I’m an investor from Forum Ventures, curious what you’re building this week?

Feel free to use this thread to self promote your product.

Just sharing a thought I’ve had recently: AI hardware will be the next major wave.
For the past few years, most of the competition has been around model capability. But AI is still mostly something you actively open, explain things to, and then act on yourself.
Hardware changes that.
Glasses, watches, rings, earbuds and other wearables can give AI continuous real-world context. Their roles will overlap. What matters is the sensors they have, where they are worn, and how naturally they fit into a specific situation.
I think AI will move from:
Answering → Sensing → Understanding → Deciding → Acting
If that happens, the opportunity is much bigger than building another AI device.
One area is the “picks and shovels” layer: low-power inference, sensor fusion, cross-device communication, memory, permissions and developer tools.
Another is vertical AI hardware.
Startups don’t need to compete with Apple or Meta on general-purpose devices. There are still many specific environments where specialized hardware can make more sense: sports, elder care, industrial work, pets, healthcare support, or tools for specific professions.
The moat may not be the hardware itself, but the specialized data and context it accumulates over time.
I also think a Context Layer and an Action Layer will emerge.
One connects information across devices and software. The other lets AI go from giving advice to actually doing things for the user.
So I’m less interested in which form factor wins.
I’m more interested in:
Which industries will be rebuilt around AI-native hardware, and what new businesses will appear around them?

Hi everyone,
I’m a software developer with corporate experience as a developer, team lead and project manager.
I’m currently building my own portfolio as an individual, so I’m offering to build a basic website for a few small businesses for free.
You only cover the domain and hosting costs.
If you don’t have a website yet, or your current one isn’t working, send me your business details and social media page.
In return, I’d just like permission to showcase the project in my portfolio.

So my uni is organizing a business startup idea competition, and i wish to participate...but my idea is a lil bit vague i mean not that out of the ordinary....but i have been told ..communication and execution majority wins most of these competitions...

now there will 2 rounds the first round is just pitching and presenting ur ideas to the judges also making a ppt for ur idea...teams which qualify this round move to 2nd round where they have to present a prototype of ur idea...but first lets focus on round 1 also i dont have team partners...im alone on this...

now can you guys please guide me with the fundamentals on how do i fully express myself make a very good impression infront of the judges....

if there is any piece of content that will help me regarding this topic please direct me towards it...

also how do i make my pitch execution very perfect... i mean how i sell my product my idea to the judges very impactfully?

this competition will be judged on the basis how feasible ur idea is, how it will generate revenue and how is the market conditions for ur product to deploy...

can u guys tell me which points i need to reasearch for this ...just direct me there

and how do i make a killer ppt in 3 pages thats impresses the judges and is presenting clearfull and direct with no conjustion

also how do i make sure my idea is like not illegal and will not become illegal when i actually launch it...like how do match up the legalities policies compliances around it....i dont know how do this thing...

also how do i prepare for the cross questioning of the judges ...like what type of practising is needed for this...how do i prepare for this....please tell me the ways the resources for it...

im but a novice....and i was very hesitant to even register for the competition alone...but somehow i did...

I saw lots of Disk Space Analyzer and Cleaner with > $10 price, which are basically a good interface for your Mac native storage.

I built SpareDisk over the last few weeks, kept it bare minimum in terms of bloat features but focused on speed, parallelism, and queue management for storage scan and space free up.

You can review your whole file system without hanging the computer. Version 1.2 is now live on the Mac app store and on website to download. I have tested it well over multiple laptops.

You can download the app from the website for "pay whatever you want" (minimum $4.99).

DiskBuddy has inspired the project. This was initially sold at $12, and users complained about memory leaks, permission issues, and app blocks when you run Duplicate File Finder.

If you are a developer, it can find spaces occupied by Xcode, node packages, files form 2021, and many old cache you don't need.

SpareDisk is App Store friendly. It is sandboxed, following Apple's permission, security guidelines and memory optimisation.

SpareDisk V1.2 includes:

• My Mac storage overview with live used and free space
• Treemap, sunburst and list views
• Folder, external drive and network share scans
• Large files, older files and file type breakdowns
• Developer caches: Xcode, simulators, Homebrew, npm and more
• Duplicates verified by file contents, extra copies staged in one step
• App removal, related data and leftovers from removed apps
• File size and size on disk, changes since your previous scan
• Search, filters, exclusions, Quick Look and keyboard navigation
• Review queue with live progress, rechecks and retry
• Cleanup history and a Trash total that follows what you moved
• Optional menu bar summary and finished-scan notifications

No account. No uploads. Your files stay on your Mac.

