I've built a startup here in New Zealand, where we organise dinner for strangers and send them on a side quest, kind of like timeleft but a bit more structured and participation involved. Have sent more than 400 people to these dinners.
We've successfully ran dinners every week since May. Although now I'm running out of cash. My full-time job isn't paying me great hence i'm almost out of cash to run meta ads which i've been relying on. I do not get to focus fully on my start up because of working 60hrs at a full time job leaves me with a limited time. I've worked on an app to make operations easier. Although now i feel the importance of funding to keep the business running. Especially for marketing related content etc
Should i take a pause and wait till i get funding sorted along with all the resources needed OR do i keep going? If i do pause will it takeaway the traction? Im just so confused!

I'm a self-taught developer who knows React and Next.js, and lately, I've been feeling pretty anxious about my career.

AI is moving so fast that I sometimes question where I should invest my time. It can build UIs, write backend code, connect APIs, and even help build entire applications. I'm worried that simply knowing how to build web applications won't be enough to get a good job in the coming years.

I'd love to hear from people who run businesses, build startups, or hire developers.

If you were hiring a developer for your startup today, what would you actually look for?

Would you want someone with strong React/Next.js and full-stack skills who can take a product from idea to launch? Or would you prioritize someone who also knows AI engineering, RAG, AI agents, LLM integrations, and automation?

I'm trying to figure out whether I should spend the next 6 months becoming a much stronger full-stack developer or divide my time between web development and AI engineering.

As a self-taught developer, I don't want to spend another year learning things that won't help me become more valuable in the job market. I want to build products that solve real problems and develop skills that a business would actually pay for.

If you were in my position, what would you focus on, and what would make you confident enough to hire someone like me?

I'd genuinely appreciate an honest perspective from a founder or business owner. I could really use some direction right now.

For founders who post across several social platforms: how much of the work is still manual for you?

We’re looking into a workflow problem around taking one piece of content and adapting it for LinkedIn, X, Instagram, etc.

Which is closest to what you currently do?

A) Same post everywhere

B) Rewrite each platform version manually

C) Scheduler + manual adjustments

D) AI/tool creates the different versions, then I review them

E) I focus on one main platform and mostly ignore/repost to the others

The thing I’m most interested in is where the time actually goes.

Is scheduling already solved for you, while adapting the tone, length, format and images is still the annoying part?

Not linking anything, mainly trying to understand whether this is a real enough pain to solve.

Something I keep thinking about. Our AI does a job a specialist usually does by hand: it reads paperwork a company already filed (import taxes, in our case) and finds money they paid by mistake. It works on real files.

Our problem is delivery. The people who get the money back don't have the files, someone else in the chain keeps them, and most don't know there is money to find.

And reaching them is a second problem. Cold calls gave us 1 meeting out of about 65, maybe our volume is just too small, I don't know. Organic doesn't work either, because nobody googles "import tax refund" when they don't know it exists.

So I see three ways to ship it: an app they use themselves, done-for-you where we run it and take a % of what we find, or through partners who already have the files and the trust.

What would you try first in our case?

I have a cool idea for a product and am looking to open source it from the start, but also plan to turn it into a startup through hosting, if the project ever takes off.

I've read posts here about how open sourcing your app can be beneficial - you can more easily build community, get feedback, and it's transparent.

What I'm wondering is: does this still hold in a world of AI coding?

I can see problems with large amounts of AI generated PR's, or AI's scanning my code to exploit security vulnerabilities. Or perhaps people forking and using their AI's to build their own features, thus not contributing to the original repo.

Idk, what do you guys think? Is open sourcing still a valid model despite how much the software ecosystem has changed?

PS: I've already decided I'm going to be open sourcing my product. There's an existing company implementing essentially the same idea using similar technology, and I believe I can build something just as good while making it freely available

Hello everyone!! I run a ~400-person software services company with 100+ client projects. We needed to measure AI adoption internally and hit a wall: every analytics tool wanted integrations with Jira, GitHub or Slack. For us, that means approval from every client.

