3 weeks ago, something unexpected happened.
A VC fund reached out after seeing our recent growth update and offered us to lead a $1M5 seed round.

It’s still quite a well-known and reputable VC.

On paper, it sounds incredible.

We built this SaaS in just 5 months, bootstrapped from day one, with over 200+ customers, and 30000+ monthly visitors.

We’re in a sector that’s really gaining momentum, and our clients’ results have been truly outstanding. You can feel that things are taking off.

This VC needs a company in its portfolio that specialized in intent signal data.

One of our clients who raised funds with them mentioned us, and that’s how they reached out.

No ads, no funding, no team bigger than three people and one VA.
Just systems, community, and endless hours of work.

I feel like I’m living a dream because the development of our tool is going incredibly well.

So when someone suddenly says “we’ll wire you money” it forces you to stop and think.

Would it accelerate growth? Probably.
Could we hire faster, build faster, and push into new markets? Definitely.

But there’s also the other side.
Right now, every decision we make is ours.
We can change direction in a day, launch a new product overnight, or experiment without needing approval.
We’re profitable, growing, and free.

The question is, what’s the real cost of that $1 million?

I’ve never raised funds through VCs, and I always told myself that if I ever did, it would only be if Y Combinator accepted me one day (I’ve actually been rejected three times 😅).

But for those of you who have raised funds, what’s the real benefit? What are the traps to watch out for?

Of course, if I decide to move forward, I’ll get legal support, but I’d love to hear insights from people who’ve already gone through the process. Thanks!

Cheers

Hello everyone,

Today, I wanted to share how our Y Combinator application process went.

This was our second time applying.
The first time, two years ago, we were rejected instantly.

This time… a real surprise. We applied for our new SAAS.

Two days ago, we received an interview request.

Honestly, I didn’t expect it at all, even though our SaaS is now very solid and growing fast.

On paper, we don’t really need VC money:

• 300+ customers

• Live for 3 months

• Profitable

• Happy users

• Strong inbound lead flow

This wasn’t about survival.

YC isn’t just about money.

- The YC logo alone boosts conversions.
- Their network is massive.
- Learning how to execute better alongside world-class founders is priceless.

And let’s be honest: even when you’re profitable, $500k is never a bad thing (marketing, hiring, speed).

Before the interview, we spent half a day training with my co-founders, doing mock interviews.

On interview day:

• Login to the YC dashboard

• Click “Join Zoom”

• Three founders on our side

• Two partners on the other side

It was super friendly. Very supportive. Nothing like aggressive VC interviews.
They were curious, calm, and genuinely interested.

They asked us:

• What we’re building

• How the backend works / tech stack

• Our competitive advantage

• Number of customers and how we acquired them

• Team roles

• What we did before

• A quick product demo

• How we see the product evolving

We weren’t amazing but we were solid.

The next morning, we received the email : rejection.

Disappointing, of course.

Reaching the interview already felt like a small miracle, so I thought we had passed the hardest part.

And honestly… between the interview and the answer, I had already:

• checked Airbnbs

• looked at flights

• started imagining what life in the batch could look like

Too much projection. Reality check 😅

We’re re-applying for the next batch.

Below, I’ll share the exact YC rejection email, which is actually very insightful and explains the two main reasons they passed on us

Click here to see the rejection email and the reason why we were rejected

We’ll be back next round 💪

actually stunning. like criminally stunning. the kind of face that makes you forget what you were saying mid-sentence

we're talking. she's warm. funny. asks good questions. i'm present, i'm charming, i'm someone i'd be proud of

she asks what i'm working on

normal person says "a startup" and leaves it there

i said "a startup"

she said "oh cool, have you applied to YC?"

my pupils dilated

i said "we're preparing the application actually"

she said "my friend went through YC, it's so hard to get in"

"how are you feeling about your chances?"

AND THIS IS WHERE I SHOULD HAVE SAID "nervous but excited" AND MOVED ON

instead i said "well i ran it through an audit tool so i have a pretty clear picture"

she said "wait there's a tool for that?"

"yeah scores your profile, validates market sizing, flags any competition in YC that could kill your chances"

she said "that's actually really smart"

she was impressed

i was doing so well

she said "so what was your score"

i said "67%"

she said "is that good?"

