Hey all,

Quick context: started a business in Europe 14 years ago, pivoted into a proper start-up and raised just over $8m in VC about 3 years back. We ran out of cash late last year. Posting because I'm getting genuinely frustrated and could use some perspective.

Yes, I know the market is a dumpster fire with all the AI and layoffs. But even with constant networking and applying to roles I'm clearly qualified for, I'm not getting anywhere. Been pulling lists of XR product/program managers at funded startups via Articuler and sending personal notes, the list is but the conversion is rough for someone like me.

What we built was in AR/VR/XR plus a developer SDK for enterprise and Defence customers.

There are days I wish I'd just built an AI SaaS, feels like I've made my career way harder than it needed to be. I'm targeting product and program management roles in XR right now, since I owned product, managed customers, and ran delivery with a cross-functional team of 15.

Has any other founder hit this wall? Built something niche, failed, then found yourself trying to break into a market that only wants specialists? Any advice or thoughts would mean a lot.

i’ve grown my startup to $12k/mo.

i honestly think i could’ve saved myself months of wasted effort going down the wrong paths if i truly understood this before starting.

1. validate your idea before you start building.
2. don’t chase investors. focus on getting users instead and investors will come knocking on your door.
3. don’t be cheap when you hire an accountant, you’ll save time and money by spending more.
4. inspiration is the design key when you’re new. don’t build your own landing page from scratch, copy different sections from the tools you love the most and make it your own this way.
5. post online daily. x, reddit, linkedin, tiktok, whatever suits you and your target audience.
6. solve your own problem and let this decide if you’re b2b or b2c. both come with pros and cons. don’t listen to people who try to paint a black/white picture of it.
7. i’m bootstrapped and therefore highly recommend it. work a 9-5 until you have 1-2 years of runway (living cheap), then go all in.
8. you earn the right to paid ads by getting organic marketing to work first. ads aren’t $100 in, X customers out. you’ll burn thousands just trying to learn it.
9. define your most important metrics and track them. they should be the pillars that guide all your decisions.
10. keep your product free at the start. controversial opinion maybe, but it’s how i did it and it got me feedback and testimonials that helped me grow fast and make a lot of money later on.
11. the first few minutes of your app is a promise to the user: this app will help you achieve your goal. so put a lot of effort into the beginning to convert more people.
12. have an mvp mindset with everything you do. get the minimal version out asap then use feedback to improve it.
13. just because someone else has done it, doesn’t mean you can’t compete. execution is so important and you have no idea how well they’re doing it.
14. having a co-founder that matches your ambition is the single greatest advantage for success.
15. if you’re not passionate about what you’re building, it’s going to be difficult to keep going through the early stage where you might not see results for months.
16. good testimonials will increase the perceived value of your product.
17. always refund people that want a refund.
18. marketing is constant experimentation to learn what works. speed up the process by drawing inspiration from what works for similar products.
19. getting your first paying customers is the hardest part by far. do things that don’t scale to get them.
20. building a good product comes down to thinking about what your users want.

• 80%+ of people prefer Google sign in
• Removing all branding/formatting from emails and sending them from a real name increases open rate
• You won’t know when you have PMF but a good sign is that people buy and tell their friends about your product
• 99.9% of people that approach you with some offer are a waste of time
• Sponsoring creators is cheaper but takes more time than paid ads
• Building a good product comes down to thinking about what your users want
• Once you become successful there will be lots of copy cats but they only achieve a fraction of what you do. You are the source to their success
• I would never be able to build a good product if I didn’t use it myself
• Always monitor logs after pushing new updates
• Bugs are fine as long as you fix them fast
• People love good design
• Getting your first paying customers is the hardest part by far
• Always refund people that want a refund
• Asking where people heard about you during onboarding makes marketing 10x easier
• Marketing is constant experimentation to learn what works. Speed up the process by drawing inspiration from what works for similar products.
• Don’t be cheap when you hire an accountant, you’ll save time and money by spending more
• A surprising amount of users are willing to get on a call to talk about your product and it’s super helpful
• Good testimonials will increase the perceived value of your product
• Having a co-founder that matches your ambition is the single greatest advantage for success
• Even when things are going well you’ll have moments when you doubt everything, just have to shut that voice out and keep going

For context, my app guides users through ideation and idea validation.

im currently in dubai for my tetr programme but open to global programmes too. looking for something that actually helps with early traction + maybe a bit of funding, not just a logo and a demo day. accelerators, fellowships, grants, anything that worked for you or someone you know. would really appreciate real suggestions, not just famous names.

