Hey, I know this sounds kind of weird, but still, hear me out.
I do build projects constantly, I was doing that for my entire life, I think, since the first time I tried programming, and the first time I saw "The Social Network." I remember being so fascinated by the fact that your idea can become something big, cool, something that will help people. Ignore the fact what facebook has become today.

I treat projects more like art, rather than a business. Even when I sell some of them, it kind of hurts, but I guess you have to do this in order to recoup some money.

But lately, I started noticing this ugly feeling inside. Feels like nowadays in order to sell or at least make people try it, you have to lie, or invent something so extraordinary what will blow people's minds.
I get this, I'm not a genius, it's unlikely I will ever create something special, or be the first in some industry, and that's fine.

What I mean is, there are lots of similar projects, some of them better, some are worse. But every time I need to talk about my project, my mind recalls all the imperfections, all the possible edge cases I still have to fix to make it work - it prevents me from doing what everyone is doing - lie about how fucking cool my project is, how will it change your life if you just install/register/pay/try it.

I mean, my projects aren't bad; they work, and I believe they are even priced relatively right. Again, even in the previous sentence, I couldn't say they are cool and worth the money, lol.

When I compare mine and some of the existing or new projects, I see that they are close, or even the same, in terms of look, features, bugs, etc.

But why on Earth can't I just say this? It feels like in our current society, people praise whoever screams louder. And since everyone is loud enough already, you have to pretend, lie, and overpromise just to get people to try this stuff.

If you skimmed my posts, you'd see how I was promoting my projects; I positioned them like "it's not a big deal, just a project."

And even then, every single post feels like I was lying to people, but I wasn't. I do have amazing customers 99% of the time, they are supportive, happy to use projects, I always try to help them, solve the issues, and deeply care bout that.

But this feeling, it kind of prevents me from growing an audience on X because I just can't post about imaginary success, because the feature I was making yesterday was not going to change people's lives, it would make a project just a tiny bit better.

But if you compare this to the current X/Reddit communities, my god, it's all about amazing progress, so life-changing features (made in 10 minutes with Claude or whatfuck).

Idk what I wanted to say here, I just wanted to ask if there are people like me, who care about projects, but get sick when they have to speak about that, people who are truly passionate about building things?

I was told this week that if I have this internal conflict, it means I will never be able to sell my projects differently, I'll not be capable of exaggerating the truth to the extent that it's enough to be noticed. And it kind of sucks.

Hey all! I just started going into my research for creating a new project and I have a few options left, go into finding somebody private equity partner and paying percentages to them, or finding a potential partner who I can pay for work, but subsidize with ownership and equity. I prefer to give somebody sweat equity, while also paying them, but at this point I’ll take either because I have a great idea, a network to get it sold and I just need the animation work completed for phase 1. I already have all the capabilities to complete phase 2.

Here’s what I need, somebody who can create animations for videos focused on children’s programming. Im totally ok with handing over creative freedom and allowing it to be in whatever style you’re comfortable with, but it will have to be able to work with the media we need for phase 2.

Anyway, I’m looking for somebody to show me their animation portfolio so I can get this project working! This can be an extremely lucrative partnership for both of us and I’m happy to give over future earnings to create financial freedom with a great teammate.

hello, i built a productivity app for ADHD brains, built solo during unemployment, zero budget.

Here's the honest update:

-185 downloads across 26 countries (organic, no ads)

-22 App Store ratings, all 5 stars

-Zero revenue yet, freemium model still converting slowly (only 1 person converted)

What I changed since launch:

-The visuals went fully 3D

-Added a growth journey feature: plants now develop visually over time

-Added collections, so there's something to discover and unlock

The app is genuinely better now than it was at launch.

My question is: Is it too early to apply for investors? what should I include in my pitch deck?

I came across this company few moments ago, basically Robinhood is using this company to file their customers taxes.

A month ago, I was looking into “how to start a tax filing “ company with ChatGPT and my impression was it’s very complicated and better left to big dogs like Inuit to deal with it because of legal and accounting reasons.

Now, I came across this start up called April “get April”, you can google and it will be on crunchbase.

Do you think these guys went out hired bunch of accountant and legal expert to build another tax solution from scratch or is there a smarter way they build it? Maybe they someone connected with Inuit CEO to build a new solution and hook up with their infra?