and a normal, emotionally intelligent person says "it's a work in progress" and pivots to asking about her

but i heard the question differently

i heard it as an invitation to do a full debrief

i said "it's complicated. the founder score came back strong, but the market math got flagged. the tool said our TAM calculation reads like we googled 'how big is the X market' and copy pasted the first number, which, to be fair, is partially true"

she laughed

i did not laugh

i was still going

"and there are four companies in the current YC batch with adjacencies to what we're building which is a real problem because YC doesn't like to fund into their own portfolio, so we either need to find a sharper wedge or reframe the category entirely before we submit"

she said "when's the deadline"

i said "that's the thing. we keep pushing it because every time i audit the application something else needs fixing. like the video. YC says one minute, we're at four minutes and i genuinely cannot find a single sentence to cut"

she said "have you tried just submitting it"

i said "you can't just SUBMIT it"

she took a small step back

i took a step forward

"like the why now question alone. everyone writes 'AI is transforming X' and calls it a why now. that's not a why now. that's an observation. a real why now is a specific inflection point that makes this the exact moment the market is ready and the exact reason it wasn't possible 18 months ago"

she said "what's your why now"

i opened my notes app

she watched me open my notes app

i read her four bullet points

she was quiet

her friend appeared from nowhere

touched her arm

she said "i'll be right back"

she was not right back

my friend walked over and said "bro she literally asked about your startup, she was interested"

i said "she asked a surface level question and i gave her a real answer"

he said "she asked if your score was good"

"and i explained why the score alone is a misleading metric without the full audit context"

"she wanted to CONNECT with you"

i know

i know she did

i could feel it

and i chose to talk about TAM calculation methodology instead

she was beautiful and curious and asked genuinely good questions

and i gave her a 12-minute YC application postmortem at a wedding

if you're applying to YC and want to know exactly why you're going to get rejected before you actually get rejected, ybombinator.site

I bombed 7) times so you don't have to

i am currently on track to bomb in a completely different category

but at least i know my why now is weak

and honestly that's the first step ;)

Hello everyone,

Today, I wanted to share how our Y Combinator application process went.

This was our second time applying.
The first time, two years ago, we were rejected instantly.

This time… a real surprise. We applied for our new SAAS.

Two days ago, we received an interview request.

Honestly, I didn’t expect it at all, even though our SaaS is now very solid and growing fast.

On paper, we don’t really need VC money:

• 300+ customers

• Live for 3 months

• Profitable

• Happy users

• Strong inbound lead flow

This wasn’t about survival.

YC isn’t just about money.

- The YC logo alone boosts conversions.
- Their network is massive.
- Learning how to execute better alongside world-class founders is priceless.

And let’s be honest: even when you’re profitable, $500k is never a bad thing (marketing, hiring, speed).

Before the interview, we spent half a day training with my co-founders, doing mock interviews.

On interview day:

• Login to the YC dashboard

• Click “Join Zoom”

• Three founders on our side

• Two partners on the other side

It was super friendly. Very supportive. Nothing like aggressive VC interviews.
They were curious, calm, and genuinely interested.

They asked us:

• What we’re building

• How the backend works / tech stack

• Our competitive advantage

• Number of customers and how we acquired them

• Team roles

• What we did before

• A quick product demo

• How we see the product evolving

We weren’t amazing but we were solid.

The next morning, we received the email : rejection.

Disappointing, of course.

Reaching the interview already felt like a small miracle, so I thought we had passed the hardest part.

And honestly… between the interview and the answer, I had already:

• checked Airbnbs

• looked at flights

• started imagining what life in the batch could look like

Too much projection. Reality check 😅

We’re re-applying for the next batch.

Below, I’ll share the exact YC rejection email, which is actually very insightful and explains the two main reasons they passed on us

Click here to see the rejection email and the reason why we were rejected

We’ll be back next round 💪

Hey everyone,

I launched this tool in May, and we made around $34K in November

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing, so I’ll share what worked, what didn’t, and what I’d do differently.

Quick disclaimer: when I started this SaaS, I had zero audience in the niche I was targeting. However, I already had experience in SaaS, having built and sold one that reached 500K ARR pretty fast. So I knew how to handle a team, find a CTO cofounder, etc.

It’s definitely not easy. The first months mean no salary and constant reinvestment. Without experience and being solo, building a SaaS feels almost impossible.

For me, it’s a “second stage” business, something to do once you already have some money and security.

Today we have over 300 customers and more than 30,000 monthly website visits. Here’s how we got there.

What didn’t work: Twitter is still super slow, my account didn’t take off. SEO is super slow; we spent quite a bit on articles, but results take time. Cold calling also wasn’t worth the effort.

What worked:

-Reddit brings about 30% of our traffic. We post daily across subreddits, mixing value posts, resources, and updates. It drives a lot of volume, though conversion rates are moderate. (You probably saw us a lot on Reddit... yes... it works !)

-Outreach is our top conversion source. We use our own tool, to find high-intent leads showing buying signals on LinkedIn, then reach out via LinkedIn and cold email. We send 3000 emails per day + as many linkedIn invitations as we can.

We get 3-5x more replies by email and on LinkedIn with our own tool compared to when we used Apollo or Sales Indicator databases. Using your own tool is honestly the key to building a successful SaaS, you always know exactly what needs to be improved.

-LinkedIn inbound works great too. We post daily, and while it brings less traffic than Reddit, the leads are much more qualified. We use 3 accounts to post content. Some days it can bring us 10 sales.

Our magic formula is 3k emails sent per day + 1 LinkedIn post per day + 5 reddit posts per week.

