About 1 year and 7 months ago, I started my journey as a solo developer, hoping to eventually turn it into a sustainable business.

Since then, I've shipped 9 products, earned roughly $3,000 in total revenue, and still have no MRR.

What kept me going was the occasional validation. One product was featured by MacStories, the kind of coverage that could've changed an indie developer's life a few years ago. For me, it barely moved the needle.

As revenue wasn't enough to sustain the business, I turned to freelance and contract work to keep things afloat. I've had discussions around $5,000+ contracts, some coming painfully close to closing before falling through.

Every time I considered quitting, something gave me hope. Just enough validation to keep going, never enough to make it sustainable.

I know I can build and ship software, but financially, I have very little to show for nearly two years of effort.

I've considered getting a job, but the tech market feels worse than ever, especially without traditional employment experience.

I still believe something could click. I'm just not sure how much longer I can afford to keep trying.

For those who've been here, what eventually changed things?

I recently had the pleasure of spending two weeks in SF for Tech Week and Disrupt. I got to meet a lot of incredibly bright people and had a lot of fun seeing the startup scene on the ground level. The one thing that I caught wind of was the amount of larping going on from within these 'prestigious' incubators.

So what are they doing?

Well, they basically all sell to each other and then post about it all over X and in their pitch decks flexing their ARR. I buy 30 seats of your SAAS at $25/seat and you buy 10 of my seats at $75/seat. Net result - we just got $9k+ of ARR. Nice!

I thought, hey everyone should have access this!

Put a credit card in with a spend limit, and do instant swaps of ARR from one business card to another (or many)

Anyways, curious what you all think of this activity or the other stuff that people don't really talk about in the startup world

Hey everyone!

Although I've been involved in software development for a while, I wouldn't even consider myself a junior developer, since I've never had a proper job in the field (apart from a paid, part-time university project).

Over the past few months, I've been developing a web app and a mobile app. They're two different products, but they're complementary to each other. Along the way, I've been learning the fundamentals of Flutter, FastAPI, and SQL, as well as software development concepts, particularly those related to mobile development.

At this point, I'd estimate the project is around 60–70% complete. However, I've built almost everything the old-fashioned way: learning as I go and writing the code myself. My use of AI has been limited to free plans and web-based interfaces. I mainly use AI as a learning tool. I spend a lot of time discussing things with it, and whenever it generates code, I make sure to read, understand, and review everything. At the end of the day, everything goes through my hands.

My original plan was to start relying much more heavily on AI after finishing the MVP. However, given how far AI has come, I'm wondering whether I should change my approach now rather than later.

On the one hand, I could keep developing the way I have been so far, strengthen my fundamentals, and maintain control over the codebase. On the other hand, I could start using AI tools much more intensively, delegate a significant portion of the implementation, and focus on finishing the product and launching it as soon as possible.

I estimate that completing the remaining 30–40% would take me around four months with my current approach. By leveraging AI much more heavily, I might be able to cut that down to just one month.

My concern is that by accelerating development this way, I might lose some control over the codebase and miss out on learning fundamentals that I still need to master.

What would you do in my position? Would you stick to a more traditional approach until the MVP is finished, or start working much more intensively with AI right now? How would you strike a balance between learning to code properly and taking advantage of tools that can dramatically speed up development?

Long post, because this thing got a little out of hand.

TL;DR: I built an email marketing operating system that handles almost the entire workflow, from client onboarding and monthly strategy to drafting, revisions, design handoff, segmentation and scheduling. At one point it helped me manage up to 16 client accounts at the same time while cutting a lot of repetitive operational work.

Over time I built an workflow around almost the entire email marketing delivery process.

At this point it handles almost everything from onboarding a new client to having approved scheduled campaigns.

The only production step that still remains manual is the actual email design, although I’m already working on that.

The reason was simple. I was managing a lot of accounts at once and the bottleneck wasn’t writing copy, but keeping all the context, rules, approvals, products, offers, reviews, segments and campaign logic in my head, so I started turning all of that into a system.

What the workflow actually does

- Client onboarding
Scrapes the client website, builds the brand guide, product catalog, current offers, product descriptions, reviews/social proof, links, pricing and other brand-specific knowledge.