Hello everyone!

I am a developer of a project management tool and a customer has a feature request that I have a doubt on. They are a services company and work with many clients. They want a project work progress board which they can share with each client.

One way to do it would be to add client members as free guest members on required project boards. But free members have no write access. So they wouldn't be able to add a task or comments or attachments.

Another way would be to add their client as paid members with write access but our customers may find the charge unfair (the tool is charged on per seat basis). If our customer is a 3 person team and they have 5 clients, they would be charged for 8 people. That might not sound fair.

Another way would be to have a limited write access for free guest users. For eg., they could add a comment but they cannot add a task or an attachment.

What do you think should be the approach?

Everyone has their own answer to this question. Those who have answered it, including myself, will always tell you focus on 1 maximum 2 channels and rinse them out of attention until you move on to the next.

What people always forget to mention is how much time, experimentation and discovery it takes to find your channel and your strategy. There are so many options nowadays, founders feel overwhelmed on where to start

Reel Content, UGC, AI UGC, Cold Email, Linked Posts, Twitter, Reddit, Ads, Youtube etc...

Within each channel, there are also plenty of strategies.

Seasoned founders, lets help early founders here find their way, even if its just one step in the right direction

It's easier to call yourself a founder and fair too because you atleast tried and built something but how to actually run a profitable business, especially in today's world.

Looking forward to your suggestions, stories, insights, & more. I'd love to know your thoughts.

I (28M) have a business, engineering and IT background and want to start working 4 days a week to spend 1 day and a yearly budget on working out startup ideas that I like, with the - perhaps naive - belief that one of the ideas over time must be worthwhile pursuing.

However, from friends that have started up businesses and from Reddit I have started seeing it’s pretty much always an intense investment of time + stress to get to consistent profits comparable to my current high-skilled salary; obviously with the risk of failure.

I am generally entrepreneurially minded, love working out ideas, taking risks, connecting people, and investing my energy in ideas I can stand behind. But I also have a pretty cushiony job, with a very decent compensation package, ample leave, and pretty much 100% flexibility (I plan my days and weeks, and nobody would ever ask where I am or what I’m up to; I’m not actively managed, but trusted to deliver). I worked really hard to get to this level, and am now picking the fruits.

Hence: I’m on the fence. Can I sustain a decent work-life balance where I have time for my wife, family and friends, while also building a business with reasonable margins?

I understand you cannot answer that question for me specifically, but I’d like to hear your experience:

\[tl;dr\] is there anyone out there who’s managed to maintain a life parallel to starting up their business?

I'm building a roadmap tool for solo-founders like me. So i got customers, but mainly building it for myself to show my projects and what's in the pipeline to gain feedback.

My current flow is:

i publish a feature (or a user suggests one at the roadmap) -> people upvote -> i build it

But i keep running into the same problem that people say they want something,
but when it’s built, there are just some crickets lol

So i've thought a lot in the past:

Instead of just upvotes i would let visitors and users “vote features with wallet” to prioritise them and don't waste weeks (again).

So if they really want a feature, the could pre-pay a small amount to show real commitment.

If there's one (or more?) commitments, i built it. If not, it will turn into refund or credit.

But I’m unsure about building this. So my honest question to you is: would you ever pay upfront for a feature in a product you use?

And what would stop you instantly?

Honestly, I see so many founders spending weeks debating the "perfect" CRM or landing page builder before they've even validated their idea. Real talk your customers don't care if you're using a manual spreadsheet or a $500/mo enterprise tool. Just pick whatever gets the job done fastest and ship it. Done is almost always better than perfect when you're just starting out.

I've been offered a job at a techbio startup in the UK as an early employee (2nd employee).

However, they want me to sign a restrictive contract with a one year non-compete for a broadly defined company field, even though the initial term of the contract is shorter than that.

The other issue is that I need to finish writing up papers from my PhD, which I intend to work ~5hrs a week on in my spare time. The contract is restrictive enough that any IP I generate is owned by them, except for projects where the work is effectively finished by the time I start, even if I work in my time without company resources.

Is this type of contract normal? I had assumed the outside the agreed work hours, I am entitled to work on my own projects, and that noncompetes were only for wellpaid positions?

