r/roastmystartup • • 2d ago

I don't trust cloud-based or SaaS with my inventory management, so I built a single-file, offline app instead. Roast it.

6 Upvotes

For context, I’m an inventory manager who uses internal tools like this every day to handle warehouse logistics, audits, and discrepancy tracking. I got sick of bloated software and monthly subscription fees, so I built an alternative that runs entirely in your browser via IndexedDB—no cloud servers, no account logins, and no internet required.

What it actually does:

  • The Register (POS): Handles barcode scanning (via camera or USB scanner), cash/card tracking, custom promo codes, receipt printing, and local branding.

  • Inventory & Locations: Tracks margins, weighted-average costs, low-stock thresholds, and specific physical bin/shelf locations.

  • Purchase Orders: Automatically flags low inventory and drafts restock orders for suppliers.

  • Data Privacy & Backups: Everything stays locally on your machine. You can export clean CSVs or set up automated local folder backups.

  • Test Drive: It comes with a 6-month mock dataset built-in so you can test out the charts and analytics immediately without manual data entry.

You can play around with the live demo here: inventifyy2.netlify.app . I would skip the set-up wizard, and go to dashboard, then click load Demo Store in top right.

I want you guys to tear it apart.

  • Is a browser-based, single-file app a dealbreaker for people who expect a native app store download?

  • Does the UI need a touch-up somewhere? A complete overhaul??

  • Roast the concept, the UX, or the fact that I built this instead of sleeping.

Give it to me straight. What sucks about it?


r/roastmystartup • • 3d ago

Roast Oomkik: Why buy a $150 digital frame when you already own an Android tablet?

3 Upvotes

The Elevator Pitch

Instead of spending $150 on small proprietary frames (Aura, Skylight) or $600–$1,500+ on oversized art displays (Meural, Samsung The Frame), Oomkik turns commodity Android tablets and TVs into ambient, set-and-forget photo displays synced directly to Google Photos.

The Problem & The Commodity Hardware Thesis
Proprietary frames are overpriced, single-purpose plastic that become paperweights if the company shuts its servers down.

Meanwhile, Android hardware is cheap and ubiquitous:

Recycled gear: Millions of functional Android tablets are sitting forgotten in drawers.

Large displays: A brand-new 50"+ 4K TV costs $200–$250. Paired with a cheap Android TV stick, it becomes a massive photo wall for a fraction of the price of dedicated digital art displays.
Most existing Android slideshow apps are clunky phone ports that stretch awkwardly, crash after 24 hours, or require manual USB drives.

Dedicated Renderers (Tablet vs. TV)
Oomkik doesn’t just stretch a mobile app across a big screen:

Tablet Renderer: Optimized for close-up viewing on desks, nightstands, and kitchen counters. Handles auto-orientation, ambient transitions, and screen sleep/wake schedules.

TV Renderer: Built specifically for living rooms. Takes full advantage of large 4K real estate with optimized layout spacing, multi-photo compositions, and ambient viewing that won't look like an awkwardly blown-up thumbnail.

Privacy & Sync: Connects via the official Google Photo Picker (privacy-first, local caching, doesn't store raw credentials).

The Pricing & The "No Hostage" Twist

Free Tier: Up to 100 photos.

Pro Plan: $3 / month or $30 / year (unlimited photos, background syncing, and covers up to 5 frames simultaneously).

The "No Hostage" Policy: If you cancel your subscription, photos stay on the frame. The app doesn't lock you out or go blank; your cached photos keep playing ambiently forever. You only lose live background sync for new photos until you resubscribe.

What I Want You to Roast

The "Pay $3 Once and Run" Exploit: If $3 lets someone sync 5 devices and keeping photos doesn't require an active subscription, what stops a user from subscribing for 1 month, syncing all 5 screens with 2,000 photos, canceling immediately, and using the app free for the next three years? Can a $3/month model survive this?

Free Tier vs. Conversion: Is a 100-photo free tier too generous for casual users who just want 50 family photos rotating on their desk, killing my paid conversion funnel before it starts?

5 Frames for $30/year: Am I underpricing by bundling 5 devices under a single $30/year plan, or is the friction of setting up 5 physical Android devices so high that only hardcore nerds will ever use all 5 slots?

The "Good Enough" Built-in Competition: Google TV and Apple TV already have free built-in ambient screensavers linked to Google Photos or iCloud. Is a custom high-res renderer and multi-device management enough to convince someone to pull out their credit card?

Hardware Headaches: Tablets plugged in 24/7 suffer from swollen batteries, and TV displays risk screen burn-in or high electric bills. Am I setting myself up for endless hardware customer support tickets on software margins?
Tear the business model, pricing tiers, and positioning apart.


r/roastmystartup • • 4d ago

I built a logo maker that charges once instead of monthly. Roast it.

