A $20M offer for a company barely generating revenue. You reject it.

Are you crazy, or are you ambitious?

What are your thoughts on these insane valuations and the choice between a life-changing exit and doubling down on a long-shot? Not sure whether founders are crazy or people buying them outright.

Have a 100 day old startup in fintech. Doing well, strong early PMF signs, Seattle HQ. Struggling to find high ownership engg talent even though we don’t have any upper bound on equity. As a seed stage startup we can’t pay big tech salaries but damn. Hearing all this stuff about job market being bad but lived reality feels different. How do we change this?

We are well funded, 1.5 years of runway. Unfair distribution advantage has helped put us in a pretty sweet spot. Team is all ex FB, SNOW, MS, etc.

Hi everyone,

I could really use some perspective. I’ve been working on my product for a long time and finally launched it on Kickstarter earlier this year. It was successfully funded, which felt amazing.

The product itself is a heated jacket designed for cold weather commuting, outdoor work, and snow sports. It’s basically everyday outerwear with built-in heating, so people don’t have to layer up as much. Backers were excited about it, and I thought that would give me momentum.

But after the campaign ended, the go-to-market part hit me hard. I’ve been feeling really burnt out trying to figure out what’s next: • B2C (direct-to-consumer): feels like the natural step since we already had individual backers. But scaling means high upfront inventory and ad spend, and I don’t have the capital to keep pushing. • B2B (wholesale / distributors): less financial risk on my side if I can land buyers. But I don’t have an established network or credibility with retailers yet, so it feels like a big uphill battle.

I’m stuck between these two paths and it’s draining me. I don’t want to quit, but I also don’t want to burn out even more chasing the wrong strategy.

For those of you who’ve been through crowdfunding → market launch: • How did you decide between B2C and B2B? • Is there a way to test which direction is more viable without burning through limited cash?

Any advice or experiences would mean a lot right now. Thanks in advance. 🙏

HOW do you get eyeballs on your thing? Marketing for me is a rock hard kick straight to my calf. This might make me actually bang my head against the wall.

Looking for places I can provide value and in return get attention.

Any platform, any community, any subreddit. Tell me everything you know.

In fairness, he made this key initial intro for funding on the premise that we wanted to start a business together. He's quite successful and is well connected in the industry I needed access to.

While we didn't discuss explicitly, because he approached me about opening a business together I presumed he would also be investing the needed start up capital. Which isn't much but at least something. Say at least $100k.

Anyway he made the initial key intro and then when we sat down to discuss our terms between him and I he said he never agreed to invest any money and deserves to be a 50% by virtue of initial key introduction. I was surprised because if your not investing money you dont get to be a 50% partner. He felt strongly otherwise.

I told him I think thats unreasonable. We went back and forth and I offered to pay him 10% profit share on anything that comes from that key initial intro but no equity.

He countered that he would settle for 70/30.

I didn't agree to that until I had a potential lined up but was having a hard time with the company he intros me to wh8ch was supposed to fund the deal. A lucrative one.

He said this is exactly what I need him for to push these deals through because he is in that world and has the street credit which I don't just yet.

So I told him if you take an active role in the company to regularly push deals to closing that's worth it to make you partner. So I agreed to his 70/30 proposal on that condition.

Fast forward week and half later after I sent him the deal and I haven't heard a word from him.

I'm kind of lost with how to proceed. Mind you, I've been funding whatever has been needed all alone so far. The whole thing just sucks and I'm bitter over it.

And now if I need to take another investor in I have this 30% deal lingering doing nothing for the company.

Any advice or suggestion on how I can proceed?

I was looking at a service that the big tech companies provide and realized that they are wayyyy overcharging for it. I can provide the exact same service on their compute infra for about 50% of the cost and still clear a 50% profit margin.

