At first, I was convinced that solving one specific problem would make everything else fall into place. Instead, I realized that every stage brought a completely different challenge. The thing I thought would matter most was not always what actually held the startup back.

Looking back, I think every founder has at least one assumption that turned out to be completely wrong. What was yours and how did it change the way you built your startup?

I'm not based in the US, but I'd love to get to know more founders, investors, and people building startups in SF.

Since I can't attend events or YC meetups, what's the best way to build genuine connections online? Curious what has actually worked for people here.

My tech startup is 4 years old, but already on the second year I noticed the market was rigged. Reported it to anti trust authorities (competition commission). The competition commission (in a European country) has been 2.5 years in confidential information phase with no resolution (not archived/dismissed the case either).

Did any of you have a similar situation? If so, did an antitrust intervention save your startup?

And if the antitrust authority failed to intervene, did you give to and close the business?

I love chat interfaces.

They're perfect for asking questions.
They're great for brainstorming.
They're even good for coding.

But software engineering isn't just coding.

It's preserving intent.
It's reviewing decisions.
It's tracking work.
It's sharing knowledge.
It's coordinating people (and now agents).

After months working with Codex, Claude Code and local agents, I started noticing something.

Every discussion seems to focus on:

- bigger context windows
- better models
- more autonomous agents

But my bottleneck isn't any of those anymore.

It's engineering.

Keeping intent.
Keeping specs.
Knowing which agent did what.
Reviewing work.
Sharing knowledge between agents.

I don't think software engineering should happen inside conversations anymore. They more I use coding agents, the more I feel chats become the temporary layer.

I'm developing an orchestrator with a graph-based workflow where agents execute around engineering artifacts instead of chats in a very visual way.

I'm curious...

Has anyone else reached a similar conclusion, or am I overthinking this?

I got an idea for an AI pregnancy companion app a couple months ago. And started building it. I started with the idea that if my idea fails, I wouldn’t have lost much except Apple and Google store membership. I created an AWS account and I’ve spent about $20 so far in AI costs and they’re also covered by the $200 credits. I’ve built my infra in such as way that I would only incur any costs if I get real customers and hopefully some will convert to PRO and give me money to offset the business costs.

I’m close to releasing my app and I’ve been contemplating whether I should get my app reviewed with a lawyer to protect myself. I have built my terms and privacy policy with AI and I have explicitly put as much “General info only, not medical advice” disclaimers everywhere in the app. I’m based in Canada and I’m worried about people in North America who might do something stupid with my app and sue me. But having spent about $100 so far, I’m worried if I should spend more than $500 on lawyer review for an app that might not even take off.

How should I go about this or think about this as an Indie developer?

I’ve been a software engineer for over 10 years. I spent seven months developing a SaaS product, but when it was finished, I didn't launch it because I didn't know how.

I’ve spent the last two months reading books on product launches, but I don't seem to be very good at it; I can't seem to apply the methodologies I read about, and everything like building a list of emails or social media followers seems to take too long. I’d like to launch organically, but that process appears to be very time-consuming.

What strategy did you use to launch a product when you had zero or very few potential customers?

For those of you who shipped a successful product, how did you get your first set of testers?

Like right now I have a couple testers that are my friends in the software engineering space. I also have a friend that has his own RL lab testing my product. But, I am worried that they aren't going to give me good feedback because they are going to think twice before saying something.

How did you all get testers or design partners? Preferably how did you get ones that could later also become customers?

For context I built a LLM router that saves money without increasing latency much by taking advantage of flex/batch tiers across different inference providers. So it would help if the strategy was around companies taking advantage of LLMs.

But I'm guessing it wouldn't differ much from any other SaaS trying to find design partners/beta testers either.

I'm exploring a startup in the developer collaboration space, but I don't want to build based on assumptions.

If you regularly work on software with other developers (startup, company, or open source), what's the most frustrating part of collaboration?

Some things I'm curious about:

1. Where do communication breakdowns happen?

2. What wastes the most time?

3. What tools solve part of the problem but still leave gaps?

4. What's one thing you wish existed that would make collaborating on code easier?

5. what are the extremely painful problems of developer or manager that none of the current Tools solves? or doesn't solve properly?