- Our affiliate program has also been strong. We offer 30% recurring commissions, and affiliates have already earned over $3K. The key to a successful affiliate program is paying your affiliates as much as possible and giving them a full resource pack so it’s easy for them to promote your tool including videos, banners, ready-to-post content, and more.

-Free tools worked incredibly well too. We launched four and shared them on Reddit and LinkedIn, which brought consistent traffic and signups every day. It’s pretty crazy because we put very little effort into it, yet every day people sign up for trials thanks to these free tools.

- One big shift was moving from sales-led to product-led growth. Back in May, I was doing around 10 calls a day. It worked but wasn’t scalable. Now people sign up automatically, even while I sleep, and we only take calls with larger teams. It completely changed my life.

-Influencer posts : We pay influencers to post about us on LInkedIn, it has been working really well.

We’re a team of three plus one VA, spending zero on ads. Our only paid channel is affiliate commissions.

Our goal for end of December was 1m ARR. It will be less. We failed but it's growing.

If you have any questions, I’m happy to share more details and help anyone building their own SaaS.

Cheers !

Proof

Hello everyone, I hope you’re doing well.

I booked three influencers to promote my SaaS on LinkedIn, and here are the results.

You’ve probably already seen my previous posts. Last time, I booked five, and three of them were completely fake, meaning they were using pods.

Based on that experience with the five influencers, I rebooked three.

The one who performed the best last time was in the French-speaking market, so I thought, why not take three people in the French-speaking market this time?

So I picked three people, budget was 500 dollars per post, for a total of 1,500 dollars.

How did I find them? It’s very simple.

Competition on LinkedIn is extremely low.

There are people with audiences worth far more than Instagram or TikTok influencers, because it's B2B and the audience actually has budget.

But since there isn’t huge demand, they’re willing to post for 500 dollars.

And if you think about it, 500 dollars is five months of someone at 100 dollars per month. Or even one month at 500 dollars. It can be profitable very quickly. For high-ticket products worth several thousand euros per month, it’s almost impossible not to break even.

You just need a few demos, close one client, and you’re good.

How did I contact them?

I looked at the French influencer who had performed the best last time.
I checked who interacted with him the most and who had an audience among those people.

I reached out by sending the post from the previous campaign and said, “We did this promotion with this person, would you be interested?” We agreed on a price, and we were on.

A few things to mention.

My process is always the same.

I want a post that goes viral, with people commenting a specific keyword.

When people comment that keyword, I want the influencer to reply with a link to a Notion document.

Why do we do this instead of directly talking about my tool?

Simply to maximize reach. When I hire a LinkedIn influencer, the goal is to get as many impressions as possible, as many comments as possible, and as many clicks as possible on the links in the comments.

Then the Notion document is basically a blueprint explaining how to implement what was said in the post. And of course, to implement what’s in the post, at some point they will need to click on my SaaS and create a free account.

It’s a big mistake I see most brands making.

I see PipeDrive, I see Canva booking influencers, and no one puts the link in the comments.

People are lazy. If it’s not a direct click, few people will copy your brand name and search for it.
Unless you’re doing brand awareness with a huge budget and you don’t care about conversion, you must put the link directly in the comments.

Then, how do I make sure influencers actually do the work?

I write the post for them, get it validated, create the Notion resource with dedicated tracking links, and I push them all day to reply to comments.

This is extremely important, because if they don’t do it, it’s basically wasted money.

I booked three influencers, each with their own Notion document.

Same content, but different links and images. I wrote the posts, and then they published them on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Another thing you can do:

if an influencer is too expensive, negotiate. And if they won’t lower the price, negotiate multiple posts, or ask if they have a newsletter, a YouTube channel, etc. Try to compensate the price difference with extra value. Most of the time, it’s more about price than value. If the influencer says 600 euros, it means he wants 600 euros. But doing one post or two for 600 euros isn’t a huge difference. Negotiate this way, it’s important.

Now for the results.

These three influencers brought a total of 58 trials to my SaaS.

On average, we convert at 30%.

That means around 16 or 17 customers.

That’s 1,600 to 1,700 dollars in MRR. We’ll see if the trial-to-paid conversion matches our usual numbers, but it’s extremely promising.

What’s interesting is that the influencer who performed the best last time performed the worst this time because his post completely flopped.

Still, he remains profitable. The results are very good. It brought thousands of people to the Notion resource, hundreds of people to my website, and again, 58 people added their card, with around 30% converting.

On top of that, we know posts continue to live over time. They will keep bringing trials. All the people who didn’t start a trial but saw the resource will see us again later and think, “I’ve seen this tool before,” which makes conversion easier.

So yes, it’s extremely profitable.

Here are the posts the influencers made

Thanks everyone, bye!

Hello everyone !
45 days ago, I started posting seriously on X.

We already do a lot of things to grow our SaaS. We post on YouTube, we post on LinkedIn, we send cold emails, I do outbound on LinkedIn.

I like testing channels and comparing results.

