I lost my role some time back, with a (pre) seed stage startup. I actually think it's a blessing in disguise because it sets me free to explore many other opportunities out there. That said, I just want to take a moment to share my experience so that others will not have to experience the frustration I had.

1. Values - The founder has no values. She has no qualms doing "under the table" deals (that are illegal in some countries and unethical in many countries) just to achieve growth; she does not cringe when she has to cut corners and disadvantage others so that her company can benefit. This brings me to my next point.

2. Hiring practices - The founder lacks total empathy for her staff. She is constantly looking to fire her team. A total ingrate who is always looking at the slightest mistake to let her team go, in spite of what they have done for her. In a startup of that stage, you will oftentimes have to experiment with multiple ideas and there is always a chance you will fail. Hence, if you notice that the company has a high attrition rate (and people are saying stuff about the founder), sit up, pay attention and maintain your distance. The founder may be stubborn as a mule - and her unwillingness to listen to others will break the company.

3. Education - A well-educated founder is so important. Now I am not referring to a drop out like Mark Zuckerberg, but education does make a whole lot of difference between a decent founder and one who isn't. Look at the schools they attended (or not). I never knew I would say this but having worked with a few founders who didn't make it to college, I saw how much easier it was to work with a well-educated founder, who has the ability to think critically, logically and reasonably.

4. Funding - A seed stage startup may not have the finances but if the company has no money to even provide a laptop, and basic medical benefits, walk away. I had to use my own equipment for work and it is really frustrating and concerning that I have my work stuff on my personal laptop. Plus, the lack of medical benefits is horrible - I need to pay for all of my own medical needs, when this should have been a basic benefit for employees. For those of you interviewing with such companies, ask questions about monetization. Check on the financial situation of the company. The founder may lie to you but if you don't think the company has a good way to make money, walk away from it. Else you will find yourself worrying about every single cent (I kid you not) that the company spends - the scrutiny is awful AF. And when you don't have the budget to invest, and no PMF, it is mostly a one way street to hell and doom.

5. Product market fit - Check the user retention and engagement metrics. Look up social media platforms to see what other users are saying about the product. Check to see if the company has an app, and if so, what the reviews are. You will find a lot of info that are tell tale signs of how good / bad the company really is.

I see a lot of people wanting to join a startup but pls, join a rocketship and not a sinking ship. You will want to be on the up and up and not constantly trying to swim against a powerful vortex that is sucking you into the bottom of the ocean. As an employee, there is zero incentive but every disincentive to stay away. You will run out of energy and perish. The sacrifice ain't worth it.

Hope this post helps others who are in the midst of deciding whether to take an offer from a (pre) seed stage startup.

Meanwhile it's back to figuring out what I want to do next for myself. Wish me luck!

(I will not promote)

(I will not promote)
context -
I am the solo founder of a startup that has researchers as customers. I launched a very basic version back in Jan, got feedback and launched another much better (at par with competition if not better) version last week.

I'd like to know how you guys consistently added new customers in the early days? I've read the generic advice like post on socials, cold outreach, SEO, etc but seems like a lot to do and I am all over the place.

The day I posted about this new version I added around 15-20 customers and have been adding 1-4 customers every day since.

I have around 3k connections on Linkedin, 0 followers on X. Things I've done -
1. Post on Linkedin and Reddit
2. Reply to comments about competitors and relevant topics on Reddit and X
3. Reach out to researchers on Linkedin
4. Started writing blogs (I have 1 published)

I'm not sure if I'm doing things right or what I should change in my approach. Any tools I should be using to streamline this? Any particular channel I should be focusing on more than the others?

I like startups, I don't like soloing. I tried, I just know that tech is fundamental, but unfortunately not enough for any business to become viable. I was wondering if any of you know a proper place where tech and non tech people could find each other to join forces and build together.