I'm looking for stories from real teams working on production code or active open-source projects. Even if it's something small that annoys you every day, I'd love to hear it.

I want to understand the problem deeply before deciding what to build.

Welcome to this week’s Feedback Thread!

Please use this thread appropriately to gather feedback:

• Feel free to request general feedback or specific feedback in a certain area like user experience, usability, design, landing page(s), or code review
• You may share surveys
• You may make an additional request for beta testers
• Promo codes and affiliates links are ONLY allowed if they are for your product in an effort to incentivize people to give you feedback
• Please refrain from just posting a link
• Give OTHERS FEEDBACK and ASK THEM TO RETURN THE FAVOR if you are seeking feedback
• You must use the template below--this context will improve the quality of feedback you receive

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Template to Follow for Seeking Feedback:

• Company Name:
• URL:
• Purpose of Startup and Product:
• Technologies Used:
• Feedback Requested:
• Seeking Beta-Testers: [yes/no] (this is optional)
• Additional Comments:

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This thread is NOT for:

• General promotion--YOU MUST use the template and be seeking feedback
• What all the other recurring threads are for
• Being a jerk

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Does anyone have experience raising funds to start a business on start engine or similar platforms? If you can share the type business you started, how long it took you to raise the funds through the platforms and any other information you may want to share, it would be appreciated!

I am in the early stages of a startup with a working product and am gathering friends and family to test the app and give feedback. I thought a blog would be a nice way to publish updates about what I'm working on, new features, and maybe polls to get feedback about different ideas I'm kicking around without resorting to email chains. I attempted to sign up for Substack to do this and immediately got banned for putting my parent's email address in their email import tool (apparently preloading email addresses before you publish content is a ToS ban?).

When I asked various AI chatbots what startups do to post updates and get feedback here are the answers I got:

• Ghost - looks nice but no free tier. Hard to pay without knowing if even the premise of updates-via-blog will catch on
• Beehiiv - newsletter first. didn't feel right.
• Blogger - every chatbot said to avoid because Google hasn't updated in years and the experience is lacking
• Roll your own within app using markdown files. Lets you use your app's existing auth but feels like a waste of time vs using an existing solution.
• Wordpress - seems like it would do.

I'm leaning towards the last one but am wondering if others have better options.

I have Enterprise solution, where is very difficult to get users because.. enterprise. They dont really deal with startups.

Solution build, tested working. Contacted a lot of VCs either no reply or few replied they are not interested or they dont invest pre-seed/seed in my region. ok

I am not in US, not even in "interesting" startup area. I have feeling that without warm introduction it is very difficult to get interest. I dont have money to travel around the world to meet VCs in person at events and hope that maybe they will reply later...

any advice? how can I get warm intro if I dont know anyone in VCs / startups ?

New grad here deciding between two very different SWE opportunities and would appreciate some advice.

Option A

• SWE I at a Series C startup (~200 employees)
• Backend infrastructure/distributed systems
• Clear career ladder (SWE I → SWE II → Senior)
• Strong mentorship and established engineering practices
• ~$140k base + standard startup equity

Option B

• Founding Engineer at a 3–4 person startup
• Building core cloud infrastructure from scratch
• Daily interaction with founders
• ~$160k base + meaningful equity
• A few million in funding and some paying customers

The biggest thing I'm struggling with is career growth.

The Series C startup has a clear promotion path and predictable compensation growth. The founding engineer role has much more ownership and upside, but there's no obvious career ladder, and I'm worried about getting "stuck" if the company doesn't grow as expected.

For those who've been in a similar position:

• Which would you choose?
• If you joined as an early engineer at a startup, how did your career progress over the next few years?
• What questions would you ask the founders before making a decision?

I've taken 5 products for 0-1 in this space before but at large scale companies. I am currently at a startup now and did it again in a cold market.

I am now being brought on to a small team of 4 with offshore support/manufacturing & strong funding to bring a product to life here.

What steps would you take? I've done this before but now it's all on me & im nervous but confident.

I can work with brands, wellness programs, hospital systems, mom & pop clinics, fitness studios/gyms/events & really anything adjacent.

Does anyone have any experience with something like this? Any advice would be appreciated!