So we built a survey-based approach for ourselves. It works for us, but I'm trying to figure out whether this is a real market or just our niche.

Questions:

1. If you're in services, consulting or agencies, do you have the same integration problem?

2. Would you trust survey data over telemetry, or only alongside it?

3. Who owns this problem in your company: HR, CTO, COO, or an AI transformation lead?

4. Would being able to analyze the results with your own AI (Claude, ChatGPT) change anything for you?

Not sharing a name or link. Just looking for honest pushback.

Many thanks all!!

I will not promote, no link.

I built something that gives you 3 topic suggestions a day and turns any topic into a short interactive lesson. People who try it like it. One person pays.

Two comments I got this week keep bugging me:

- "Random learning without a goal won't sell. Attach it to an exam or a job."

- "It's not the price. I just don't know what I get after week one."

My gut says both are right, and it's the same problem. "Learn something new every day" is a nice habit, but nobody has a budget for nice habits.

Options I see:

a) Pick one goal (exam prep, interview prep, onboarding at work) and rebuild around it.

b) Keep it general but sell an outcome per week ("by Sunday you can explain X").

c) Keep it as is and find people who already pay for this kind of thing.

For those of you who sold something in learning or edtech: did going narrow actually fix conversion, or did it just shrink the market?

Hi, I’m from Belgium. I have a podcast on books that is working pretty well and I am developing a podcast on movies. Not a review-podcast but a community podcast where 3 people talk about a topic on books/movies and the conversation unfolds. We try to have as much interaction with the audience as possible.

Now I’m feeling that there’s more to this concept, business-wise. What else can I do with this community? I’m thinking something like Letterboxed or Goodreads, where people can make lists and recommendations, maybe also buy some books or movie tickets and merch? Idk how far can I take this? Maybe some live events? Book fairs? Movie festival? Are there any other ways to generate some extra income?

FYI I’m not the host, I’m the owner of the (small) production company behind it.

After seeing the message about Marc Lou launched a beehiiv vibe-coded alternative, I realized that all of us, even with possibility to vibe-code anything, will fail. Because we still need to market, promote, and sell what we've vibe-coded which is hard and requires a lot of effort, time, and money.

The only people who don't need all of it are those who already have a huge audience. They don't need to promote or sell anything: they just create something, post on their feed, and voila - they have hordes of users. And they may set the prices as low as possible: even making 1c from each sale will bring them tons of money.

I'm writing it because I see clearly that we are all cooked - every single product can be and will be implemented soon and sold by those with audience. The only hope I have is that somehow, some of us can make a little better products than them but this hope is very weak.

I'm 21, solo founder, building an AI system that manages tasks and context for companies. I already have testers and a growing waitlist.

The problem is I'm not a dev. I trust what Claude delivers to me, and I only judge the things I have some basic knowledge about. Before building anything I always use AI to research the best practices, and in the end I test everything.

Unfortunately I don't have a network with any good devs.

Is it possible to build a huge company this way? What is your recommendation?

hey all, bit of a newbie question so bear with me

i'm building a marketplace for digital products, things like ui kits, design systems, website templates and coded components. over the last month or so i've spoken to 50+ creators one on one, mostly over linkedin messages, and honestly the conversations have been really good. people are curious and a few have already said yes to listing once we're live

but i'm stuck on the classic chicken and egg thing. creators want to know there are buyers before they put in effort, and buyers obviously won't come to an empty shelf

what i'm doing right now is giving the very first few sellers a better deal than everyone after them, talking to every creator personally instead of mass messaging, and keeping it non exclusive so nobody has to leave wherever they sell today

what i'm not sure about:

1. is 10 good sellers enough to start, or do you need way more supply before opening to buyers?
2. did you seed the buyer side yourself somehow, or let sellers bring their own audience at first?
3. anything you did early that you'd never do again?

would love to hear from anyone who's built a marketplace, even if it didn't work out. failure stories are probably more useful for me tbh

i am starting a freelancing marketplace platform where i am the middle man between the freelancer and the client

while the freelancers are easy to get because the fact that people now are looking for jobs more than ever

clients are the hardest ones to look for

how can i get people to my platform?

