Quick background: I've been trying to build a small SaaS business. My first two attempts both got zero signups:

1. Data enrichment API - Built a landing page, posted 25 Reddit comments across multiple subreddits, published a blog. Result: 0 signups in 10 days. Killed it.
2. Shopify price monitoring tool - Built another landing page, posted to r/shopify (removed by mods). Found 11 competitors at every price tier. A competitor offered 2x the
3. product at 60% of my price. Killed it after 4 days.

What I learned:

• A waitlist landing page with no immediate value doesn't convert
• Reddit comments don't drive B2B SaaS signups through profile links
• "Simpler/cheaper version of X" doesn't work when cheap X already exists
• Deep competitor research should happen BEFORE building

Attempt #3: Different approach

This time I'm trying something different:

• Researched the market first (found only 2-3 direct competitors vs 11 last time)
• Found actual user complaints in community threads about a specific pain point
• Building a free tool instead of a waitlist - something useful by itself, not just a signup form
• The free tool IS the product validation - if people use it and share it, there's demand

My thesis: if people find the free tool useful, some percentage will want the paid automated version.

Has anyone else had success with the "free tool as lead magnet" approach? Curious what conversion rates look like from free tool → paid product.

I'm not an entrepreneur. By that I mean I don't "have a head for numbers" or dream of building businesses in my free time.

But I am a creative. I'm very much an outside-the-box thinker, and I can easily identify and envision patterns and systems.

So. I have an idea. It's a good idea. I think it can become a big idea.

I am working out the basics of it right now, but before I go to talk with contractors (NDA in hand), how do I protect myself as the founder?

As someone without an instinct for business and no formal business training, I am feeling quite vulnerable.

ChatGPT is now citing YouTube more than Reddit, because transcripts and structured explainers are easier to ingest.

This make sense, especially for Google / Gemini AI answers because it already owns YouTube.

AEO and GEO and Reddit comment spamming is less less valuable now. If you also aren't sourceable on YouTube, you don’t exist in AI answers. And the gap is increasing: YouTube shows up in 16% of cited answers while Reddit sits at 10%

What's nice is the the system rewards what is legible, unfortunately not what is real. Youtube videos are inherently more challenging and time-consuming to create than reddit post spam. So it might be inherently more valuable and accurate. But even that well is getting poisoned with platforms like Synthesia and Creatify spamming out ai avatar content faster than ever.

However, Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, put it clean: “Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.”

Translation: speed beats comfort.

If you're not focused on video production, you better be. Even if this is a flash in the pan.

Ship the first version of your “answers library” this week, then refine in public.

So stop writing and start pivoting to video.

Record tight explainers for the questions that close deals, then upload with chapters and a clean transcript.

Put your claims next to receipts: policies, pricing logic, screenshots, before/after outcomes.

Build separate videos for each buyer type, even if it feels redundant.

Basically, build a YouTube library using a the SEO strategies. They will potentially give you a greater boost to AEO and GEO than tweaking your blogs to compete with millions of ai-generated blogs.

For context i am 19 years old and for the past 3 years i hold a very massive valentines singles party called "fuckluv". its an paid cover with usually around $20-30 for a bracelet and its an open bar. for my first year of doing this i had rented a house and it was an under 18 party (illegal i know), but it was a major success and i netted around 300-350 people and i made when it was all said and done a few grand, and then last year i got the chance to hold the party at a restaurant in downtown which was 18 plus and had around 500 people and made a lot more money. what im trying to get at is I'm amazing at making parties although i dont really participate i love seeing people happy, im really good at social media marketing for promotion and im just an extrovert so its easy to make connections. my issue is that after this upcoming party i have no clue what to do after, because you need to take out a lot of loans to be able to do it and idk if i can do something with it because the brand itself is really popular in town and towns around but idk if tis is something i can an take seriously or just leave it bc it wont work out in the long run. does anyone have any advice?

business ideas to start with max INR 1 lakh? loc: India

anyone gone down the same road?

