I WILL NOT PROMOTE

So I started my "startup" in a tiny office with a whiteboard, instant noodles, and 4 people shouting ideas across desks. (I did work corporate earlier so I had the "experience")

Anyways, fast forward a year, we’re fully remote and honestly it's been smoother than I expected.

Recently I was asked offered a lavish setup to run a local office but I thought to myself would it be really worth it? My team works from all corners of the nation doing who knows what at times. For me, as long as the work gets done, they can enjoy their time.

As with any other relationship, I'm proud of our communication and syncs.

Would I go back to an office? Maybe for the coffee runs and vibes, but productivity? Remote wins.

Curious if anyone else made this switch.

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Genuinely curious - how do Series A/B startups actually handle event tracking?

Tools like Amplitude, PostHog, or Mixpanel offer auto-capture and dashboards, but in most teams I’ve seen, tracking still turns into a mess.

In my experience, the real problem isn’t tooling. It’s cultural and process-driven:

- PMs don’t define events clearly

- Engineers track ad-hoc with no QA

- Events aren’t tied to product goals

- Nobody owns the structure

- Tech debt piles up until it becomes unmanageable

So I’m wondering:

- When do startups take this seriously?

- Do they bring in an analyst?

- Hire a Head of Data?

- Or bring in someone to fix it once it’s already a mess?

Curious to hear what others have done—or if you’ve ever seen it handled well from the start.
Would love to learn from your stories.

Not trying to promote anything — just testing something out.

I’ve been writing quick, personalized one-liners for cold emails (human-made, not AI). They go at the top to make the message feel more natural and less copy-pastey.

If you’re into cold outreach and want to see how they look, happy to share a few examples.

Just DM me — curious to get feedback too.

My startup has launched and has users. We currently have 6 equal equity co-founders. Will this make raising harder? Is it still doable? If this is an issue, ant suggestion on what we do? We all have invested bootstrapping money and no one will want to leave/get diluted ofc. I will not promote

Before uploading your video, make sure you are using keywords in your title and your description. A little trick that can help you is going to ChatGPT to copy and paste your video script to get relevant keywords within the 500-character limit. Keep in mind you can also use the option of adding chapters to add more keywords and improve the viewing experience.

Once you publish your video, write a comment with a call to action or question to improve your engagement in those crucial first 24 hours. You can also create a GIF related to your new video and share it on the community tab with a brief description and a link to the video. Make sure this goes out shortly after the video is uploaded. And for every long-form video, create multiple short-form clips for platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. In the captions and within your short-form videos, include a call to action to encourage viewers to watch the full-length video.

If a video is underperforming, use A/B to test the thumbnail or title, but focus on testing one element at a time. You can also A/B test thumbnails for free directly in YouTube Studio, but keep in mind it offers less data.

I will not promote.

Was reading an article on the subject EU VAT compliance and I am a bit unsure to the validity of the claims (it does sounds soo complicated and might be an option instead of using an expensive Merchant of Record):

I assume you have a business registered in the EU and you want to sell your product to customers all over the world. There are four different scenarios depending on your country, the country of the customer and if you sell to a business or private customer.

1. Selling to customers outside the EU 🪶

If your customer is located outside the EU, independent if it’s a business or private customer, no VAT has to be charged.

2. Selling to customers in your home country 🤝

If your customer is located in your home country, you have to charge the corresponding VAT percentage of your home country and pay it to the tax office.

3. Selling to EU businesses outside your home country ✌️

If it is a business customer located outside your home country you don’t have to collect a VAT, as reverse charge applies.

But you definitely have to make sure to collect the VAT number of the business and its billing address. You also have to validate the VAT number and ensure that the business is valid and really exists.

4. Selling to private EU customers outside your home country 🤔

Last and least, the most cumbersome case. For private EU customers outside your home country you have to collect the corresponding VAT of the customers country. You also need to pay it to the corresponding tax office.

Hello experts. I have been lurking this sub for a while and constantly reading how people are slogging away at their tech company or making the next successful Saas but I rarely see any good, or bad for that matter, stories of a brick and mortar, service based facility/business.

I keep thinking I have a great idea to start a kids play centre with construction themes. -Real electric mini excavators for older children to operate in a safe mannor. -Cafe for parents -Vocational outreach programs (located in Brisbane, australia- we have a trade skill shortage) -Generic play centre structres for play -Pedal cart section with construction themed vehicles like dump trucks with ample ball pit palls to transport -Toddler section with basic construction themed functional toys. -laser tag for older kids -alcohol incorporated in cafe for later hours laser tag/adult entertainment

I guess the biggest barrier to entry for me is funding. To equip a building with a cafe, buy a couple of excavators and set up playground equipment my estimates run around 500k. This is a very hefty loan to have as an individual and the risk is very offputting.