So I think there is a little market opportunity in the country I live in. With tech prices falling in my field and AI reducing the strain of admin tasks Ive decided to build a start up to meet this need. Everything has been easier than I expected and is moving faster than anticipated. I keep running across people who want to be a cofounder, none of whom seem to have any ideas or skills of their own. I could use some help, and am fine with sharing work and credit but am unsure of giving cofounder status to someone who just wants to be a part of something. Ive been approached by a few people who ask specifically to be a cofounder and I can't quite sus out where they get the desire. If you want to be a cofounder then go found something! It seems to me they just want the title? Why insist on being a cofounder instead of just an employee? If this is all super naive of me, my apologies.

My Marketing Budget

1. Social Media Management & Ads - $100. (10 posts a month - includes 4 reels)
2. UGC Creators - $30 per video - (total 3 videos per month) - $90
3. Meta Ads - $150 per month
4. SEO & GEO - $81 per month via pilotdeck .co
5. X Pro for online networking - $20 per month
6. Reddit Pro for Online netwroking - $6 per month
7. Linkedin premium - $12 per month
8. Apollo premium - $65 per month
9. Claude - $20 per month

Total: $544 per month

What are your views on this?

I see a lot of posts here about validation and getting customers but not many about trademarks, and in my (very unfortunate) experience they can eat you alive if you are in a competitive category.

In 2024 I started working on a chocolate brand. I had the formulation done, branding, samples, marketing copy, website and even branded molds. I paid LegalZoom for a trademark search and still ended up with an opposition from Mars, on the grounds of Velvetiser, a hot chocolate maker they own. I probably could have won, but it would have cost me tens of thousands of dollars to defend a trademark with no goodwill or real demand. After spending a couple thousand in legal fees and over a year and a half of waiting around I decided it was better to let it go. The molds were branded so they were a total loss, I still keep them in my house. The time also killed my desire to pursue this idea.

Around the same time, I was working on a meal replacement drink with an off the shelf formulation. Samples, branding, trademark filed, and Nestlé opposed that one too. After spending some more money and facing back-to-back oppositions from major brands, I dropped the brand and the idea.

What I learned is that they will aggressively pursue even remote similarities, and a basic search is not going to catch that. On my new project I went with a completely made-up word and filed before spending anything on packaging. Hopefully the third time is the charm.

Has anyone here actually fought one of these and won? Should I have kept spending money on the project even in the face of this opposition? I am hoping I just got very unlucky.

Have any of you seen former investors surrender shares back to founders in order to keep the business going and get SOMETHING out of an exit rather than have the founders walk and wind down the business? If so, what was the process (other than "get a lawyer")? The investors in this hypothetical scenario are amenable and this would not result in a lawsuit.

Valar Atomics, a nuclear startup, is suing one of its own investors, Day One Ventures, over its ~$1B Series B.

Day One put in $1M at seed and $15M at the A. They own under 5%, but they have pro-rata, so they can buy into each new round to keep their stake.

The new lead wanted the whole round, so major investors got asked to waive. Everyone did except Day One. Their contract had a spring-back: if anyone who waived got an allocation anyway, everyone's rights came back.

One big insider was going to get one. So the day before closing, the majority voted the clause out.

Day One says they offered to give up most of their allocation and Valar wanted them to give up every future round instead.

I can see both sides. The lead wants to deploy the full check. But seed funds lose on most bets and pro-rata is how you double down on the one that works. If the majority can just delete the clause, I'm not sure what that right was worth.

Where do you land on this?