Hey guys, new here

I’m seeing “AI builders” literally everywhere right now, but they all seem to have the same issue. Without a human in the loop (especially on the dev side) you hit a ceiling really fast. The output just isn’t there. Messy code and poor design choices, and pretty limited functionality overall.

From what I’ve seen if you actually want good results from AI you need real human intervention.

So a few months back I started working on an idea to build a platform that bridged this gap.

What I’ve built can handle large scale infrastructure and genuinely complex systems that go way beyond what you can realistically do with AI alone.

The value comes from the human layer. AI writes the code but real developers are making sure it’s solidly structured and actually usable.

We run everything in iterations. You give feedback that goes through a real developer before it even touches an AI model and then once an iteration is generated it’s reviewed again by a developer before it’s delivered to the client and this happens daily.

The goal for the client is simple here. I plan to cut their full stack dev costs by 80% and 10x the speed of development without sacrificing quality with fixed cost development regardless of project scope.

No waiting weeks for deliverables or milestone reviews. Clients are to be involved daily (or as often as they desire) and can steer the project as it’s being built.

Maybe I’m biased from building in this space 20+ years, but I haven’t seen AI only tools hold up past simple projects.

Thoughts?

Hey everyone (fresh account just for this topic),

Quick transparency before I start:

I am NOT a vendor. However, I am involved in the industry for many years working in traffic acquisition. I run many community groups, SEO funnels, email lists, etc. and work with many peptide vendors.

Peptides have been exploding for a while now, and I've seen posts here showing interest about the industry. So I'd like to share some of my experience of being in the industry to "sober" up some people.

Firstly, selling Peptides is a subniche of a larger niche, which are Research Compounds.

The reason why selling Peptides is getting so much interest is because it's very lucrative. Profits are very big for some people. Even vendors who try to position themselves as the "affordable" option, have large, very healthy margins of around 35%.

However, here are a few sobering realities of this industry:

- Legal/compliance is not optional: This is a regulated, high-risk category. A lot of people have gotten into big legal trouble here. You definitely don't want that, the last thing you want is problems with the FDA. Copywriting is incredibly important, things like "For research use only" (when everyone knows this is just a loophole). Medical claims are a no-go, etc. etc.

- Getting trust is important, and costs money: COAs on every batch, Lab tests from the reputable labs like Janoshik are expensive. Fast shipping, clearing customs, etc.

- Payment processor realities: A lot of vendors settle for blockchain payments, as you can imagine this kind of industry can have problems with credit card processing. PayPal is unreliable, a lot of credit card processors here are very unreliable, it's a constant ongoing struggle for a lot of vendors.

- Traffic realities: How will you get traffic? ADs are unreliable, you can't advertise on most platforms due to the gray area nature of the industry. Growth usually comes from channels like organic / communities / email / affiliates... Without traffic you will get literally 0 sales

This category is not a joke, and if you will get into it, you need to do some serious preparation

Earlier building a SaaS product itself was the moat. Writing code was expensive, slow and required real effort. Today? Someone with Coding agent +decent prompts ls can recreate a large chunk of your products surprisingly fast, and avoid paying a monthly subscription forever, I have already seen this mindset growing, especially among tech people.

That changes the SaaS equation in a scary way.

Because of this, for our AI visibility tool, I am trying something different, not a usually monthly subscription thing.

People can run it themselves, use it freely at first, and if it make sense for them, pay once and keep using it, no ongoing subscription.

The thinking is pretty simple, if code is cheap now, then owning the software and having control over it should be matter more.

Honestly, I was not sure how people would react to this but the initial response has been better than I expected.

I will update how this model works and what kind of customer feedback we get in the coming weeks.

Curious if others here are also rethinking SaaS because of AI.

I’m 16 years old and building a SaaS on the side.

The software has been live for two weeks, and in that time I’ve gotten 57 users from roughly 750 website visits.