- Monthly brief
I input whatever the client gives me for the month. Detailed brief, a few product priorities, a promotion, launch, or even nothing.

- Strategy
Checks previous campaigns and performance (connected to ESP), historical angles, subject lines, products, current offers, holidays, seasonal relevance, previous months’ drafts and what has already been pushed recently.

- Product + angle selection
Chooses products and messaging angles based on historical performance, seasonality, offer relevance, product context and the rest of the monthly campaign plan.

- Drafting
Creates the monthly email drafts using the strategy, brand guide, product data, offers, real customer reviews and client-specific copy rules.

- Client review
Exports the drafts into a normal human-readable format for client approval and feedback.

- Editor / revisions
Takes client comments, changes only what needs changing, and re-checks the updated email against all brand and copy rules.

- Design handoff
Creates/updates task management system and sends approved copy to the correct designer.

- Designed email review
Pulls the completed ESP drafts and creates a client-facing table with web-view links for review.

- Corrections
If the client requests visual changes, the workflow routes the feedback back to the designer through task management system and brings the campaign back into review once completed.

- Segmentation + exclusions
Applies client-specific audience rules, target segments, engagement windows and exclusions.

- Follow-ups, campaign variants or different types of sending
Duplicates campaigns when needed, creates follow-up sends and prepares different audience versions. Can send first to the most engaged audience, then progressively broader segments while excluding everyone already targeted in previous tiers.

- Scheduling
Once approved, schedules the campaigns through the API using the client-specific sending rules.

So the actual flow is basically:

brief > strategy > drafts > client review > revisions > design > review > corrections > segmentation > scheduling

Under the hood this became pretty big.

There are a lot of scripts, skills, markdown files, APIs, client-specific rules and handoffs behind it.

At some point it stopped feeling like a bunch of automations and started feeling more like an email marketing operating system.

Generating copy is easy. The harder part is knowing what was previously sent, what performed, which product makes sense currently, what offer is active, which review supports the message, how the brand talks, who should receive the email, who needs to be excluded, what the client approved and what still needs fixing.

The impact on my workload was pretty significant. New client onboarding went from a working day to roughly 30 minutes. Creating around 8 monthly email drafts for an established client went from roughly 3–4 hours to around 20 minutes for the initial draft set.

But the biggest result was capacity. At one point I was managing up to 16 client accounts simultaneously, because most of the repetitive operational work was no longer being done manually.

For me, the breakthrough was turning a large part of the delivery process into a system. That’s what actually created leverage. I got less repetitive work, more capacity, and fewer things falling through the cracks.

I've spent 10+ years around fundraising deals, and the pattern repeats: founders raise because it feels like the next step, not because the business needs it yet.

Here's what raising too early usually costs:

• You sell 20% of your company when it's worth the least

• You start reporting to investors before you know what works

• You feel pressure to spend fast instead of learning fast

• Your next round has to justify a valuation you haven't earned yet

Meanwhile, founders who wait until they have real customers and some revenue often raise less, give up less, and negotiate from strength.

That doesn't mean never raise. Some markets reward speed, and capital buys speed. But "everyone else is raising" isn't a reason.

My rule of thumb: raise when money is the only thing standing between you and a clear next milestone. Not before.

So, two questions:

1. Founders who raised early: was it worth it, or do you wish you'd waited?

2. Founders who waited: did it make the raise easier?

Curious where this community lands.

I’m looking to incorporate an LLC/C-Corp in Delaware/Wyoming. I’m not a resident of the US.

I’m looking for a reliable registered agent in the US who can help me with incorporating the company, ensure that I’m upto date with any yearly tax obligations in the US, and where I can use their US business address for my company. I want a service that isn’t crazy expensive, but is reliable and ensures I’m upto date on all my filing/tax obligations. Does anyone have any recommendations?

I’ve done a deep dive on Reddit and seen great reviews about Northwest Registered Agent, but the overwhelmingly positive reviews makes me feel like they could be paid reviews? Does anyone have any personal experiences with them - either positive or negative? Or any other recommendations?

Also in addition to a registered agent, would you recommend hiring a lawyer/law firm to analyse my company’s tax obligations in the US, or is it not required? Any reasonably priced recommendations for this?

