I feel great. Worked all year and 4th quarter of 2025 to get the idea on paper and build my MVP for several states’ procurement opportunities that open up starting early next year.

The tech is good, but really it was the story that and the vision that sold it. I was afraid I didn’t do enough showing the platform live, but in the end I got 3 commits signing and funding this week making 3/4 of my seed round finished.

I’ve been in startup hell the past 5 years. Took over as ceo of a startup and had to resign due to some fairly public tragic events that happened in my life (not that I was center of attention and was not named, but an event happened way out of our control that has destroyed our lives as we knew it) and couldn’t dedicate my efforts to it, the drive I had just disappeared. 1.5 years after I resigned , the company folded, along with the money I put into it.

Was literally lost in my life and didn’t know what to do. It took months for me to mentally recover to a point where I could even think about work. Our finances kept draining and savings dwindled. I was determined not to go back to an office job that I know I could’ve gotten from a previous employer given the situation.

Lots of work to do, but I know that being passionate about what I am doing has been my key to progress so far.

Not every idea is sexy and world changing, and while some people may think your startup is boring, as long as you have the drive and make the right connections, the road is wide open.

I’m taking a few products to market right now, and the single most common response when I describe one of them is some version of “but X already does that.” Reddit is the worst for it, but I get it in person too.

I know it shouldn’t stop anyone. Taken seriously, it’s the argument for a world with only Ford cars and Coca-Cola. No market worth entering is a blue ocean.

My problem is what it does to the conversation. I’ve spent months on positioning, they’ve had five minutes of intro, and the first thing I get is a weakness I’m already aware of.

I know it's not a blue ocean market. I feel the irritation rising, I go defensive, and the conversation is dead. That’s on me, and I’d like to stop doing it. So I’m thinking the fix is in the pitch itself: name the incumbent before they do, say what’s wrong with it, and lead with my angle (a, b, c) instead of the category. Something like “people use X for this and hate Y, we remove Y.”

But I’m honestly not sure that’s the whole story. Is “X already does that” usually a sign that my pitch failed, and I should fix it? Or is it mostly just a reflex from a certain kind of commenter, the one who always needs to pull something down, and the right move is to nod and move on? How do you tell the two apart in the moment?

I’m a 20 year old junior at a top engineering college, Tech lead at my uni's Programming Club and I’ve been building a fintech/trading infrastructure product full time for about 4 months, alongside classes (skipping most).

What’s going well:

• Built the whole stack myself in about 10 weeks
• Placed well in an international trading-agent competition, which is where the idea came from.
• A couple of established projects in the space want to work with us, and I’m co-organising a session at a major industry conference next week.
• A "big leagues" investor (accelerator) reached out on campus. The first meeting went pretty well, and the second, with a senior partner, was relatively intense.

feedback was “Why is there a need for this? Get more customers.” Fair. I’m a builder, and I’ve spent far more time on the product than on talking to non-tech users.

what’s getting to me:

• For months it’s been a sine curve. Some days I’m sure this will work, and some days it feels pointless.
• I don’t have an internship or job lined up as a backup. Family worries about me dropping out (I’m not planning to; my college allows credited leave for startup work).
• Every tough meeting feels like a verdict, even when it’s just feedback.

questions i'd like get answers for (but not limited to)

1. How did you handle the emotional swings early on, especially before you had traction?
2. as a technical founder how did you get good at customer discovery? Who did you talk to first, and what did you ask?
3. if you started as students, how did you think about the risk of having no backup and/or about taking a sem drop/break to go attend a cohort?

Not promoting anything, and happy to keep the product out of it. I just want to hear from people who’ve been here

Originally studying mechanical engineering I always thought I would have a very predictable stable life, and working in a foreign country as one, I found it extremely boring and lonely then I one day I just came across to the movie “The Big Short” the dynamics, the industry, interactions and conversations just mesmerized me. I mean of course I was aware that it was overly dramatized but nevertheless I wanted in so badly. The problem was my background did not have so much interaction with Economics or accounting but I was an engineer after all so I saw being a financial analyst - data scientist as a way to pave my way.  Then just started learning python and via scraping the veery bottom tables of wikipedia and making them into separate pages created 300+ android apps (App Store would not accept them since they we too shitty and was literally just ad baiting apps) so that I would have some capital along the way while increasing my knowledge to get into Finance sector did not matter what I would do just wanted “The Big Short” environment :).