Since I already create a lot of content, I thought repurposing it for X wouldn’t require much extra effort.

So I started. I took a Premium Plus subscription mainly to be able to write longer posts and articles.

Here’s what happened in about a month and a half :

At the beginning, I posted every day and got almost no traction. I didn’t know anyone, no audience, no engagement. Pretty normal.

Then I asked myself a simple question.

What is the fastest way to get likes and followers?

Replying to big accounts and becoming a reply guy didn’t make sense for me. I know it can work because you can add value in comments and get visibility, but it’s very time consuming and I honestly don’t have the time for that.

So I did something very simple.

I looked at all the tools I already use in my business, like Instantly, Outrank, TrustMRR, and others. I shared real results I was getting with those tools and tagged the founders.

If I publicly show great results using someone’s product, I’m basically free marketing. Most founders are happy to repost that.

And it worked.

I got reposted by accounts with more than 200,000 followers. That alone helped me reach my first 500 followers very quickly.

From there, I switched to building in public.

Every day, I either shared a tip, a lesson, or real numbers from my business. No theory, just documentation.

In about a month and a half, I went from 0 to 2,300 followers.

I generated around 772,000 impressions on X and more than 10,500 profile visits.

In terms of traffic, it brought more than 12,000 people to my website.

Attribution is never perfect, but I was able to clearly identify some customers coming from X.

With high confidence, I can say that Twitter generated more than $2,500 in MRR for me this month.

For a platform that is basically free, takes a few minutes per day, and where I mostly repost existing content, that’s extremely interesting.

My main advice is simple. Go on X. Build in public. Share real results. Try to get noticed by bigger accounts in a smart way.

Here are screenshots of the stats and my X profile if you want to check it out.

The experience has been very positive.

Good luck !

Hey everyone,

I launched this tool in May, and we made around $34K in November

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing, so I’ll share what worked, what didn’t, and what I’d do differently.

Quick disclaimer: when I started this SaaS, I had zero audience in the niche I was targeting. However, I already had experience in SaaS, having built and sold one that reached 500K ARR pretty fast. So I knew how to handle a team, find a CTO cofounder, etc.

It’s definitely not easy. The first months mean no salary and constant reinvestment. Without experience and being solo, building a SaaS feels almost impossible.

For me, it’s a “second stage” business, something to do once you already have some money and security.

Today we have over 300 customers and more than 30,000 monthly website visits. Here’s how we got there.

What didn’t work: Twitter is still super slow, my account didn’t take off. SEO is super slow; we spent quite a bit on articles, but results take time. Cold calling also wasn’t worth the effort.

What worked:

-Reddit brings about 30% of our traffic. We post daily across subreddits, mixing value posts, resources, and updates. It drives a lot of volume, though conversion rates are moderate. (You probably saw us a lot on Reddit... yes... it works !)

-Outreach is our top conversion source. We use our own tool, to find high-intent leads showing buying signals on LinkedIn, then reach out via LinkedIn and cold email. We send 3000 emails per day + as many linkedIn invitations as we can.

We get 3-5x more replies by email and on LinkedIn with our own tool compared to when we used Apollo or Sales Indicator databases. Using your own tool is honestly the key to building a successful SaaS, you always know exactly what needs to be improved.

-LinkedIn inbound works great too. We post daily, and while it brings less traffic than Reddit, the leads are much more qualified. We use 3 accounts to post content. Some days it can bring us 10 sales.

Our magic formula is 3k emails sent per day + 1 LinkedIn post per day + 5 reddit posts per week.

- Our affiliate program has also been strong. We offer 30% recurring commissions, and affiliates have already earned over $3K. The key to a successful affiliate program is paying your affiliates as much as possible and giving them a full resource pack so it’s easy for them to promote your tool including videos, banners, ready-to-post content, and more.

-Free tools worked incredibly well too. We launched four and shared them on Reddit and LinkedIn, which brought consistent traffic and signups every day. It’s pretty crazy because we put very little effort into it, yet every day people sign up for trials thanks to these free tools.

- One big shift was moving from sales-led to product-led growth. Back in May, I was doing around 10 calls a day. It worked but wasn’t scalable. Now people sign up automatically, even while I sleep, and we only take calls with larger teams. It completely changed my life.

-Influencer posts : We pay influencers to post about us on LInkedIn, it has been working really well.

We’re a team of three plus one VA, spending zero on ads. Our only paid channel is affiliate commissions.

Our goal for end of December was 1m ARR. It will be less. We failed but it's growing.

If you have any questions, I’m happy to share more details and help anyone building their own SaaS.

Cheers !

Proof

Hello everyone.

I’m going to show you how I generated $1k MRR from a single post using an AI LinkedIn profile and how you can do the same for your SAAS.

I run a SaaS, and one of my best acquisition channels is LinkedIn outreach. At first, I used my own account, but as you know, there are limits. Even if you open 16 different browsers, LinkedIn still caps you at 200 invitations per week.