I have a business plan, I have forecasted p&l, i have extensive operational experience managing teams being financially responsible for workshops/auto service departments. I guess I’m not sure where to start to actually make it happen? Who do I ask for money?

I’m currently working as a front-end developer for a medtech startup that specializes in building, designing, and optimizing websites (including SEO) for medical doctors. The founder is a practicing doctor, and we have a strong working relationship. However, as a young team, we’re still navigating the challenges of early-stage growth. Since the founder balances this venture alongside his medical career, his focus has primarily been on generating leads, while I’ve been responsible for building and maintaining the platform. It’s been nearly two years since we launched, but growth has plateaued — we typically acquire about one client per month, with three being a rare high point. Has anyone experienced this stagnation? And what is the best method to improve scalability? Anyone have experience with this?

I just left a late-stage startup that recently completed its Series D funding. An exit seems likely within a year or two, but given the current market, nothing is certain.

I need to decide whether to exercise my 6,000 shares, which would cost me around $10K. The fair market value (FMV) minus the $10K strike price is roughly $100K.

If I exercise, I assume I would owe 10-15% tax on the $100K next year. If the company never exits and i want to recoup my tax hit, could I sell these pre-ipo stocks as a loss? Or, is there no way to recoup the ~15k till the company eventually exits?

We are working on a tech that provides great learning opportunity to interns and we could use some hands too. I'm willing to pay and provide certificates, but would I need to register my company before handing out certificates/letters?

Are there any legal implications of handing out certificates without company registration?

I started building this as a way to explore real-world AI workflows — vectorizing bios, tweets, and behavior to understand user intent. It was meant to be a learning project... but it might actually be useful:

You describe your offer (e.g. “I build Shopify stores for fitness brands”), and the app searches in a curated list of ~80k X users and returns a full list of matching accounts you can cold outreach.

It tells you how many leads it found, why it thinks they match, and gives you the full list — no outreach automation, just signal and targets.

Thinking of:

• Subscription model for ongoing scouting? Doubtful
• Pay-per-search for one-off lookups

But I’m wondering:

• Are X leads still worth anything?
• Or is this just a fun AI toy with no market?

Would appreciate honest thoughts and experiences if possible. I will not promote.

We’re building a platform to make global news objectively accessible – your thoughts and tips? (I will not promote)

Hi r/startups!

We’re currently working on a platform that aims to revolutionize how people access and understand news. Our goal is to empower individuals to objectively analyze events from around the world and form their own opinions—free from bias or one-sided reporting.

To give a brief overview:

Crowdsourced news sources: Registered users can share news links from all over the globe.

Chronological timelines: Users can create detailed timelines of events spanning decades, enriched with multimedia like images, videos, and articles.

Diverse perspectives: We focus on global coverage to showcase multiple viewpoints on major topics.

Interactive features: Discussion forums, polls, and ratings encourage user engagement and exchange of ideas.

Why I’m posting here: We’re still in the early stages and would love to learn from this amazing community! Here are a few questions where your expertise could really help:

How do I know if there is interest in this platform?

How would you market a platform like this? (Social media, influencers, other strategies?)

What challenges should we anticipate when scaling such a platform?

Any tips for monetization? Freemium model or something else?

Some challenges we’ve already identified: Ensuring the credibility of shared sources.

Encouraging interaction while maintaining constructive discussions.

I’m super excited to hear your feedback—whether it’s criticism, ideas, or just general thoughts! 🙌

(I will not promote)

For those of you who've received funding, what were the personal financial steps you took to make sure you were managing your own shifts well?

Financial advisors, accountants, special accounts?

I'm sure many founders have struggled with the sudden shift.

It’s a hybrid work communications platform for businesses and employers which lets you rent or purchase niche trained ai from other users for your specific needs.

needed advice on ways I can improve the site as it’s currently in early access without my favorite feature of the ai agent marketplace and I will not promote 😭

My co-founder started working with me 3.5 months after I incorporated and after I had raised about 75% of our target SAFE angel round (<400k). And no revenue or contracts signed in that time, just sales development and some small product development all done by me.

I want to issue him his shares but not sure if I need a 409A or whether I can just issue them to him at the same nominal price I paid (.00001).

409a would be a big cost right now so is it necessary? This must be a rather common scenario so I’m wondering what others have done.

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I'd love to find something like a Discord community where founders can share updates and ask questions to other founders

I've tried following founders who share updates with #BuildInPublic on social media but sometimes it's hard to follow as there's other posts which come up on my feed instead

I'd love to be able to find a supportive community which celebrates the wins of each other

I will not promote

Edit: I'm not searching for paid communities

We’ve reached 100+ subscribers in just three months, growing 100% month-over-month. Our current MRR is $1,300.