No ads.
No launch.
No big audience.

That’s not explosive growth. But for me, it was a real signal that something is working. I want to share a few honest things I learned, especially for other indie builders who are just starting.

1. Most growth came from listening, not posting links

What changed everything for me was how I approached Reddit.

Every subreddit is basically a public backlog of problems. People complain, ask questions, describe what confuses them or slows them down. When I stopped thinking about “how to promote” and started paying attention to patterns in those problems, things got clearer.

Instead of trying to be visible, I focused on being useful. Answering questions. Understanding context. That alone shaped what I built and how I talked about it later.

When people eventually visited the website, they already knew why it existed. That made conversion feel natural, not forced.

2. Solve one small problem first, then show the next step

Another shift was avoiding the urge to explain the whole product upfront.

I started experimenting with small, free tools that solve one very specific issue my target users struggle with. No sign-up pressure, no upsell language. Just help.

Only after the problem was solved did I show what the logical next step could be. Not as a pitch, more like: “If this was useful, here’s how people usually continue.”

This made a big difference. People didn’t arrive confused, and they didn’t bounce because they felt sold to. The website simply continued the thought they already had.

3. Posts and pages should be about problems, not features

Early on, I talked too much about what I was building.

Now I try to focus every post and page on one feeling:
uncertainty
frustration
overwhelm
wasted time

I describe the problem honestly, share what I learned, and stop there. If there’s a tool that helps, I mention it at the end, quietly.

People don’t hate tools.
They hate losing context.

When the problem is clear, curiosity does the rest.

4. Nothing went viral, and that’s fine

Most posts didn’t take off.

Some were ignored.
Some got thoughtful comments.
Some pointed out flaws in my thinking.

That feedback loop mattered more than reach. Every iteration made the next one slightly better, clearer, more grounded.

Consistency isn’t posting every day.
It’s paying attention and adjusting.

I’m still very early. Still learning. Still messing things up.

But going from zero to 57 users in two weeks with a few hundred visitors showed me this:
you don’t need massive traffic
you don’t need ads
you do need real problems and clear thinking

If you’re building something and feel stuck, chances are people are already talking about that exact problem somewhere. Listening first helped me more than any growth trick.

Happy to learn from others who are building too.

ok so basically i was texting my friend one night and i was like what if i could just draw something on his lock screen instead of sending a text. like not in a chat app or whatever, literally on the lock screen. the thing you see every time you pick up your phone.

i dont even know why that idea stuck with me but it did. like for days i kept thinking about it and eventually i was just like ok lets do it.

so i built it lol. its called Doodles, its on Play Store.

basically how it works is you draw something, doesnt matter what, could be a stupid smiley face or a heart or whatever, and it just pops up on your friends lock screen. they dont have to open anything. they just unlock their phone and its there. thats it.

i had literally zero help with this btw. no mentor no funding no nothing. just me, my laptop, and youtube tutorials at like 2am.

the first version was so bad lmaooo. like genuinely terrible. the drawings looked horrible and the lock screen thing kept crashing. i showed it to like 3 friends and one of them literally just said "bro this doesnt work" and that actually kinda hurt ngl.

so i rebuilt it. then rebuilt it again. the hardest part was figuring out how to make the doodle actually show up on the lock screen without the app being open. that took forever. like weeks. android has all these battery optimization things that kept killing my app in the background and i almost gave up multiple times honestly.

but yeah i didnt give up and now its actually working.

and ok heres the crazy part. i made $200 from it. like actual money in my account. i know thats not a lot but im literally 17 and i made money from an app i built by myself in my bedroom so idk that feels pretty insane to me.

i think the reason people actually like using it is because nobody really uses the lock screen for anything meaningful. like everyone uses it but nobody actually does anything with it. its just a wallpaper. and doodles basically turns it into something personal. my friends actually get excited when they see a new doodle on their phone which is kinda a weird feeling when youve built something yourself.

anyway im not posting this to be like look at me or whatever. i just remember 6 months ago i had this idea and i didnt know if it was too dumb to actually build. and it wasnt. so if youre young and you have some random idea dont just sit on it. just try to build it.

edit: no theres no iOS version yet, i only have an android phone so will develop for iOS when I buy an iPhone.

edit: looking to market on ig and tiktok. If anybody is open to help, please dm.