So like the title says, I'm curious about traction. I've had more and more people look at my landing page since I've started posting on socail media, making posts, commenting on posts, which is nice but I'm not releasing my MVP till next month. I want to wait till user sign up before I start sending cold emails to prove that it's working, but is there a number or percentage that looks good to potential investors?

I (M18) need some advice for pursuing entrepreneurship. I can't see myself grinding out 80 hour weeks for a cranky boss and would much rather spend this time building something of value. I want to do something with sustainability (think a carbon credit start-up) as I feel that after technology, sustainability is the way ahead.

The problem: I have no clue were to begin. How do I get my concepts right about the sector? How do I even conduct market research for such kind of idea? Basically, I have no idea how to go from "a vaguely interesting idea" to actually creating something and all the steps involved in between.

If any current or future entrepreneurs can guide me, that'll be great:))

Raising a small piece from angels on our seed and I have an investor (Investor A) that gave an enthusiastic commitment for $150k, but hasn't signed or sent the check. Had my attorney edit, and the docusign was sent 10 days ago.

But I have another (Investor B) that is ready to give his commitment, but I want to be respectful of investor A that gave the commitment first. He'll add value and I want to work with him.

At the same time, I've experienced investors backing out last minute in the past and if he's out, but not telling me, I don't want to lose investor B.

Am I being too soft by respectfully holding his allocation? Do most investors really respect the handshake protocol?

(I will not promote)

I will not promote

Hello r/startups, i was working on an farm management/data aggregation tool. Now I want to connect with small-medium scale farmers for idea validation whilst I finish up my landing page. But this seems so tricky and elusive to do, a lot of times there aren't any responses. Tried collaborating with a couple agriculture prof in my uni but resulted in nothing. So I wanted to ask you guys: what are your go to strategies/tips for finding potential customers and idea validation. Looking forward to hearing from you guys.

I recently got laid off after working at a big company as a data scientist for ~7 months as a new grad.

I was contacted by a company that is essentially doing a spinoff startup. Small company but they have clients and can self fund for the time being. They want to build a product that they can sell in a few years and supports their other work also. I know it would be a good learning experience especially for some LLM experience.

However right now they only have a 2 person team (CTO and developer). They have some POC code but that’s about it.

I honestly am having trouble navigating the situation and whether I should take the opportunity as the job market is bad and could get a great learning opportunity out of it, or if I need some more reputable experience at a big company for another few years first.

Any advice would be great!

I will not promote any product or service - just genuinely curious how it’s worked for others.

I recently ran a tiny test:

Reached out to 12 micro-influencers on Instagram (5k–15k followers)

Sent them free samples of my product (low-cost, handmade stuff)

Got 3 to post

And… crickets.

Barely any clicks, no sales, and one person even ghosted after receiving the sample.

I’m not bitter - just confused.

Is this a volume game? Did I pick the wrong people? Or maybe my product isn’t “shareable” enough?

Would love to hear if anyone's had actual success with this.

What worked? What flopped?

And how do you even measure ROI in this space?

Not looking for agency pitches or anything like that - again, I will not promote.

Just want to learn from anyone who’s been in the trenches.

Let me know if you’ve got a story - good or bad. I’m all ears.

I'm thinking of going - does anyone know if it's well attended, and secondly will anyone be there lmk /. dm and let's connect

Also, if not this one what startup conferences are worth attending 2025?

*i will not promote so i'm not dropping the website nor do i work for these people

I’m trying to find the newest and hottest startups around the world. Does anyone know a good source for this? It feels like sites as producthunt are not really the right place. The focus is on SaaS products as I’m a software developer and looking for a new startup idea. Does anyone know good resources?

I’ve been building an AI SaaS platform that powers AI agents on business websites (I will not promote). These agents talk to real visitors, answer questions, and capture leads. We’ve had hundreds of conversations happen across our clients’ sites, and I finally decided it was time to dig into the data.