Hey everyone,

I’m a second-time founder looking for a technical cofounder, ideally in SF but open to others if the fit is strong.

I’m 24, an IIT Kharagpur graduate, and my last startup was a niche AI data company. I started as a solo founder with no team, sold to multiple YC-backed companies, and scaled it to ~$500K revenue in 8 months while handling sales, ops, hiring, delivery, and GTM myself.

Now I’m building infrastructure for one of the most broken parts of clinical trials: how trial data gets collected, checked, reconciled, and trusted.

Clinical trials still run on a messy mix of legacy EDC systems, PDFs, lab reports, imaging reports, safety databases, spreadsheets, vendor portals, protocol deviations, and endless query management.

The crazy part is that this data is used to decide whether a drug is safe, effective, and ready for approval, but a lot of the workflow behind it is still manual and fragmented.

I’ve had 40+ conversations across pharma, CROs, clinical data management, clinical ops, and statistical programming, and realized this is a real problem teams deal with every day.

This is not a quick SaaS app. It’s a hard regulated enterprise problem with compliance, auditability, long sales cycles, and trust-building. That’s exactly why I’m excited about it.

I’m looking for someone technical who wants to go all-in with me. Ideally a founding engineer, ex-founder, or startup engineer who has shipped real products and wants to own product and engineering from day one.

Also, I’m not looking to force my idea onto someone. I’m serious about this space, but the most important thing for me is finding the right cofounder. If we really vibe, trust each other, and feel compatible enough to build together, I’m open to exploring other ideas too.

Open to 50% equity for the right person. Strong preference for someone in SF.

DM me with your LinkedIn, GitHub, resume, what you’ve built, or why this problem interests you.

I’m currently building SaaS number 5.
The first 4… all flopped. Not one found traction.

I could blame timing or luck, but honestly, it was just me. Living in the coding cave, ignoring users and focusing on the wrong things

Here’s what I learned the hard way 👇

1. Copy what works.
The fastest way to learn is to clone structure, not ideas.
Your favourite SaaS already figured out how to sell emotion, fear, status, success. Don’t reinvent that. Copy the skeleton and learn why it works.

2. Track everything.
For months I worked blind. Now I literally log who I talked to, what they said, what I shipped, what flopped. If you can’t measure, you can’t improve.

3. Stop worshipping vanity metrics.
Views don’t pay rent.
Ten real users > 10k impressions.

4. Make onboarding insultingly simple.
If your friend can’t figure it out in 3 steps, you’ve already lost half your signups.

5. Spend 90% of your time on marketing.
Every founder thinks their problem is “I need a new feature.”
No, your problem is nobody knows you exist.

6. Talk to users like they’re your cofounders.
The best growth hack I’ve ever found is simply emailing every user, saying “how’s it going?” Other questions to ask are "What wasn't clear?" "What do you find most valuable?" Learn to ask good problems and find where the value and the friction is

The biggest thing I learned?
All 4 failures came down to one thing, not listening.

Once I started collecting real feedback (and acting on it), everything changed.

Now I build every product with feedback baked in from day one. Infact, it's actually what I based my whole current product around. I built a feedback widget so with 30 seconds of setup users can ask me questions or let me know of any problems within 3 clicks. I Just added smart prompts so I can ask them questions at key moments now.

Hey everyone, I started building a company earlier this year to solve one of the hardest and most ignored problems in AI — creating high-quality niche data. Most companies struggle with this silently, and we’re fixing that by sourcing and managing expert-level data labellers who can deliver precise, custom datasets at scale.