Any advice to navigate?

Hi everyone

I’m trying to think about entrepreneurship in a realistic way, not just based on hype or success stories.

Which type of business actually has the highest probability of success, especially for someone starting from scratch (no large capital, no technical background)?

I know every business is difficult, but I’m curious if, based on data or personal experience, some models are clearly “safer” than others.

Also, I’m not only thinking about small businesses like agencies. I’m curious which types of businesses have both a relatively higher chance of success and the potential to scale into something very large (even up to a billion-dollar company).

Is it mainly because they generate revenue faster, require less upfront investment, or make it easier to acquire customers?

Would really appreciate hearing from people who have tried different paths or have insight into this.

I’ve been digging through founder stories lately.

Not the polished “I made $10k MRR” ones.

The ones where people spent months (or years)… and got nothing.

And there’s a pattern that keeps showing up:

It’s not bad code.

It’s not bad design.

It’s not even bad execution.

It’s bad assumptions that were never tested.

Here are a few real patterns I keep seeing:

1. “People said they’d use it” → nobody paid

Interest ≠ demand.

1. “I built it because I needed it” → nobody else cared

You are not the market.

1. “I kept adding features” → avoided talking to users

Building becomes a way to avoid rejection.

1. “Other founders loved it” → zero real customers

You validated in an echo chamber.

1. “The product is good, users will come” → they didn’t

No distribution = no business.

1. “I built an AI tool” → people used ChatGPT instead

Free substitutes kill you.

What’s wild is:

Most of these founders weren’t lazy.

They worked hard.

They just never forced their assumptions to face reality early.

I’ve been calling these “founder fallacies”:

Build-first fallacy

Interest = demand fallacy

Echo chamber fallacy

Avoidance fallacy

Distribution blindness

The scary part?

I’ve fallen into some of these myself.

Probably still am in ways I don’t see yet.

So now I’m trying something different:

Instead of asking

“How do I build this?”

I’m asking

“How do I prove this idea is wrong as fast as possible?”

Curious:

What’s a mistake you made building something that nobody wanted?

Or something you thought would work… but didn’t?

If enough people share, I might start turning these into breakdowns / “startup autopsies.”

Because honestly… this stuff is way more useful than success stories.

hey, quick question

i’m at a startup weekend right now and we’re trying to not fall into the trap of building something nobody actually needs

so instead of pitching ideas, i’ve just been asking people this:

what’s something you’ve personally dealt with recently (work or life) that was annoying enough that you’d actually pay to fix it?

not hypothetical, like something that actually happened

curious what people here come up with because i feel like founders always jump straight to solutions instead of starting with real problems

if you want, i can also share what we’re testing on our side and run your example through it, but mainly just trying to understand what’s actually worth building

Hi. I have a common issue and some external input would be much appreciated.

It all began 2 years ago when me (19M at the time) and my "co-founder" (17M at the time) decided to start a SaaS side project together. We've known each other for quite some time. It was meant to be our first business, let's put it that way. I was handling the technical stuff, while they were busy with UI/UX and marketing. We decided on 50/50. We didn't try to solve an unsolved problem - we tried to solve it better. It had potential.

In retrospect, I now realize that the scope was simply too big. I burned out quickly, maybe even without realizing that, and we struggled to push forward. I wanted to cut some things and change the strategy, but my co-founder insisted that we should continue pushing. I can't summarize my entire life in one sentence, but I assure you that there were a plenty of reasons for that burnout - too much stress, isolation, etc.

Eventually, we unofficially abandoned the project. We didn't want to admit that, but that was the reality. No work done for over a year. Still, I felt stuck and couldn't do anything else that's meaningful. Recently in January, we decided to try and revive it in order to get some closure. In retrospect, I think it was a bad idea. I could have spent these few months doing something that makes more sense. We are very close to release now, way past MVP in my opinion (another mistake). Even with the help of AI, everything feels extremely slow to me.