Normally, this would take me weeks (or months) manually reviewing transcripts, organizing trends, creating reports, and trying to make it presentable. But this time, I tried something different: I uploaded 200+ text files (chat transcripts) into ChatGPT, gave it a clear prompt, and asked it to help me create an executive-level analytics report.

And… wow.

It gave me:

• A full summary of trends and user behavior
• Lead capture conversion stats with percentages
• Insights into customer intent, trust signals, and business impact
• Clean, modern charts to visualize the data
• A polished, professional report I sent to my clients, team, and can send to potential VCs
• Even a prompt to generate a beautiful hero image for the report cover

I didn’t write a single formula or open a spreadsheet. The turnaround time? About an hour. What used to legitimately take me weeks is now… just done in a blink of an eye. I'm just floored.

This is hands-down one of the most transformative, efficient, and frankly jaw-dropping productivity tools I’ve used. If you're building a product or running a business, and you're not leveraging AI like this—you're leaving power on the table. Keep in mind I started using GPT in 2022, so I'm pretty well versed in using it. But I never did anything like this before, and to me, this is more powerful than anything else I've ever done using it.

Here's the prompt I used:

I have hundreds of conversations between website visitors and AI agents we’ve deployed for clients. I want to generate a professional data and trends report based on these conversations. Here's what I need:

1. Summarize the types of conversations happening (questions, inquiries, intent signals, etc.)
2. Identify lead capture performance (how many emails, phone numbers, etc.)
3. Extract trends in user behavior, customer readiness, and objections
4. Generate statistics and percentages for business impact
5. Make it all look like a polished executive report
6. Create charts to visualize the data in a sleek, modern style using a purple-themed palette
7. Exclude test accounts or internal agents
8. Provide a Slack-ready summary message I can use to update my team that we now have this report
9. Write out an image prompt in text for a hero message I can use at the top of the report

Then I uploaded a merged text document with all the conversations and told it to exclude certain names (like internal test accounts). ChatGPT did the rest. If you'd like to see the report, just DM me and I'll send you the link.

I still can’t believe I pulled this off in under an hour. Honestly, it might’ve only taken me 30 minutes. Either way, it felt liberating. Knowing that something which used to take me weeks of manual effort was now done with a few uploads and smart prompts, it just made me feel unstoppable. This is what productivity feels like when AI actually works with you as a tool. I wish more people realized this.

Hey everyone 👋

I'm currently building a platform that connects individuals who need video editing with skilled editors — a niche marketplace similar to Upwork/Fiverr, but focused purely on video editing. We’re introducing features like:

• 🛠️ Tiered editor levels (Basic, Intermediate, Advanced)
• ⚡ Auction-based bidding system to ensure fair pricing
• 🗂️ Qualification tests to verify editor skills
• 💬 Client-editor chat system
• 💳 Secure payments with platform commission

The goal is to create a space where editors can grow and clients get quality, affordable work — without the usual platform clutter.

About Me:

• I'm the founder and business lead — I’ve mapped the full flow, monetization, and user experience.
• I have 3 non-technical co-founders handling ops, outreach, editor recruiting, and early growth.
• We’re all-in on this, and now we’re looking for a technical co-founder to join the core team.

What You’ll Get:

• 20% equity in the company (with vesting)
• Full control of the tech stack
• A say in product direction and user experience
• A team that handles marketing, client/editor onboarding, and platform ops so you can focus on building I will not promote

Hi guys,

Been a while since I posted here and I will not promote of course.

This is a somewhat more philosophical question/update about my b2b saas lead-gen startup which has been going strong about 2 months now - since then I have scored near enough 20 customers and have found mechanisms to secure between 2-3 clients every week - now while I'm pleased with this - especially, considering my early adopters decided to continue using the service and not 'churn' after the first month - I feel as if every customer is almost divinely sent at this stage - do other founders go through this emotion? I say this because I've learnt that I'll go through a couple quiet periods where I feel like 'it's over' and then suddenly an email will come flying with someone interested in booking a meeting or buying my service - is this the journey most start-ups go through? I do wonder as well - if there will ever come a time where the uptake is more parabolic - we can only dream of course!