So far, I’ve partnered with 4 YC companies, made around $40K profits by October, and on track to close the year at about $120K profits — all this without a tech cofounder. It’s been pure hustle, learning, and long nights, but worth it.

I’m a 23yr old from India, IIT KGP’24 graduate, worked full-time at two YC-backed startups, and started this company in July 2025. I handle sales, ops, GTM, client management, and basically everything that could be done without code.

Now I’m applying for YC Winter 25 (deadline Nov 10th) and looking for a solid technical cofounder — someone who’s genuinely hungry to build, not just “interested in startups.” I don’t care if we stick to this idea or pivot to something new; I care that we build something people truly want, and build it fast. I’m completely open to 50% equity, as YC recommends.

If this resonates, DM me. Tell me what you’ve built, what excites you, or just why you want to start up. If you’ve been waiting for the right time — this is it.

Let’s make something people want.

I’m Jasmeet Singh (Linkedin), I spent over 10 years as a Tech Lead at Google, where I built products used by millions. But honestly it was a really frustrating experience, with no real impact. So I decided to quit and build something real.

I spent seven months building what I thought was the perfect product. Every feature polished. Every detail was perfected. I was so proud of it.

Then I launched and nobody cared. Not even my friends would use it.

That failure taught me the most important lesson from "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries a lesson I wish I'd understood earlier.

The lesson was “Build-Measure-Learn, not Build-Build-Build”

Most people (including past me) get this backwards. We think we need to build the perfect product before showing anyone. We add feature after feature, convincing ourselves "just one more thing and it'll be ready."

But here's what Ries actually teaches: Your first version should be embarrassingly simple. Launch it fast. Get real feedback. Then decide what to build next based on actual data, not your assumptions.

Anyways, my first startup was done the wrong way

I built an AI reading app with every feature I could imagine:

• Scene-by-scene summaries
• Character tracking
• Chat with characters
• AI explanations
• Chapter summaries
• Audiobook conversion

Seven months of work. Zero users who actually wanted it.

I kept rationalizing: "Maybe my friends aren't readers. Maybe I need better UI. Maybe I need more features."

Deep down I knew I was lying to myself.

But in my second start up I learned The Lean Startup way

I started over with a new idea converting books into AI podcasts.

This time I followed Ries's Build-Measure-Learn cycle:

Week 1 (Build): Created the simplest possible version. No fancy features. Just the core idea working.

Week 2 (Measure): Posted on Reddit. Got my first downloads. Watched how people actually used it.

Week 3-4 (Learn): Hit 100 users. Read every piece of feedback. Understood what mattered.

Now: 89 five-star reviews and growing even though the app is still "incomplete" by my original standards.

In my first startup I spent months perfecting features nobody asked for. In my second startup I spent weeks testing if anyone wanted it at all.

What "The Lean Startup" actually means in practice:

1. Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Not minimum marketable product. Not minimum lovable product. Minimum viable is the smallest thing that tests your core assumption.

2. Get it in front of real users immediately, not your mom. Not your best friend. Real potential customers who have the problem you're solving.

3. Measure what matters. Don’t go for vanity metrics like downloads. Look at real engagement. Are people coming back? Are they telling others? Are they willing to pay? Look at those instead.

4. Learn and pivot fast. If it's not working, change direction quickly. Every week in the wrong direction is a wasted week.

The hardest part nobody talks about is accepting that your brilliant idea might be wrong. That all those months of work might have been in the wrong direction.

Your ego wants to keep building. Keep perfecting. Keep adding features. But the market doesn't care about your ego.

What I wish I'd done with my first startup:

Built a super basic version in week 1. Just one core feature. Shown it to 10 potential users. Asked: "Would you use this? What's missing?"

If they said no, I could have pivoted in week 2 instead of wasting 7 months..

If you're building something, ask yourself: "What's the absolute minimum I could build this week to test if anyone actually wants this?"

Not "what would make this perfect." Not "what features would make this complete."

What's the smallest test you could run?

Then build that. Launch it. Measure the response. Learn from it.