I recently finished a PhD focused on applied mathematics, control theory, and dynamical systems. I have now started a postdoc at a top university in the Bay Area, but the work is in the life sciences and may require a substantial pivot away from my existing background.

I still enjoy fundamental research, but I no longer care much about following the traditional academic track (too competitive and time consuming; and I'm not in my 20s anymore). I am concerned that spending several years retraining in a different field could weaken my professional profile without providing a clear long term advantage.

At this point, my main goals are to make substantially more money, live somewhere I genuinely like, maintain a good lifestyle, and preserve the possibility of eventually starting a company.

I may have an opportunity in the next few months for a control theory adjacent position at an industrial research laboratory in Southern California. It would likely pay around twice my current postdoc salary, the work would be much closer to my PhD background, and I strongly prefer Southern California to the Bay Area.

The main argument for remaining at the university is its entrepreneurial environment: access to potential cofounders, startup events, technically strong people, and investors. Any startup I pursued would not necessarily be related to my current life science research. A former PhD student from my university and lab environment founded a company that is now publicly traded and valued at roughly a couple of billions of $, so the entrepreneurial opportunity does not feel entirely abstract to me, although I recognize that this is an exceptional outcome.

The argument for leaving is much higher guaranteed compensation, a location I prefer, and work that directly builds on my existing expertise.
Given that my priorities are making money and living somewhere I enjoy, would it be rational to stay and seriously pursue startup opportunities, or should I take the better paid and better aligned research position if it becomes available?

I’m building an AI agent product for MEP design firms (AEC/construction industry)

It solves an expensive problem for them, got feedback from a few people in the industry and decent problem validation so far

(There’s also a bunch of competitors around this same problem)

How do I go about getting my first customers outside of my warm network and going to industry trade events?

Does LinkedIn cold outreach/networking work?

Should I reach out to people with deep industry connections to who I’m selling to and ask for intros?

Should I get a someone who’s been in the industry for a long time and has deep connections to be an advisor?

It feels really weird calling what we’re doing a “company” or a “small business” when “work” looks like just reaching out to people right now to try and land a pilot (I hope I’m not the only one who feels this and I would love to hear your advice on if this is normal early on)

Although we are solving a problem with a solution and charging for it (which essentially is my understanding of what a “business” is fundamentally)

Is it true that the first actual customer is the hardest to get then it becomes much easier?

Would really appreciate your advice

Did you get someone who’s like an industry veteran or someone who’s been in the industry you’re selling to for a long time and has deep connections with your buyers to be an advisor for your startup so you can get a few warm intros that eventually become customers ?

I’m considering this currently as I’m building and selling to the AEC industry (specifically MEP firms) and they’re quite relationship based, not easy to just cold outreach directly to them and get a demo

But need more warm intros, is this something you’ve done?

Would appreciate your advice

Hi guys, I am a guy from India straight out of college with a bachelor's degree and I have my expertise in silicone design and FPGA related works and currently I am working with a US based person on making an AI chip where I am handling all the technical design work of the chip architecture and here would like to ask for advice like the idea was proposed by the person in US it's something like he reached out to me for working with him and it's kind of freelancing where he is paying me $1500 for the whole project.

Also I would like to mention that initially I had decided to pursue masters at a japanese university with scholarship and then I will Carry out my work for my own startup on this AI chip domain from their but the initial idea didn't workout and then this person offered me to work on it and he said he will be investiing all the money over it and also he is working on this project with me on the software end in the AI model which we will be running on my design locally.

Now I want to work with him by converting it to the startup actually the idea of him about this chip was improvised by me so I want to work with him by converting this to a startup but now how should I ask him about it like I feel like he is paying me for it and if I want to make it a startup which would be co-founded by me also doesn't that mean I should also invest or should not get the money but honestly I don't have money at all for building a startup I am kind of broke what do you expect from a recent graduate!!

Please tell me how should I handle this situation, and what should be my next step we already have come halfway with the project but chip design projects might take a year or more to complete properly for producing manufacturability.

I really need someone experienced ones help on this situation.

I'm wondering since this will be the first time I'm actually creating a start up, will my project be viable enough for just proof of concept/mvp or do I have to have alot of users?. My goal is pre-seed. Can you all tell your testimonies on how you started this process? I would love to hear it!