Context: B2B tool, week one after launch. 18 sign-ups, 7 completed setup, 5 used it, 1 came back.

Traffic is back to baseline after the launch spike.

My first-principles answer is "fix activation first": every new visitor today leaks at the same step, so reach just makes the leak bigger. The counter-argument I keep hearing is that 18 is too small a sample to optimise a funnel on, and you need volume before the data means anything.

For those who've been here: which did you do first, and what number told you it was time to switch?

So, i have done previous posts here where i discussed the subscriptions i have to promote my product.
I also got a few users from x and linkedin premium i used for networking.

Now, I am getting Zero results from Meta ads. All I got something was from SEO for which i used pilotdeck but the problem is it can't be amplified, spoke to their team but they only provide max 30 human written blogs a month. Shall i hire a freelancer and create bulk pages for SEO? Or if not SEo than what other platform shall I use to run ads? Reddit or linkedin ads.

My product is into parenting.

Hi ! I’m doing research on the best company to help me with everything I need for my startup (I’m a soloprenuer) regarding opening a LLC in USA. I’m not looking for funds in a venture capital.

Currently I have the following companies in my radar:

1. Globafy
   
2. Neubase
   
3. A law firm with presence both in my home country and in USA

I’m looking probably to open a Single-Member LLC en Wyoming

Any recommendations ?
Thanks !!

I’m 37 and have had a successful sales career in highly complex enterprise technology within the aerospace sector. I currently work for a large company but I have worked at several small companies, including my last job where I was the first sales person hired and I took it from $7M in revenue to $20M in 24 months, scaling from 8 to 40 employees. I’ve grown my current business from 10M annually to 65M in 6 years. Having worked for both small and large companies and across many industries, I’d consider myself fairly well rounded in experience.

That said, I have long considered building a business on the side that would provide a second income stream and also protection (I don’t see many past 50 working in in field), so future proofing my income is the goal. I’m also very oriented towards the service industry that won’t be so easily disrupted by AI (I currently work with AI and I will barf if I hear about another AI startup). I’d want this to grow to something that would afford me true financial independence long term, defined as not having to work and not having to worry.

Personally I’ve built up $3M in savings/retirement (I max out everything including a back-door Roth) and my income fluctuates between $400K and $700K per year. I have pretty strong work life balance despite a fair bit of travel (25-50% depending on what’s going on). The reason I bring this up is this is my biggest mental barrier to starting a business is I make really good money now with high quality of life. Looking at dumping another 500-750 hours into a business that might do $250K in revenue at 20% net margin is hard math for me to swallow. But I’m no stranger to 60-80 hour work weeks either.

When I look at the numbers of certain businesses, the revenue output is far less per hour compared to what I’m doing today. I understand it could/would grow, but effectively I’d be sacrificing quality of life while simultaneously lowering my output. This is perhaps the most important *metric* I’m measuring as it relates to this decision: output. In 24 months I would need to be producing more output (dollars per hour) than I am right now. On the low end I’m at $260 per hour now.

For those reasons above, picking a business/industry and pulling the trigger has been difficult. I need something I can scale part time, where the constraints that would govern the business are things I could mostly handle, and ideally the capital to start is relatively low. While I’ve considered buying businesses as well, I look at debt service and a PG as a possible non-starter that puts at risk my current income and assets.

So in short: I have a strong W-2 job I plan to keep, a sales background, and capital to invest, but I won't risk my retirement savings. I want a scalable business that can eventually run without me and be possibly sold. I would love anyone’s advice or insight as to how to proceed. Questions burning in my head:

**Industry and opportunity*\*

1. Given my situation, what business would you start or buy today?
2. What overlooked industries are boring but highly profitable?
3. Where would a strong salesperson have an unfair advantage?
4. What industry would you tell me to avoid, and why?

**Buy vs. Start*\*
5. In my position, would you buy or start, and why?
6. Which path gets to stable cash flow fastest with the least owner time?
7. What makes an acquisition a good turnaround versus a trap?
8. Which path builds more value toward a large exit?