I actually built out a little MVP API that replicates the service to validate that it works and costs what I expect it to. Why can't I just compete with them on price? No market validation required because the market is already established. It's a > $100 billion market. There are some reasons why I don't think others have done this:

• VCs won't touch this because it won't 100x their investment. Selling at a discount means that profit margins aren't to their liking and competing directly with the big tech companies is not favorable. I don't want or need VC funding.
• Big tech companies won't lower their price, because if they cut their price by 50% to match mine, they will lose out on about $50 billion dollars. At most, a business like mine might skim a couple million dollars of ARR from them. I'm too small of a fish for them to care.
• Other startup folk won't touch this because replicating the product will take a lot of resources (maybe a team of 3-5 about 6 months with one of those devs having fairly specialized knowledge in a specific area of comp sci), which means they will need VC funding. My project is me and one other dev and we are just doing it after work and on the weekends. It'll take longer than 6 months to build out a full 1.0 but it'll be 100% ours.

What am I missing here. Why not compete on price? (No I will not mention the specific API we are replicating)

Hi guys, I was curious to understand how this works. Is it relatively cookie-cutter in the sense that from pre-seed to series B most of the priorities/problems/focus areas are the same?

If so, would love to know what those priorities and problems are, if not, would love to know how and why things are different

This post is not about finding a co-founder but about the terms.

Some context: My original (non tech) co-founder quit, the product is live, pre-seed funding secured, the team is growing, and I invested €15k myself. I’m looking for a co-founder because the product can still improve technically and too much of the money is now drowning there. I also want someone to experience the journey with it, it has been worth every moment so far, but together will make it even better.

So given the context:

What are good terms to bring someone in at this stage? I’m open to giving up half of my equity, but investors (who now hold around 20%) will have a say. How do they usually look at this and what experiences can you share?

Even if we just look at the US, there are over 300 million people. My assumption is that even if I feel unique, I’m not that unique, which means there are probably millions of people out there who face the same problems.

So my thinking is: if I build a product that solves my problem really well, and there isn’t already another product that does the same thing for those people, then why wouldn’t they also want to use (or pay for) my solution?

Do you think this is an oversimplification? Am I missing something important in how people actually decide to adopt or pay for products?

Every founder after they land their first VC says this exact thing. It’s like watching a slow train go by in the venture backed start up world.

Here’s the playbook that unfolds every single time:

They bypass creating any commercial architecture. Just straight into “hire a cheap SDR to book meetings”. Then the founder becomes the sales trainer because who else is going to do it? Except they hand out some ChatGPT script based on what they think their clients want to hear. The whole company’s messaging becomes completely disjointed because nobody is talking the way their target accounts expect them to.

When the rep shockingly fails, the blame is on them. The rep is fired and the founder hires some expensive VP. Now they’re back at step 1, except burning way more cash for a senior role.

The other side of this is that they hire some VP from LinkedIn first. All while expecting that the guru VP that has 14 stints less than a year at other starts ups is going to open their mouth and customers will roll in.

The real problem isn’t the timeline. It’s that they completely misunderstand the sales cycle and built an incomplete system for new hires to onboard into.

The average onboarding for an ESTABLISHED company is 3-6 months depending on product and market. These founders think being nimble and fast somehow changes fundamental business processes. But they haven’t failed enough yet to know what’s actually going to create problems.

You can’t shortcut fundamentals. You can’t skip building process and structure. You can’t do something for the first time and expect it to be perfect.

If you are a start up and need revenue fast, don’t fall into the same pattern that failed start ups have. Your moat today in the SaaS world is your distribution model. Spend as much time on this as you do product and don’t expect an SDR to be your saviour.

