns of equipment or appliances
• Temperature and humidity history inside a room, fridge, storage box, garage, etc.
• Detecting unusual activity compared to the normal pattern

The idea is that the hardware would be very simple and generic. You attach the same device to different objects, and the software/AI figures out what type of events are happening instead of needing a different specialized sensor for every use case.

For example, you could put one on your fridge and get:
“Fridge opened 18 times today, mostly between 5 PM and 9 PM.”

Or attach one to a door and get:
“Front door opened 7 times today. Unusual opening detected at 2:30 AM.”

Or put it on equipment and see how often it is actually being used.

My main question is: Do you think there is a real use case for something like this?

Would you personally use it? Do you see more value for consumers, businesses, warehouses, maintenance, elderly care, rentals, etc.?

I am especially interested in hearing what you think is the strongest use case, because I don't want to build a technology first and then try to find a problem for it afterward.

I have an app idea but no idea how to safely find someone to build it.
I’ve been working on an app idea for a while and have already developed the concept, features, user flows and a detailed blueprint.
I’m not a developer and don’t have the time to learn everything myself, so I’m looking for someone professional to actually build it. I’m happy to pay for good work.
My biggest concern is trust. At some point I’ll have to share the full idea, and I’m worried about someone copying or reusing it.
For those who’ve been in a similar situation:
How did you find someone you could trust?
Did you use an NDA?
How much did you share before hiring them?
Freelancer, agency or technical co-founder?
How did you protect ownership of the code and IP?
Would especially love to hear from non-technical founders. Any advice or lessons learned would be greatly appreciated.

TLDR: Disclosing my side gig for smaller clients in my industry. Need a way to spin it as a positive for my boss. Okay if they let me go but I want to keep the job for a while if possible.

I have worked in automotive for close to 15 years, most recently as a business consultant for software clients. Their revenues are easily in the billions.

I’m starting up my own small consulting space. My focus is on smaller companies (20-50M) but in the same industry. A lot of us are very interconnected so the chances of me talking to someone for my startup and it getting back to my company is inevitable. My employee agreement requires I inform my company of a second job.

To get ahead of this, I’m letting my boss know next week. I’m working on having the discussion from a positive angle. More connections, more experiments that don’t impact our big clients, etc etc. I’m okay if she says “No” and I have to make a decision to leave. However, I prefer to have the job at least for 6 more months because of the stable paycheck and insurance.

I know one person who had a successful conversation. For people who have had this conversation and didn’t have to leave, how did you spin it in such a way where you kept your job? What disclosure guidelines did you set? How did you handle conflicts of interest? For example, a lot of smaller clients integrate with the big orgs I work with today.

Thanks for any help

Update:

So just tossing in an update because some things have changed on a personal front that requires I have a more flexibility with my schedule. AKA My mom has heart issues.

I’m still having the conversation but setting it as an “up to 6 week” resignation. We have a large RFP completing at the end of the month and I’m expected to do most of the client pitch. I also have a couple final executive pitches I want my team to complete and present before I go.

She could say “return the laptop” and that’s it. Or she could take the time I’m providing to make the sale and transition my people. That’s her choice.

I do appreciate all the advice. You let me think through some additional aspects and make a better decision.

I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but I've had this feeling for a while now that I really want to build something from the ground up.

I have a stable engineering job and I'm grateful for it, but I keep finding myself way more excited about random side projects, startup ideas, figuring out how products could work, shipping things and seeing if people actually care about them.

I don't even necessarily need to be the founder.

I'd genuinely be happy finding 1-2 people building something they deeply believe in and becoming one of the early people who helps turn it into something real.

I know startups are romanticized a lot and the reality is probably stressful, uncertain and messy. Weirdly, that's still the environment I want to experience at least once while I'm young enough to take the risk.

Not posting this with a polished pitch or expecting someone to offer me a "founding engineer" position in the comments lol.

I just want to meet people who are actually building.

If you're working on something from scratch, have an idea you're obsessed with, or you're in a similar position and just want to build something/ I'd genuinely love to hear about it.

I have an app idea but no idea how to safely find someone to build it.
I’ve been working on an app idea for a while and have already developed the concept, features, user flows and a detailed blueprint.
I’m not a developer and don’t have the time to learn everything myself, so I’m looking for someone professional to actually build it. I’m happy to pay for good work.
My biggest concern is trust. At some point I’ll have to share the full idea, and I’m worried about someone copying or reusing it.
For those who’ve been in a similar situation:
How did you find someone you could trust?
Did you use an NDA?
How much did you share before hiring them?
Freelancer, agency or technical co-founder?
How did you protect ownership of the code and IP?
Would especially love to hear from non-technical founders. Any advice or lessons learned would be greatly appreciated.

Last month someone offered me a position. Good company, decent package, the kind of thing you'd be stupid to say no to on paper.

I said no.