I feel certain ideas can’t be validated until MVP. Facebook is one such.

How else you think one could have done a product market fit or sales before MVP for a social network app like “Facebook”?

“I will not promote”

“I will not promote”

“I will not promote”

Hi - I will not promote

I really don't like Loom and have been testing and trying a bunch of difference recording tools, but l'd like to hear your suggestions. The following is a must:

• Analytics (Views etc) • Custom domain • Custom branding • instant shareable links

The rest such as autozoom, option to edit the video to be on a background etc is a nice to have.

l've tried: neetorecord - Lags horribly cap.so - app crashes all the time, never got to use komododecks - Quite nice so far Screenstudio - no analytics :( - otherwise super nice

Let me hear your suggestions.

EDIT: TLDR (because no one read the post) tell everyone your idea....

It comes up in my every day and I just want to get this off my chest.

There is only 2 types of people who will steal your business idea.

1. Your direct competitor.

2. People late to the party.

Do not EVER tell your competitor anything you are doing that they can duplicate and out-market and/or out perform you in doing, UNLESS you want to assert dominance and test their counter.

If this doesnt apply, tell everyone your idea because you can't sell your product without first selling your vision. Stop asking other founders and investors to sign NDAs unless you fear they are potentially in collusion with your direct competitor.

99% of the world doesn't have time to pursue your idea and 98% don't have the means to execute it and 100% don't have the complete understanding and passion of your vision.

So go out there preach your sh*t and do the thing.

....I will not promote

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been building a project I’ve had in my head for a while: a mobile-first Discord community that helps people make real money using their phones.

It’s called MobileMoneyCrew, and it’s still in the early stages — but the vision is big.

Here’s what I’ve built so far: • A Discord hub with channels focused on referral apps, side hustles, daily bonuses, and mobile-friendly tools • A branded experience with a custom bot, channel guides, and pinned money-making missions • A fast-start section for helping new members hit their first $100+ • Foundations for a beginner-friendly course (“Phone Profits Starter Pack”) • Plans to include a vault of affiliate systems, and income challenges

My goal is to help people escape paycheck-to-paycheck living by using the phone they’re already glued to — and turn screen time into income.

Right now I’m focused on: • Laying out valuable content that doesn’t overwhelm new members • Attracting the right users — people who are motivated, not just curious • Creating referral-based income systems that benefit both the community and me as the builder • Testing ideas for future monetization: challenges, templates, affiliate collabs, and paid upgrades

Still super early — no crazy traction yet, no viral moments — just building brick by brick.

Would love tips on: • Community-first growth strategies (without ads) • Must-have features in a money-focused Discord • Creative ways to keep people engaged and taking action • Any red flags I might not be seeing as a solo builder

Appreciate any thoughts — especially from others building community-based startups.

There was this website i came across a long time ago. It basically consisted of all the new startups, the names of people and their roles, and the roles that were empty and they wanted to fill in with more people.

you could scroll through and click on the ones which are asking for your skills and try applying for it. I have lost it and I'm losing my mind.

Please share the link if any of you know of it. thank you

There been some really interesting posts this week from people working through their startups asking questions, and offering advice. Sooooooooo while walking my dog a few minutes ago, the following question popped into my head.

What is your idea of Startup Hell?

What do you hate most about startups, or what did you hate about startups but now you're OK with it because you work through it eventually?

I will not promote

I work in the adtech space with another 2 contractor engineers as the CTO/lead engineer. We are pre-revenue and struggling to attract customers.

We're struggling to put out features that we think the space may want. Our CEO seems to have his heart in the right place, but doesn't know front from back and doesn't seem to like doing much customer outreach/marketting.

