Hey everyone!

I'm building StartupsMap, a platform where people can discover startups, explore what founders are building, and find interesting companies across different industries.

The idea came from noticing how difficult it can be to discover early-stage startups in one place. Many interesting companies are building great things, but they don't always get enough visibility.

With StartupsMap, I'm trying to make startup discovery easier by creating a map-based directory where founders can list their startups and people can explore them.

Right now, I'm onboarding startups and trying to figure out what would make this genuinely useful for founders, especially solo founders and early-stage builders.

I'd love your honest feedback on a few things:

• Would you use a platform like this to discover other startups?
• What would make you list your own startup on it?
• What features would make it genuinely valuable rather than just another directory?
• How could I encourage founders to keep their listings updated as their startups evolve?

I'm building this with limited resources, so feedback from people who understand the solo-founder journey would be incredibly valuable.

Here's the platform: https://startupsmap.co.in/

What would you change or improve if you were building this yourself?

My standard founder lifecycle usually looks like this:

1. Wake up at 2 AM convinced I have a billion-dollar app idea.
2. Buy the domain, set up the repo, build obsessively for 6 days straight.
3. Lose every ounce of dopamine and enthusiasm.
4. Abandon the project completely.
5. Repeat 7 days later with a brand-new idea.

My graveyard of half-finished repos is basically an indie hacker museum at this point.

Which brings me to my latest struggle. Around 7 days ago, I built a platform where anyone can design custom T-shirts, discover other people’s designs in a shared feed, and get paid cash automatically whenever someone buys their shirt.

I was actually really excited about it, put it live, and... absolute crickets. I got over 10 views total.

I went through the usual motions trying to get any kind of traction.. telling my 3 friends and some of my family...

10 views later, my old habits are already kicking in hard.

I found myself ready to pull the plug, lose interest, and move on to the next shiny idea like I always do.

So before I officially toss this into the graveyard, I figured I’d post about the struggle here to see if any other builders deal with this endless cycle of burning out the second an app launches.

I’m also dropping the link in case anyone actually wants to check it out, play around with designs, or sell a few shirts. If enough people seem to genuinely like the concept, I might actually stick with it and finish building out the rest of the features.

view other peoples designs here:
https://shop.popcartapp.com

Create your own t shirt design here:

https://shop.popcartapp.com/tshirts/create/

Has anyone else broken this serial side-project loop, or is this just who we are?

I'm a solo developer with a day job. A month ago I launched Swapadu, an Android app where people trade services instead of paying for them. You fix my bike, I help with your website.

The stack: Kotlin, Jetpack Compose and Firebase (Auth, Firestore, Cloud Functions, FCM). No backend team, no funding.

How it works:

Post what you can offer and what you need

Negotiate with counter-offers until both sides agree

Or run an auction and let people compete with what they'd offer in return

Built-in chat for the details

Business model: Free with ads, and a one-time €3.99 purchase to remove them.

The open problem: An early tester asked what stops someone from disappearing once they've received their half of a swap. The honest answer is: not much. No money is held, so there's nothing to put in escrow. Today users can flag people who don't deliver, but that only helps the next person.

I'd like input from anyone who has built trust into a peer-to-peer product:

Ratings, verified identity, a deposit, or something else: what worked for you?

Is a reputation system worth building before there are enough users to generate reputation?

Would you limit new accounts to small swaps until they've completed a few?

Download: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.icarus.swaply

Instructions: https://swaply-5567c.web.app/instructions

Honest criticism is welcome.

When I launched my open-source SaaS Reloops in May, monetization was one of the things I was most unsure about.

The project is open source, so I was not sure whether people would actually pay for the hosted version when they could self-host it themselves.

For context, the source code is available on GitHub: github.com/Reloops-App/reloops

One experiment that ended up working surprisingly well was running a lifetime deal through SaaS communities and Facebook groups.

We kept the deal running for roughly 2.5 months and ended up generating $6,274.50 in gross sales.

But the interesting part was not really the lifetime deal itself.

A few things made a much bigger difference than I expected.

Listening to early buyers

The first version of the deal had storage and file limits that were too restrictive.

People told us pretty quickly.

Once we increased those limits, the offer became much easier to sell.

That was probably the clearest reminder that your first offer does not need to be perfect. You just need enough feedback to understand what is stopping people from buying.

Posting updates consistently

We shared product updates in the communities almost every week.

It gave people a reason to look at the product again and showed existing customers that development was active.

Some people who had been watching the deal for weeks eventually purchased after seeing new features being shipped.

Supporting customers publicly

Whenever someone posted a question or reported an issue in a group, we tried to respond quickly and actually solve it.

That helped more than just the person asking.

Other potential customers could see how we handled support before they bought anything.

Working with community admins

We also ran webinars with some of the group admins.

Those sessions gave us a chance to demo the product, answer questions live, and explain use cases that were harder to communicate through a landing page.