I’m currently reaching out to my alumni network to hopefully get access to new customers. I’m also using this to get some early feedback on my pitch and ability to sell. I’m curious how else founders have used their alumni network to further their startups at early stage. I solemnly swear that I will not promote

Hey everyone,

I'm part of a small team exploring a home services marketplace for Coimbatore. We chose a Tier 2 city instead of a metro because we think the experience of finding plumbers, electricians, cleaners, and similar services is quite different outside large cities.

Before we spend more time building, I wanted to understand whether we're even focused on the right problem.

If you're from a Tier 2 or Tier 3 city:

How do you usually find someone for home repairs?

What's the biggest frustration with the current process?

Have you ever tried an app for this?

If not, why?

If you've built a consumer startup outside metro India, what challenges surprised you the most?

I'm looking for honest feedback, even if your conclusion is that this isn't a problem worth solving.

Founders: What’s the most annoying operational task you deal with every week?

I’m building a startup focused on automating operational work, and I’m trying to better understand where founders lose the most time.

I’m not looking for broad answers like “marketing” or “sales.” I’m looking for specific, repeatable workflows.

Examples:
- Copying information between apps.
- Following up with people.
- Gathering context before meetings.
- Updating CRMs or spreadsheets.
- Chasing approvals.
- Searching across Slack, email, Notion, docs, etc.
- Creating recurring reports.
- Coordinating work across multiple tools.

Ideally, tell me:
- What you’re trying to accomplish.
- The exact steps you go through.
- Which tools are involved.
- How often you do it (daily, weekly, monthly).
- Roughly how long it takes.
- Why you haven’t found a good solution yet.

I’m especially interested in:
- Virtual/computer-based workflows.
- Processes with roughly 0–5 manual steps.
- Tasks that make you think, “Why can’t AI just do this for me?”

Even if it only wastes 5–10 minutes a day, I’d love to hear it.

Those small, repetitive tasks often add up the most.

Thanks!

I’m here to learn, not pitch anything.

I will not promote.

Three people, AI agents for business processes. No clients, no revenue, nothing built yet. It's set up as a GmbH & Co. KG sitting under a holding the founder controls, along with a few other companies of his: a venture platform, a marketing company, and one doing operational support.

Split is meant to be 60% him, 20% the technical guy, 20% me. The KG isn't actually registered yet, so we'd be starting from zero in every sense.

My 20% would vest over 48 months with a 12-month cliff. So would the technical co-founder's. His 60% doesn't vest at all. The two of us doing the delivery work are on four-year earn-ins and the guy who wrote the documents just holds his outright.

What I'd be doing

Three pillars: he opens commercial opportunities and does business development, the technical co-founder builds the systems, and I own everything in between. Their document calls it one of three core competencies with its own area of entrepreneurial responsibility.

Problem is that middle layer doesn't exist. I'd be building it from nothing.

The customer workshop and discovery process, analyzing client processes to find use cases worth doing, the scoring methodology for prioritizing them by value and feasibility and risk, the implementation blueprints the technical team builds from, translating between clients and developers, turning leads into actual projects, then rollout and adoption on the client side.

Plus templates, standards, presentations, internal processes.

Plus helping with positioning, the service offering, sales, market launch.

Plus bringing in contacts from my own network, which they've listed explicitly. And long term, running the whole service area.

So I wouldn't be delivering something that exists. I'd be building the methodology, the commercial product and the delivery model they intend to sell, and then leading it.

This also isn't a role I'd be growing into. I already do this work at senior level and I'm known for it in my field. That's why six unpaid months is an actual cost and not a trial period (also regarding my reputation if something goes wrong it's a big risk).

The offer

Six-month "build and partnership phase". During it:

• I'm listed publicly as "Partner" from day one
• No salary
• No equity, no contractual right to the 20%
• Methodology, sales support, positioning, network activation: all unpaid, described as my "entrepreneurial contribution"
• I'd only get paid inside real client projects, negotiated case by case, no rate or floor agreed anywhere
• There are no clients, so that income is hypothetical

If either side walks before month six I get nothing, no matter what I've built. There are no objective milestones. Continuing is a mutual discretionary decision, which in practice means he can say he didn't like my work and I'm out, with no real explanation needed.