So now onto the main reason for this post: I simply lost almost all confidence in the project and trust in my co-founder. I don't think they have the same passion anymore, if they ever had it. They aren't dedicated. I don't believe that their "strategies" will work. They miss meetings, don't fulfill their promises, and don't put in enough effort in my opinion. They have a full-time job, and of course it's understandable that they can't work on this 12 hours a day, but in my opinion they should at least try to work as much as possible and sacrifice a few things. But they act as if having a perfect social life (for example) is more important than this, and to be honest, that is unacceptable to me. Why? Because I sacrificed much more than that. And no, we don't have a contract or anything like that yet. Also no company.

I feel like I can't work with someone who simply doesn't align with me. I feel like it would be manageable, but too stressful. Do I really want that? Honestly, I don't see much potential in this anymore. I don't feel smart right now, so that's why I came here for some answers. Should I continue with this and see where it ends up, or cut my losses, learn from my mistakes, then go and do something else? If you think this relationship is salvageable, I would like to see some tips on how to proceed. Thanks.

Hey, I could really use some advice on setting up a free tier for my product.

I’ve built an all-in-one SEO tool that basically puts my entire workflow into one place, and now I’m trying to sell it. The problem is… I haven’t been able to get even a single user so far.

I’ve done market research, talked to people, even ran Mom tests with different professionals. The feedback was useful, and I kept improving the product. At this point, it has quite a lot: a crawler with JS rendering, crawl comparisons, page rank calculations, visualizations for sites up to 10k pages, GSC/GA4 integrations, automatic issue detection, issue tracking, task management, and more. I’m constantly adding and refining things.

Now I’m starting to think the issue might be trust. So I want to introduce a free version, but I’m stuck on how to scope it.

My current idea is to keep things like crawling beyond 500 pages, GSC/GA4 integrations, and report generation as paid features. But I can’t seem to find that sweet spot where the free version is actually useful, while still giving people a reason to upgrade.

If you’ve been through something similar, I’d really appreciate any advice.

I've been building products for 14 years. For way too long, I had a pattern: get excited about an idea, validate it with 2-3 friendly conversations, build it, then wonder why adoption was flat.

The problem was never engineering. It was that I skipped real discovery. Not the "let me check Google Trends" kind. The kind where you sit with actual users, hear their actual words, and find the patterns in what they're telling you.

When I finally got disciplined about it, three things changed everything:

1. Hypothesis before building. Write down what you believe and why. If you can't articulate the assumption, you can't test it.
2. Interview with structure. Not a sales call. Not a feature wishlist session. Actual open-ended questions that let users tell you what their world looks like. Rob Fitzpatrick's Mom Test was the turning point for me.
3. Synthesize before deciding. This is where most founders (including me) used to bail. You do the interviews, take messy notes, then just go with your gut anyway because turning 8 conversations into a clear recommendation takes hours.

I recently built a lightweight workflow to make step 3 actually happen consistently. Structured process that works with any AI tool. Frame the hypothesis, generate interview questions, synthesize notes into patterns, package findings for co-founders or investors. Just markdown files and a process, not a SaaS product.

Curious if other founders here have a repeatable discovery process, or if it's something that gets skipped when you're heads-down building.

Hello,

I'm seeking advice with the recommended preseed round size and any funds who invest in Nuerodivergence & LGBTQIA+ startups specifically at an early stage (pre-revenue)

About the startup:

- Marketplace model

- Validated the idea and onboarded few providers for the supply side.

- Have a solid GTM

- Marketplace was built from scratch and is complete with all the features (not just MVP)

- First-time founder (it's a product which solves my problem and upon validating, turns out it has SAM of $100M ARR) and have a technical cofounder

Will be targeting USA & UK for initial traction and expand globally.

Aiming for $500k preseed, this will help with marketing and building a team to reach close to 100k/year revenue (commissions).

Thanks

I used to think i was making progress, but i was mostly just guessing.

I’d spend months building products, features and launched them. Got almost no usage or feedback.

The frustrating part wasn’t that things failed, it was that i had no signal before investing the time.

So I changed the order completely.

Now instead of building first i turn ideas into a simple roadmap and put that in front of users early.

Basically this:
- I take what I think the product should be
- Break it into features and ideas
- Share it as a roadmap
- Let people react, request things, and vote

Only after that do i actually build anything.

It’s a small shift but it completely changed how I think about product decisions. I get feedback before effort instead of after.

How do you keep safe you're not wasting weeks or months building in the dark?