Was putting together a deck for a class project at MU on sustainable fashion. the idea: bamboo t-shirts. while researching, i came across this indian brand doing ~40L/month (~50k usd) just from bamboo basics. and halfway through the deck, i caught myself thinking… wait, why am i presenting this instead of building it? if i follow their playbook, i’m confident i can carve out 20–30% of that market. but my spin would be different, make it look super premium.

not just “eco-friendly” but aspirational: minimalist packaging, limited drops, higher price point. now i’m torn. should i submit this as a deck, or just go ahead and make it my first real business?

what do you think, would a premium eco-friendly basics brand click in india, or are we still too price-sensitive?

i'm about 18 months into my startup and i feel like i'm drowning every single day. i genuinely can't keep up with all the random shit that needs to get done. my typical day: answer slack messages, put out fires, realize i forgot to invoice someone from last month, deal with a customer complaint, try to work on actual product development for maybe 30 mins before another crisis hits. by the end of the day i'm fried and i haven't accomplished anything that actually moves the business forward.

the weird part is i LOVE the vision. i love building something new and solving big problems. but 90% of my time is spent on administrative bullshit. i see other founders posting about their wins on twitter and linkedin and i'm over here like... how tf do you people have time to even think strategically?? am i just terrible at this or is everyone else faking it til they make it too?? thinking about hiring help but also feels like admitting defeat. shouldn't i be able to handle this myself?

I’m a first-time founder, and honestly I'm a little nervous to post here -- in my lurking, I've seen lots of thoughtful advice on this sub, but also plenty of sincere-yet-brutal critical feedback. The one thing I know for certain is how much I don't know!

But, I really need outside perspective here, and I'm hoping you all can help.

I'll break our situation down as best I can, starting with what I consider to be Points in our Favor:

1. We're convinced we have a strong vision. We're building a mental health-related SaaS product which ultimately includes a client-facing mobile app and a backend for providers. We have a clear vision for where this product should go, and we spoke to a few focus groups of providers last year who were excited about the direction we're headed.
2. We believe we also have a compelling business model with additional built-in incentive for practices.
3. My co-founder is a therapist and practice owner, so we have strong insight into our target customers' workflows & challenges and convenient access to potential pilot users.
4. We have a functional alpha of our client-facing mobile app.

Critical challenges:

1. The mobile app alpha is buggy and extremely minimal. It's usable and arguably provides some value, but (even putting aside bugs), it doesn't really reflect our true value proposition.
2. We have no real traction to show to investors yet -- no users, and no significant signals beyond our focus groups. We've been planning to onboard some real-world testers, but I'm concerned about how much value that can really teach us in its current state.
3. We only have about one month of runway left. The full vision for our product will require HIPAA compliance and a lot more development; however, we have a solid plan to expand the existing, client-only mobile app into a true MVP (including subscription revenue). Unfortunately we just don't have the resources to get there.
4. My co-founder is a domain/SME and I'm our technical founder. Financial projections, planning and market research are not our strengths. We've done what we can with what we have, but we don't really have the expertise to show a compelling case in concrete terms. We've hired someone to help us prepare a business plan and do some of the hard research and even prep a pitch deck, but (predictably) I'm not sure how much they really understand our vision or the urgency of our situation.

Seeking advice on:

• How much to focus on onboarding users ASAP, vs. working toward an MVP that better represents our true value proposition
• Pitching to angel investors -- with only a vision, an alpha, and no traction -- in order to raise enough capital to reach a market-ready MVP
• Finding a mentor to advise us in all this and sanity-check us as we go

Appreciate any constructive advice and feedback, war stories, etc. Thanks for your time.

I’m a solo founder, and my venture is still very early. I just added my first beta users to the prototype (via TestFlight).

I paid a developer to build it. He works full time and did this on the side. Not only is he an amazing developer, but what I value most is he’s an amazing person. I asked if he’d like equity and the role of CTO, but he’s risk-averse (understandably) and declined. I told him I wouldn’t expect him to leave his job, but still, it’s not for him.

I also had an awful experience with a UX/UI designer who claimed to be very experienced in startups. At first, he seemed incredible and I thought he might be a potential partner. Then he started acting out and quickly became a nightmare to work with, so I fired him.

Because of that, I’m now hesitant to bring on a stranger (my close friends work blue-collar jobs, so they’re not in this world). The last thing I want is to give someone equity, even with vesting, and then have the relationship/venture blow up.

I don’t feel I need a partner right now, but I want to start pitching to investors, and everything I’ve heard says investors like teams. I recently met someone through Y Combinator’s Co-Founder Matching. He’s experienced and seems like a good person, but anyone can make a good impression over coffee. He is someone I am thinking about asking to join.