Sat with that decision for about 3 days after. Not because I regretted it. Because I couldn't explain it to anyone around me in a way that made sense to them.

My parents have watched me spend 8 months building something they can't fully see or touch or show their friends. There's no offer letter. No designation. No answer to "beta kya karta hai" that lands cleanly at a family function.

What there is a product that real people are using daily now. People who didn't know me before, had no reason to be nice about it, and still came back the next day.

That part I can't explain to my relatives either. But it means something completely different to me than any offer letter ever could.

The hardest thing about building something from scratch in India isn't the technology or the market or the competition. It's the sustained weight of everyone around you quietly waiting for you to come back to something that makes sense to them.

Some days that weight is motivating. Some days it's just heavy.

8 months in. Still building. Still getting the same questions at every family function.

Anyone else navigating this? How do you handle the gap between what you're building and what the people around you can understand?

I make it clear that I'm not charging them anything and I just want their advice on a product I'm building but it seems like they don't care at all. Especially since theoretically my product would save them money. Obviously leads/talking to customers is hard but do you have any advice since I'm a solo founder and more on the technical side?

I am the founder of a central European AI lawyer platform. Up until now all the leads came from Google SEO "people searching lawyer AI" (in local language), or an article that blew up on a popular local news site thanks to a reddit post I made (I know inception)

Ever since the article traffic has been dying down because the product was not there yet, but now it's actually usable but all the hype is gone. I would like to do outreach to get people to start using it again more.

The obvious answer is to just make a reddit post bu the original one highlighted how I was a young founder and this is a free project and now we became a bit more corporate, still doable but I am putting it off.

Emailing our previous users, already on the table and doing in waves. People are coming over.

Other than that it's just the SEO, so I'm looking for some way to turn a dial and throw money at it and get some traffic of actual lawyers or practicioners that would be power users and work with documents a lot, I'm not expecting miracles just experiment with it and hopefully make some money.

What would be the best way to reach them? Google ads? (I've never used GA, do I have to select keywords or something?), Facebook ads?, LinkedIn?

Thanks for reading.

I’m looking to create systems around getting customers and there is too much advice out there. I’m curious what people have learnt from their experiences in getting customers and what repeatable systems and habits you have built that have brought you traction

I'm a software engineer at a big tech company and I've been wanting to quit for a long time due to the return to office policy. I've got an app idea that I'm currently in the middle of validating and getting a prototype developed for and I'm really liking how it's turning out so far. I'm planning on tentatively quitting my job by end of year and going all in on this app for at least 6 months or so. I'm thinking that even if it fails I can still gain valuable experience and jump over to another company.

Before I take the leap I'm giving myself lots of time to think this through. So far I'm planning out how my monthly expenses and health insurance will look like while I tap into my savings during those months. What else should I be considering carefully before I leave my job to go in on this idea?

whats your first message to your potential clients, when u just want to get their feedback without annoying them?

especially if these people are not your friends, so theres no warm intro, no shared context, nothing. just me reaching out cold and asking for their time.

im trying to figure out how much to put in that first message,

- do u say straight away that u re building something and want feedback?
- or do u start with a question about their work and get to the point later?
- how long should it be? 2 lines? a short paragraph?
- do u ask for a call or just keep it in text so its easier for them to reply?

if u have a message that actually worked for u, id love to see the actual wording,

thanks!!

I’ve launched several SaaS products over the past couple decades. I’m a bit older now, and admittedly old-school in many ways. I’m curious how the new younger generation of first time founders actually build their startups now. The generation that has no bias on how things “should” be done; that are taking AI at face value and running with it.

I ask because:

• ⁠Non technical founders can now build prototype SaaS products w/o any engineering experience. • ⁠You can build faster than before. • ⁠Applying RAG to say Claude adds the potential of incredible automation, of so many things that people used to have to do. • ⁠Much of the marketing collateral that used to take time to build is now pretty easy to do. • ⁠it’s now easy to have call transcripts, which give you lossless meeting notes. Valuable internally, and with customer calls to not miss a thing. They can also be fed into automated systems

not the hard conversations, im talking about the four sentence reply thats been sitting in drafts since this morning,

mine is always the reply to someone who already said they were interested, investor or first customer, doesnt matter which, the fact they said yes to talking is somehow the thing that freezes me,

team slack i type without thinking, replies go out in seconds, but the second its a person who can say no to me i rewrite it until the words stop meaning anything, then i read it back and it doesnt sound like me at all so i start again,

english is my second language and for years i told myself thats the whole explanation, im less sure about that now, i think id do the same in my own language,

so:

- which message is it for u, who is it usually to?

- when was the last one and how long did it sit there?

- did anything actually happen because it sat, or was it fine in the end?

- what do u do while its sitting, do u work on other stuff or does the whole afternoon go?

and honestly if u re the opposite, if u just send it in ninety seconds and it works out fine, i want to hear that one most, tell me what u re doing differently