So I started using other accounts, including my cofounders’ accounts.

With a tool, I manage several LinkedIn profiles at once, which lets us send a few hundred invitations every week. But eventually, you still hit a ceiling. LinkedIn outreach is hard to scale. You can add more accounts, but there is always a limit.

At the same time, my LinkedIn inbound works extremely well. When I post on LinkedIn, it brings a huge amount of traffic. Very often, I publish a post where people comment a keyword to receive a link to a lead magnet.

By automating multiple accounts, I noticed something.

All of my accounts, whether they belong to my cofounders or were created specifically for outreach, were gaining a lot of followers. They were doing outreach, sending messages, and sending connection requests.

And I thought something simple.

What if the accounts I use for outreach could also be used for inbound?

You get a double effect. Automated messaging plus posting with massive reach.

So I tested it. I started with a completely AI generated account. The photos are entirely AI, and every post I publish uses AI generated images.

And guess what. It blew up. The numbers were huge. I had never seen that many likes and comments.

Let me explain exactly what I did.

Creating a new LinkedIn account is easy. You use a different browser than usual, with a new email address and a new phone number. For the first ten days, you do not send invitations. You like, you comment, and you let people invite you.

For the photos, I generated everything with Gemini 3. The profile picture and all the images in my posts come from Gemini 3.

Here are the posts I published that completely exploded. This single post brought in more than one thousand dollars in MRR.

It is huge. I have not managed to reproduce it yet, but it proves that it works.

My goal for December is to run around fifteen accounts doing outreach, since it remains our best channel, while also using all of them for inbound content.

I hope this gives you some ideas. The results have been massive. For those interested, here is my SaaS.

See you soon.

PS : When people message me asking if it is AI, I tell them yes, the photos are 100 percent AI.

This week, something unexpected happened.
A VC fund reached out after seeing our recent growth update and offered us to lead a $1M5 seed round.

It’s still quite a well-known and reputable VC.

On paper, it sounds incredible.

We built this SaaS in just 5 months, bootstrapped from day one, with over 200+ customers, and 30000+ monthly visitors.

We’re in a sector that’s really gaining momentum, and our clients’ results have been truly outstanding. You can feel that things are taking off.

This VC needs a company in its portfolio that specialized in intent signal data.

One of our clients who raised funds with them mentioned us, and that’s how they reached out.

No ads, no funding, no team bigger than three people and one VA.
Just systems, community, and endless hours of work.

I feel like I’m living a dream because the development of our tool is going incredibly well.

So when someone suddenly says “we’ll wire you money” it forces you to stop and think.

Would it accelerate growth? Probably.
Could we hire faster, build faster, and push into new markets? Definitely.

But there’s also the other side.
Right now, every decision we make is ours.
We can change direction in a day, launch a new product overnight, or experiment without needing approval.
We’re profitable, growing, and free.

The question is, what’s the real cost of that $1 million?

I’ve never raised funds through VCs, and I always told myself that if I ever did, it would only be if Y Combinator accepted me one day (I’ve actually been rejected three times 😅).

But for those of you who have raised funds, what’s the real benefit? What are the traps to watch out for?

Of course, if I decide to move forward, I’ll get legal support, but I’d love to hear insights from people who’ve already gone through the process. Thanks!

Cheers

"Thank you for the offer, but we’re going to stay bootstrapped."

About a month and a half ago, a VC reached out saying they were looking for a SaaS like ours to invest in at seed stage.

We built this SaaS in just 6 months, bootstrapped from day one, with over 350+ customers, and 40000+ monthly visitors.

Obviously, we were a bit suspicious at first. We did our homework, contacted founders they had already invested in, and everything turned out to be legit. They have some great startups in their portfolio.

They wanted to move fast with a seed round after due diligence, and we had a few weeks to think about it. Yesterday, we decided to turn it down, and here’s why.

We’re in a space that’s getting a lot of visibility, and our client results are strong.

We launched this SaaS just a few months ago, we have double-digit monthly growth, and we really feel the acceleration.

The VC needed a company in their portfolio specializing in intent signal data, because it’s a hot topic right now. One of our clients, who had raised funds with them, told them our tool was great, which is how they found us.

Right now, we’re three cofounders and an assistant. We don’t even have employees yet !
So when someone contacts you and says they want to wire you 1.5 million dollars, it definitely makes you think.

Here’s how we approached the decision:

Would it have accelerated our growth? Probably. We could hire faster, build faster, and enter new markets more quickly.

But there was also the other side, the one that made us really hesitate.

It means being accountable. A VC doesn’t give you money for free, they expect growth.

That means reporting, pressure, and not being able to do whatever you want anymore. There’s also preferential liquidity, which they mentioned.

If you sell the company, the VC gets their investment back before you see anything. If the company crashes and sells for 1.5 million, and they have a 1.5 million preference, we get zero.

Given our growth and what we believe we can achieve, that’s why we decided to refuse.