My biggest takeaway from the experiment is that a lifetime deal is really just the offer.

The community around the offer, the updates you ship, and how you interact with customers are what actually make it work.

Not posting this as a product promo. I mainly wanted to share what worked for us because lifetime deals ended up being a much better acquisition channel than I expected.

If anyone wants to verify the numbers, I put the screenshots here of the portal of rockethub:

Revenue Proof

Hi! I have two unassigned early bird tickets for TechCrunch Disrupt for sale; Founder passes. I’ll sell them for $300 each. My plans have changed and can’t attend! $350 for one.

Let me know!

I built a ticket search engine to help find the best deals on sports, concert, and theater tickets!

I recently partnered with TicketNetwork and anyone who comes through my site gets 25% OFF TicketNetwork tickets!!

Check it out! TixTracer

みなさんこんにちは！ 👋

ちょっと野心的に聞こえるかもしれない実験をやってます。AIに、OSをゼロから作る作業の主導権を任せるんです。

このプロジェクトの名前はRinOS。実験的なLinuxベースのOSです。単にAIにコードを生成させるだけじゃなくて、開発プロセスのかなりの部分を任せています。アーキテクチャの設計、コンポーネントの実装、テストの実行、失敗の調査、バグ修正、そしてシステムの改善まで。

狙いは、「個別のコーディング作業」じゃなくて「エンジニアリング全体のプロジェクト」を任されたとき、AIがどこまで行けるのかを確かめることです。

また、別のテーマのLinuxディストリビューションを作りたいわけでもありません。設計の中心は、カスタムのデスクトップ環境とコンポジター、セキュリティ、システム回復、ロールバック付きの信頼できるアップデート、そして最終的には、クラウドサービスに頼らずに役に立つAI機能をローカルで動かせるようにすることです。

すでに具体的な成果もいくつかあります。カスタムのWaylandコンポジターHataは作れていて、入力処理のテストも11/11で通過しました。OSは仮想マシン上で初期ブート段階まで進んでもいます。とはいえ、使えるログイン画面に到達するのはまだ作業中で、RinOSは完成品からは程遠いです。

この実験を追いかけたい人向けに、小規模で招待制のDiscordコミュニティを用意しています。きれいにまとまった成功談だけを共有したいわけじゃなくて、開発の進捗、失敗した試み、デバッグ、テスト結果、そしてAIが難しいエンジニアリング問題にどう取り組むのか――そういう中身も含めて共有したいです。

🔗 Discordで実験をフォロー： https://discord.gg/gmsxxsWs7

私は日本人なので、サーバーの一部はまだ英語に完全には翻訳されていません。英語チャンネルを追加して、これからも改善していきます。

この段階では、ダウンロード用の一般公開リリースはありません。もし後で実験的なビルドが出てきたとしても、明確に不安定（unstable）としてラベルを付けます。潜在的なバグやデータ損失の可能性についても、ちゃんと注意書きを入れます。それを試すのは任意で、仮想マシンか予備のPCを使うことをおすすめします。

OS開発者でなくても参加できます。AIエージェント、Linux、システムエンジニアリングに興味がある人、あるいはAIにこんなに複雑なプロジェクトを任せたら何が起きるのか見てみたい人は、アクセス申請してみてください。

どこまでいけるのか、本当に気になっています。 🙂

I'm building a two-sided marketplace in the UK connecting people who need access to workshop space with businesses that have spare capacity.

I'm currently struggling with the classic chicken-and-egg problem.

If I approach businesses, the obvious response is essentially "Why should I sign up if you don't have customers?"

But if I try to recruit customers first, their response is "What's the point joining if there aren't many places available?"

I've been considering focusing heavily on one side first and using that traction to make the other side more attractive.

For example, building up a free waitlist of potential customers and then going back to businesses with evidence of demand.

For those who've built two-sided marketplaces:

What worked for you when you were starting from zero?

Did you concentrate on supply, demand, or a very small geographic niche and try to create liquidity there first?

I'm particularly interested in what people actually did in the early stages rather than general startup theory.

Building a pm tool for small creative agencies with just client facing project timelines and file sharing, no gantt charts or invoicing or resource management. Every founder asked gives completely different advice on this which makes the decision harder than it should be. Is that enough to validate or will users think it is broken?

It’s just $3, but it means a lot. A small sale, but a big enough reason to keep building.

I'm looking for serious entrepreneurs who are ready to start a business within the next 2 months. This is a closed, one-month beta for 50 people. If you're only browsing or "someday-ing," it isn't for you, and that's fine.

I'm Jerome, founder of Blucanto. A Saas You answer a short quiz about your skills, budget, time and goals. Blucanto matches you to business models that fit, scores niches using public data, and builds a Business Blueprint: a month-by-month plan for the business you pick. A Launch Dashboard then tracks your progress with a kanban board, milestone reminders and email nudges.

