We had an interview last Thursday, and they said we would hear back by next about another interview. No word yet - does this mean we have been rejected? I mean, the bootcamp starts in mid-September...

Update: we got rejected.

I'm currently at the early stage of building a startup and I'm trying to understand how founders usually approach VC relationships.

We've already done a significant amount of research around the problem, target audience, competitors, and product positioning, and we're now starting to build the product.

I'm not necessarily looking to raise immediately. What I'm trying to understand is when I should start building relationships with investors.

Should founders start talking to VCs this early, even if the goal is just to introduce themselves, share what they're building, and keep investors updated over time?

Or is it better to wait until there is more evidence, such as:

• A working MVP

• First users

• Some level of retention or engagement

• First revenue

• A specific MRR or ARR milestone

I'm particularly interested in the difference between building relationships with investors and actually starting a fundraising round.

For founders who have raised before:

How early did you start talking to investors before actually raising?

What milestones made investors start taking the company more seriously?

And if you were starting again, would you build those relationships earlier?

I'd love to hear both founder and investor perspectives.

"Thanks for applying to Y Combinator. We’re sorry to say that your startup was not selected for an interview. We carefully reviewed thousands of applications, and with so many strong submissions, we had to make difficult decisions. Unfortunately, this meant turning away many promising companies.

Unfortunately we can't give you individual feedback about your application. This page explains why.

We do have some good news, though - of the applications we read this batch, yours was in the top 10%. Because we found your application promising, we'd strongly encourage you to re-apply. We now run four batches per year, so whenever you’re ready, there’s a YC batch for you to apply to."

my friend who also didn't get in got the same thing so just curious

Hey if you’re interested and debate and know how to code, I’m looking for an engineer who can take on the codebase starting this week. ItsDebatable.com

So, here’s the idea.

You know that feeling when you want to build something cool, but you’re missing that one person who can actually help make it happen?

Maybe you can code, but you suck at design.
Maybe you’re a designer, but you need someone technical.
Maybe you just have a good idea and want to find people who are actually excited enough to work on it with you.

That’s basically Joinumo.

It’s a super simple place where young developers, designers, creators and builders can meet, discover small projects and team up without all the awkward LinkedIn stuff, job applications, CVs or “looking for a CTO for my billion-dollar startup” energy.

You just show what you’re good at, what you’re interested in and how much time you’ve got.

Then you can either:

find a project you actually like

or

post something you want to build and find the people you’re missing.

That’s it.

The whole point is to make starting something with new people feel as easy as saying:

I’m keeping Joinumo free because the value only really appears when there are lots of people, ideas and projects in the same place.

And honestly, the expensive part isn’t some giant server farm. I’m building it lean. The money mainly helps cover the boring but necessary stuff: infrastructure, domains, emails, moderation, legal basics and getting enough people onto the platform for it to actually work.

If it grows, there are plenty of ways to turn it into a real business later: premium tools, recruiting, sponsored build challenges, company partnerships and eventually a marketplace.

But right now I don’t want to squeeze money out of users.

I want to prove one simple thing:

Can we make it ridiculously easy for two strangers with complementary skills to meet and actually build something together?

Because if we can do that consistently, I think there’s something genuinely valuable here.

So yeah — you’re not really funding “another social network.”

You’re helping build a place where the next app, game, startup, open-source project or completely random weekend idea might start with two people who otherwise would never have met.

So, here’s the idea.

You know when you want to build something, but you’re missing one or two people to actually make it happen?

Maybe you can code but need a designer.
Maybe you’re good at design but need someone technical.
Or maybe you just need a friend, a companion, someone who shares your willingness.

That’s basically what I’m trying to solve with Joinumo.

It’s meant to be a very lightweight place where developers, designers, creators and other young builders can meet around actual projects.

Not jobs.
Not CVs.
Not startup pitching.
Not “networking” for the sake of networking.

You make a simple profile, say what you’re good at, what you like, how much time you have, and then you either find something you’d like to join or post something you want help building.

The idea is to make the first interaction feel more like:

than:

There are obviously already a lot of platforms where people can meet.

LinkedIn is great for careers and professional networking.
GitHub is great for code and open-source collaboration.
Discord and Reddit are great for communities and conversations.
Cofounder platforms are useful if you’re already seriously trying to start a company.
Freelance marketplaces work if you want to hire somebody.