After a year or so of course because of the quality and maintenance and bad reviews on that developer account we opened (under my brother’s name because I anticipated it) the developer account imploded (completely banned , and I remember vividly the last strike was that in one of the wikipedia articles there were children depicted smoking -it was a health article , which lead the ultimate ban of my brothers developer account) by this time again I only have some data-science knowledge of python which I just used to automate a system to make wrapped web apps and package them into android app. Well this implosion led me to think about my life choices and during that time I saw the myfitnesspal app being acquired or valued - I don’t remember hundreds of millions of dollars. And when I have checked the app I believed I can do better -Jesus the delusional confidense :) Then I started while also learning software engineering coded this app day and night then again being the delusional confident person I am I started and LLC :) yeah even before the launch this is 2020 -mind that I have been paying to my accountant since then. well then the staleness for official marketing started kept pushing features and updated half-assed producthunt launches new features, future-proofing, security improvements never till maybe a week ago felt it was good enough to really all-in tell the world about my fitness application. 

But thinking in medical, health and fitness terms in a creative way became my personality every time when I saw an app claiming having an “original idea nobody thought before” I either implemented without anyone knowing or just kept as a hidden feature. I became a person whom one thing about in their life is their whole personality, I would meet with friends would talk about my app, I would go on a date would talk about my app, I would visit my family would talk about my app, same in parties , in gym, on queue of a goverment office but mind you still just as “an app to be launch”. This even shaped the Birthday gifts I received, last one was RANG & DALE’S Pharmacology so that I would know better implementing supplement/drug features that nobody will ever use :)

In the meantime, this was sooo long and thinking and working only on this single app day and night brought me very broad software skill, from security to databases , search engines -for fast food , exercise, supplements etc search, hosting services,  good UI and UX design and underlying frontend and backend skills and before I event really really market it I got an acceptance from one of the biggest firms I dreamed almost 10 years ago. Well I will not talk talk about how much of my expectations is covered from my “The Big Short” view but I know I got the biggest possible compensation while two companies fought over me (I swear to got this is the truth) not that I was always getting so many offers but two came at the same time and I had leverage. 

Well this was also the time LLMs boomed and I still did not start marketing my app and already saturated Fitness App realm became impossible to penetrate. But I never stopped, now even more than ever the free time I had was going into developing my app. Which I have now purposelessly finished and warmed up the social media pages. I was asking myself that when am I gonna be able to say “I fought, I lost. Now I rest” but realized it will never come. Because I really don’t care, I don’t care if openAI, Antropic or big tech having vertical integration with wearables and their own apps, I don’t care that there is no MOAT anymore and no matter how long I worked people can copy my app and make it even better, I don’t care that important thing was to acquire users now I am too late for that, I don’t

care that I spent sleepless nights on “1s and 0s” instead of living life the fullest, well I know whatever what happens I will work on this app for decades to come and I am perfectly content with being like Theo Jansen working on something loon years but unlike him on something extremely unoriginal :)

TLDR: guy misses his time and tries to squeeze wisdom out of it

For those who’ve had a waitlist up before launching, what did you find converted best on your landing page?

I’m not sure a minimal page can convert, but as a solo founder there’s sometimes limited capacity to build a fully fleshed out landing page.

Curious how other solo founders handled it. What do you think got people to sign up?

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 kept tweaking ads and landing pages for a little product I run, and nothing moved. So I called five people who'd bought once and never came back, and I asked one question: what almost stopped you from buying? Three of them said the same thing, they didn't trust the checkout page, not the product. I fixed one line on that page and the next week was better than the previous three combined. If you're stuck, skip the next tool or tactic for a day and ask the people who already paid you. What did your last five customers almost not buy because of?

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?

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?

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.

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.

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?

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’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?

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 !!

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 ?

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.

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 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.

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.

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?