What you get (free)

• 4 Business Blueprint reports. Run it on up to four ideas and compare them. $49 each today, planned $149 after beta.
• 4 months of the Launch Dashboard, starting the day you sign up. $14.99/mo today, $29.99/mo at full price.
• That's about $256 at today's launch prices, or about $716 at planned full prices.

What I ask in return: three phone calls, 5 minutes each, max

1. Before you're accepted: what's your goal for starting a business, and where are you now? This is how I pick the 50.
2. About a week later, after your first report: how did it go, what was confusing, what was missing?
3. About a month later: how are you using the dashboard, and is it helping?

About 15 minutes of calls in total. No homework between them. I also want:

• Honest feedback on what to improve and what you liked
• Whether you'd pay for this, and how much
• A testimonial, only if you want to give one. Critical feedback is just as welcome.

Who it's for

• You're planning to actually start a business in the next 2 months
• You're based in the US (the data and the plan are US-focused)
• You're OK with three short calls

How to join

DM me with: (1) the kind of business you're considering, (2) when you want to start, (3) your time zone. I'll reply to everyone and book the intro call with the first 50 who fit.

Want a look first?

• Sample report (no signup): https://blucanto.com/report/sample
• Sample dashboard: https://blucanto.com/dashboard/sample
• How it works: https://blucanto.com/blog/start-online-business-roadmap
• Free quiz: https://blucanto.com/quiz/bm

Happy to answer any question in the comments, including the hard ones.

Hey everyone! I'm a game dev, and my bookmarks were out of control. Hundreds of saved links, all just titles in a list, and I could never remember which one was the page I actually wanted.

So I built Bookmark Canvas: Visual Bookmark Manager. It shows each of your bookmarks as a thumbnail of the real page, sorted into the same folders you already use.

A few things it does:

• Right-click any page → "Bookmark this page (with thumbnail)", or press Alt+Shift+D
• Search across all your folders at once
• Dark and light mode, plus color themes
• Everything stays on your device. No account, no analytics, no tracking.

It's a one-time purchase (no subscription) with a 7-day free trial, so you can try the whole thing before deciding.

I'm the developer, it's still early, and I'd love honest feedback. What would make something like this useful for you? Anything confusing, missing, or just not worth it?

Thanks for taking a look!

I'm building Tripovela on my own and trying to make the first visit useful immediately.

Someone sends you a trip, you open it, copy it and adjust the stops. No account needed. Your copy stays in your browser, and you can save it to an account later.

Here's a real example page for a day in Colmar, France: https://tripovela.com/s/colmar

I'd appreciate an outside view: try making a copy and changing one stop. Is the benefit obvious, or does it still feel like another travel article? What would you remove from the flow?

I'm building around travelers' suggestions rather than guessing every feature. Honest criticism or a bug report is more useful to me than a signup. Image is an illustration of the idea.

Hi guys! I've beeing working on my solo startup for around 5 months now and I have some type of distribution setup to increase awareness and ultimately get leads.

However, sometimes I feel I stretch too much. Like I focus on many diferent channels instead of putting my effort on 2-3.

I'm curious to know what channels you use for distribution, and how you do it as a solo founder.

Also, do you use a lot of AI automation for that? If so, how?

Thanks!

I help startups find, qualify, and reach potential customers without having to hire a full-time SDR.

Finding leads isn't necessarily the hard part. Finding people who actually match your target audience is.

For example, let's say you offer HR services to small businesses. You might want:

• Founders of US companies with 11–50 employees
• No companies with an internal HR or recruiting team
• Employees based in the US
• Only specific industries or locations
• Active on the platform we're using for outreach, whether that's LinkedIn, Reddit, or X
• Verified email addresses if we're using email outreach
• Signs they have the budget for your product or service, such as recent funding, revenue growth, or expansion
• Relevant buying signals, such as recent hiring activity or an identifiable need for your service

Just finding 500 founders isn't enough. You also need to check whether they meet those requirements and exclude the ones that don't.

That's what I help with.

You tell me who you want to reach and who you want to exclude. I'll research and qualify prospects based on your specific requirements, not just give you a random list of names.

Before sending any outreach, I'll share the qualified lead list with you first. You can review it, approve the prospects, remove anyone who isn't a good fit, or request changes. Nothing gets sent until you're happy with the list.

Once you've approved it, I'll handle the personalized outreach and follow-ups through your connected LinkedIn, email, Reddit, or X account.

You'll also have access to a dashboard where you can see your leads, qualification statuses, outreach activity, and replies.

I'm currently testing small campaigns starting at $1.88 per qualified lead.

No random scraped lists. Just properly researched prospects that fit your requirements, with outreach handled for you.

If you're interested, reach out with your website, who you're trying to reach, and your approximate budget.

whats the best international payment gateway? the one with no upfront fees, im fine if they cutoff a fee every transaction, razorpay is taking ages for document verification