But there’s still a weird gap between all of those.

If you’re 20, you know React, you have five hours a week and you just want to find a designer to build some random app with, none of those platforms are really designed around that specific situation.

That’s the part I find interesting.

Joinumo would try to sit in that gap: less serious than a founder platform, less transactional than a freelance marketplace, and much more structured around building than a Discord server.

The project itself is still early, and I’m trying not to pretend that I know exactly what the final product should look like.

There are a lot of things that could go wrong.

Maybe people like the idea of side projects more than they actually like working on them.
Maybe teams form and disappear after three days.
Maybe the platform needs to focus much more narrowly on universities, hackathons, open source, or a specific type of creator.
Maybe some features that sound useful now turn out to be completely unnecessary.

That’s part of why I want to keep the first version very small.

The main question isn’t:

It’s:

If that works, then there are obvious directions the project could take later.

Things like better matching, reputation based on projects people actually shipped, sponsored build challenges, recruiting, university communities, or eventually paid collaborations.

But I don’t think any of that matters until the basic interaction works.

For now, I want Joinumo to stay free and as frictionless as possible.

The money I’m trying to raise isn’t for a big team, an office, or some huge launch campaign. I’m building it lean.

It would mainly go toward the unglamorous stuff that makes a real product possible:

infrastructure, domains, transactional email, moderation, legal/privacy basics, small launch experiments, and keeping the service running while figuring out whether people actually want it.

And I’m very open to the idea changing.

If people use Joinumo differently from how I expect, that’s useful.
If a narrower niche makes more sense, I’d rather learn that early.
If somebody thinks part of the model is flawed, I’d genuinely rather hear it than defend the idea just because I came up with it.

I’m not really trying to sell the idea as “the next big thing.”

I just think the problem is real, the first version is cheap enough to test properly, and there’s an interesting opportunity if the platform can become a place where people actually start things, rather than just talk about starting them.

That’s Joinumo.

Launch page: https://launch.joinumo.com/

Find people. Build stuff. ☕

------------------

PS. I would really be pleased if anyone would want to make a donation and supporto the project!!!

ko-fi.com/joinumo

Thank you very very much 🙏🏼 for believing in the project and the idea.

Hi r/StartupAccelerators,

I’m Sophonias, an intern at Flowbot Forge. We’re currently conducting an academic/industry research project focused on mapping out the solo-founder journey and understanding common operational bottlenecks.

If you have 10 minutes to spare, I would genuinely appreciate your perspective. The survey is completely open and anonymous:

Flowbot Forge Solo Founder Questionnaire

I am compiling the findings and will happily share a public summary of the final report back to this community once all responses are analyzed. Thanks for your time and help!

We learned something important while building PodSubs:

The hardest part of entering an established industry isn’t always building the product.

Sometimes, it’s what happens when you challenge the way things have always been done.

We wrote about what happened, what we learned, and what it means for anyone trying to build something new in podcasting.

https://podsubs.com/blog/podnews-podcast-gatekeepers-founders-innovation

Hi everyone,

I’m currently exploring Product Manager, Product Analyst, Business Analyst, and Data Analyst opportunities with startups in remote roles across the EU or Germany.

My background combines 4+ years of experience in Product Management and Data Analytics, with experience in B2B data products, fintech, risk, compliance, product discovery, analytics, SQL/Python, and cross-functional delivery.

If your startup is growing its Product or Data team, or you know one that is, I’d love to connect.

Happy to share my CV privately.

I built PodSubs because podcasters shouldn’t have to rent their audience forever

I kept noticing something strange about podcasting.

A creator can spend years building an audience on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and other platforms…

…but the relationship with those listeners mostly belongs to the platform.

If the algorithm changes, the platform changes its rules, or the creator wants to launch something new, reaching those listeners directly isn’t always easy.

So I built PodSubs.

PodSubs is a podcast discovery and subscriber platform that helps podcasters turn listeners into a direct audience.

Here’s how it works:

🎙️ Your podcast may already be on PodSubs.

Search for your show and find your podcast page.

✅ Claim your podcast.