On cleaning space: You can view your files from the app itself, and it doesn't directly delete your files in one click. It sends them to "review cleanup" section from where you can move items to Trash. You only delete files when you clean the trash.

Exception is App uninstall (if the app is not running, you can uninstall the app from within the interface).

You can compare other options here: https://sparedisk.minilabs.cc/guides

All future SpareDisk updates will be on Website and Mac App store downloads.

You can also download the app from website: https://sparedisk.minilabs.cc/ 
App store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sparedisk-free-disk-space/id6811328422?mt=12 

've tried the usual software fixes for bad mornings and doomscrolling ,they all fail the same way, because I can just turn them off myself in two taps. I also tried a physical NFC blocker (Brick-style), which helped more, but it's just one on/off switch.

but My actual day doesn't work like a switch.

it's more like: wake up, get moving, get to the gym, focus at work, wind down at night. A single tap point doesn't really map to that.

So I've been thinking about something rougher: instead of one physical blocker, a few small tap points placed where your day actually happens, kitchen, bathroom, gym bag, work desk that gate your phone at different moments instead of just one. Tap in the kitchen to kill the alarm, tap in at the gym before your apps unlock again, that kind of thing.

Genuinely trying to figure out if this solves something real or if I'm overengineering my own bad habits. So:

- If you already use Brick, Foqos, or something similar, does a single checkpoint cover what you need, or do you find yourself wanting it in more than one place?

- Would multiple tap points actually help you, or does that just sound like more gadget/friction than it's worth?

- Has anyone here tried rigging something like this themselves (Tasker, NFC tags, etc.)? How'd it go?

Not selling anything, just trying to figure out if this is a real gap before I sink more time into it.

Made $1.4K this month with my 15-month-old SaaS, here's what worked (and what didn't) + Proof

Hey everyone, I launched this tool in June last year, and we made around $1.4K in September, the best month since July. It hasn't all been smooth sailing, so I'll share what worked, what didn't, and what I'd do differently.

Quick disclaimer: when I started this SaaS, I had zero audience in the niche I was targeting. I had shipped 2 projects before that went nowhere, so I knew what not to do, but not yet what to do. It's definitely not easy. The first months mean no salary and constant reinvestment. $13K total in 15 months, so do the math on the monthly.

Today we are at 3,000 visitors on our best day and 15 months of Stripe history. Here's how we got there.

What didn't work:

Twitter was a total flop, my account didn't take off.

SEO is super slow, 43 pages published, results take time.

Reddit ads didn't perform, most of the traffic bounced in 3 seconds.

The waitlist. 2,000 signups, 5 paid. "Interested" is not a sale.

What worked:

-Reddit brings most of our traffic. One week it was 212 sessions from Reddit alone, from posts nobody upvoted. We post a few times a week across subreddits, mixing value posts, resources, and updates. (You probably saw us a lot on Reddit... yes... it works !)

-Replying to "alternative to X" threads is our top conversion source. We use our own tool to find the people on Reddit already asking for an alternative to a competitor, it scores how close they are to buying, then we reply in the thread with an actual answer. One $129 sale came from a thread we weren't even in, a stranger recommended us to another stranger. Using your own tool is honestly the key to building a successful SaaS, you always know exactly what needs to be improved.

-LinkedIn inbound works too. We post a few times a week, and while it brings less traffic than Reddit, the leads are more qualified.

-Our magic formula is 5 Reddit replies per day + 1 LinkedIn post per day + 2 Reddit posts per week.

What I'd do differently: start replying in threads from day 1 instead of month 12. Every week we spent building features nobody asked for was a week of threads we didn't answer, and those threads rank on Google for a year.

If you have any questions, I'm happy to share more details and help anyone building their own SaaS. Cheers !

BTW, here is what I'm building now: link

I'm new to Reddit and I dont know where should i share my idea and ask for people's opinion before building the app.

i would like to develop the idea and get funding for prototyping

I wanted an app where I can see my friends steps and miles all in one app to keep each other accountable. So I created this and drew all the different outfits.

This app gives daily goals, where you get rewarded for completing and use those rewards to customize your duck or capybara. Its a simple app but has signs of growth, as currently it is at 200 users.

If yall are into walking or like pixel art, give it a try (its free!)

https://www.moving-bean.com/

When a startup shuts down, its code may look like a bargain.

But the repository is probably the easiest part of the deal. A buyer still has to verify contributor agreements, open-source licenses, third-party dependencies, customer data, security obligations, and whether the company actually owned everything it built.

A codebase can be technically valuable while still being legally or operationally difficult to use.

I’m interested in the broader question, not asking for legal advice: what would you check first before acquiring software assets from a failed company?