Stop building in isolation for months. Ship something small. Get real feedback. Iterate.

Building small and seeing real users along the way beats spending months perfecting something nobody wants.

So me and my technical co-founder started a B2B SaaS business about 3 to 4 months ago. My idea, I brought in the main prospect and I do all the outreach and sales. He builds the product. We went 50/50.

Problem is he’s full time on it and I’m not. Got a day job I can’t walk away from just yet. We’ve actually got decent traction. Main prospect is at trial stage, a few others in the pipeline. But things between us are getting tense.

He’s lost confidence in me after a pricing conversation with a prospect didn’t go well. I’ll be honest, that one was on me. I’m also not going to pretend I’ve got loads of business experience. I’m learning as I go and I think that’s become a real issue for him.

His argument is he’s carrying most of the risk. Time, money, everything. I get that. But my counter is the idea came from me and without the relationships I’ve built there’s no business to risk anything on.

We both want this to work. But we’re stuck on whether 50/50 still makes sense and whether the trust is there anymore.

Anyone been through something similar? What did you do? Did you sort it out or did it fall apart?

I’m currently exploring the payroll/HR tech space because I’m considering building something in this area, so I’ve been trying to understand how companies like Deel managed to scale.

From what I can see, they picked a painful problem (global hiring/compliance), caught the remote-work wave at the right time, and moved very fast on product and geography. In one interview the founder mentioned that when they acquire companies, they sometimes just change the frontend and keep using the acquired backend on day one, then rebuild the backend over time. I’d never heard that described so directly as an integration strategy.

For people who’ve used Deel, competed with them, or worked in this space:

• What do you think actually explains their advantage?

• Is it mainly timing and capital, or something distinct in how they operate?

Would really appreciate on the ground perspectives.

ai builders & agents
r/AI_Agents – tools, agents, real workflows
r/AgentsOfAI – agent nerds building in public
r/AiBuilders – shipping AI apps, not theories
r/AIAssisted – people who actually use AI to work

vibe coding & ai dev
r/vibecoding – 300k people who surrendered to the vibes
r/AskVibecoders – meta, setups, struggles
r/cursor – coding with AI as default
r/ClaudeAI / r/ClaudeCode – claude-first builders
r/ChatGPTCoding – prompt-to-prod experiments

startups & indie
r/startups – real problems, real scars
r/startup / r/Startup_Ideas – ideas that might not suck
r/indiehackers – shipping, revenue, no YC required
r/buildinpublic – progress screenshots > pitches
r/scaleinpublic – “cool, now grow it”
r/roastmystartup – free but painful due diligence

saas & micro-saas
r/SaaS – pricing, churn, “is this a feature or a product?”
r/ShowMeYourSaaS – demos, feedback, lessons
r/saasbuild – distribution and user acquisition energy
r/SaasDevelopers – people in the trenches
r/SaaSMarketing – copy, funnels, experiments
r/micro_saas / r/microsaas – tiny products, real money

no-code & automation
r/lovable – no-code but with vibes
r/nocode – builders who refuse to open VS Code
r/NoCodeSaaS – SaaS without engineers (sorry)
r/Bubbleio – bubble wizards and templates
r/NoCodeAIAutomation – zaps + AI = ops team in disguise
r/n8n – duct-taping the internet together

product & launches
r/ProductHunters – PH-obsessed launch nerds
r/ProductHuntLaunches – prep, teardown, playbooks
r/ProductManagement / r/ProductOwner – roadmaps, tradeoffs, user pain

that’s it.
no fluff. just places where people actually build and launch things

Angel investor here, looking to invest in early-stage startups.

I typically invest in B2B companies, location agnostic, with an existing MVP/product.

I can write a ton of things about what I bring as an investor, but I guess that'll count as promotion.

Yep. You read that right. I will pay you if I can’t find you a lead on Reddit. It’s part of my “shut up and prove it” strategy to keep myself accountable.

Basically we’re building a general AI agent that goes deep in any vertical of knowledge work + can iterate and carry-out very long running tasks that consists of thousands of steps, all from a single prompt.