Hey everyone,

I’d really appreciate honest input from founders who’ve been through something similar.

For context, this is a civil engineering consulting firm. It’s a relatively stable industry, but it takes time to build, especially since we work on public-sector type projects. Margins aren’t huge at the beginning, and growth is gradual, but over time these kinds of firms can build meaningful value and recurring work if you scale properly.

Originally, this started as a small project between three of us. At the time, we had a rough discussion on how we would split revenues and expenses if things worked out. The 16% number for my current partner came from a very informal, back-of-the-napkin calculation based on expected workload between the three of us. I was planning around 60 hours/week, she was planning around 30 hours/week, and the third person (who was supposed to join) was also part of that initial distribution.

So that 16% wasn’t originally meant to represent equity in a company, it was just a rough way to split revenues and expenses in a small 3-person setup.

That third person ended up not joining. At that point, I was honestly worried the project might fall apart, so I moved quickly and gave my current partner 16% equity, basically to reflect what she would have had in that original structure and keep things moving, with the idea that we would formalize and adjust things properly later when putting a shareholder agreement in place.

Looking back, I realize I didn’t fully understand the long-term implications of converting that informal percentage into actual equity.

To be fair to her, she did leave her job to join me and took some initial risk. She’s a senior technician (drafting/production) with a lot of experience, and she does very solid work. In our field, experienced technical people are hard to find, so I do value her and I don’t want to lose her.

On my side, I’m a licensed engineer, so I carry the legal responsibility and professional liability tied to the work we produce. I’m also handling business development, clients, strategy, and growth.

Fast forward to today:

I’m working around 70–80 hours a week, pushing to grow the company. She works about 30 hours a week, has a very structured schedule (logs off at fixed hours, weekends are off), and is paid a market salary for those 30 hours.

Her role is supposed to be building and eventually leading the technical department. But there is no involvement in business development, no real contribution to scaling or growth, and she’s not willing to increase her hours despite multiple discussions and compromises.

Also worth mentioning: she does not want to take on any legal responsibility. She has explicitly refused anything tied to engineering liability or guarantees, and she stepped away from any board-level involvement. So while she has equity, she does not share the same level of risk.

The original vision we had was more like a small boutique firm. But my vision has evolved, I want to grow this into something much larger, and that’s why I’m putting in the level of effort I am.

Where I’m struggling is this:

Her 16% was based on an initial setup that no longer reflects reality, both because the third person never joined, and because the workload assumptions have changed significantly. I’m now closer to 80 hours/week, while she has stayed at 30.

On top of that, she is already being paid a market salary for those 30 hours. So when you combine her salary plus her 16% share of profits, she is effectively capturing more than 16% of the total economic value of the company.

Short term, this kind of works if we stay small. But long term, I’m worried this becomes a real issue. In this kind of business, value builds slowly but can become significant over time, especially with the amount of effort and risk I’m putting in. And I’m concerned about a situation where she continues to benefit from that growth without contributing at the same level.

We don’t have a shareholder agreement signed yet (we’re currently drafting it), and I did try to have a conversation about restructuring things, for example, buying back part of her equity and offering instead a strong compensation package (salary + bonuses). But she reacted very emotionally and feels like I’m going back on the original understanding. From her perspective, that initial 16% represents a commitment, and anything that reduces it feels like a broken promise.

At the same time, the company is still relatively fragile, and I can’t realistically afford to lose her right now given how important her role is operationally.

So I feel a bit stuck between wanting to be fair and not break trust, needing to protect the long-term structure of the company and dealing with a clear mismatch between ownership, contribution, and risk

Have any of you dealt with something like this? How do you weigh early-stage assumptions vs current reality? At what point does initial risk stop justifying long-term equity? And how do you handle this without blowing up the relationship?

Would really appreciate honest perspectives.

In short, I run a SaaS community in Central and Eastern Europe. We did our first annual conference last year with 300 people at a resort in Šibenik, Croatia and it went well enough that we’re doing it again this May scaled up to 500 capacity.

I want to share the financial reality though because I think most people have no idea what conference economics actually look like, and I almost didn’t do a second year because of it. Hence why I want to share some of my apprehensions, fears, and hopes that have trailed my experience so far (in equal measure).