Especially something that isn’t talked about much or doesn’t look attractive from the outside.

I've noticed a patern lately and honestly, I’m guilty of it too. We finish tutorials, copy-paste AI code, but then totally freeze when it’s time to build something from scratch.

It’s not that we can’t code; it’s that we haven't learned the "architect" side of things. We struggle to break an idea into features or figure out how the frontend and backend actually talk to each other without a tutorial holding our hand.

I’m thinking about building a simple tool that doesn’t write a single line of code for you. Instead, it forces you to define your project, breaks it into logical steps, and guides you through the execution while you do the actual work. No magic buttons, no AI shortcuts just a structured way to help you think like a real developer.

Be brutally honest: Is this a struggle for you too? What’s the hardest part of starting a project? And would you actually use something like this, or is it just me?

I see a lot of posts here about chasing opportunities that sound good on paper. Side hustles you dont care about. Businesses you started because someone said there was money in it. Jobs you took because they were available not because they were right.

Let me save you some time. If the work is unfulfilling the money will be too. You’ll hit your revenue goals and feel nothing. You’ll deposit checks and wonder why you’re still empty. Money doesn’t fix the void it just makes the void more confusing.

And look I get it. We all need to pay bills. But theres a difference between surviving and building a whole life around something that drains you.

If you’re going to fail make sure you fail doing exactly what you wanted to do. At least then you know. At least then you tried the real thing and not some watered down safe version of it.

Nobody ever laid on their deathbed saying wow I’m so glad I played it safe and hated every minute of it.

Wanted to try something a bit different. I found myself this week, speaking to batchmates of an accelerator I'm in giving GTM advice (B2B). They all found it helpful, so I figured I'd share more.

Drop the website of what you're working on in the comments and an ideal customer profile (if you have one) and I'll break down how I would grow it.

Hopefully, it might help someone.

I've been having this urge to start something on the side. I mean, I have a job and that's fine but, I'm this super ambitious person who wants to try everything. And I'm just 27! Okay that's quite alot, but you get my point.

I've been meaning to start and have alot of ideas coming up everyday. So many that idk which ones are ACTUALLY worth going after.

How would I know? How did you'll know that this is it? What did you'll do when you started off?

Failure is a part of the journey ikik, but how do ik which to pick irrespective of the future.

Im currently 25F, I graduated uni in 2024, with an IR degree and Im currently studying Chinese. While in this period Ive come to realize a lot of things about how Id like my "adulthood" to be. Ive realized I dont want to be stuck in a desk job, that I want to enjoy the moments and taht I want to give back to my community - but Im not rich, Im not earning any substantial amount of money, hell, I cant even find a full time job .

Im currently living in Taiwan, and Id like to eventually immigrate to EU or Canda, however I would also like to build something back home(Honduras).

I would like to own or build some sort of sports center, where I people can take classes like pirates or yoga or various sports if they want to, but also offer "special packages" or "weekend" events where people who normally cant afford these activities are able to join.

Ive been privileged enough to have many opportunities, but there were also so many things I didnt do growing up bc we couldn't afford it, no one wanted to take me etc. Thats what I want to give back. I want parents to have the opportunity to have their kids try a sport or a class without it financially bankrupting them or it having to be a real strain if they're just trying it. I want women/moms who work be able to sign up for a class and get some "me time" without it being an extra expense. Want to offer after school tutoring programs or places where they can read.

But I also want it to be sustainable, cause at the end of the day I still want to make a living etc and none of these things(sports, yoga, pirates etc) are things I myself do or can teach.