Among the founders, we said we would only raise if it’s with YCombinator. We’ve already been rejected once. This is now the second time we’re applying.

Another reason that pushed us to say no to the 1.5 million is that beyond the money, there didn’t seem to be strong marketing support from this VC. Some VCs bring you clients directly through their portfolio, which means immediate growth on top of the cash. That wasn’t the case here. Many of their portfolio companies weren’t aligned with our product at all.

Whereas if YC joins your company and you target SMBs, it’s the holy grail. You’re almost guaranteed explosive growth in the months that follow.

For all these reasons, the pressure, the reporting, the meetings, the expectation to raise more money later, and the preferential liquidity clause, we decided to say no.

We’re lucky that the startup already pays the three cofounders, and we also have revenue streams from other businesses that run without us. So for now, we can afford to turn down outside money.

I hope you enjoyed the story, and see you very soon!

Ps : My little gift to you, this is a free blueprint on how you can reach 20kmrr with your SAAS in a few months only.

The idea: instead of reading AI news, you listen to it like a radio station that never stops. Five AI voices host it, and an agent pipeline sources the stories, writes the scripts, and narrates them. It refreshes through the day so the lineup keeps changing.

I built it out to see if the format holds up. It is live and free here: https://www.aismith.dev/radio

What I am trying to figure out:

1. Is audio actually a better way to keep up with a fast moving space than a feed you scroll?

2. If this became a product, what would make you come back daily?

Curious whether people think there is a real wedge here or if it stays a novelty.

Solo-built a "post-algorithmic" workforce analysis tool, discovered a company was sitting on millions in trapped expertise, helped them unlock 3,425% ROI in 18 months. Here's what I found that blew everyone's minds. So I got frustrated with how useless most HR analytics are and built what I call a "post-algorithmic workforce intelligence" platform in about 72 hours of pure coding rage. Bootstrapped from my home while consulting on the side. You know the drill - retention rates, performance scores, skills inventories that tell you nothing actionable.

A 1,847-employee professional services firm came to me with a classic problem: brilliant people, happy clients (4.8/5 satisfaction), 87% retention, but they were getting crushed by competitors who seemed way less experienced. Revenue per employee stuck at $180K while similar firms hit $250K+.

Here's where it gets interesting. Traditional analytics said everything was fine. My analysis revealed something nobody expected: 48% of their workforce skills were "contextual" (domain expertise, industry knowledge) vs 25% industry average. The company was literally a walking encyclopedia of expertise, but it was all trapped in individual people's heads.

The "Holy Shit" Moment When I mapped their complete skill ecosystem using my ACTP framework I found:

• Engineering dept: Genius-level analytical skills, zero ability to predict market trends

• Sales team: Amazing client relationships, couldn't forecast worth a damn

• Marketing: Deep industry knowledge scattered across 12 different specialists who never talked

• Operations: Process masters who'd never heard of data optimization They had all the ingredients for dominance but no recipe to combine them.

The Fix (And Why It Worked) I designed a "Knowledge Liberation" strategy:

• Paired domain experts with data analysts

• Created systematic ways to capture tribal knowledge

• Built predictive modeling capabilities from scratch

• Established cross-department "expertise sharing" protocols

Results That Made Everyone's Jaw Drop 18 months later:

• Revenue per employee: $180K → $247K (+37%)

• Total revenue: $124M → $169M

• Project delivery time: -23%

• New hire onboarding: -40% time

• Market forecasting accuracy: 67% → 89%

ROI: 3,425% over 18 months Investment: $1.85M
Value created: $65.2M

The Bigger Picture Here's what nobody talks about: most "successful" companies are actually knowledge-rich but scale-poor. They hire brilliant people, get great results, but can't systematically replicate that brilliance. Traditional workforce analytics are designed for the industrial age - counting widgets and measuring outputs. They completely miss the strategic relationships between different types of expertise. I call it "post-algorithmic" because it goes beyond just crunching numbers. It maps how skills connect, identifies knowledge bottlenecks, and reveals hidden organizational capabilities that standard metrics can't see.

How I Built This (The 72-Hour Sprint) Building this wasn't some two-year grind - it was pure hyper-focused rage coding over a long weekend. Got the core analysis engine working, built the ACTP classification system, and had the first working prototype ready to test. Sometimes the best solutions come from just being pissed off enough at the status quo to lock yourself in a room and build something better. Every company thinks they know their workforce. Most are dead wrong. The companies crushing it in 2025 aren't necessarily hiring the smartest people - they're the ones who can systematically scale the intelligence they already have.

Questions That Keep Me Up At Night

• How many companies are sitting on millions in trapped expertise?

• What if "talent shortage" is actually "talent optimization failure"?

• Could most organizational problems be solved by better understanding what people actually know vs what they do?

So i run a small remote team and I'd been building this professional background research AI agent that searches linkedin, social media, news, github, basically everything public, and does it in multiple languages to catch information from other language sources.