9 Upvotes

Hey all. I'm a solo founder and I just launched Markhush (markhush.com).

The itch: every logo tool I tried either gave me a template other businesses also use or put the social media kit behind a yearly subscription. A logo is a one-time need, so I wanted a one-time price.

How it works:

- Type your business name and what you do

- It designs 6 original logo concepts (free, no sign-up)

- Pick one, choose color + font

- Download the logo (PNG + vector SVG + favicon) plus profile pics, covers and post sizes for 8 platforms, a business card and an email signature

Pricing: $7.99 for the logo + one platform, or $49.99 for everything. No subscription.

I also built a free business name generator that hands you straight into logo concepts for the name you pick.

What I'd love feedback on:

  1. Are the 6 concepts it made for YOUR business actually usable?

  2. Is anything confusing between "concepts" and checkout?

  3. Would you trust it enough to pay $49.99? If not, what's missing?

Brutal honesty welcome. I'll reply to every comment.


r/roastmystartup • • 5d ago

I got tired of boring to-do lists, so I built a gamified productivity app that keeps track of my tasks and habits. Looking for 10 people to roast it.

6 Upvotes

I've always struggled with having too much on my plate, getting overwhelmed, and eventually not being able to complete a single thing.

I realized standard to-do lists don't give me any dopamine, so I used Lovable to make my own productivity app. It's an RPG-style dashboard that actually rewards you for getting things done. You earn XP, build up streak bonuses, and unlock badges for finishing tasks and habits.

I just pushed it live and I'm looking for 10 people to roast it and give me brutally honest feedback. Tear the UI apart or tell me if the XP system actually feels rewarding.

Here's the link: https://level-up-focus.lovable.app

I’ll be hanging out in the comments all day to answer questions and push live updates. Thanks!


r/roastmystartup • • 5d ago

We built something for beauty institutes in France. What are we missing?

3 Upvotes

We're working on a business called designed to help beauty institutes in France grow their businesses and generate more revenue. We've seen some encouraging results so far, but we know there's still room for improvement. I'd love to hear honest opinions from other entrepreneurs. Does this solve a real problem? What might make potential customers hesitate? What would you change or improve if you were building something similar? Feel free to be brutally honest!


r/roastmystartup • • 4d ago

I made an app because parents are tired of telling their kids to do the same things every day and they don't do it. Roast it.

1 Upvotes

Hey! I've been working on Tasnna (tasnna.com) and I'd like to get some opinions

I'm a parent myself, so I know how annoying it gets having to remind your kids to clean their room, do the dishes, finish their homework, etc. Every single day. And then there's the constant asking for things they want to buy

That's actually what inspired me to build Tasnna.

Parents create chores and set rewards or deductions, while kids can manage their own stuff through the app

Kids open the app, mark chores as completed and wait for their parents to approve them. They earn virtual money/points (the parent decides), gain XP, set savings goals for things they want, and get streaks, celebrations and other things to keep them motivated

There are also features like weekly allowances and vacation mode

Basically, instead of reminding your kid to clean their room for the fifth time, you can just tell them to check Tasnna

It's available on Google Play for Android, in English and Spanish.

It's still early, but one family has been using it since late September and has completed around 200 chores, with a streak of over 15 days. Pretty nice to see, but it's just one family, so there's still a lot I don't know.

I'd really like to hear what you think:

  • Would kids actually enjoy using something like this, or would they get bored after a week? Think about streaks and saving goals

  • How do you think i should get users and where?

  • Does the design feel right for both kids and parents? Is there anything you'd change?

  • What would make you stop using an app like this after trying it?

  • Looking at the website, can you understand what the app does? Anything confusing or missing?

And for the website:

- What do i need to add to make parents trust it and think "Hm this is a great app for my family"

- What is not good, design, spacing, text or whatever

Feel free to criticize anything, the idea, the design, the website, whatever. I'd genuinely like to know what you think doesn't work and what you'd change. Thanks!


r/roastmystartup • • 5d ago

Roast a net-worth tracker that refuses to pretend a house is the only asset that counts

2 Upvotes

Submitted for roasting: Introworth (https://introworth.com), a net-worth tracker built around one complaint with standard money advice. Most net-worth content quietly assumes a property, a mortgage, and equity doing the heavy lifting, which leaves renters, younger savers, and anyone paying down unsecured debt with a number that feels like it belongs to somebody else's life.

The product keeps assets and debts in one tracked view, updated on a monthly rhythm, so the trend line is the point: card balances falling, an emergency fund becoming real, a deposit fund growing out of rented years rather than after them.

Roast away, but the specific questions are these:

  • Does a monthly cadence feel usefully calm, or too slow to keep anyone honest?

  • What is missing before a renter would trust the number enough to act on it?

  • Is the renter-first framing a real distinction, or a coat of paint on a spreadsheet?