**Running it alongside a job*\*
9. Has anyone successfully run a business while keeping a demanding job? What made it work?
10. When did you know it was time to hire someone to run it, and what did that cost?
Money and downside
11. How do you structure a business so a failure can't touch personal assets?
12. How much capital and time did it take you to reach break-even?

**Blind spots and hindsight*\*
13. What do people with great jobs consistently underestimate about starting a business?
14. What would you do differently if you were starting today?
15. What am I not thinking about?
16. Who else should I be talking to?

I’m pretty torn on what to do at this point and would appreciate some advice from other founders who’ve been in a similar position.
I started a B2B software company almost two years ago. I’m currently the only employee, although I’ve been through about five different employees and contractors along the way.
I don’t have a software engineering background, but I’ve basically built the entire product myself, largely using AI. We now have over 230 users in a niche market, solving a real problem with real, paying, recurring customers. It may not sound like a lot but it’s a niche, high dollar value customer base and it’s continuing to grow.

It’s entirely possible that we could generate another $500k in revenue over the next six months. But it’s also entirely possible that we only generate $100k. There’s a lot of uncertainty, and that’s part of what’s making this decision difficult.

Here’s my dilemma.
I want to hire a software developer to take over the development side of things so I can focus on actually growing the business. The problem is that I’ve really struggled to find the right person.

In my experience with previous developers and contractors, I’ve often found that it’s easier to just use AI and build things myself rather than explain everything to someone else. But the downside is that doing it myself still takes a tremendous amount of time.

On one hand, I desperately want someone to take this work off my plate. On the other hand, if I have to explain exactly how to do everything, I feel like I might as well just do it myself.

Part of the challenge is that our software is in the financial services space and requires a significant amount of subject matter expertise. It’s not something where I can just tell a developer, “Hey, go build this feature,” and expect them to figure it out. There’s a lot of domain-specific knowledge involved.
I’ve tried just about everything to find someone. I’ve reached out to our users, posted on job boards, tried recruiting through Reddit, and ultimately ended up working with a recruiter.

We finally found someone who we think could be a really good fit. The problem is that it’s really expensive and it feels like I’m burning precious capital.

Just the recruiter’s fee alone is around $35k, on top of the developer’s salary.
I realize that potentially generating $500k in revenue over six months sounds great, but that’s far from guaranteed. If we only generate $100k, suddenly I’ve got a serious cash flow problem, especially after committing to a full-time salary and a $35k recruiting fee.
So I’m sitting here trying to figure out whether I should take the financial risk and hire this person, or just keep doing what I’ve been doing and continue building the product myself with AI.

The business is working. We have paying customers. There’s clearly demand. But I also know I can’t keep spending all my time developing the software if I want to grow the company.

For founders who’ve been in this position, what did you do? At what point did you decide it was worth taking the financial risk to bring on a developer, especially when you were already capable of building the product yourself?

Would love to hear from people who’ve actually dealt with this.

I’ve built a working prototype where people create questions about news, sports, politics, and internet events, then predict the outcomes using free points but targetting south Asian countires.

Looking for a US-based cofounder interested in the same to help shape the product and grow an early community. Still early stage, so there’s plenty to build together. (DW I have claude max)

DM me if this sounds interesting!

I'm deciding between 3 online marketplace ideas and would appreciate honest feedback on which is most viable and worth pursuing.

1. Event Photography & Videography Marketplace

A platform where companies book vetted photographers and videographers for corporate events, conferences and brand activations through predefined packages. The platform earns a commission on each booking. The market is competitive, with low barriers to entry and limited differentiation.

2. Sponsorship & Audience Access Marketplace

A platform where brands discover and book sponsorship opportunities across newsletters, digital publications, webinars, coworking spaces, communities, clubs and events. Providers list and fulfil their own opportunities, while the platform takes a 10% commission. Similar platforms exist elsewhere, but I haven't found a consolidated equivalent in my local market. Demand and market maturity remain uncertain.

3. Clubs & Communities Marketplace

A platform where clubs, social groups and community organizers book activities, experiences and venues for their members, from sports sessions and creative workshops to cafés and unique gathering spaces. It also connects communities with brands for sponsorships, product sampling and brand-funded experiences. Revenue comes from booking commissions and sponsorship transactions. Challenges include fragmented supply, small transaction values, competition and the effort required to secure sponsorships. Revenue with 10% booking commission and also from facilitating brand sponsorships.