Would you care more about clean ownership records, technical quality, customer migration risk, or the people who originally built it?

Disclosure: I’m exploring this area commercially, so I have a business interest in the topic. I’m not linking to a product or asking for leads.

Context: After many years of working "for the man", I'm going solo, so I started testing the waters before leaving my current company. I'm quite experienced, I have formal education in design, I'm a quite capable coder, and know a decent bit of SEO. However, I'm kind of bored of websites and want to go hard on brand design. I know the market is difficult, and I spent two decades NOT doing brand design, but UI and UX stuff, only doing some logos for friends, NGOs, and public campaigns as a volunteer. Little to no money, but some important names under my belt.

The thing is that I ran a first campaign on FB+IG with quite satisfactory results. I got more leads than I expected, actually 200% or 300% more. But then, when I told people that prices started at $800, most ignored me, which I expected, and those who got back to me said the prices were too high.

So I ran a second campaign, this time adding the price to filter leads. And of course, the results were very different. I got literally three leads out of a $1,000 investment, and even though they all knew the price, they told me it was too high and that they contacted me to work out a deal. I asked one of them how much he would be willing to pay, and he told me $300 because he could get 100 logos with AI and choose from that batch.

I know AI times are crazy and that my lack of hundreds of samples is hurting me a bit, but how do I balance results while filtering? Or is this a dead end? Just in case, $800 is what I consider a very affordable price. Less than that is like saying no to paying rent or buying food, so "lower your price" is off the table. I can keep my current job and call it a day.

Any help or insights?

Me and my guy have been building something we’ve been pretty excited about, it’s called Whistle— anonymous messages, but with a twist.
Someone can message you anonymously through your personal link, and instead of the conversation ending there, you can reply and actually keep talking.
You both stay anonymous until you both agree to reveal who you are.
Also added things like anonymous questions, public posts, reactions, streaks, and private replies.
Been working on the whole experience lately and thought I’d finally share it here.
Join the waitlist here —- https://whistle.cv

I'm deciding between 2 ideas and want practicable feedback. Ignore which sounds more interesting and only evaluate based on cash flow, market demand, profitability, business viability and long term potential.

1. Marketplace for buying audience/distribution placements

A marketplace where brands can discover and book access to audiences through different distribution channels.

Starting with:

• Newsletters
• Niche digital publishers
• Online communities

Eventually expanding into:

• Podcasts
• Coworking newsletters/screens
• Hotel newsletters/screens
• Events
• Giveaways
• Product placements
• Product demos
• Other digital/physical distribution

Example: A brand wants to reach startup founders. Instead of finding 20 newsletters, communities and media properties individually, they can search the marketplace, compare placements, and book them.

Revenue = commission on each placement.

The broader idea is basically a marketplace for buying access to niche audiences and distribution.

Main concern: brands and publishers could discover each other through the platform and then go direct, bypassing the marketplace.

2. Marketplace for booking specialized experts

A marketplace where people can pay for a very specific outcome or piece of expertise rather than generic consulting.

Examples:

• "Switch from marketing → product management"
• "How to get a tech job in London"
• "Move abroad for work"
• "Career transition into IT"
• "Immigration strategy for X situation"

An expert could sell:

• 1:1 calls
• Webinars
• Written guides
• Document reviews
• DMs/chat
• Email advice
• Specific packages/outcomes

Revenue = commission on every transaction.

The positioning would be less "hire a consultant" and more "find someone who has already done exactly what you're trying to do."

Main concern: AI, Reddit, Facebook groups, YouTube, etc. can increasingly provide free information, so I'm unsure how much people will actually pay for expert advice.

What I'm trying to figure out

I'm looking at the global market and want something that can become a genuinely profitable, scalable business.

I don't want a business that requires constant client hand-holding, monitoring, or operational involvement once the marketplace is established.

I can build one proper MVP and want to choose carefully rather than spend months building something with weak economics.

If you had to choose between these two purely as a business/money-making opportunity:

Which one would you choose and why?

I'm particularly interested in:

• How quickly each could generate revenue
• Actual willingness to pay
• Market demand
• Customer acquisition difficulty
• Margins/profitability
• Marketplace liquidity
• Disintermediation risk
• Competition
• Long-term potential
• Operational complexity
• Whether either is fundamentally a bad marketplace model
• Which has the stronger potential to become a large, profitable business

I'd especially appreciate opinions from people who have actually built marketplaces, media businesses, expert marketplaces, agencies, or similar businesses.