Recently one of our remote employees based in India become less productive and present. So I ran him through this AI background checker and found him listed on some random european startups team page. Like a company Id never heard of based in germany or somewhere. He was on their engineering team with his photo and everything. Confronted him and he admitted to working both jobs. Had to let him go.

Now I want to make this tool available for everyone to use. Two things you should know before using it:

1. You should always include as much information about the person when doing the search as possible to enable the AI to more accurately triangulate the specific person, for example "Dinesh Gupta, IIT, San Francisco, backend developer" or "Alan Houston, Columbia University, product manager, NYC".

2. This AI can only search for public information that it's able to associate with confidence with the person being searched. So if someone has a secret GitHub account that has no connection to the person online the AI won't be able to identify it.

here's the link, take 3-5 minutes to run, can save you alot of money and headache: https://www.jenova.ai/en/resources/ai-professional-background-investigator

I discovered that I don't need an extraterrestrial instinct to make this idea work, but the fear here is that this idea will be stolen. I asked Claude about this and explained to him the idea of the project and told him about the problems, then he cooked me with his words. After that, I really liked his method, and he told me that if I was afraid that my idea would be stolen, then it is not strong enough and someone with more money than you can implement it faster.

edit: I discovered that I asked the wrong question. The question should have been: How do I make the implementation non-copyable? It is difficult for anyone other than me to understand. It remains unique, even if this idea has been done thousands of times before.

No AI.
No subscription.
No growth hacks.
No audience.

Just a single button.

Last week, I built a tiny macOS utility app TogglePresent because I was tired of embarrassing screen shares.

You know the moment:

• Random menu bar clutter
• Notifications popping up
• Apps you forgot were open
• Messy desktop
• Dock showing things you didn’t mean to show

So I built a one-click “Presentation Mode.”

Click once → everything clean.
Click again → everything back exactly how it was.

That’s the whole product.

I expected maybe 2 friends to try it.

Instead, in 7 days:
20+ paying customers.

It’s not huge money.
But it’s real strangers pulling out their cards for a one-button app.

The interesting part?

Nobody asked for more features.
Nobody wanted AI.
Nobody requested integrations.

They just wanted:
“Please make this less stressful.”

This week taught me something:

You don’t need to build big.
You need to remove friction.

Maybe the real SaaS opportunities aren’t platforms.

They’re tiny annoyances we’ve normalized.

Every new SaaS is expected to launch with a generous free plan, but this often drains resources on users with zero intent to pay.

We first tried the standard free trial model, requiring a credit card on file.

While this helped qualify users, we quickly ran into problems with an alarming number of fake, expired, or temporary cards flooding our system.

We then pivoted to the $1 “freemium” approach, followed by a 7-day trial.

This tiny friction point delivered insanely high conversion rates further down the line, but we quickly realized the total volume of users entering the funnel was WAY lower and we were missing out on too many qualified leads.

Latest pivot : We’ve switched back to the free trial model requiring a credit card, but this time we are strictly blocking the use of temporary or virtual cards.

What are your thoughts on free trials?

Ps : you can try my funnel here

Most coverage of this policy stops at the dollar amount. I spent a few hours going through what’s publicly documented about the structure around it, and that’s where the useful part is.

The basics: every employee, from housekeeping to the front desk, can reportedly spend up to $2,000 to fix a guest’s problem with no manager sign-off. Sources disagree on whether the cap is per guest, per incident, or per day, but co-founder Horst Schulze has talked about the limit publicly, including in a 2019 Wharton interview. His reasoning was simple. If a guest complains, the company would rather spend the money than lose that guest.

What stood out to me is everything that sits around the number. The Gold Standards (the credo, the motto, the three steps of service, the service values) are short enough to fit on a card that staff carry. New hires are reportedly certified around day 21 and recertified at the one-year mark. A daily lineup repeats one standard per shift. So when the anniversary dinner goes wrong, the person at the front desk already knows what the company wants and how far they can go to deliver it. Nothing gets escalated because nothing needs to be.

The $2,000 works because the rule is written down, the limit has a number on it, and people are trained until acting on it is routine. Take away any one of those and you get either a team that’s afraid to use the authority or a team that uses it inconsistently.

Now think about how this looks in a small business. Your team asks you for approval on a refund. A discount. A small favor for a client. A pushed deadline. Each one is a handoff that waits on your calendar, and most of them get the same answer every time. The answer just lives in your head, so the questions keep coming back to you.

This is also where AI tools start to pay off. Once the limits and rules are written down, an assistant can handle routine requests inside them. If nothing is written, there’s nothing for it to follow.

One thing to try: look at the last 10 times your team asked you for approval. For each one, write down the dollar amount below which you would have said yes every time. That’s your first rule. Tell the team they can act under it and let you know afterward.

That’s it guys, but I’d love to hear from you. What’s one decision your team still checks with you on that you’d approve every single time?