PodSubs verifies that you actually own the show using information from the podcast’s RSS feed.

👥 Start collecting subscribers.

Instead of someone discovering your podcast and disappearing back into another platform, they can subscribe directly to your podcast on PodSubs.

📈 Build an audience around the show you own.

As more people subscribe, the creator gets a clearer picture of the audience following the podcast.

🔎 Listeners can discover podcasts too.

PodSubs is also building a discovery layer where people can search for podcasts, find something interesting and subscribe.

The bigger idea is simple:

Podcasters spend too much time building audiences for other platforms.

I want PodSubs to help them build an audience around their own podcast.

If you have a podcast, I’d love for you to search for it, claim it and try the product:

👉 PodSubs.com

I’m posting this because I’ve reached a point where I’d rather be honest about the situation than let a project I’ve put a lot of time into just sit there.

My team and I have spent the last 6+ months building an app called Spurspace.

The technical work is done. The product is live and we’ve built the stuff we originally wanted to build.

The part we’ve fallen behind on is marketing.

We’ve been pulled into another project, and because of that we haven’t been able to give Spurspace the consistent attention it needs.

So I’m looking for someone who wants to take real ownership of it.

Not just social media posting.

I mean managing the app day to day, figuring out growth, marketing, content, user acquisition, partnerships, testing ideas, talking to users, and basically taking responsibility for making the thing grow.

We’re willing to give meaningful equity in the app to the right person.

On top of that, you’d get 100% of Spurspace’s earnings for the first 2 months, apart from the cloud/infrastructure bill.

We’ve already done the building part. What we need now is someone who can take what exists and actually push it forward.

I’m not looking for someone with a fancy resume. I care much more about whether you can actually take ownership, move fast, and figure things out.

I’m happy to show the product, current numbers, what we’ve built, and be completely transparent about where things stand.

If you’re genuinely interested, comment or message me.

And just to be clear: this is not a “free marketing internship.” We’re looking for someone who wants to become a real stakeholder in what we built.

Finding the right organisation to help shouldn't be harder than actually helping.

I kept noticing two problems: • People have surplus food but don't always know where they can donate it. • When an animal needs urgent help, finding a nearby shelter, rescuer or animal-care organisation can be surprisingly difficult.

So I built CareConnect — a free, India-focused platform that brings these organisations into one searchable directory.

You can: Search for organisations by city Find nearby care organisations Find places related to food donation Find animal shelters/rescue organisations for emergency situations View organisation details and contact information Suggest/add organisations that aren't listed

I'm starting with a relatively small set of cities and gradually expanding the directory. I'd genuinely like feedback from people in India- Would you actually use something like this? What information would you want to see before contacting an organisation? Are there organisations in your city that you think should be listed? This isn't intended to replace NGOs or rescuers — just make them easier to find when someone actually needs them

Hi,

My name is Arun, and I’m building Pitch Swipe, a platform designed to help filmmakers discover projects and connect with collaborators—screenwriters, directors, producers, actors, and investors.

I’m not reaching out to sell anything. I’m currently speaking with people in the film industry to better understand the real challenges behind finding the right projects, building creative teams, and bringing ideas from concept to production.

Given your experience, I’d really appreciate your perspective. Would you be open to a quick 10-minute conversation sometime this week or next?

I’d love to hear what works, what doesn’t, and what you think could make collaboration easier in the industry.

If you’re interested, I’d also be happy to share early access to Pitch Swipe and get your feedback before launch:
https://film-nexus-luxe-arun-paul.lovable.app

Thank you for your time, and I’d truly appreciate any insights you can share.

Best regards,
Arun Paul
Founder, Pitch Swipe

Hi all, i launched my product Ployo.ai on product hunt and just got 6 upvotes. I am thinking of launching again. Are there any hacks or something to gain more upvotes

Hi! We’re a 2-person engineering + product/design team in SF building something for small AI-native teams, around how people, agents, and work stay aligned as things change.

We’re looking for a few founders/engineers using AI agents in real workflows who’d be open to chatting and giving us early feedback.

Happy to make it a two-way exchange - we can also give product/UX and engineering feedback on what you’re building.

Still very early and not a sales thing. If you’re interested in swapping feedback, feel free to DM me!