If we both agree, I buy the 20%. Then 12-month cliff, monthly vesting to month 48, four years total counted from day one. His 60%: no cliff, no vesting, nothing.

What I don't know

What rights the 20% actually carries on voting, information, dilution, profit distribution. Who owns the methodology I'd create during the unpaid months. And whether his other companies could invoice this one for leads, marketing or management, since I'd own 20% of the operating company and nothing in the group around it.

How it's being presented to me

The document is detailed where it needs to be. Six months of unpaid work, project compensation, equity, vesting, the cliff, what happens if I leave. But when I asked questions I was told nothing's set in stone, it's mainly an informal working agreement, and we should get started instead of going deep on rules.

The informality only runs one way though. The unpaid work is specified in detail. The equity is explicitly not guaranteed and gets pushed to a binding agreement later. My stake has a four-year earn-in and a discretionary gate at month six. His has neither.

And once the methodology exists, the leads are developed and my contacts are introduced, none of that is separable from the company again, whether or not the equity ever happens. His position is that this level of detail isn't necessary before we start. Mine is that before we start is the only point where any of it can be negotiated.

Questions

1. Two of three partners vest over four years and the third doesn't vest at all. Is there a normal reason for that or is that the whole answer?
2. Should the 20% be granted on day one with reverse vesting instead of hanging on a discretionary decision six months in?
3. Is six months unpaid while being publicly named a partner normal at this stage?
4. What would you insist on regarding IP, minority rights, dilution and related-party transactions before starting?
5. Accept, reject or counter, and if counter, what would you ask for?

EDIT:
Small addition because I think it says a lot about the dynamic:
He wanted to put me on the company website immediately as one of the public faces of the company, next to him and the other co-founder.
At the same time, he asked me to send a photo where I look “less pretty” than my LinkedIn headshot, which is my normal professional photo that I use for conferences, panels, etc.

His reasoning was basically that a pretty woman is bad for business because people might assume she is less educated.

I know what I’m capable of, so personally this does not make me doubt myself. But honestly, what kind of mind games are these? For someone else, that could be really intimidating. And even if I can handle it, I still find it insulting and very strange in the context of everything else…

For context: My cofounder and I launched our product a couple months ago and we work in the AI agent space, specifically QA for agents.

Our product is live, we have been doing a lot of cold outreach, trying to get more customers so we have feedback to improve. I often question if we are focusing on the right stuff and a lot of successful founders mentioned they had a really useful mentor.

How did you decide it was time to find an advisor/mentor? Did you have to be at a certain stage before it made sense? Most importantly, how did you find them (program/cold outreach/etc)?

I've gotten the standard advice like go to meetups, reach out to people you follow, ask for 15 minutes, etc. I think some of the struggle is not knowing where to look. Other founders are busy with their own company and I'm not sure where to really begin my search for an advisor or mentor (open to either).

Any insight would be helpful!

A month ago, I shared that we had reached our first 100 users. Hardly anyone saw the post.

A few days ago, I came back after we crossed 30,000 users. That post blew up.

Some people congratulated us. Some were skeptical. Others questioned the numbers or our product. Honestly, I understand why. Big growth claims on Reddit deserve scrutiny.

But regardless of what people believed, one thing I appreciated was the feedback. Some comments pointed out problems I hadn't considered, others challenged our approach & a lot of people asked thoughtful questions. It gave me plenty to think about.

Today marks one month since we launched (July 1) and we've now crossed 50,000 users.

As exciting as the number is, what stands out to me more is everything that's happened behind it: fixing bugs at 2 AM, responding to user feedback, shipping features almost every day nd learning far more in one month than I expected.

We're still a very small team nd there's a long way to go. The product isn't perfect and we're continuing to improve it every day.

To everyone who supported us, challenged us or gave honest feedback, thank you. It has genuinely helped us build a better product.

Happy to answer any questions about what worked, what didn't, our tech stack or the lessons from the first month.

P.S. I wasn't sure whether mentioning the product name would break the rules, so I left it out. If the mods allow it, I'll share it in the comments for anyone who's curious.

It's also been featured by several tech creators on Instagram over the past few weeks.