If you were starting from scratch, which would you pursue, and why? Consider profitability, ease of customer acquisition, barriers to entry, revenue potential, repeat demand and the path to building a sustainable business with minimal upfront capital.

I have completed my Bachelor of Physiotherapy (BPT) and currently live in Pune, India.

My interest goes beyond clinical practice. I like identifying problems in healthcare, understanding clinical workflows, researching solutions, and building tools that can make healthcare professionals’ work easier.

Over time, I’ve started building a couple of early-stage healthcare technology prototypes. However, I’m currently short on money, need a stable income, and am struggling to decide what my next step should be.

What have I built so far?

1. A home rehabilitation monitoring prototype

The idea is to improve communication between physiotherapists and their supervisors during post-operative rehabilitation.

The prototype has two views:

- Physiotherapist/student view: Records rehabilitation visits, knee range of motion, pain, swelling, walking ability, exercise completion, and warning signs.

- Supervisor view: Displays patient progress, highlights potential concerns, and allows the supervising clinician to review cases that may need attention.

The broader goal is to reduce scattered documentation and make it easier for clinical teams to follow patients receiving rehabilitation at home.

1. A structured rehabilitation report for surgeons

I’ve also created a sample discharge and rehabilitation progress report that could help surgeons understand how their patients are recovering after surgery.

Instead of relying only on what a patient remembers or on a collection of separate documents, the report brings together information such as:

- Changes in knee range of motion and pain

- Walking ability and functional assessments

- Recovery milestones

- Recorded warning signs

- Progress across physiotherapy visits

The idea is that a patient could bring this report to a surgeon’s follow-up appointment, giving the surgeon a clearer summary of the rehabilitation information available.

I’ve attached screenshots of the prototype and a sample report. These are early demonstrations using fictional patient data, not a clinically validated or deployed product.

Here is my actual dilemma.

I have completed my degree, I can understand clinical problems, and I enjoy working on healthcare research, documentation, presentations, and product ideas.

But building a healthcare product requires time, money, clinical feedback, and eventually proper validation. I cannot keep working on it indefinitely without earning an income.

I’m not looking for investors or donations. I need a paid job, preferably in Pune or in a suitable remote role, while figuring out whether these ideas can become viable products.

I’m interested in opportunities involving healthcare operations, clinical research support, healthtech product teams, clinical implementation, medical documentation, healthcare content, or other roles where a physiotherapy background is useful.

I would appreciate honest advice from founders and people working in healthtech.

1. What should I prioritise right now? Should I find a job in a healthtech company or hospital first and develop the product alongside it?

2. How would you validate these prototypes? Should I speak to surgeons, physiotherapists, hospital administrators, or home healthcare companies first?

3. Which job roles should I realistically target? I have a BPT degree and experience building these prototypes, but I need to understand where I could contribute professionally and earn.

4. What would you do next if you were in my position? Would you continue developing the product, pause development until you have clinical feedback, or take a different approach?

I’m trying to avoid making the mistake of spending months building something without confirming that it solves a problem people actually need solved.

I would value practical criticism, suggestions about the right first step, and advice on finding paid opportunities in the Indian healthtech ecosystem.

Thank you.

So I have seen many founders on X and some on Reddit claiming that they got several equity free grants for their company not from their university or something but from orgs or global companies? Anybody here had similar experience? If you, did can you please share the process or any experience of yours?

Thanks

So I am in an early stage of startup. I got the AWS Activate credits, and I still need some compute power, is there any interesting programs to apply to. I am building a product to run both on cloud and locally.

Also, if there are other interesting programs to apply to in any way made to help startups build their MVP ?

Hey everyone!

I'm exploring a startup idea in the solar energy space and would love some honest feedback before building anything.

The problem:

People and businesses with solar panels and batteries often rely on different apps to monitor their energy production, consumption, and storage.

For companies that maintain solar installations, this gets even more complicated. Technicians may need to monitor hundreds of installations across different manufacturers (Huawei, Fronius, SolarEdge, etc.).