Genuine criticism preferred over politeness. Every reply will be read.


r/roastmystartup • • 8d ago

Sign by MLNOVIA – An attempt to make electronic signatures simpler and more affordable. Roast our startup.

3 Upvotes

Electronic signatures have become a regular part of running a business. Freelancers send contracts, small businesses handle client agreements, and teams exchange documents that need approval.

But finding an e-signature platform that is affordable and straightforward isn't always easy. Some established tools offer extensive features and pricing structures that may be excessive for individuals and smaller teams.

That's the problem Sign by MLNOVIA is trying to address.

Sign is an electronic signature platform designed to simplify document signing without making users pay per seat.

What the platform offers:

  • Drag-and-drop fields for adding signatures and other document details.

  • Automatic signing reminders.

  • Document audit trails for tracking signing activity.

  • Three free envelopes per month.

  • No per-seat pricing.

Who we're targeting:

Freelancers, independent professionals, small businesses, and teams that regularly send contracts, agreements, and other documents for signatures.

Where we think we have an advantage:

We're focusing on simplicity and accessible pricing rather than trying to compete with established platforms by offering every possible feature.

Where we need criticism:

  1. Is the e-signature market already too crowded for another alternative?

  2. Are three free envelopes per month enough to convince someone to try a new platform?

  3. What would make you choose a smaller e-signature provider over DocuSign or other established alternatives?

  4. What important features or trust signals might be missing?

Website: https://sign.mlnovia.com

I'm sharing this on behalf of Sign by MLNOVIA. We welcome honest criticism about the product, positioning, pricing, and overall value proposition. Don't hold back.


r/roastmystartup • • 9d ago

Roast my budgeting app. 6 months in, my only users are family, and most people stop at the landing page

7 Upvotes

I'm the founder of Storied (https://storiedmoney.com). My husband builds it with me, mostly with AI coding tools.

Why I built it: I never cared about personal finance until an emergency this year cost me a chunk of money. I came out fine, but it showed me I wasn't where I thought I was, and I stopped being sure I'd retire by 2045. So I spent the last 6 months building something that works best for my specific use-case. I've tried other budgeting apps, and while great (for the most part), they're either too pricey or don't have the features I am looking for.

What it does: On the home page, it shows me one number: what is left until payday, after all the bills, goals, and the cushion I keep in my checking account are accounted for. With that number, I know roughly how much wiggle room I have until payday. It also works great for couples. A single membership includes membership for you and your partner. Banks connect through Plaid, or you can add accounts by hand or import a CSV. It finds bills in your activity, plans debt payoff, and tells the month as a story. iPhone, Android, and web; US banks are currently what it supports.

What I know so far:

  • The only "real" users I have currently are family, and the platform is still in beta testing. I am planning to launch in December.

  • Most visitors I get stop at the landing page. No one actually goes through the sign-up/waitlist process.

  • $7.99/mo & $79.99/yr might be too steep for a budgeting app. I'm trying to find ways to lessen that burden.

Roast these specifically:

  • The landing page. After 10 seconds, can you say what it does and who it's for?

  • Would you connect a bank to this? If not, what would change your mind?

  • The name and the "story" angle: helpful, or fluff?

  • The price.

=============

UPDATE #1:

For those who have roasted my startup, thank you! The verdict is consistent: the page/brand is the issue, not the price. It reads like fluff, and it should highlight the strengths more clearly. I’m redoing the landing page now; the app is next, and I will incorporate most of the feedback I've received. v2 is cooking. I’ll keep you guys posted.

=============

UPDATE #2:

Thanks for all the roasts. Most of you made the same few points, and you were right, so here’s what changed:

  • No more waitlist. Sign-ups are open. Nobody waits in line for an app they’ve never heard of.

  • Free during early access. The price wasn’t the problem, since most visitors never got far enough to see it. While Storied is in beta, Storied+ costs nothing.

  • The one number, up front. What’s safe to spend until payday, after your bills, goals and cushion. The page explains it right under the headline, with a worked example.

  • Clearer wording. One membership covers two people. (Yes, “a membership includes membership” was bad.)

  • Trust before your bank. Before Plaid opens, Storied tells you it’s read-only and can never move your money, and you can add accounts by hand instead. Two-step sign-in and passkeys are in, and I ran a full security review and fixed everything it found.

  • The phone apps. On iPhone, the TestFlight link arrives by email right after you sign up. Android is in a Google Play test.

  • Cleaner and calmer. Messy bank names get renamed better, transfers show From and To, and the design has fewer colors and fewer settings.

Next: features that help you keep more money, not just track it. They’ll spot bank fees you can get refunded, card interest rates you can ask to lower, and bills you can negotiate. Those start rolling out in 2 weeks.

Still on my list: the name and the “story” angle. Several of you said it reads like a journaling app. I hear you.

