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Every founder I know does the same thing before a raise. You send the deck to a friend. You ask, “is this compelling?” They say yes, maybe with one or two gentle notes, because they like you and they don’t want to be a jerk. That’s not really feedback. That’s a hug. So I built the opposite. It’s an open source skill on github that runs a pitch through ~150 simulated reviewers, modeled on public writing and interviews from real investors, founders, journalists, and operators. Then it aggr...

Hi everyone, I am having a deep decision battle and would love assistance. I am building a uk software solution for neurology clinics, it’s a class 1 medical device (for now we will eventually go higher) and we have pilots agreed to start in October this year. We have built prototypes for patient side and clinician side, tested usability with the patients which was all positive and have had Amazon and a cloud company build our aws landing zone. We now need to build the system into a pilot rea...

How tough is it to get into the EWOR Fellowship program? I was just rejected without anyone even bothering to watch my intro video lol The expected application review timeline was supposed to be 3 weeks, but apparently it was one weekend Has anyone here had better luck?

Hi everyone, I’m from India and looking for some brutal honesty and advice from anyone who works in corporate retail (think brands like Westside, Pantaloons, Lifestyle, etc.). My team and I have spent the last few months building an enterprise-grade B2B software solution aimed directly at the apparel and fashion retail sector. I won't pitch the exact product here to respect the sub's rules, but the core value proposition is a massive reduction in return rates and a highly interactive digital c...

Hi everyone, I'm curious to learn how many of you include cold emailing as part of your go-to-market (GTM) strategy. What tools or platforms have you used for prospecting, outreach, personalization, and email sequencing? Have your campaigns generated meaningful results in terms of meetings, leads, or revenue? Also, what has been the biggest challenge or most frustrating aspect of cold emailing for you? Was it finding quality leads, deliverability issues, personalization at scale, low respo...

I struggled with implementing AI in my business, only to see it fail after the initial pilot phase. I wish someone had warned me about this pitfall so I could avoid wasting resources. As an entrepreneur, I've invested countless hours and dollars into building a robust logistics system powered by agentic AI. The idea was to automate tasks and free up resources for more strategic initiatives. Sounds great in theory, but the reality is far from it. During the pilot phase, everything looked promis...

Hi everyone, I'm curious to learn how many of you include cold emailing as part of your go-to-market (GTM) strategy. What tools or platforms have you used for prospecting, outreach, personalization, and email sequencing? Have your campaigns generated meaningful results in terms of meetings, leads, or revenue? Also, what has been the biggest challenge or most frustrating aspect of cold emailing for you? Was it finding quality leads, deliverability issues, personalization at scale, low respo...

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I’m getting super tired of seeing founders announce “$1M ARR”, “500k Revenue run rate” when they launched 30 days ago… ARR is just a run rate. It tells us almost nothing about the quality or durability of the business. Maybe customers are excited today, but what happens in 3 months? 6 months? What if half of them churn next month??? A revenue spike is great, but it’s ZERO proof of product-market fit, a strong business model, or long-term demand. Yet every week...

I’m hitting a frustrating issue with a web app I built and wanted to see how other founders handle it. After finding some initial market validation, a few copycats popped up. They basically vibe coded clones and they are using lookalike domains with different TLDs (like .in or .pro versions of my exact brand name). It’s creating two major headaches: SEO Cannibalization: They are riding my coattails on branded search terms, muddying results for users looking for my official platform. ...

My cofounder and I are bootstrapping a SaaS in a niche US healthcare space. This space had two competitors until the big guy bought and discontinued the little guy. Now the big guy has a monopoly and everyone hates their product. (It hasn't changed much since the early 2000s). I'm technical. My cofounder is not. We both realize the incredible opportunity in front of us. We have talked to dozens of high value customers, all begging us to build a better product. I've actually been doing that fo...

I’m hitting a frustrating issue with a web app I built and wanted to see how other founders handle it. After finding some initial market validation, a few copycats popped up. They basically vibe coded clones and they are using lookalike domains with different TLDs (like .in or .pro versions of my exact brand name). It’s creating two major headaches: SEO Cannibalization : They are riding my coattails on branded search terms, muddying results for users looking for my official platform...

[Hiring/Seeking/Offering] Jobs / Co-Founders Weekly Thread This is an experiment. We see there is a demand from the community to: Find Co-Founders Hiring / Seeking Jobs Offering Your Skillset / Looking for Talent Please use the following template: **[SEEKING / HIRING / OFFERING]** (Choose one) **[COFOUNDER / JOB / OFFER]** (Choose one) Company Name: (Optional) Pitch: Preferred Contact Method(s): Link: (Optional) All Other Subreddit Rules Still Apply We understan...

My cofounder and I are bootstrapping a SaaS in a niche US healthcare space. This space had two competitors until the big guy bought and discontinued the little guy. Now the big guy has a monopoly and everyone hates their product. (It hasn't changed much since the early 2000s). I'm technical. My cofounder is not. We both realize the incredible opportunity in front of us. We have talked to dozens of high value customers, all begging us to build a better product. I've actually been doing that for...

My generalized idea is that food is prepared with the most basic, simple, raw ingredients that are as nutritionally healthy and shelf stable as possible but tastes boring. Costs $80 for a month's supply delivered versus that standard $500/month of groceries. I don't care about how much I profit and just want to keep food as cheap as nutritionally possible while putting as little money as possible in my own pocket. The problems that I need to consider what people actually want, if they'd buy fo...