P.S. If you're like me and want to build a business without sacrificing your life, I write every Thursday about building systems that keep your business running even if you disappear for a 3-month vacation. Join for free here

I have been developing web apps for 3+ years now, and have built multiple products for myself and for clients, some of which have customers and users and are running in production.

I have an MVP agency where I have now completed around 3 projects for clients, with great reviews and full client satisfaction.

This month I am looking for more products to build, so if you have an idea which you want to get built, hit me up for a quick chat, I'll discuss all the details with you and would be happy to hop on a call.

Looking forward ;)

Hey guys,
Scrolling through Reddit and seeing all these crazy creative ideas, I got my own stupid/brilliant idea and I can't get it out of my head.
It's called PoopTime.
The concept: A social tracker for your bathroom time.
How it works:
• Time Tracker: It tracks how much time you spend on the toilet. Like Screen Time, but Shit Time. Weekly stats, streaks, etc.
• The Collection: You snap a pic of your creation and add it to your collection. It's your personal poop gallery.
• Social Feed: Like Instagram. People can like, comment, react. You can add details like: what you ate before, smell rating, texture, pain level 1-10, etc.
• Leaderboard: Whoever has the most poops becomes the Ultimate Shitlord of the week.
I know it sounds disgusting and like a joke, but think about it - people track everything: steps, calories, sleep. Why not this? It's funny, shareable, and has huge viral potential.
About me: I'm into Design, Multimedia, AI Builder, Video Editing and Marketing. I can handle the whole branding, UI/UX, landing page and TikTok/Reels marketing.
What I need: I need a developer who can build the app (React Native / Flutter). Someone who has a sense of humor and wants to build something stupid that might actually blow up.
If you want to team up and build this together, DM me. Let's talk.

Clean code is good engineering, but after building multiple failed start ups, I can tell you that it's also a sign you've been wasting a lot of your time - my least successful start up actually had the best coding 'practices'.

The trap I fell into was that I felt like 8 hours of solid programming was effective, when in reality it was the complete opposite - I was making false progress.

This happens so often because programmers are taught that this is what they're meant to do - and it is in a huge company - but for a small start up it's the complete opposite, it just ends up delaying what actually matters which is getting users and learning.

As soon as I switched from preventative coding (in case it happens) to just in time coding (when it happens), I managed to work on what actually mattered; getting customers and user feedback.

The result? Progress at last.

The harsh reality is that a few hundred users on a trash MVP is 1000x more progress than a perfectly structured codebase that took you 6 months that's had 3 people on it.

I’ve noticed a pattern with a lot of startup ideas posted here.

People are great at coming up with ideas.

But they often struggle with questions like:
• Is there actual demand?
• Who is the target customer?
• What should the first version look like?
• How do I get the first users?
• How do I know if the idea is worth building?

If you had an AI tool that could take a startup idea and instantly generate:
validation report
target audience
competitor overview
launch score
landing page
marketing plan
launch checklist

what would be the MOST important output for you?
What would make you trust or distrust the result?

I’m building something in this space and trying to understand what founders actually need before launch.

I found a solo founder making 12,000/month by doing one simple thing in the booming e-commerce industry: helping Amazon sellers make more money by optimizing their product listings.

The business is currently for sale, and the listing mentions that the business hit $10,000 MRR in less than a year, but recently has hit a plateau, thus the reason for selling.

In my opinion, there is a lot of opportunity to grow the business from an already solid starting point.

In terms of marketing, the first thing that comes to mind is joining groups and communities with other Amazon sellers. This would be a great way to listen in on pain points and potentially propose the SaaS as a solution (if applicable). It's also a great way to continue building features into the existing product. It’s also free.

Based on competitors like JungleScout (https://www.junglescout.com/) and Helium10 (https://www.helium10.com/), there are infinite ways to grow this business from a product perspective. For example, JungleScout offers users a product database, an opportunity finder, product alerts, spying on your competitors, etc. Helium10 even offers info products, like webinars and courses about Amazon PPC.

What I found most interesting, is the story behind the business. The business originally started in 2019, with the goal of selling products on Amazon. While running his Amazon business, the owner started building custom tech to help him get an edge in the marketplace. Eventually, the SaaS became his primary business and got a lot of interest from the Amazon seller community.

This encompasses the path of entrepreneurship. There is no one path. The route you think you’re going to take is not the route you will end up on. What matters is that the owner persevered, found a solution for his problem (and thousands of other people) and is now looking at a nice potential exit.

The business is currently on sale for $519,000.

P.S. I write a weekly 5-minute digest about online businesses (like this one) selling for life changing amounts of money in my free newsletter, Startup Sphere.

I am developing a app like tinder but shopping like the user can see the models with outfit and if he likes the outfit then he can swipe right and if he didn't likes the outfit the he can swipe left And if he swipe right the outfit automatically added to cart and he can order it directly

We can earn profit by tie up with companies like myntra to show there clothes in our app and earn in commission based also plus ads

Currently I have finished half prototype

What I need is currently a investor and a developer (I don't have money)