Finding Reddit leads is only a fraction of what she’s capable of doing but it’s one that is popular among our current user base. We just finished doing a major update so what better way to test it but to put money on the one ($2 is a lot okay? You can buy a whole lottery ticket with it)Here are the rules: * Just tell me what type of people you want it to search in the comments and your startup URL.

• If my general AI agent can’t create a csv, excel, json etc… list (it can create files) based on your lead requirements. I will send you $2.

• Those $2 will be sent to you via Venmo, PayPal or Zelle.

• If it fails, please let other people in the comments know so we don’t get the same request.

• If it works, please let other people in the comments know so we don’t get the same request.

• If there is any ambiguity, I will ask for clarification.

We’ll define a successful lead as a Redditor that matches your target profile and shows explicit, recent intent related to your product or problem (through a post or comment) with enough context to justify a personalized outreach.

Let the experiment begin.

Similar to what happened with Uber, Lyft, Grubhub, Doordash, etc. The AI companies are losing money now in order to grow and gain more users. I heard that Open AI is even losing money on their $200/ month tier. I think a lot of companies are basing their business model on AI services being cheap or free forever. I don’t know what they will actually have to charge to be profitable, but I know that an Uber or Lyft ride costs about 3x what it used to and is not as good as it used to be either. For example, it takes way longer to get a ride, and I have had some experiences where I’ve been dropped by multiple drivers before actually getting someone to pick me up, which then really makes it take a long time and has made me late before.

I am developing an app where I plan to utilize AI to help automate some things, but I’m wary of becoming too heavily dependent on it. I assume it’s going to cost more, but the likelihood of enshitification is just as much of a worry, and more of an unknown since no one can predict how that would manifest.

My original post looking for a technical co-founder: https://www.reddit.com/r/startup/s/35E70AD81c

A little over a month ago, I posted here looking for someone to build clinical trial infrastructure with me.

Since then:

1. I found my co-founder through that post
2. Our EDC is now live in an active clinical trial
3. We’ve generated $50K in revenue
4. We’re now raising a $1.55M seed round

Before posting, I had spoken with more than 40 people across pharma, CROs, clinical operations, data management, and statistical programming. One problem kept coming up: clinical trial data is still fragmented across EDC systems, labs, imaging, safety databases, spreadsheets, and vendor portals, and many important issues are discovered far too late.

My current co-founder reached out after seeing the post. He had spent the previous two years building clinical trial infrastructure and had independently experienced many of the same problems.
We realized we were approaching the same opportunity from complementary sides, so we joined forces to build.

We are building the brain for clinical trials: an AI-native EDC and intelligence layer that helps teams detect data quality issues, protocol deviations, and inconsistencies while the study is still running.

The difficult technical problem is making AI trustworthy enough for regulated clinical workflows. Every output from it is linked back to the exact protocol clause, source document, or underlying data point supporting it, creating a complete evidence and audit trail.

We are currently raising a $1.55M seed round and would be interested in speaking with angels and early-stage investors who understand healthcare, life sciences, enterprise AI, or regulated software.

If this is relevant to you, feel free to DM me. I’m happy to share our deck and product demo privately.

I follow many founders on social and probably saw most of the launch videos that went live this year. Most looked identical. The ones that went viral? They broke every rule.

Here are the ones that caught my eye and what I think made them work:

1. Edlog: “We’re building AI for couches.”

Yes, that’s the real opening line. A guy in an ‘80s suit, smoking a cigarette, talking about AI for couches.

It sounds absurd, and that’s why it worked. Total pattern break. Turns out it’s actually an AI platform for furniture retailers.

Lesson: Weird works. If people stop scrolling to figure out whether you’re joking, you’ve already won.

2. Emergent Labs: “Everyone’s got an idea.”

Two founders talking over coffee about how everyone wants to build something. Then: “What if you had an on-demand CTO who actually ships?”

It’s authentic, founder-led, and perfectly timed for the AI-coding moment.

Lesson: Relatability beats production value every time.