Hi,

I am a recent grad (one year out of bba from university of toronto) with like 2ish years of startup experience as an intern + have a very small side business (part time) right now, and I am looking for a founder's associate or similar role at an early stage (pre-seed to seed) startup. How should I get one?

I have tried cold emailing with a custom project (like making a non-dilutive funding map as a pdf and attaching it) and none of it worked. Not sure what to try. Please advice.

Is there anyway I can access these early stage founders who actually want a founder's associate type person? Where? How? (and do they even want one?) Is there any network/community of such early stage founders in Canada/US?

Thank you!

I have AI ML background and decent automation skills, working as a Product Manager in my current company I have some good ensighs of business and their working.

Thinking of a platform where I can provide GTM, AI Automation/integration and business strategy (in marketing and lead aquisition etc) to small businesses/struggling startups.

Do yll think this has any realistic use case? Problem I think is startups might not even feel like taking help from someone else coz evryone feels they know well enough to sustain their business... thoughts?

Quick note: English isn’t my first language, so I used AI to help me write this post in clear English. The situation, the details and the dilemma are all mine.

I’m the founder/CEO of a ~10-year-old, profitable legal-tech SaaS in Mexico (small team: tech lead, 4 devs, QA, plus an offshore dev team in India that we coordinate with mostly in writing, in English). I’ve been looking for a Senior PM for months and I’m stuck between two options.

Candidate A: the one who left

• Hired him in August after a long process. Strong profile: 6 years as Senior PM at a well-known fintech, technical background, C1 English. My tech lead picked him over the other finalists.
• In his 3 weeks he wrote our product methodology, which we still use.
• Then he quit for an outside offer paying 30 to 40% more. No performance or culture issues.
• A few weeks later he came back asking to return as a contractor (invoicing instead of payroll), which gives him more net income. My accountant says the tax side is fine. For me, the cost is a bit lower because I would pay less taxes.
• I told him: same role, same responsibilities, only the payment method changes.
• He drafted the contract himself. It came back slightly above that number, written as “the amount we agreed” (we hadn’t). It also includes a guaranteed annual bonus of 2 monthly fees even if no goals are set, accumulating time off, freedom to take other clients, confidentiality limited to 5 years, a liability cap, an automatic fee increase if tax law changes, and an option to move to payroll later with seniority recognized from the contract start.
• Every ambiguous point is resolved in his favor. Nothing outrageous on its own, but it feels like a pattern.

How I feel about A

• I’m uncomfortable, maybe a bit annoyed. The amount isn’t a big difference, but it’s not what we discussed, and it was presented as if we had agreed on it.
• He also wrote that he’ll work “with no fixed schedule.” I know that’s standard for contractors, but my gut says it’s more about his convenience than about following the law.
• My real fear is that he’s someone who will always be asking for more.
• Part of me still prefers him, because he’s the most capable option. But after he left once, I don’t think I’d feel at ease with him, and I can’t tell whether that’s a fair signal or just my ego.
• I haven’t talked to him about the draft yet. I keep putting it off.

Candidate B: the runner-up

• 9 years in product across 5 startups, strong with data and SQL, has done some specific scraping (very close to what we do). Comfortable with our pay range and says money isn’t what moves him, though one past job change was partly for money.
• He’s authentic: what he says in interviews matches what he writes, and he’s transparent about how he uses AI.
• My tech lead’s read: “he lacks authority.” When pushed back on, he gives in quickly. His follow-up with developers sounds more like tracking than driving.
• English: weak when speaking. His written test without tools had many errors (around B1). With ChatGPT the output was clean and professional. Our offshore coordination is mostly written.
• In both versions of the test he missed a key operational step that was the core of his own case study.
• He’s in another process and will follow up next week.

My dilemma

• On capability, A wins: zero ramp-up, authority with the team, real English.
• On trust, B wins: no maneuvering, plain payroll, no contractor-reclassification risk.
• My unease about A might be the most important data point here, or it might be noise. I can’t tell which.