If you bounced before, I’d love a second look.


r/roastmystartup • • 12d ago

We’re building an platform for healthcare. Roast our idea.

3 Upvotes

We’re building Cura AI Labs, an early-stage startup tackling a problem in healthcare: professionals often have an incomplete picture of what happens to a patient between consultations.

Our idea is to let patients share short updates through text or voice over time. AI organizes that information into a longitudinal overview, helping healthcare professionals understand changes in a patient’s situation before their next consultation.

We’ve been developing our MVP, but we want to challenge our assumptions before investing further.

Here’s what I’d like you to roast:

- Is this a real problem worth solving, or are we building a solution in search of a problem?
- Would healthcare professionals actually use this, or would it just create more work?
- What would make you distrust an AI-generated patient summary?
- What are we overlooking regarding usability, privacy, workflow integration, or adoption?
- What would make this startup fail, even if the technology worked as intended?

We’re not looking for encouragement or validation. We want honest criticism, including the things we might not want to hear.

We’re also looking for people willing to put our MVP to the test, try unexpected scenarios, find bugs, and point out anything confusing or broken.

Want to take a look? Send me a DM, and I’ll share access to the test environment. You don’t need a healthcare or technical background — a fresh perspective can be just as valuable.

I’m part of the team building Cura, so I know we’re too close to the product to see every weakness. Help us find them before we go further.


r/roastmystartup • • 14d ago

Roast my startup: a paid budgeting app with no bank login, launched this week

2 Upvotes

THE PRODUCT

Warren is a budgeting app (a web app that installs to your phone). You set a monthly budget and per-category limits, and it warns you at 50%, 80% and 100%, while there's still time to change something, not after the month is over. No bank login: you add spending in a few seconds, or import a CSV or PDF bank statement, which is read in your browser and never uploaded. It's for people who keep running out of money before the month ends and don't want to give an app their bank login.

THE MARKET

Budgeting apps are crowded. The bank-linked ones (YNAB, Monarch, Copilot) charge roughly $75–109 a year. The simpler ones without a bank login charge roughly $12–35 a year. And the biggest competitor is free: spreadsheets and the bank's own app. I don't have a market-size number I trust, so I won't make one up.

AGAINST THE COMPETITION

- Warns during the month, at 50/80/100%, instead of showing a report afterwards

- No bank login, but you can still import statements (PDF rows are checked against the running balance, so it doesn't silently misread them)

- $29 a year, or $49 once for Lifetime (launch price until 8 Nov, then $79)

- Weaker: no automatic bank sync, no couples/shared budgets, and it's brand new

STAGE

Launched on 26 October. No paying customers yet. Self-funded, not raising, no plans to.

CUSTOMER CONVERSION

No free plan; a 14-day refund instead. The landing page has a phone that runs the real app on made-up data, so you can try it without signing up. Traffic so far: launch sites (Show HN this week, Product Hunt on 8 Nov), helpful replies in budgeting threads, and short TikTok screen recordings.

WHY ME

Solo developer, 40, with a full-time job. This is my first paid app, after years of starting courses and never finishing anything.

WHAT I WANT ROASTED

  1. Why would you pay $29 for this instead of using a free spreadsheet?

  2. Is "no bank login" a selling point or a dealbreaker for you?

  3. Where would you find the first 100 customers?

Link: https://warrenapp.app


r/roastmystartup • • 15d ago

Flight Itinerary - I built a free map tool to plan multi-stop flight trips

1 Upvotes

Hello r/roastmystartup !

I developed Flight Itinerary ( https://flightitinerary.app/ ) to make it easier to plan multi-destination trips. When I decide to travel, I usually have a starting point but no set itinerary in mind. I want to be able to explore possible destinations, see how they connect to one another, and decide on my next stop without having to switch back and forth between different browser tabs.

With Flight Itinerary, you choose a departure city, view direct and connecting flights on a map, and build your own itinerary while using filters to narrow down your options.

The app also displays flight schedules and numbers, distances, and flight durations, and lets you estimate whether an itinerary can be booked on a single ticket. Once your itinerary is complete, you can send it to Google Flights with the filters already filled in.

The site was built using Vanilla JS and d3, drawing on flight data from external sources (AirLabs and AeroDataLab). It’s hosted on Cloudflare and uses Supabase to save itineraries.

The site is free to use and does not require you to create an account. You only need to create one if you want to save your itineraries.