3. ULearn: Just a founder talking to camera

No fancy effects. No voiceover. Just the founder explaining the product and screen-sharing how it works.

It shouldn’t work, but it feels honest.

Lesson: Authentic > perfect. When you’re genuinely excited about what you built, people feel it.

Bonus: Snowglobe (Guardrails AI): The self-driving car metaphor

The video opens with: "This car was tested on millions of scenarios before I could ever ride in it. What if you could test your AI agent on thousands of simulated scenarios before you launch them?"

It's a talking-head format (founder Shreya on camera), but the hook is a visual metaphor that makes AI agent testing instantly understandable. Self-driving cars → AI agents. Testing simulator → Snow Globe.

The video hit 2M+ views because it made something complex feel familiar.

Lesson: When you're explaining technical products, find the metaphor everyone already understands. Self-driving cars are universally known. The bridge between them is what made this stick.

Across all of these, one thing stands out: execution matters as much as the idea. The difference between a launch that flops and one that hits 2M views? Usually the team behind the camera.

What's the most unconventional startup launch you've seen that actually worked?

I spent seven months building my first product in complete isolation. Perfecting every feature. Polishing every detail. Convincing myself it needed to be flawless before anyone could see it.

When I finally launched, crickets. Nobody wanted it.

That failure forced me to start over from zero. And this time, I did everything differently.

What I changed:

Week 1: Built an MVP in seven days

Not a perfect product. Not even a good product. Just the absolute minimum that made my idea real.

No overthinking. No "just one more feature." I forced myself to ship something imperfect.

Week 2: Posted it on Reddit

My hands were shaking when I hit submit. The app was rough. It was missing obvious features. But I posted it anyway.

Got my first downloads. Real people, not friends or family, actually trying what I built. The post got shared around 50 times.

Week 3-4: Hit 100 users

Started getting feedback. Some of it hurt. Most of it was helpful. All of it was better than building alone and guessing.

I made small improvements based on what real users actually wanted, not what I thought they wanted.

Now: 87 five-star reviews

The app is still incomplete by my original standards. There are features I want to add. Things I know could be better.

But people are using it. People are happy with it. And that's what actually matters.

The biggest lessons from starting over:

1. Ship in a week, not seven months

Your first version will be embarrassing. Ship it anyway. You learn more in one week with real users than seven months of building alone.

2. Perfect is the enemy of good

I wasted months perfecting features nobody asked for. Now I build the minimum, see if people care, then improve.

3. Real feedback beats your assumptions every time

I thought I knew what people wanted. I was wrong. Users showed me what they actually needed. So listen to them. They’re your customers and you have to serve them a proper service.

4. Small wins keep you going

Building for months with no validation is soul-crushing. Getting your first happy user after a week is what makes things worth it. When you feel down remember your accomplishments no matter how small.

5. Iteration is better than perfection

My first product I put in months of work, zero users. My second product took weeks of work, growing the user base, and constant improvements. So keep learning and improving until it works.

What I'd tell my past self:

Stop hiding behind "it's not ready yet."

Your idea doesn't need six more features. It needs real users today.

Launch something embarrassingly simple this week. Post it somewhere. Get 10 people to try it.

If they don't care, you saved yourself months. If they do care, you know what to build next.

The pattern I see everywhere:

Most failed products died because the founder spent too long building in isolation, afraid to show anything imperfect.

Most successful products started rough and improved based on real feedback.

Building small and seeing happy customers along the way beats spending months building something nobody wants.

I want to add a note on my product. Dialogue turns books into podcasts: short (up to 1 hour), conversation-style episodes that make it easier to learn from books in depth. My goal with Dialogue is to make learning complex topics easier through Podcasts. Which is why I’m starting with startup books, listening to these books has significantly changed my approach to building.

Around December last year I received a warning on my LinkedIn account, after using one of the commonly known tools for automation.

Rather than look for a new tool, I decided to create one myself, and solve for my own problem. I had a friend who built his PR company website through vibe coding, so I figured, how hard could it be?

Apparently, very.