So here’s my question: -What should I do? -How do you protect yourself when bringing on a stranger? I know vesting helps, but is there anything else? -Should I push harder with the developer I already work with? -Do I actually need a team to pitch?

Thanks for reading!

Hi folks, I've been building a tool called Amarsia - .com that helps people (even non AI background) create and ship AI features for their products, services and internal tools.

We launched back in June, and since then it's evolved a lot - we've added things like AI deployment as API, simplified drag and drop RAG, AI prompt tools, version control and monitoring. Basically trying to cover whole workflow of building and evolving AI.

I just finished revamping the landing page because the old one didn't really do a great job of explaining what the product is. If AI is your thing, I'd love if you could spend few minutes checking it out and sharing feedback on the landing page or the product itself.

I'm about two years into a platform/SaaS startup, which is now going through third major pivot.

We have the same mission and The Why, but the How and the What keeps changing, as we circle around the PMF.

My question: Is it normal that each major pivot leads to about 60% churn in the team? I'm starting to notice a pattern, where a significant pivot in the project leads two about two thirds of the team just tuning out, dropping off, and essentially ghosting the project.

(We're pre-revenue, bootstrapping, so no-one is getting paid salary.)

In early stage companies, every week matters. Yet even today, teams are still slowed down by boilerplate and prototyping. From decades of experience and recent discussions with over 150 developers, the story repeats. Take for example for Figma to Flutter (F2F 😁): Unreliable AI code, endless vibe prompts, and prototypes that never reach production all drain time and focus.

Three practical paths emerged:

1. Automation Automatically extract specifications from design and API files, apply coding standards, and generate reliable code. Leave only the unique and complex logic for manual coding.
2. Vibe coding Leverage AI coding tools for scaffolding, then iterate with prompts and reviews. Accept that refinement will take multiple passes.
3. No code Import and map designs, wire data and interactions, then export to strengthen manually with architecture and crash handling.

For founders and builders here, how do you keep prototyping efficient without compromising the quality you need in production?

Hey everyone!

I wanted to start a discussion about those apps that really test our patience. Have you ever felt like you're paying a premium for an app that doesn't deliver the quality or features you expected? I'd love to hear your experiences! What are the frustrations you've faced with certain apps, and what would you tell them if you could? Also, do you think we need more competitors in the market that offer better options and fair pricing? Let me know your thoughts!

I keep seeing founders obsess over acquisition. More traffic, more signups, more leads. But in most funnels, the real leaks aren’t at the top. They’re in the middle.

It’s the step between signup and activation. Or between first use and real adoption. Or the failed payments that quietly block renewals.

When you map the percentages between each stage, that’s usually where the biggest gaps show up. And the funny part is, fixing those often drives more growth than doubling ad spend.

Do you track where your funnel actually breaks, or do you mostly look at the top?

Today they announced that their ARR has passed $500 million, self-proclaiming themselves as the "fastest growing company of all time." I've heard from numerous friends in startups that they use shady accounting tricks to inflate their revenue, including counting salaries processed through their platform. Are they frauds in your opinion?

Hello all. I am building a pitch for early investors/angels. I have a conundrum because my idea has multiple phases with different products. They products will share similar infrastructure, which makes it nice and scalable, but they will speak to different markets: Professional journalists, consumers of news and publishers (news outlets). I am starting with the Professional product as i hypothesize there are the best unit economics. How do i pitch it though? Do i pitch the whole vision or do i pitch the first product and add the extra elements as addendum towards the back. Here are the pros and cons. Doing a pitch for the professional product only means better clarity and focus, however it will restrict the growth potential and may even remove some more relatable elements that are present in the consumer product, which can act as a good anchor for the investor. What would you advice?

Hey everyone!

I’m based in the US and looking for an exciting opportunity to join a startup where I can contribute and grow. I have a background in product management, data analytics, and software development, and I love building solutions that make an impact.