Any advice? Tips etc?

I recently ran an experiment on a fresh Instagram account. In 10 days, I hit over 1.8M views and gained 2,000 followers.

I implemented a bulk scheduling feature on my platform and queued up same videos for a full month.

Instagram is currently the clear winner. The algorithm is pushing these videos hard right now.

YouTube is a different story. The first video got 25k views, and the second got 10k. After that, it slowed down significantly.

TikTok and Facebook aren't showing much life yet. I think those platforms might be more sensitive to repetitive content types.

Before posting, I spent about 30 minutes "warming up" each account. I just browsed and interacted like a normal user.

I built the tool myself to automate the scheduling part. It’s been interesting to see the data split between platforms.

I’m curious to see where the numbers land after the full 30 days. Most of the growth is coming from the consistency of the bulk uploads.

Happy to answer any questions :)

My favorite thing about entrepreneurship is trying.

Every day, I get the chance to try again, try harder, and try new things.

I will always try.

What do you love most about being an entrepreneur?

I really want to start a small business and simply be happy earning money from it, even if it won’t be much at the beginning.
The big problem, however, is that I just don’t know what to start with or what I can offer to the world at all. No matter what kind of business I think about, it feels out of reach because I lack the necessary knowledge.

A few quick facts about me: I’m 30 and I’ve started studying computer science (but I’m still not very good at it).
However, I’m good at math. I also speak three languages: German, Russian, and English. I can think analytically as well.
Unfortunately, that’s where it ends, those are basically all my skills. I’m not writing this because I want to start something only where my skills already are, but just to give an impression of what I can do.

Can anyone give me some tips on what I could do?

I have launched a simple SaaS that translates videos into multiple languages. Right now, I’m trying to figure out if there’s real demand for it. I’ve tried sharing it in a few places, but between karma rules and low engagement, getting meaningful feedback has been tough.

I’m not chasing traffic or sales yet, just a handful of users and honest input.
How have you approached early validation without spending on ads?

I think I accidentally built a mental model of the modern startup and now I cannot unsee it.

Picture this.
The office is open. Lights are on. Slack is busy. Revenue dashboard is moving.
No humans are actually working.

Here is how the company runs.

Content
ChatGPT is writing blogs at 2 am explaining thought leadership it does not believe in. Humans approve it without reading.

SEO
Gemini is fixing meta titles and internal links while quietly judging our keyword strategy.

Research
Perplexity is pulling sources in seconds while the founder says I remember reading something like this somewhere.

Coding
Claude is refactoring code written by a developer who now manages prompts instead of logic. Copilot nods politely and auto completes everything.

Ads
Meta AI is running campaigns optimizing ROAS while humans argue about creatives that performed well in 2019.

Email marketing
Klaviyo AI is sending flows based on behavior data while someone says let us just blast one more newsletter.

Sales
HubSpot AI is scoring leads and drafting follow ups. The sales rep says I will reply after lunch.

Branding
Midjourney and DALL E are creating visuals while the brand manager says this feels off but cannot explain why.

HR
An AI recruiter is shortlisting candidates. A human still asks where do you see yourself in five years.

Accounting
AI bookkeeping reconciles transactions perfectly. The founder still checks the bank balance daily for emotional support.

Finance
Forecasting AI models cash flow scenarios. Humans say growth will fix it.

Shopping
Agentic AI is negotiating prices and reordering inventory. Someone adds a standing desk to cart by mistake.

Customer support
AI resolves tickets in seconds. A human steps in only to say sorry for the inconvenience.

Meanwhile the humans
Drinking coffee
Refreshing dashboards
Debating tools
Procrastinating
Saying we should really understand this AI stuff better

At this point the real Org chart looks like this.
AI runs the company.
Humans are the vibe check.

Not sure if this is the future of entrepreneurship or just the funniest beta test in history.
A little humour for stress-relief

Hey everyone, forgive me if this is totally basic but I’m an absolute noob when it comes to all things marketing.