Questions

1. Would you rehire someone who left after 3 weeks for money and came back negotiating hard? Is a self-serving contract draft a red flag or just normal negotiation?
2. How much should a founder’s gut feeling weigh when the stronger candidate on paper makes you uneasy?
3. How much does “lacks authority” matter for a PM working with a small team and an offshore dev team?
4. For written async coordination, is “B1 English plus AI tools” good enough in practice?
5. Is there an option I’m not seeing?

TL;DR: My Senior PM quit after 3 weeks for a 30 to 40% better offer. Now he wants to come back as a contractor, and the contract he drafted tilts every gray area in his favor (however, this new scenario is cheaper for me). On paper he's the stronger candidate, but I feel uneasy and a bit annoyed, and I'm afraid he'll always be asking for more. The alternative is a runner-up who is honest and easy to trust, but my tech lead says he lacks authority, and his written English is around B1 without AI tools. Proven capability vs. trust: which would you pick, and is there an option I'm missing?

I quit my job about a year ago to found a solo “startup” and I even have a couple people helping me, not formally working for me. However due to a sudden medical issue I’ve been drained of my savings. Its a hardware company not super industrial but we still need about $20k to build any mvp.

I’ve just about run out of money and am in credit card debt from medical bills. There is a settlement that I cant rely, but is a possibility in the future. But as of right now I’ve had to move back home and I am currently looking for a job.

I tried to get a regular job and they told me I was overqualified.

I believe in/want to continue my startup with everything in my bones, but I need some income to sustain me. The company is already registered and I’ve listed it on my resume, but as a secondary no founder role. (I wasn’t getting interviews with founder listed). I never outright lied in interviews but also didn’t divulge I was founder, it rarely even cane up.

The issue is will I be able to continue working on it while at another company. Theyre not a direct competitor but the companies I’m qualified/getting interviews for are so big that the definition is broad. My lawyer said they probably won’t come after me unless I make it big.. but isnt that the point.

He said to consult him after the fact but im getting anxious, I know big companies have moonlighting clauses and NY and California don’t enforce but I want to hear any advice from people who may have had a similar situation.

Will disclosing this in prior inventions make them rescind the offer?again not a direct competitor but who knows what they’ll try to claim. Can I even still work on it?

Do I try to raise from friends and family? I keep getting told against this?

What should I do to protect myself and my idea? I feel like I didn’t even get a shot to really even bring my idea to life.

Founder-led sales question. After a good demo call, prospective customers usually has to sell it internally to people who weren't on the call. What I usually see is people sending decks or a recording of a meeting, and i suspect nobody looks at it.

What do you leave behind that actually reviewed/shared? A short video? A one-pager?

I'm working on this problem for B2B teams, so I'm biased, but I'd like to hear what's working before I make too many assumptions.

hi everyone,

we’re working on a startup in the makeup and beauty space and want to add a virtual try-on feature to our app.

we have a developer, but none of us has worked much with ar before, so we’re still figuring out where to start.

looking for an sdk, or another solution, that is reasonably priced and has proper documentation that someone new to ar can follow.

main concern is the quality of the makeup rendering. since this is for beauty products, the texture, detailing and how smoothly the makeup sits on the face are quite important. we want it to look realistic and polished, rather than like a basic Instagram filter.

has anyone here integrated something similar into their app or saas recently? which solution did you go with, and how difficult was it to get a decent result?

would appreciate hearing about your experience, including anything that turned out to be more difficult or expensive than expected

I'm working on something in the AI app space and running into an interesting problem.

Developers can build apps, but so can founders, PMs, and even nontechnical people using AI tools now.

The challenge is figuring out who actually needs these apps enough to use them regularly, especially when it comes to sharing them with teams or clients.

For founders who've faced this, did you pick one very specific customer group early on, or experiment with different audiences until something clicked?

And how did you figure out who was willing to pay versus who just thought the idea was cool?

Would love to hear what actually worked.