Sometimes, a solar system starts underperforming without triggering an obvious error. The issue might go unnoticed until the customer complains or someone manually checks the system.

The idea:

A single platform that connects to existing solar inverters and battery systems and provides:

• One dashboard to monitor multiple installations, regardless of manufacturer.
• Automatic detection of unusual drops in solar production.
• Alerts when something might be wrong, before it becomes a bigger problem.
• Battery and energy consumption monitoring.
• Prioritized maintenance alerts so technicians know which installations need attention first.

The goal isn't to replace existing hardware or manufacturer apps, but to bring everything together and make maintenance more proactive.

I'd love your thoughts:

1. Does this sound like a real problem worth solving, or are existing solutions already good enough?
2. If you work in solar installation or maintenance, how do you currently monitor your systems?
3. Would companies actually pay for something like this?
4. What's the biggest flaw you see in this idea?

I'm still at the validation stage, so I'm particularly interested in criticism, not just encouragement.

Thanks!

Someone who at least claimed to be a millionaire on this sub said the way they did it and perhaps easy way to do it is to work in and industry, find the niche gaps, and then sell a solution to those gaps.

I work for a hyperscaler company. A colleague and I have identified a safety gap in the datacenter that we don’t see much discussion about in the industry but appears that it the gap will only get worse with the AI buildout. We worked with a vendor using company money to develop a bandaid solution for one particular datacenter.

The thought crossed our minds that why don’t we set up and moonlight an LLC to create a new and improved product with a different vendor and start selling this safety solution to the broader industry. Surely we will have used some qualitative learnings from the work with the previous vendor - learnings that would lead to a new and better idea than the bandaid solution we came up with - but we wouldn’t use any direct IP developed with the vendor during our time at the company.

I ran this notion through 2 AI chat bots and both destroyed me, citing legal concerns, conflict of interest etc. They said that even though we wouldn’t use direct IP, because the idea came to us during the normal course of business with our company, and it “relates to the employer’s current business” that our company has the rights to the new product idea we would come up with. Further, they cited concerns about “duty to employer” as we would potentially be selling this product to our own hyperscaler when we have a duty to make the product internally and therefore the company benefit without us taking a cut. Amongst a few other points, NDAs, trade secrets, confidential information - even if all moonlighting activity is performed after work and on weekends.

But this got me to beg the question. How does anyone moonlight and then (or) leave industry to start a business selling a solution to a gap they found while in industry if they would have discovered and potentially worked on solutions to the gap while employed. The AI chat bots made it seem like their old employers would all have a right to that IP. Are the chat bots right but over stating the likelihood that an old employer would actually care and sue?

I’m a cofounder and the CTO of a startup in a fairly niche B2B sector. We started 5 years ago, and have been bootstrapped this entire time. We’ve grown our customer list pretty effectively and have many leads in the works still.

Problem is, I’m super burned out. For 5 years I’ve been putting in 60-70 hour weeks, and it’s really getting to me. To top it off, I feel that my salary is below what I could make as a standard software engineer with my experience. We’ve recently decided to do a proper VC raise, and had a mentorship meeting earlier today to get some guidance. I brought up that one of the things I’d like from the raising capital is to increase my salary, so that I’d be getting market rate. He basically laughed at that idea, and said that there is no respectable VC that would be willing to let a cofounder make market rate pay after only a Series A. So now I feel like I’m working twice the hours of a standard job and making half as much, which has gotten me pretty down.

Of note, although we’ve grown our developer team and have 5 devs under me, I still manage the majority of the production workloads. Managing infrastructure, security, architecture, roadmap, etc.. (which is obviously all my responsibility as a CTO). But I want to say that, without any ego, I’m the most valuable asset in the company. To the point that the other cofounders have taken out a keyman insurance policy on me just incase anything happens to me.

So now I’m really conflicted. If I leave I feel like the company won’t survive. But at the same time I’m tired of being overworked and underpaid. Lastly, if I do decide to leave I want to do it before any fundraising takes place, as the other thing the mentor has told me is that it’s common for the cofounders to revest half/all of their equity to show they are “all-in”. So if I want to not burn my equity I feel now is the best time to leave. The dead equity might be an issue for fundraising, but worst case they can buy me out maybe?