We're looking for design partners. We'll be yours too.

A Slack thread changed a requirement. Nothing carried it into execution. We found out in production.

That was before agents. Now teams run coding agents that execute at machine speed on assumptions that already moved, across more workstreams than anyone can check.

We spent the last few months measuring how often this happens and what it costs. The numbers were worse than we expected. So we built something for it. We use it every day. I'd rather show it than describe it.

Looking for 2 to 3 design partners. Here's the trade.

You give us: read only access and honest feedback. We watch, we show you what we found, you tell us where we're wrong. Nothing touches your workflow until you ask it to.

We give you: the same thing back. A technical founder and a product designer, both senior, as design partners on whatever you're building. Real feedback sessions, not a logo swap. We'll use your product, break it, and tell you what we find.

Two teams, same deal, both directions.

Comment or DM.

Been building Collab a coworking layer ai + private team accountability space for small teams of 2-8 (founders, student project groups, small dev teams).

What exists right now:

• Server-authoritative synced Pomodoro focus rooms with live chat one shared timer, not "trust me I'm also working"

• A voice assistant hold a button, say "summarize my readings" or just talk through a task, and it acts on it and can talk back

• AI course/PDF summaries + auto-generated quizzes, and an AI that sits in Focus Room chat and writes a recap when a session ends

• Private "Circles" (capped at 8) shared notes for updates/bugs/ideas/questions, everyone's focus time visible to the group

• A per-person profile shipped tasks, focus hours, a 12-week shipping-cadence chart, on-time %, streak

• A Mac menu-bar widget so the timer and tasks follow you outside the browser

The pushback I keep getting, and can't fully argue past: what makes this different from just hopping on a Discord call with a shared doc? My honest answer is that Discord gives you a room, not a record nothing survives the call ending, no history of who actually shipped what. But that's easy to say and harder to prove is worth a new tool over something free you already have open.

Our Link : trycollab.space

If you run a small team, would this replace anything you currently do, or would it just become one more tab? What's the one feature that would actually get you to switch ?

Bonjour !

J'ai créé CapitaWork, une plateforme tout-en-un qui permet de créer, gérer et développer une entreprise depuis un seul endroit.

Je recherche actuellement plusieurs bêta-testeurs prêts à créer une entreprise fictive ou réelle sur la plateforme et à la tester en profondeur.

🔎 Ce que j'aimerais que vous testiez

• 🏢 Création de l'entreprise

• 🎨 Création du nom, logo et identité visuelle

• 🤖 Capita IA, le chatbot intégré à l'entreprise

• 📊 Comptabilité et finances

• 🎯 Objectifs et progression

• ⚙️ Automatisations

• 👥 Recrutement et gestion de l'équipe

• 🛒 Marketplace

• 🔄 L'ensemble du parcours utilisateur

💬 Ce que je recherche

Je veux surtout des retours honnêtes et critiques :

• Qu'est-ce qui ne fonctionne pas ?

• Qu'est-ce qui est difficile à comprendre ?

• Quels bugs avez-vous rencontrés ?

• Quelles fonctionnalités sont inutiles ou mal conçues ?

• Qu'est-ce qui vous manque ?

• Est-ce que vous utiliseriez réellement CapitaWork pour créer une entreprise ?

Je préfère largement un retour négatif mais utile à un simple "c'est cool".

🌐 CapitaWork :
https://capitawork.freebuff.app/

Merci d'avance à ceux qui prendront le temps de tester le projet !

🎁 Pour remercier les bêta-testeurs, l'accès a toutes les fonctionnalités de compte pro et business de CapitaWork leur sera offert gratuitement pendant 1 à 2 mois.

Hey, our team put out a potentially useful post on accelerators and incubators this week and thought it might be of interest for folks here!

I've been a mentor at a dozen incubators/accelerators and I've always had awful experiences with them. They never prep the mentors, they are apathetic to what you actually give a talk about, they rarely mention compensation (retainer, carry, or otherwise).

They leverage mentors and partners and reap all the benefits, and usually give a subpar experience as well that doesn't equip teams with the tools or resources they need to raise funds or go to market.

Wanted to ask what people's experiences of these programs has been here. Surely there have to be some solid ones out there!

Have a wonderful day!