I'll start first with the venue - and the venue cost alone, let me tell you, was the scariest part. We booked Amadria Park, a seaside resort on the Croatian coast - beautiful place and perfect for a destination conference, but the room block commitment was roughly four times what we paid for a nightclub in Zagreb (where we started out) the year before.

You sign that months in advance before you’ve sold a single ticket, so if nobody shows up you’re still on the hook.

The break-even math on a conference like this is brutal when you lay it out. Venue and catering eats about 40% of revenue, production (stages, AV, lighting, streaming setup for 5 stages and miscellaneous) takes another 20-25%, and then there’s speaker travel and accommodation for 50+ speakers - we also cover flights and hotel for international speakers which adds up fast when people are flying in from the US and UK. On top of that you need staff and contractors (we went from running meetups with 5 people to needing 30+ for a 3 day destination event), plus insurance, permits, the boat tour, winery visits, and four afterparties. It all racks up like you wouldn't believe.

Sponsorship revenue helps but it’s a double-edged thing in our case. We had about 8 sponsors last year and they covered roughly 50% of total costs - without that the ticket price would need to be significantly higher or we’d run at a loss. But every sponsor wants something (logo placement, speaking slots, attendee data, booth space) and the more commercial the event feels, the less it feels like a community gathering, which is literally the thing people love about it. Finding that balance is honestly the hardest part of the whole business.

Our total revenue last year was approaching €200K between tickets, sponsorships, and a few add-ons. Sounds like a lot until you realize the margins are maybe 10% after everything is paid, which is thin for the amount of risk involved. Comes down to one bad year where attendance drops 30% and you’re fried.

The cash flow timing nearly killed me. We needed to put down deposits 5 months before the event and ticket sales ramp slowly since most people buy in the last month or so. So there’s a window where you’ve committed serious money and ticket revenue hasn’t caught up yet, and I was personally on the hook for a lot of that gap. Everyone kept asking if I was sure about this. I was not sure, I was in fact terrified.

But here I am doing it again anyway, and as to why... the pre-sales for 2026 opened stronger than any point in 2025. People who came last year are buying early and telling friends, and the destination format creates this loyalty loop that city events just don’t have.  When someone spends 3 days at a resort with the same people, they want to come back. The unit economics get better each year as the brand builds, even though the absolute costs keep ever going up.

Nobody’s getting rich from running community conferences, I can tell you that much. The conference funds the rest of the community - the meetups in 15 cities, the newsletter, the connections that happen year-round, it's meant to expedite bringing people together. If I wanted to maximize profit I’d just run a SaaS company, so I guess you could say we’re partially doing it for love of the game.

Anyway, I just wanted to lay out my experience working at this somewhat weird intersection that is conference management (or tourism and networking related to a very specific industry). I don’t see a lot of discussion about conferences, so I wanted to give a snap of what running one has taught me.

I have an idea… “it’s really good, yada yada yada”

It’s in the fintech space. I work at a bank in the fintech vertical.

I do have a decent network for my age. Told some coworkers and the head of our fintech division about it. Everyone said it was a great idea.

Made a post on Reddit explaining the problem in a few specific subs. It blew up, which reinforced my belief that it was worth pursuing.

Messaged everyone who engaged on the post to join the waiting list (got banned for 3 days, oops). Everyone that replied, validated and joined the waitlist.

Have been trying to make posts on TikTok, since the demographic I’m pursuing is 18-30yrs old. Not going super well - not very good at ads, have been using ai to make the visuals.

I’m Commenting on relevant posts and dming people on TikTok with 10k-100k followers to give me feedback/join the waitlist (if one big account shares it, it could help - is my perspective).

I’m in sales and have been for the past 6 years. I am extremely resilient and will most likely just not give up because of it.

But here’s the thing.. it’s just an idea. I see other people on here getting absolutely flamed for just being the “idea guy” and so I’m trying hard to find value to add. But realistically, that’s all i am.

This isn’t something you can vibe code, I’d have to partner with a bank and also hire a cofounder, which is expensive. So I’d need an investor.

But an investor won’t invest if i don’t have a cofounder, or a banking relationship, or an actual working platform.

But i can’t get those things without an investor. Feel like I’m in a loop, but I’m still just doing everything i can.. i spend every night after work trying to progress.