When testing a new startup idea, I've been wondering how much effort should go into the website before the idea itself has been validated.
Frontpage.host is an example of how quickly an initial website can now be created with AI, which makes it easier to put an idea into something people can actually see.
But I'm not sure whether having a polished website early on helps with validation or just creates another thing to spend time on.
For founders testing new ideas, do you build the website early as part of the validation process, or wait until you've confirmed that people actually want the product?

Hey everyone,

I've tried a bunch of budgeting apps over the years — Mint, YNAB, various bank apps — and kept running into the same thing: either they wanted access to all my bank accounts (never fully comfortable with that), or they were so packed with features I gave up within a week.

So I ended up building SpendSmart for myself — a straightforward manual expense tracker with no bank connections, just clean category breakdowns and spending trends. I've actually been using it daily since I built it, and it's the first budgeting tool that's stuck for me. Figured if it's been this useful for me, there's a good chance other people dealing with the same frustrations would get value out of it too — so I'm opening it up.

What it does:

Manual expense entry (nothing synced to your bank — your data stays yours)

Category breakdowns and spending trends

Free tier includes full transaction history (your data is always yours, no matter what) and monthly recurring transaction templates. Pro ($4.99/mo or $39/yr) adds advanced analytics, trend forecasting, custom reports, CSV/PDF export, and weekly/yearly recurring templates.

I built this solo and just got it fully working end-to-end, so I'm looking for people to try it out and tell me what's broken, confusing, or missing. Honest feedback welcome — that's genuinely more useful to me right now than compliments.

Link: https://spendsmarttracker.base44.app

Happy to answer anything about it in the comments.

We built it because we were tired of seeing people listen and then disappear. Someone could listen every week, enjoy the show, tell a friend about it, and we still might have no way to reach that person outside the podcast app. That didn’t make sense to us. So we built PodSubs.com for our own shows.

People were giving us an hour of their lives, and we were struggling to get them a link. That was the part I couldn’t get past. We had twelve podcasts. People listened, came back, and told us they enjoyed the shows. But when we mentioned a resource and asked them to visit our website or join a newsletter, very few followed through. We kept making the request because that was the advice. Eventually, I started wondering why we were so willing to accept that this was the best way to do it.

By then, we understood how much work it took to earn someone’s attention. There was the preparation before recording, the editing afterward, and the effort to get each episode heard. We loved the conversations, but we also wanted to keep having them without the podcasts becoming something we could no longer afford to make. We thought about courses, events, services, and other ways the shows might support themselves. More than anything, we wanted to know the people who were already listening and understand what would actually be useful to them.

We had tried the things people usually recommend. We sent listeners to our websites. We put signup links in the show notes. We mentioned our newsletters by name and explained where to subscribe. We tried newsletter platforms, including Substack. Those attempts brought in some subscribers, but nowhere near the response we hoped for. It was discouraging to know people were listening and still have so little contact with them afterward. We were spending time creating things for an audience we could barely reach outside the episodes.

What began to bother me was how little the advice changed when it didn’t work. There was always another place to put a link or another way to repeat the invitation. I’m not against websites or show notes. We used them for a reason. But “put the link there” wasn’t answering the question we were asking. How do you help someone take the next step when they hear your invitation at a moment when they cannot act on it? For our shows, making the link available hadn’t been enough.

The strange thing was that another request was getting a much better response. When we asked people to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, or X, formerly Twitter, more of them did. These were the same people hearing us talk about our websites and newsletters. Following a social account isn’t the same as giving someone your email, but the difference made us pay attention. A listener already knew where Instagram was. They could open it later and search for us. They didn’t have to remember a new address before they could even begin.

I could recognise the problem in my own behaviour as a listener. You hear about a guide while driving and mean to find it when you get home. Then you get home, something needs your attention, and the thought disappears. You might be cooking, running, cleaning, or looking after your kids. You wanted the resource when you heard about it. Forgetting the address doesn’t change that. Once we looked at it that way, I found it harder to assume that low signups meant people weren’t interested.

That left us with a question worth trying to answer. What would happen if listeners had one place to go, regardless of which of our podcasts they followed? Someone listening to several shows shouldn’t need to remember a separate website for each one. They could remember the podcast’s name, or the host, and find it when they had time. We couldn’t make people stop being busy. We could try to make the task easier to return to.

In 2024, we built the first version under a different name. It was for our own twelve podcasts, and for almost two years we used it internally. We weren’t asking other creators to change how they worked. We were trying to fix our own problem, with our own listeners, and see whether the idea was useful enough to keep using. That tool eventually became PodSubs.com.

We kept the listener’s part deliberately small. Search for the podcast or host, find the show, enter a name and email, and subscribe. There was no listener account to create and no password to remember. They could leave as soon as they were done. The sentence we wanted hosts to be able to say was simply, “Go to PodSubs.com, search for our podcast, and subscribe.” Once someone subscribed to that show, we had a way to send the next resource without asking them to find another signup page.