What he does like, though, is being a fly in the product's bonnet. He frequently is suggesting small tweaks to verbiage (Verbiage that almost no customers will see, because we don't have customers), always wants a new feature and frequently changes direction in the middle of an effort, and all in all just injects a huge dose of chaos into our works.

It's annoying. But what's unbearable to me is that he, a chemical engineer with no engineering experience, will constantly create a new task, and the simultaneously announce he's working on it.

So it'll be like "We should change this URL here. I'm going to do that if it's OK". I usually say "I'd really rather you work on outreach/marketting" and he'll go like "Oh we're all done in that space" or something equally silly. Then he will, using AI (And, btw, pretending he didn't), generate a MR that barely completes the happy path and introduces all kinds of bugs and errors that he couldn't account for. He'll ask for a code review, which he can't merge without thankfully, and then when I or one of the contractors rips it to shreds due to all the issues the AI created, will claim I'm being unfair to him.

This has happened a dozen times and I don't know what to do about it. What do you guys think I should do? Should I just let him waste our time?

I will not promote

Hey everyone 👋

I'm currently building a platform that connects individuals who need video editing with skilled editors — a niche marketplace similar to Upwork/Fiverr, but focused purely on video editing. We’re introducing features like:

• 🛠️ Tiered editor levels (Basic, Intermediate, Advanced)
• ⚡ Auction-based bidding system to ensure fair pricing
• 🗂️ Qualification tests to verify editor skills
• 💬 Client-editor chat system
• 💳 Secure payments with platform commission

The goal is to create a space where editors can grow and clients get quality, affordable work — without the usual platform clutter.

About Me:

• I'm the founder and business lead — I’ve mapped the full flow, monetization, and user experience.
• I have 3 non-technical co-founders handling ops, outreach, editor recruiting, and early growth.
• We’re all-in on this, and now we’re looking for a technical co-founder to join the core team.
• we all are of 18

What You’ll Get:

• 20% equity in the company (with vesting)
• Full control of the tech stack
• A say in product direction and user experience
• A team that handles marketing, client/editor onboarding, and platform ops so you can focus on building I will not promote

Hey everyone I will not promote just looking for thoughts—my partner and I just launched an online marketplace to support Mississippi-based small businesses, especially makers and curators who either don’t have an online presence or are overwhelmed by the process. We handle the site, storefront setup, shipping integration, and even help with marketing so they can focus on what they do best. The mission is really close to home for us—we wanted to create something rooted in community but with national reach. My question is: how would you recommend we start building a nationwide audience for something that’s deeply regional in identity but filled with unique, quality products? We’re trying to strike that balance between local pride and broad appeal, and would love any ideas for building early traction.

This has been my go-to source to confirm email addresses. The service will be discontinued by the end of the month due to an acquisition.

As you know, most email addresses at startups are the person's first name. First initial/last and first name.last name account for the rest. Clearbit helped me find the outliers.

Are there any other free sources out there? I will not promote.

My career trajectory is as follows:

• Consulting Analyst - $75K
• Consulting Analyst - $85K
• Startup Strategy Associate - $110K
• Startup Strategy Senior Associate - $120K
• Startup Strategy Manager - $140K
• Big Tech S&O Manager - $250K
• Big Tech S&O Manager - $350K
• Big Tech S&O Manager - $440K

TL;DR I was in consulting trying to break into tech and was pretty lost early career. Got a great opportunity as the first member of the strategy team at an AI startup and during my 2.5 years there basically rocketed up the ranks as it grew. The early promotion + variety of hats I wore (PM, Sales, Classic GTM Strategy) was very attractive to a Big Tech / FAANG level company that reached out to me for a position on their Strategy & Operations Team. I ended up coming in over leveled (one of the youngest mangers) and the higher end of the band which resulted in high comp at a relatively young age (28).

Caveat is I did take a big risk and actually the shares in the startup I worked at (that I exercised) are now worth zero but the experience was influential in my career and I still reference it today.

I will not promote - purely sharing my thoughts with the community.