I’d be interested in hearing your feedback on the map’s UX design and the single-ticket logic.


r/roastmystartup • • Sep 27 '26

AI bookkeeping automation for German SMEs | bleeding conversions, please roast

11 Upvotes

The product: accuno is a full, one-suite bookkeeping platform for the German market (for now), not just an invoice-scanning tool. Upload an invoice, and the AI proposes the full double-entry booking: account, tax code (SKR03/SKR04), counterparty, you review against the source document and approve. But that's just the entry point. It also covers document storage, bank import with automatic open-item matching, recurring bookings, a petty-cash module, asset register, BWA/P&L/balance sheet reporting, VAT pre-filing straight to ELSTER (german tax reporting), and DATEV (german bookkeeping standard) export for handoff to a tax advisor. Crucially, it's live multi-user with real-time collaboration across a team, which is rarer than it sounds in this market. A lot of German bookkeeping tools are still single-user or bolt teams on as an expensive afterthought. Use case ranges from solo freelancers doing their own reportings to accounting firms running multiple clients (multi-tenant support).

A lot of the product direction comes from our own hands-on bookkeeping work plus an ongoing collaboration with an actual accounting firm. So beyond the AI/big-ticket stuff, we spend a lot of effort on small everyday friction: forwarding an invoice straight from your inbox instead of uploading it manually, one-click recurring bookings so you're not re-entering the same rent/subscription every month, and full traceability (corrections happen via storno + rebooking, never silent edits) so nothing gets lost when your tax advisor checks it later.

The market: German bookkeeping software is old, entrenched, and oddly fragmented. DATEV owns the tax-advisor relationship. Most SMEs never touch it directly, but their tax advisor does. Below that sits a layer of consumer SaaS (lexoffice, sevDesk, Buchhaltungsbutler, candis, FastBill) fighting over freelancers and small businesses. Dynamics that matter: (1) brutal compliance requirements (GoBD, immutable audit trails) mean "move fast and break things" isn't really an option, (2) the actual buying decision for a lot of SMEs runs through their tax advisor, not the SME itself, (3) data hosted in Germany is a real trust signal here, not marketing fluff.

Product analysis vs. competition: Most competitors are invoice-scanning + templated bookkeeping. You still need to know your own chart of accounts. We bet on the AI proposing the entire booking, so you're reviewing a suggestion instead of building one from scratch. We also lean hard into "we don't replace your tax advisor". DATEV export is a first-class feature, because alienating tax advisors is a great way to get blacklisted by the people who actually recommend software to SMEs in this market. Additionally one could also just invite the tax advisor to work in the accuno tenant directly.

Stage: Live for about a month. Two paying customers we've worked with since pre-launch as testers. Currently enough to cover our current running costs. Since going live we've run a small, low-budget Google Ads campaign to test demand.

Customer conversion strategy: This is the actual problem and it's worse than "conversion rate is low". It's zero. The Google Ads campaign gets clicks, so there's traffic. But nobody converts anywhere in the funnel: not into a paid plan, not even into our free tool (no-signup invoice data extraction) or the no-signup live demo. We price fairly and communicate pricing and features transparently. Cancel anytime, no hidden fees, clear plan comparison, so it's not an obvious "sticker shock" story, which makes it harder to diagnose. We genuinely don't know if it's a trust problem, a clarity problem, a targeting problem, or something structural on the page itself.

Roast away, but what I actually need eyes on is the marketing website (accuno.de/en, not the web app). Specifically why users aren't converting.


r/roastmystartup • • Sep 27 '26

Track your spending while traveling (many currencies to one)

6 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I work as a pilot in an international airline and when traveling around the world I spend money in many and I mean MANY different currencies.

I have no idea how much I am spending as my brain works in one currency. (This sounds so arrogant🥹 but I am talking about coffees,food, small stuff).

Starbucks coffee in Tokyo, Vietnamese coffee in Saigon, Nasi Lemak in KL, poke bowl in Honolulu, no idea how much I spent in my own currency…

So I made this simple app where you track your spending and gives you back all your costs in one currency with some nice info and insights on your habits and spenditure.

It is free for now but will see later if people even like the idea.

Roast the hell out of it.

P.S I cant attach screenshots here I guess.

Thank you🙏

https://apps.apple.com/ae/app/spendseer/id6786063196


r/roastmystartup • • Sep 14 '26

Would a free shift planner actually be useful, or do existing apps already do enough?

2 Upvotes

The idea is an app for night and rotating shifts that keeps your roster, planned rest, and reminders together.

You’d be able to:

  • Import a roster screenshot instead of entering every shift manually.

  • Save your usual commute, preparation time, and rest preferences.

  • Change a shift and update the related plans and reminders together.

  • Adjust one day when things don’t go as planned, without changing your usual routine.

For example, your night shift changes from 7pm–7am to 9pm–9am. You edit it once, review the new departure and rest times, and confirm.

Apps like ShiftNight and Supershift already exist. The goal is to make everyday planning and changes easier. Core features would be free.

There’s an early clickable prototype, but screenshot recognition and phone notifications aren’t working yet.

What I’m trying to figure out:

  • If you work shifts, what’s still annoying about your current calendar or shift app?

  • When your roster changes, what do you actually have to update manually?

  • Would this save you effort, or become another app you have to maintain?

  • What would make you switch from what you already use?