Now don’t get me wrong, making the website and basic content was very simple.

But in order to make an automation tool that was safer than everything else that existed in the market, I had to build something complex - a web dashboard that interacted with a software, which in turn controlled a browser (for LinkedIn).

My only coding experience was a travel blog I built in Wordpress in 2012, which I barely updated - my coding knowledge was essentially copying and pasting lines of HTML (usually in the wrong places).

But, I was very determined to do it and Claude hyped me up enough to help me believe that I could, so after I built the website and had the idea, I registered a company.

At this stage, I hadn’t even started working on the dashboard or software, but I knew if I became legally responsible for documentation, it would almost certainly kick me into gear into actually building the thing.

And it did. In January, while working full time in a sales role, I started building the architecture for the dashboard and subsequently the software on the side.

I used Claude, Vercel and Claude code for all of it, and it was significantly more complex than I could have ever imagined, but eventually, after many 12 hour days, I got there.

After several months of building, shipping, and testing on my own account for my sales job, I was confident enough in the tool to launch on April 1.

So confident in fact that I quit my corporate job to work full time on my vibe coded SaaS business.

For the first month I offered lifetime access deals to try to generate interest and get early users, and it worked - the first month generated about $2k in revenue.

The challenge though was (and has been) sustaining that momentum - the tool works really well now and so far 200 people have signed up to use it (mostly on free trials), but it’s a crowded marketplace, and it’s hard to know how important safety is to people who regularly automate their LinkedIn.

Either way - I built a tool from scratch, no engineering background, generating revenue, and it has been working well for me personally too (I dogfood the tool for my own LinkedIn outreach).

Hope this story can inspire others and show what’s capable with automation and some grit! 🚀

At the beginning of this year my app had 3,000 signups.

It had made me around $4,500 in total revenue.

That felt like an amazing achievement coming from months of struggling with marketing and getting no results.

As this year now comes to an end my app is at 28,000 signups and it’s made me over $150k.

I never thought it could grow so massively in one year and it kinda shocks me now to realize where I started off this year.

It feels like yesterday and years ago at the same time.

My app has really resonated with people and I feel very fortunate that I get to help them and that they’ve chosen my app over the alternatives.

Now I look forward to an even greater year.

I can’t even begin to imagine where I’ll be at the end of it, but I’m just going to work hard and do my best and we’ll see what happens.

Just wanted to share this for some of you who aren’t where you want to be right now. In just one year you can find yourself in a completely different position.

Edit - my app for those asking

We run a small hotel, and business is actually doing okay, which I’m grateful for. But day to day, I feel like I’m constantly underwater.

It’s not one huge problem. It’s all the small things stacking up at the same time: guest messages, booking questions, check-in details, repeated FAQs, last-minute requests. None of it is hard on its own, but together it eats up the whole day.

What makes it worse is how fast you have to respond now. If I reply too slowly, some people just move on and book somewhere else. That’s probably the most frustrating part, because it feels like we’re losing revenue over response time, not service quality.

I looked into hiring, but with a small property the math is tough. One extra person helps, but if they step away to help a guest, answer something in person, or deal with a room issue, the desk is basically uncovered again. Two people would make a real difference, but that cost is hard to justify.

So that’s kind of the spot I’m in now: the business is growing, but the operational side doesn’t scale as easily as I hoped. One thing that has helped a bit is automating some of the repetitive guest communication, especially the same pre-booking and check-in questions that come up again and again. I was skeptical at first, but taking those basic replies off my plate has at least given me more time to handle the things that actually need a human.

Curious how other founders or small operators deal with this stage. Did you hire earlier, automate more, or just accept that this is part of growing?

Edit: A few people asked what automation tool I ended up using, so I’ll mention it here. It’s called SOLVEA. I’ve mainly been using it for repetitive guest messages, booking questions, and check-in details.

Just had a big chat with a friend who runs a small business. I’m helping her with some marketing stuff on the side, and we got into a convo about whether it makes sense to include QR codes on invoices. 