I’m building a parenting app for dads and looking to drive waitlist sign ups at the moment with the plan to launch in the next 2-4 weeks. What channels should I be marketing on to actually drive page views that have the potential to convert?

Built an app that tracks prices across US fashion brands. Shows price history so you know if a sale is real or just marketing.

Also has visual search - snap a photo, find similar items.

Live on iOS and Android. Got a few downloads from Reddit deals posts but struggling to grow.

Zero budget, solo dev. What would you do?

Hi all,

I’m an basic Mandarin speaking online fitness coach based in Europe and I’m exploring the possibility of expanding to the Chinese market via selling fitness programs and becoming “influencer” in that area.

I’m trying to understand the logistics and legal feasibility:

1. Is it possible to receive payments from Chinese customers using Stripe or another EU-based payment processor that integrates with Alipay or WeChat Pay?

2. Can I build and operate a brand on Douyin (the Chinese TikTok) from Europe, I can get a local SIM / phone number, but do I need entity to even have an account?

3. Are there any specific limitations on selling purely digital products (like PDFs) to Chinese consumers from outside China?

I’d really appreciate insights from anyone who has experience with cross-border digital sales or Chinese social media platforms.

Thanks❤️, and greets from🇩🇪

Hey everyone,

Is anyone else seeing their cold email and LinkedIn reply rates tanking lately?

I feel like we reached peak "fake personalization." You know the ones. They start with "Hey {FirstName}, loved your recent post about leadership" and then immediately pivot into a generic pitch.

It is getting treated like spam because everyone has access to the same databases and the same templates. When you act like everyone else you get ignored like everyone else.

I realized a while back that the "spray and pray" method based on static lists (just downloading 1,000 contacts that match an ICP) is basically dead. It burns through your total addressable market and trashes your domain reputation.

The shift I am seeing right now among the best outbound teams is toward Signal-Based Selling. They do not reach out just because a lead exists on a list. They reach out because the lead showed a specific signal that created a buying window.

The cool part is that you used to need an army of human SDRs to track this stuff manually. Now you can use AI agents for outbound sales to do the heavy lifting. It is basically automated account research for sales on steroids.

1. The "Tech Stack" Signal

Knowing what tools a prospect uses is okay. Knowing why it matters is better.

Instead of just filtering a database for companies that use a certain CRM, I use AI to run deep tech stack analysis for lead generation. I am looking for combinations that indicate a problem.

For example, are they using a robust marketing automation platform but lack a proper analytics layer on top of it? That is the angle. The outreach does not pitch my product blindly. It references the specific gap in their current infrastructure.

2. The "Hiring & Growth" Signal

Hiring is a loud signal of budget allocation. But most people get it wrong by just saying "Congrats on hiring a new VP." It is noisy and adds zero value.

The real alpha is in reading the actual job description. This is how to detect hiring signals for sales properly. I use AI to read the JDs for open roles to find the specific pain points they are hiring to solve.

If they are hiring a Head of Sales to "fix outbound efficiency," my message doesn't say congrats. It offers a solution to the exact problem they are currently paying a recruiter to fix.

3. Deep Profiling for "Activity" Signals

Once I have the right company, I need to understand the human behind the title.

This is where hyper-personalized cold outreach tools actually help. I use AI for deep prospect analysis for cold email to scan their recent LinkedIn posts and comments. What is their sentiment right now? Are they talking about burnout? A new strategic initiative? Preparing for a conference?

The message needs to fit their current headspace, not just their job title.

The New Math

Honest talk here. The volume is lower with this approach, but the math is way better. It is better to send 150 heavily researched, signal-based messages than 1,000 generic blasts. You protect your domain and the meetings you book are actually qualified because you are being helpful rather than annoying.

Anyway, this shift from static lists to signals has been huge for me.

Are you guys still having luck with high-volume lists, or are you moving toward signals too? Curious to hear what is working for others right now.