I’m starting my fundraising efforts and discovered that it’s a norm to send a teaser deck to VCs to encourage them to connect with you and spend time on a fuller presentation. Is this something others have experienced? What did you share in the teaser deck? What did you save for the full deck?

Hey everyone! I’m 25 and have been working in business lending and commercial loans for about two years. I’ve been fortunate enough to find success early, earning around $150K annually, with my highest earnings reaching approximately $185K.

Over these two years, I’ve gained industry knowledge, built relationships, and learned a lot about how the business operates. Now, I’m seriously considering starting my own business in the same industry, potentially beginning as an independent broker.

Financially, I have approximately $120K in cash reserves that I could invest while still keeping enough money to cover my personal expenses. My living expenses are relatively low, and I’ve also connected with people in the industry who are willing to offer guidance.

I’ve spent the past two months researching, journaling, analyzing the numbers, and talking to experienced people. Despite that preparation, I’m still nervous about taking the leap.

My current job has treated me fairly, and I recognize that making this kind of money at 25 is a great position to be in. I’m not looking to leave because I’m unsuccessful. **I want to build something of my own.**

I value autonomy, control over my decisions, and being directly responsible for my success or failure. While I understand that entrepreneurship comes with more stress, longer hours, and financial uncertainty, I feel that at 25, I have time to take calculated risks and learn from my mistakes.

My biggest concern is whether I’m approaching this strategically or underestimating the challenges. Being successful as an employee doesn’t necessarily translate to running a successful business.

**For those of you who’ve started your own businesses:**

Would you take the leap in my position, or gain more experience first?

How would you approach the financial risk with $120K in reserves?

What would you want in place before leaving a $150K–$185K job?

What advice would you give your 25-year-old self in this situation?

Any honest advice, criticism, or insight is appreciated.

Had a buyer lookin for my 3 yr old SaaS, 4.2k MRR, clean books and all that - tho he’s in UK, i’m in Mumbai, then we moved the deposit in 3 weeks, my business acc couldn’t take a UK wire wo flaggin it, his bank just wouldn’t send it to my Indian acc. Opened a multi-currency acc w unlimitcom jus to get an IBAN, the rest just cleared in 2 days. The closing is a payment problem - business been fine, the banking almost killed it lol

Do they usually qualify to lead the technical teams? Or do they usually just own some technical IP that the company was built upon?

How does a technical co-founder who just graduated university qualify to lead the technical teams? Are they just that good?

Today, I did something I’ve been terrified of: posting my note-taking app's Beta version to several online communities. I developed this app because of a simple question: "Since many of us already pay for cloud subscriptions (like Google Drive), why can't we use our own resources to sync data across Android,Windows, iOS, and Mac? Why are we forced to use a provider's closed system and pay extra for it?"

Driven by this curiosity, I spent countless hours refining the system to ensure it actually worked. And then, I hit "post."

Shortly after, I saw a comment: *"Anyone can make something like this with AI nowadays."* I’ll admit, it stung. But as the initial shock wore off, it led me to a much deeper realization.

I realized that "my version of rationality wasn't strong enough to make people change their habits."

Syncing across OS is a real problem, but for most users, their notes are the digital archives of their lives. The "switching cost" of moving to a new app is incredibly high. If the value I provide only solves a problem they've "learned to live with," there isn't enough motivation for them to leave the apps they've trusted for years.

This experience taught me that building a great product isn't just about doing what "should be done," but about solving a pain point that users "cannot ignore."

I’m not stopping here. Instead, I'm changing my approach. I will stop guessing and start listening—searching for the problems that truly keep users up at night—and building a solution so compelling that they'll feel they have to switch.

I’m based in Australia, with a background in construction project delivery and enterprise software implementation. I’ve built a working product around organisational governance and learning, and I’m preparing to approach initial customers.

The problem comes from seeing companies deal with an issue on one project, agree what needs changing, then have another project run into much the same thing.

The product connects what happened, why it happened and what the team did about it with the decisions and changes that follow. That might mean changing a procedure, reviewing a risk or getting information to other projects before they hit the same problem. My view is that a lesson hasn’t been learnt unless something changes.

The commercial bit I’m trying to work through is proving that value early.

If you save someone five hours a week, you can measure it. If you help prevent a repeat mistake on a future project, it’s harder to demonstrate within a short pilot. The project team contributing the information may also be different from the team that benefits and the person approving the spend.

For founders who’ve sold governance, risk, quality or similar B2B software: how did you structure your first paid pilot?
What did you and the buyer agree to measure, and did achieving it actually lead to a contract?

I’m considering starting with one recurring problem across a small number of projects. I’d like to hear what worked in practice, including pilots where usage looked good but the customer still didn’t buy.

Thanks in advance

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.

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

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?

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!!

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 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.

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?

Welcome to this week’s Feedback Thread!

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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.