I hate things like factor that charge $300-$900 for a month's supply of food. My idea is that food is prepared with the most basic, simple, raw ingredients that are as nutritionally healthy and shelf stable as possible. Costs $90 for a month's supply delivered. The problems that I need to consider is how much money is required for a startup and how to produce the product as safe and sterile as possible. For food that essentially tastes like outmeal and potatoes, Is $90 feasable per package? I ...

Anyone who got R1, R2 or rejection for PearX for Summer batch? I recently finished my R1 and waiting for my R2. Any idea on what the process looks like recently? What do they usually look for their batch as they are very selective. Anyone who went through their process in their previous batches?

Anyone who got R1, R2 or rejection for PearX for Summer batch? I recently finished my R1 and waiting for my R2. Any idea on what the process looks like recently? What do they usually look for their batch as they are very selective. Anyone who went through their process in their previous batches?

I’m a solo founder working on an AI consumer product and trying to figure out the most effective GTM strategy with a limited budget. My current approach is focused on organic growth. I’m trying to build a community through TikTok, Instagram, and Lemon8, and I’ve experimented with paying a small number of UGC creators to create content around the product. The goal right now is awareness and learning what messaging resonates. My plan is to identify the highest-performing organic content and th...

I’ve created an engine test kit, there’s a lot more to it but I don’t want to completely spill the beans on it. Anyways my problem is I need content. A partner that has access to used vehicles (maybe a mechanic or used car salesman). We can work out a deal, don’t need any buy in or anything.

Well since everyone is sharing their @vkhosla story, here is mine. It was 2016, we were just selected for YC interview and were asked to fly out to SF. We fly there and do our interview with YC. TURNS out the location around yc office is filled with tier 1 VCs including Vinod Khosla. There is a area called Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto where all of them have offices. We didn't try to meet him per say that day so no idea if he would have tried to break the cofounders or would have allegedly slept...

we have 3 teams using what we built. all 3 came through our network. and that's basically worthless as validation. not because they're lying. they're genuinely using it and saying good things. but there's no world where someone who knows you tells you your product is bad. they soften everything. they assume you know the obvious problems. they don't churn because churning feels rude (I've lost lots of individual users that I knew them, but I got zero login from strangers). the real signal only...

we have 3 teams using what we built. all 3 came through our network. and that's basically worthless as validation. not because they're lying. they're genuinely using it and saying good things. but there's no world where someone who knows you tells you your product is bad. they soften everything. they assume you know the obvious problems. they don't churn because churning feels rude (I've lost lots of individual users that I knew them, but I got zero login from strangers). the real signal only...

Five weeks ago we made an always-on AI agent pipeline our primary development workflow across almost every client project we run. It's a custom-built coding AI framework we developed in-house, based on our engineering principles and goals, layered on top of Claude Code. Since rolling it out, our cost of launching and maintaining production software is down by at least 60%, and most tickets (bugs, improvements and new features) are in a PR for human review within 15 minutes (!!!) of being filed. ...

I do LinkedIn personal branding and I got referral from one of my early days client she helped me connect with a VC firm, and they want to start another venture or the same service and they plan to sell the company once it’s valuable is 50cr+. It’s been 6 months since we are in touch. They will be a great lead source coz they ofc have a lot of founder and startups under them. But I’m confused if I should do it with them. A few business people I’ve asked the same question said that I should not l...

My managers were complaining about how they have to keep track of so many Slack channels and conversations, and how difficult it is to stay on top of everything. That got me thinking about a Slack observability platform. Managers could configure the Slack channels they want to monitor and connect various data sources. When conversations arise across these channels, managers would have a clear view of what's happening, what actions have already been taken, and what still needs attention. From a...

I’m a developer and I’m building a project management tool based on the industry I work in outside my day job. I’ve been following this subreddit for a while and most successful founders talk about distribution being a major factor in their success beyond product market fit. It’s not something I have much experience of but happy to test a few things out but not sure of the best approach. What are some of the best resources people have found to learn about distribution and customer acquisition?...

I’m a developer and I’m building a project management tool outside my day job based on the industry I work in. I’ve been following this subreddit for a while and most successful founders talk about distribution being a major factor in their success beyond product market fit. It’s not something I have much experience of but happy to test a few things out. What are some of the best resources people have found to learn about distribution and customer acquisition? Sounds like I’ve got a lot to le...

Hi everyone, I’m building a vertical short-drama app using Flutter and Supabase. To test the waters before launch, I pinned a simple text comment under a few videos on my gaming YouTube Shorts channel. People actually searched for the app on Google Play, and I reached 8,000+ pre-registrations. However, right after this, my TikTok account (380k followers) was permanently banned. It seems this cross-platform promotion triggered an algorithm penalty. Now I’ve lost my main marketing channel ...

I am currently in a startup as a founding engineer, working here from the starting. It's a bootstrapped startup where our CEO investing all the things. We are not generating any revenue as of now. It's been 1.3 years here and my CEO told me not to ask for raise for next 6 months. But my CEO wants to hire paid interns that I have never asked. It's really frustrating that they are not increasing my salary but ready to hire interns that eventually I need to manage. I am feeling like that I stop w...

I'm a U.S-based Data Engineer by trade and have an idea to address an EU regulatory requirement with financial institutions specifically. However. I honestly don't have compliance experience or the credibility needed to reasonably pitch this. The logical step after this would be to find an EU-based co-founder who DOES have this experience but then it becomes a battle of figuring out my own place in the business as at most I could contribute to the overall development of the product but have n...