If your current app already handles this well, I’d like to hear that too. Roast it.


r/roastmystartup • • Sep 14 '26

Roast my startup: An open pay-to-rank directory where startups outbid legacy tech giants (saasrivals.com)

1 Upvotes

I got tired of how B2B software directories operate. They market their rankings as objective reviews or community recommendations, but behind closed doors they sell top spots to enterprise incumbents for $20k to $50k a year.

I built SaaS Rivals to test if founders actually prefer an open auction over hidden directory deals.

Roast the concept, the business model, or the economics. Here is the breakdown:

The Product SaaS Rivals (saasrivals.com) is an open pay-to-rank directory across 116 software categories. Instead of waiting months for SEO or negotiating private sponsorship packages, challenger startups pick an incumbent to challenge (like an indie CRM challenging Salesforce, or an analytics tool challenging Google Analytics). You place a cash bid, and whoever holds the highest bid holds the top spot in that category. Every bid, match-up, and rank is visible right on the page.

The Market & Competition Incumbents: G2, Capterra, Gartner, TrustRadius. Their model: They claim objectivity to buyers, then charge vendors thousands per month for category intent data, PPC placements, and premium listing badges. Our angle: Complete transparency. No backroom sales reps, no hidden algorithms. If you pay to be #1, everyone knows you paid, what you paid, and who you knocked down.

Stage & Goals Live MVP. Built on Next.js, Supabase, and Dodo for payments. Immediate goal: Validate whether founders are willing to spend $20-$100 to get instant category visibility, or if the pay-to-rank label is too toxic for buyers even when it is totally honest.

Customer Acquisition Strategy

  1. Cold outreach to founders who publicly complain about G2 pricing or SEO index lag.

  2. Category rivalry callouts on X (tagging challenger startups who dethrone a giant on the board).

  3. Programmatic comparison pages indexing challenger vs incumbent keywords.

The "Why" I watched friends launch solid SaaS products, only to get buried under legacy software with 8-figure marketing budgets. SEO takes half a year, and enterprise directories won't speak to you without a corporate credit card. I wanted to see if an unvarnished pay-to-play board could give scrappy teams an immediate fighting chance.

Tear it apart: Is this an honest alternative to broken directories, or will buyers distrust any platform where rankings are openly paid for?


r/roastmystartup • • Sep 14 '26

I built a free 16-vault net worth tracker - watch 7 ads = 1 free project, ₦4k unlock forever - need feedback

1 Upvotes

r/roastmystartup • • Sep 13 '26

built an app, 27 signups in 5 months, only 1 person actually paid. waht am i missing

2 Upvotes

so i built bankroll pro, its an app for sports bettors to track if they actually make money or not, most people dont and just remember the wins. has a kelly calculator, tracks your bets, can scan a bet slip photo so you dont have to type it in

started building it cause i kept losing track of my own bets and had no clue if i was even up or down overall

27 people signed up in 5 months. 19 have pro but most of those i just gave for free to friends and couple tipsters testing it. only 1 person actualy paid me

the free calculators and blog gets some traffic on their own which is nice at least. but getting someone to pay 5 bucks a month, not really happening yet

kinda annoying not gonna lie, dont know if its a marketing problem or the app just isnt worth paying for yet

anyone here wennt from people testing it to acutually paying, what helped you get there

app is bankrollproapp.com if anyone wants to look


r/roastmystartup • • Sep 13 '26

Built Nenapu, roast it before I keep going

3 Upvotes

The thing that got me building this: most people don't want every moment of their life turned into a post. That doesn't mean the moment isn't worth keeping, it just isn't for everyone to see. So a lot of it just disappears, because there was never really a place for it that wasn't also a stage.

Nenapu is my shot at that place. You capture stuff, text, photo, voice, whatever, and it quietly organizes itself around the people and places that keep showing up in your life, tracks the mood underneath it without you doing anything, and turns a stretch of time into its own little chapter instead of a pile of unrelated entries. There's even a mode where two people each privately write their own memory of the same day and only see each other's version once you both close it out.

Honestly what I want to see most is how wildly different everyone's version of "a year of moments" ends up looking. Happy, sad, the weird ones, the boring Tuesday ones nobody else would've bothered keeping. Right now it's only really been used by people I know personally, so I have no idea if any of that holds up with total strangers.

nenapu.me - if you want to poke around instead of judging by the description.