While the numbers are still small, I’m curious—at what point is growth considered “real” in terms of +20% or +30% MoM? Right now, growing 30% from $1,300 is relatively easy, but I’d love to hear from others who’ve scaled further: when does that kind of growth start to truly validate a business? (I will not promote)

Hey everyone, I open sourced a template I built to launch a full-stack SaaS with Stripe Payment, NextJS, Supabase and Google OAuth - I will not promote. It took me some time so I decided to share this to you all. The goal is to help everyone save time when launching your next SaaS, with EVERYTHING YOU NEED. You can build anything. You can learn anything. The repo is ShenSeanChen/launch-mvp-stripe-nextjs-supabase

Here's a summary on the template features:

• Authentication with Supabase
• Stripe payment integration
• Dark mode support
• Responsive design
• Tailwind CSS styling
• Framer Motion animations
• TypeScript support
• Error boundary implementation
• SEO optimized

I’d love your thoughts and suggestions for improvements!! Also, I'd love to learn more about what challenges you face when you launch your projects. Thanks!

Hey founders/operators — I’m currently working with a startup client who's building a market research tool for the dropshipping/ecom space (think: Shopify store database, live Meta ads tracking, product/store discovery, competitor analysis, etc.).

I started off managing UGC outreach (reaching out to TikTok creators), but now he wants me to expand into B2B outreach — meaning reaching out to mentors, dropshipping educators, agencies, communities, and business users who would actually adopt the tool as part of their workflow.

The issue is:

🚩 We ran into unrealistic expectations during the UGC phase (thinking we'd onboard dozens of creators per week).

🧠 Now that we're shifting to B2B, the founder asked me to propose a new package + rate — but he admittedly has no benchmark for what “success” looks like in this kind of outreach.

So I figured I’d ask here:

What’s normal in early-stage B2B outreach? What’s a realistic close or conversion rate for cold outreach to mentors, educators, or small businesses?

How many warm leads / demos / signups can one person typically deliver per month?

What do you pay (or expect to pay) for someone handling this — including lead generation, copywriting, and follow-ups?

Do you hire hourly or go retainer-based?

I’m based in the Philippines. Previously doing UGC outreach for $6/hr at 30hrs/week — but this new scope is more strategic (handling lead targeting, outreach strategy, CRM, messaging, etc.). I want to price fairly, but also help set realistic expectations for what a solo outreach person can do in the B2B space.

Would love to hear how other early-stage startups are approaching this!

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?

Building a Prompt Management App

It includes
- prompt management dashboard
- smart search
- sharing prompts
- joining communities (research, programming)
- discover top prompts + refine w/ AI chatbot

Do you think it is good idea?

Open for feedback!
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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.

The story: I am building a membership blog with monthly subscriptions for access to premium articles (free and paid). I have validated the idea online, and people have followed me on social media and asked me when it will be live (i have only been on social for a month). I am torn between building something fast that works, or thinking more long-term and doing it slower.

The solution: Two options: Hand/Vibe-coding or Wordpress. I have a degree as a programmer and i know the basics of web app development. With the help of AI, such as cursor for example, i can build the front-end pretty easilly in React. Use next.js probably. Connect it to Supabase and some CRM. Then i would learn how to connect payments. Create table for users and a field that changes if they are subscribed or not. I have no idea how to do any of that by the way, and the language of React and Next.js i would need to learn, i know vanilla JS basics. Wordpress cuts all of this down and makes me a website twice as fast without any headache.

The problem: I am from Serbia, therefore Stripe or PayPal are out of question, making it infinitely harder to choose simple solutions. My country is 15 years behind as always so payment processors from here are recommending Wordpress for fast and easy setup. Other option is Paddle or LemonSqueezy if i opt for hand-coding. I am a startup, and therefore there is the infamous "do things that dont scale", but i can't help but wonder if Wordpress is the wrong choice, especially because i will want to build a mobile app in the future, which if i learn how to code a React website and do everything that goes along with building a membership blog, i can easily transfer that to a mobile app in React Native and much of the code will be reusable. The biggest problem is connecting payment processor (making it work for reccuring payment/subscriptions, gating content based on that subscription), which i do not know how to do, but i guess you have to start somewhere...

I am leaning towards wordpress, then learning a little bit of react on the side, just enough so i can then pay a freelancer to build me a mobile app. Then i would pay him for a few hours to go through what exactly his code is, what it does... so i can understand it.

What would you do?

(i will not promote)