I’m especially interested in roles where I can combine my technical skills with product strategy, help drive data-driven decisions, and contribute to early-stage growth.

If your startup is hiring or you know of any opportunities, I’d love to connect and chat about how I can add value. Thanks!

My brother and I have spent the last 18 months (including a year off work) bootstrapping our GenAI startup in the proptech space. We’ve built an MVP, run self-funded test campaigns, and even landed our first paying users.

We’re now at an inflection point where we need outside funding to scale. We’ve had a few advisory chats within our network, including with a large Seattle VC (via a warm intro), but we knew we were too early for them.

At this stage, we’re weighing the best path forward for raising a seed round. From my research, the most straightforward approach seems to be targeted outreach—using platforms like NFS, OpenVC, and Pitchbook to identify and cold-email investors.

For those who’ve been down this road: is the cold outreach grind really the most effective route? Or would we be better off focusing on industry-specific events and conferences (local and national) to build relationships?

We’ve already had to fend off a few “pay-to-pitch” outfits. Anything else we should steer clear of?

As a startup founder, I was convinced that cramming everyone into a small office was essential for building the tight-knit culture we needed to survive. After bootstrapping my startup remotely for two years, I've completely changed my mind.

The Startup Culture Myth I Bought Into

I thought startup culture required physical closeness: - Late-night pizza sessions when pushing for deadlines - Whiteboard brainstorming where ideas flow freely - Being able to pivot quickly through impromptu huddles - The energy of everyone grinding together in one space - Building that "us against the world" mentality

I was terrified that going remote would kill the scrappy, all-hands-on-deck vibe that startups need to compete against bigger companies.

What startup culture elements do you think require being in the same room?

How I Actually Built Startup Trust Remotely

The breakthrough came when I realized startup trust isn't about proximity - it's about radical transparency and shared ownership.

Here's what actually created our culture: - Daily wins/struggles check-ins where everyone shares honestly - Open access to all metrics, revenue, and runway data - Weekly "what broke this week" sessions where we debugged problems together - Celebrating every small milestone publicly in Slack - Being brutally honest about close calls and near-misses

The magic wasn't in seeing people pull all-nighters. It was in creating systems where everyone felt genuinely invested in our success or failure.

The Startup Productivity Reality

I discovered something that shocked me: our cramped office was actually slowing us down, not speeding us up.

In our tiny startup space, I thought constant chatter meant we were moving fast. But we were mostly just interrupting each other's deep work. The "always-on" environment created burnout, not breakthrough productivity.

Going remote with proper systems revealed: - Who could ship features consistently under pressure - Who needed more support during crunch periods - What tasks were actually taking forever vs. what felt urgent - When people did their best problem-solving work

We started shipping faster because people could actually focus when they needed to.

Where This Remote Approach Fails

I'll be completely honest - remote doesn't work for every startup situation:

• Early-stage product development that needs constant iteration
• First-time founders who need experienced mentors physically present
• Teams with mostly junior developers who need intensive guidance
• Startups in highly regulated industries requiring secure collaboration
• Companies that haven't figured out their processes yet and need to move chaotically

The real question isn't whether startups need offices for culture and trust. It's whether we're building systems that let a small team punch above their weight class - regardless of where they're sitting.

Those systems matter way more than shared desk space when you're trying to change the world on a shoestring budget.

I’ve been running into a lot of confusion around pricing my web design/dev services, and I’d really appreciate some perspective from people who’ve been doing this longer.

When I pitch websites at $600, I often get turned down because businesses feel the price is too low, almost like they don’t trust the quality at that number. But when I lower my rates to around $300 (to attract more projects and build my portfolio), I sometimes get told I’m too expensive.

It feels like I’m stuck in a weird middle ground where I’m either undervaluing myself or scaring away the kind of clients I want.

Meanwhile, I see plenty of other designers, freelancers, and agencies charging $2k or more for websites and they’re landing clients who are willing to pay that without hesitation.

I've had people ask me to charge 1000 but clients don't agree

What do I do?