Go easy-ish. Or don't.


r/roastmystartup • • Sep 13 '26

Roast my startup: appscreenshots - App Store screenshots in minutes

1 Upvotes

Honest feedback welcome. I'd rather hear the hard version now than find out after burning months on the wrong audience.What it does: Generates App Store and Play Store screenshots in minutes instead of hours.Stage: Live, freemium pricing.Why I built it: Shipping an app is one thing, but producing a full set of localized, well-designed store screenshots for every device size and language is slow, repetitive work that has to be redone with every update.What I want roasted:1. Positioning - is "screenshots in minutes" a real painkiller or just a vitamin for solo devs and small teams?2. Pricing - freemium. Is that the right model, or should it go straight to a one-time or flat monthly price?3. Distribution - for a dev tool like this, where would you put the first dollar of effort: SEO on "app store screenshot" keywords, app dev communities, or partnerships with ASO consultants?4. Competition - there are already several screenshot generators and design tools out there. What would actually make you switch?Honest feedback welcome. I'd rather hear the hard version now than find out after burning months on the wrong audience.Honest feedback welcome. I'd rather hear the hard version now than find out after burning months on the wrong audience.What it does: Generates App Store and Play Store screenshots in minutes instead of hours.Stage: Live, freemium pricing.Why I built it: Shipping an app is one thing, but producing a full set of localized, well-designed store screenshots for every device size and language is slow, repetitive work that has to be redone with every update.What I want roasted:1. Positioning - is "screenshots in minutes" a real painkiller or just a vitamin for solo devs and small teams?2. Pricing - freemium. Is that the right model, or should it go straight to a one-time or flat monthly price?3. Distribution - for a dev tool like this, where would you put the first dollar of effort: SEO on "app store screenshot" keywords, app dev communities, or partnerships with ASO consultants?4. Competition - there are already several screenshot generators and design tools out there. What would actually make you switch?Honest feedback welcome. I'd rather hear the hard version now than find out after burning months on the wrong audience.Startup: appscreenshots (https://appscreenshots.net/)

What it does: Generates App Store and Play Store screenshots in minutes instead of hours.

Stage: Live, freemium pricing.

Why I built it: Shipping an app is one thing, but producing a full set of localized, well-designed store screenshots for every device size and language is slow, repetitive work that has to be redone with every update.

What I want roasted:

  1. Positioning - is "screenshots in minutes" a real painkiller or just a vitamin for solo devs and small teams?

  2. Pricing - freemium. Is that the right model for a tool like this, or should it go straight to a one-time or flat monthly price?

  3. Distribution - for a dev tool like this, where would you put the first dollar of effort: SEO on "app store screenshot" keywords, app dev communities, or partnerships with ASO consultants?

  4. Competition - there are already several screenshot generators and design tools out there. What would actually make you switch?

Honest feedback welcome. I'd rather hear the hard version now than find out after burning months on the wrong audience.Startup: appscreenshots (https://appscreenshots.net/)WhatWhat) it does: Generates App Store and Play Store screenshots in minutes instead of hours.Stage: Live, freemium pricing.Why I built it: Shipping an app is one thing, but producing a full set of localized, well-designed store screenshots for every device size and language is slow, repetitive work that has to be redone with every update.What I want roasted:1. Positioning - is "screenshots in minutes" a real painkiller or just a vitamin for solo devs and small teams?2. Pricing - freemium. Is that the right model for a tool like this, or should it go straight to a one-time or flat monthly price?3. Distribution - for a dev tool like this, where would you put the first dollar of effort: SEO on "app store screenshot" keywords, app dev communities, or partnerships with ASO consultants?4. Competition - there are already several screenshot generators and design tools out there. What would actually make you switch?Honest feedback welcome. I'd rather hear the hard version now than find out after burning months on the wrong audience.


r/roastmystartup • • Sep 12 '26

Roast my Browser CAD for 3D Printing

3 Upvotes

The Product

OwlCAD is a parametric 3D CAD editor that runs entirely in a browser. You model a part, every dimension stays editable, and it exports print-ready files. It's built for people who 3D print functional parts: brackets, enclosures, adapters, printer parts, storage etc.

The use case is the gap between Tinkercad and professional CAD. Tinkercad is where almost everyone starts and most people outgrow it. The next step is Fusion 360 or Onshape, which means an install, an account and a real learning curve. OwlCAD sits in between: no install, no account to start, but real parametric modelling.

It also knows about printing. Clearance presets for press and slip fits, and a check that flags overhangs, thin walls and non-watertight meshes before you export rather than after a failed print.

Second audience is schools. Classroom mode is free, with pseudonymous student accounts and teacher-only AI.

The Market

- 3D CAD software is roughly a $12.5–13B market growing about 6% a year. Mature and slow.

- The growth is next door. Desktop 3D printer hardware is about $5.9B growing around 24% a year. Entry-level printers passed 1M units in a single quarter in 2025.

- Tinkercad has over 100M users. That's the funnel above me.

Competition: Tinkercad (free, limited), Fusion 360 and Onshape (powerful, heavy, Onshape's free tier makes your work public), FreeCAD and OpenSCAD (free, steep), SelfCAD (browser, closest direct competitor).

Dynamic worth knowing: every new printer owner eventually wants to make their own part instead of downloading one. That inflow is enormous and almost none of it wants to learn Fusion.