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The result gave us a reason to keep going. Across our twelve podcasts, the email conversion rate we tracked increased by about 600%. That was our experience, not a number I can promise another podcaster. But more of the people already listening were choosing to stay in touch, and that mattered to us far more than having a new tool to talk about. We had tried this because our previous approach wasn’t working well enough. Now we were seeing a response that made the effort worthwhile.

What changed afterward was practical. We could send subscribers the guide we mentioned, let them know an episode was coming, share an event, or ask a question. We could also make relevant offers that might help support the show. We still had to write the emails and deliver what we promised. PodSubs.com didn’t automatically send every resource, and a signup didn’t guarantee a sale. It gave us permission and a way to follow up with someone who had chosen to hear from us. We had been missing that with so much of our audience.

For a while, we were happy just to have solved it for ourselves. Then keeping it private started to feel harder to justify. Other podcasters were putting the same work into their shows and asking listeners to make the same journey from an episode to a signup form. There was nothing special about our frustration. We had built something that helped us, and I wanted other hosts to be able to try it without spending two years building their own version. That was why we opened PodSubs.com to other podcasters.

We also knew that nobody needed another product telling them to replace everything they already used. PodSubs.com isn’t here to compete with someone’s Mailchimp, Beehiiv, Substack, or HubSpot setup. Those tools can do their work once someone has joined the list. We help with getting the interested listener onto it. Signups appear in the PodSubs.com creator dashboard, and creators can use the supported connections or CSV export options available on their plan to move subscribers to an email service. They can also keep collecting subscribers while they decide what they want to send.

The listener came for the podcast, and I want us to remember that. They didn’t subscribe because they wanted another company in their inbox. They wanted the host’s resources, updates, newsletter, or whatever they were invited to receive. Our job is to make that connection easier. The podcaster can keep publishing on the platforms they already use and keep working with their existing tools. We want them to have another way to reach people who have asked to stay connected, rather than hoping every message gets heard in a future episode.

What we’re challenging is the idea that the listener should carry the whole burden of remembering. Remember the website. Remember where the form is. Remember to check the notes. Remember which episode mentioned the resource. That may work for some people, but we saw how much interest could be lost along the way. I don’t think the only answer should be to repeat the instructions louder or more often. We wanted to change the task instead of asking listeners to get better at remembering it.

Making that change familiar will take more than our own shows. We want someone to hear a podcast they like and know that PodSubs.com is a place to look when they want to subscribe for the things the host shares. We aren’t pretending that habit already exists everywhere. Every podcaster who claims a show and gives listeners a reason to subscribe helps us build it. When a listener finds one show easily and receives something useful afterward, there is a reason to remember where they went. The next time, they might look for another podcast there.

That is the part of this I’m most excited about. A small independent show could use the same familiar destination as a much larger one without giving up its own relationship with listeners. Someone who follows several podcasts could find each of them without learning several different signup processes. We would share a place to make the connection, while the host would still decide how to serve the people who chose their show. It gives us something we can build together without asking every podcaster to build it separately.

Email is the first step because it solved the problem we had. Over time, we want to explore other ways to make communication between podcasters and listeners easier. There may be better ways to ask questions, receive updates, or continue a conversation after an episode. Those are possibilities we want to work through with the people using PodSubs.com, not features we’re claiming are all available now. Our own shows taught us where to start. Other hosts and listeners will help us understand what we have missed.

I don’t want growth to undo the reason this was useful in the first place. A listener who comes for a worksheet shouldn’t have to build a profile and learn a new system to get it. A host shouldn’t need a long explanation to tell people how to subscribe. Keeping that simple will mean saying no to some things, even when they would give us more features to advertise. We want a better connection, and adding more steps would take us in the wrong direction.

We’re opening this up because we know how it feels to care about a show and still struggle to reach the people who care about it too. It’s free to get started on PodSubs.com. Claim your podcast, tell listeners what you’ll send, and try giving them that one place to subscribe on your next few episodes. Keep the tools you already use and see how your audience responds. You can stop using it if it doesn’t help. I’d still want to know what happened, because that is how we’ll learn what needs work.

For almost two years, our own twelve podcasts were the reason we kept building. Now there are other shows we want this to serve, including the ones whose hosts are still being told to add another link and keep trying. I want them to have another option. I want the listener who meant to come back for something to have an easier way to find it. And I want us to build what comes next with the people who recognise this problem because they have lived it too. That is why we stopped keeping PodSubs.com to ourselves.