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Any possible advice you can share to help me with this decision. It is five years of building something from scratch, I don’t want to make this decision without taking everything into consideration.

Hey, I received an email from someone at Google, and I'm looking at the email. It's definitely someone from Google. The email address says its google, and the title is Apps, Games, New Business, and Growth Strategy (also LinkedIn looks really good). This person's email says that they're part of an accelerator program at Google, helping with paid growth.

A little about me: I have an app. It's a consumer app. It's not too big, to be honest, but we're definitely at a point in which we can scale. They were saying that they would give a product specialist, an account management team, and other resources, however the ad spend/budget is on us

Has anyone heard of this? Is this worth doing? it seems too good to be true

I’ve spent the last few months building a website for beatmakers to upload their music, create profiles and get discovered through a leaderboard.
I’ve put a lot of time into it. Probably too much, honestly. I’ve spent hours fixing little things, improving the music player, working on the design and adding features.
And now that the site is live, I’ve run into a problem I wasn’t really prepared for.
There just aren’t many people using it.
I’ve been contacting producers on SoundCloud and trying to spread the word, but getting someone to visit the site is one thing. Convincing them to actually upload a beat is another.
I think the biggest problem is that nobody really wants to post their music somewhere that doesn’t already have an audience. But without people uploading, it’s pretty hard to build that audience in the first place.
And I keep going back to working on the site because, well, that’s the part I know how to do.
I’m starting to realize I probably should’ve spent more time finding users before building so much.
Has anyone here built something that depends on users creating content?
How did you get past that initial stage where everything works, but the platform still feels empty?
I’d genuinely like to hear what worked for you, especially if you started with basically no audience.

Welcome to this week’s Feedback Thread!

Please use this thread appropriately to gather feedback:

• Feel free to request general feedback or specific feedback in a certain area like user experience, usability, design, landing page(s), or code review
• You may share surveys
• You may make an additional request for beta testers
• Promo codes and affiliates links are ONLY allowed if they are for your product in an effort to incentivize people to give you feedback
• Please refrain from just posting a link
• Give OTHERS FEEDBACK and ASK THEM TO RETURN THE FAVOR if you are seeking feedback
• You must use the template below--this context will improve the quality of feedback you receive

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Template to Follow for Seeking Feedback:

• Company Name:
• URL:
• Purpose of Startup and Product:
• Technologies Used:
• Feedback Requested:
• Seeking Beta-Testers: [yes/no] (this is optional)
• Additional Comments:

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This thread is NOT for:

• General promotion--YOU MUST use the template and be seeking feedback
• What all the other recurring threads are for
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Upvote This For Maximum Visibility!

I used to be in the camp that posting a bunch of half baked junk online was the wrong move. I'd think to myself, "What if someone sees it and shits all over it"?

Realistically though, nobody fucking cares. Nobody will even see your work, or click the login, or get far enough to realize that you've published a pile of dogshit.

And if they do, that's great! That's awesome feedback actually! Because it means that you've found something that people hate so much that they can list out their grievances with your AI dogshit SaaS app. And then you can improve.

But if you stay put, and don't ship anything until it's perfect, nobody will see that either. And that's just as bad! Shipping a bunch of what you think is still slop will give you 3 things:

1. Frequent at-bats. An idiot in motion makes more progress than a genius at rest. And even if nobody sees it, that's fine! No feedback is a form of feedback.
2. Get you out of a rut and into a habit of shipping. It's so much easier when you have momentum.
3. If you're introspective enough, and see your pile of AI garbage, you'll say "wow, this was ass!" And hopefully you'll adjust. Taste is a muscle you grow by building and publishing.

Whatever you are working on is probably slop anyway! So please just ship your slop.

Long ass rant:

Man I have been searching for a design partner so long and literally nothing. The problem is real, people validate it. The solution is good it saves a lot of money. Still nobody fucking agrees to be a design partner. No one I am not even stealing data or anything and way cheaper than building in-house as well. And the thing is I am frustrated of fuvking human beings man the fvk man. Agents ain’t that good as well and fvking fable man it destroys me in so high level English that I don’t even understand why is it criticising me man. Fvk fvk fvk fvkf vk fvkf