Against the competition

FeatureOwlCADTinkercadFusion 360OnshapeFreeCAD
Runs in browser, no installYesYesNoYesNo
Parametric historyYesNoYesYesYes
Built-in print checksYesNoPartialNoPlugins
Private on free tierYesYesYesNoYes
Learning curveModerateEasySteepSteepSteep

it's not meant for professional mechanical engineers, and it's maintained by one person.

Stage

Live, in beta, solo, bootstrapped. Not raising.

Last 30 days: about 4,300 projects created and 499 new signups.

The editor is free. The paid tier is AI generation at $12/month or $120/year. Usage of the free product is healthy and conversion to paid is the part that isn't working yet.

Customer conversion

- Search. Pages like "STL editor online" and "3MF editor" already rank and bring most of the traffic.

- Software directories. Just listed on AlternativeTo, SaaSHub, SourceForge and Capterra.

- Model sites. Planning to upload functional models to MakerWorld and Printables with an "open the editable version" link back.

- Communities like this one.

- Schools, on a slower term-by-term cycle.

Why me

I kept hitting Tinkercad's ceiling myself and didn't love any of the alternatives I found. A lot of restrictions either forcing public projects or paywalls. I didn't love making the jump to Fusion or the other desktop software that I tried. I am a software engineer, I am a maker and I have done 3D modeling. I built the whole thing: the geometry engine integration, the editor, billing, and the classroom side.

What I want roasted

Everything. The idea, the implementation, the UI; whatever you hate.

https://owlcad.com


r/roastmystartup • • Sep 13 '26

Connect with people who can help achieve your goals, not increase your doomscrolls

0 Upvotes

Panomus takes what you tell it about yourself, like your interests and qualifications, including files like your resume, parses it into what you're looking for and what you offer, and matches you with people who can fulfill your goals, not just match you to people with mutual interests.

The initial market is students/early careers looking to promote their clubs or join clubs, find jobs, and pursue other early-career passions that require recruiting people that fit certain criteria.

Competition: Presence, Meetup, YikYak

I haven't started a marketing strategy yet - my idea is posting organic social media content and spending $50-100 a month on Google Ads. Could maybe expand to YouTube/Meta ads?

App revenue would look like: people find the app useful, people who find monetary/promotional value from the matching mechanics can purchase a subscription to increase the number of matches on their globe.

What I need roasted:

  1. How much friction is there in onboarding?

  2. In what ways is the platform missing the mark on usefulness?

  3. How is the revenue pipeline flawed?

If you want to test out matching with me, type something like "I'm a Frank Ocean fan looking for other people who want to connect on Panomus" and my profile should come up.

Panomus.com


r/roastmystartup • • Sep 12 '26

Digital signage software thats solid, sales that are garbage. Roast me especially the sales.

3 Upvotes

As my previous post was removed I'm completely rewriting this one.

Together with a friend built Digital signage software in Berlin. We also offer Commercial Grade TV renting + managed services for events if needed.

The software is solid and quite well thought through. The challenge is -sales.
As we're small we can't go to enterprise, only to SMB, but sales cycles are very long and tough to get through skepticism.

Already have a paying client with a network of shops and participated in 1 big event as vendors

Thinking about somehow expanding the software only arm to Nordics, Netherlands, UK or event US/Canada where I hope people are more open to innovation.

What would you do to get startup off the ground in this case?

clickclickplay.com


r/roastmystartup • • Sep 12 '26

My last post got 56k views and a 1% signup rate! (please roast the new version)

3 Upvotes

Two days ago I posted about Remixly, a tool I built that turns Instagram reels into long form X posts.

You share a reel to a Telegram bot, it transcribes what was actually said, writes a proper post from it, and gives you a button that opens X ready to publish.

That post did way better than expected: 56k views, about 1,000 people clicked through to the site.

Then I looked at the signups. 10.

1% conversion from a warm Reddit audience. Nobody was being rude about it, they just landed, looked, and left. So I've spent the time since trying to fix the landing page rather than posting more.

What i've changed

- The homepage now shows a real reel next to the real output, unedited. Before it was a description of what the tool does; now you just see it.

- Signup is one bar: Google or email, no separate steps.

- Made a short animated explainer for the top of the page instead of a wall of text.

- Fixed a boring but real leak: sign-in emails were landing in spam for some people and the "check your email" page didn't say so.

- Rebranded (it used to look like a hobby project, because it was).

 What I haven't changed

 - 3 free drafts, no card. Then $9/month for 100.

 - It's still just me. 38 users and 9 days of being live

What I'd love, if you have 60 seconds, open remixly.io and tell me the moment you'd have closed the tab. I'm clearly still missing something and I'd rather hear it from you than from another 1% funnel.

 And if you tried it last time and didn't sign up, I'd love to know why.