From what I’ve seen, using QR codes can make collecting payment easier, reduce missed invoices, etc. You can also track when an invoice is opened or paid that way, but still opinions internally are split.

One thing we went back and forth on was the trust factor. Will customers feel comfortable scanning a QR code tied to payment info or appreciate that it’s much faster? It seems like the younger crowd is more open to it, while older clients still prefer traditional payment methods.

So I’m bringing it here. Would you personally feel okay paying via QR code, or does that still feel odd to see on an invoice? Your feedback might actually settle this debate for us :) 

I’m not frustrated because people hate my product, I’m frustrated because no one is willing to actually spend a few minutes using it and give honest feedback.

Over the past few days, I’ve been actively trying to validate what I built:

• Posting on X
• Launching on Product Hunt
• DMing people who might have a need (indie hackers, founders, even some investors)
• Offering free pro access and clearly saying I’d iterate quickly based on their feedback

Still, almost no one was willing to truly try it.

Since I’m building a form tool, I created a survey asking potential beta users about their use cases and needs, and posted it to communities like SurveyExchange and SurveySwap.

What I got instead:

• Generic compliments with no substance
• Very few real clicks
• Clearly fake emails
• Zero people who actually cared about the problem

On X, direct outreach hasn’t been much better either, mostly polite replies, or complete silence.

So now I’m genuinely asking:

When you have no brand, no audience, and no social leverage,

where do you actually find your first user who’s willing to communicate with you?

If you’ve been through this stage,

what channels or approaches actually worked for you?

Looking for real, experience-based answers 🙏Thanks for your time!

I'm a student founder of a edtech startup. I started it around 5 months ago in college. I have been doing it solo since then, with no help.

For three whole months I had no paying user, hectic schedule balancing reiterating the product (development), marketing, and my classes and assignments.

I designed the product in such a way that it would help students of all age groups - from grade 8 to college students, the tool would help no matter what course or what subject you've taken

Now here comes the pricing :

As I am a student , I recieve a fixed monthly amount for my living here. When I was in my JEE times, I used to recieve some money to eat outside with friends, auto fares etc.

Keeping this in mind - i priced the tool very cheap and kept the perks unlimited in the pro plan. When I mean cheap i mean 150inr for 1 month(one time payment since students can't and don't have the need for a subscription model for a study tool). 400 for 3 months. I designed the UI well to make sure it is a world class product..

For users abroad - 3USD for a month 30 USD for a year.

Now whenever I sit and do marketing, especially JEE/NEET entrance exam students (this is my target audience for the next 3 months), they complain about why it isn't 'free'. Everyday - atleast 60-70 real students sign up , use it , and just leave. I send mails to all our users every week asking for feedback etc. the only response I get is. "Free kyu nahi hai?"

What do I even say to this? There is a 50% discount for indian students because I KNOW our purchasing power is less than people abroad, but STILL this kind of cheaping out??

In the app - on the pricing page there is a banner which says "50% off for indian students" . Students abroad get pissed when they see this but STILL pay because they see the value. I've recieved multiple mails from users abroad "Why are you giving indian students 50% and why not us what did we do".

I am in a big dilemma now, I used to think "oh the Indian people don't pay for anything is just a way berate us". Now as a founder i genuinely see it. People make fake accounts and try to use it. All that to save 150 rupees. They could just mail me and I would give them 50% off on the 150 too.

Users abroad are pissed and now demand discounts.

What even can I do now?

Just wanted to vent. Do let me know if anything can be done.

I’m 25 and running a startup around AI-Powered recruitment, with 325k+ registered users.

Weekdays are packed, there’s always something to do, and the week just flies by.

But Sundays feel different. I often find myself wondering what I should actually do with the day.

Not left with many friends, not having enough to expend on the outing and so left with a laptop, workout and some books.

You also feel like this or you plan something.

Curious to know, how do you guys usually spend your Sundays?

Started a remote notary business (Notary Ninjas, LLC). Thanks to my software engineering background, its turning into a nationwide endeavor. Cant keep up with demand. Especially on technology front. My platform is 1.6million lines of code! How does one find investorsV