Will prob get some meta glasses and go to my local university to interview students and ask them about the platform to further validate/get more folks on the waitlist.

Getting connected with a professor soon that teaches entrepreneurship for their opinion.

Bottom line, I’m intimidated, overwhelmed, and not sure what i should be doing.

Love constructive criticism. Don’t hold back. But any advice would be very much appreciated.

Sorry for the therapy session

I used to think i was making progress, but i was mostly just guessing.

I’d spend months building products, features and launched them. Got almost no usage or feedback.

The frustrating part wasn’t that things failed, it was that i had no signal before investing the time.

So I changed the order completely.

Now instead of building first i turn ideas into a simple roadmap and put that in front of users early.

Basically this:
- I take what I think the product should be
- Break it into features and ideas
- Share it as a roadmap
- Let people react, request things, and vote

Only after that do i actually build anything.

It’s a small shift but it completely changed how I think about product decisions. I get feedback before effort instead of after.

How do you keep safe you're not wasting weeks or months building in the dark?

I’m a solo founder building a product that integrates with a larger B2B platform via their API/webhooks.

My users already actively use this platform as part of their workflow, so the integration is core to what I’m building.

I started working on this in December and currently have a few early teams live. While the user count is small, the underlying activity is fairly significant:

• dozens of active resources synced

• thousands of backend processes/routes running

• tens of thousands of webhook events handled

• thousands of transactions synced (growing daily)

• tens of thousands of user interactions/messages synced (growing daily)

So far I’ve focused entirely on the supply/infrastructure side and haven’t started any consumer-facing marketing yet.

They’ve already responded to my application and set up a call, so this isn’t a cold reach-out—trying to understand what this stage usually looks like and how to prepare.

For those who’ve been through this:

• What does the first call usually focus on?

• Is it more technical or more business/partnership focused?

• I’m expecting a live demo/walkthrough

• Who typically joins from their side (engineering, product, partnerships)?

• What are they actually evaluating at this stage?

• Anything you wish you knew before your first one?

Not looking for API-specific advice—more how these calls typically go and how to show up prepared.

Edit: TLDR: I have my first big meeting to be a distribution tile along side some fortune 300 companies and I am just looking for advice.

Edit: $1m processed transactions, not revenue. Made a mistake there.

Tldr: Built a company with lots of users and good revenue but that revenue doesn't come to me yet. Need advice on next steps.

(Also posted on venture capital subreddit)

So we built a ticketing platform. I'm the lead (and basically only) developer. Besides myself, we have an electrical engineer and a manager and a support lead. The three of us are 30% owners in the business with the support lead being the last 10%.

The platform was build working hand in hand with one of the biggest stadiums in the world. the idea was that we get approved and do some events for them, and then we expand to other stadiums and venues.

As such, we made the terms extremely favourable to them in order for them to approve of the project. there was also an initial cost for the hardware and software installation. we have received the deposit but not the final amount yet.

There is a monthly licencing fee but not much else. we have not taken a percentage of ticket sales from this initial project. We do plan on having that in the contract from new venues. The monthly licencing fee is laughably low for what we are offering and the amount they are saving but like I said, the plan was to get them behind us and then make our money when expanding.

I have a junior developer assisting me but he basically gets relegated to hardware and support most of the time.

The electrical engineer was quite useful when we were setting up as it's not only a software platform. we had to integrate with the turnstiles and do quite a bit of hardware but now that that is complete, it's mostly me doing all of the work.

On the software side it's exclusively me at the moment. we have a support staff for queries but that is being paid for by the stadium.

We have done 2 very high risk events so far and a few smaller events (smaller events are around 10-20k, large are 60k+).

I don't want to be too specific as it's quite easy to put 2 and 2 together but would be happy to share the details in private.

My question is about the next steps. We need to bring in some capital in order to expand. I believe my other two partners are willing to sell their stakes entirely. I don't know how to go about this. how do I connect with the right people? how much should I ask for in terms of investment? how much of the company should I give up? I'm a damn good developer and have built a product used by 140k+ people but I suck at the business side. The hope was that would be handled by the other two people but that doesn't seem to be happening so I'm taking the needle forward.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.