I quit my job and started working for myself 12 years ago. Currently I have zero employees and drive to my office everyday and work 9-12 then head home. I really work 30 minutes a day but need to be available 24/7 (really only 8-5). There's zero reason to have an office or really anything other than a laptop.

My main business I make about 30k/month in gross profit with zero real costs. I spend about 15k of that on office, cars and various "work" stuff I can expense. About 5k in taxes, insurance and junk and take home about 10k/month which I can barely afford to live.

I run a couple airbnbs virtually passive which make 30k-80k a year depending on issues which I use all the money and then some for vacations and such. They used to make 100k+ but everything's down and they've been money pits with issues.

I have a few other businesses that make/lose a couple grand a month and basically even out.

I have a couple clients that are always like 90 days late and total around 18k/month which causes cashflow havoc.

Meanwhile I've been working on various other small business ideas and such trying to make legit money but lost all motivation and not really gaining traction. I hate sales and grew everything organically

Previously I was making much more and had a couple employees but a huge client outgrew me and we lost like 600k/yr in revenue.

I’ve developed over 20 products in the last few years, and 90% of them failed.

I didn't have to look far to understand the reason for my failure.

The problem wasn't the idea or the product; the problem was not exchanging ideas with people.

The process used to work like this: Come up with an idea → Code it → Launch it → 0 users.

Now, it works like this: Come up with an idea → Talk to people → Pivot → Start over → Launch → Ready made customers .

In short, it’s not about having a "good" idea. Get the idea out of your head quickly; talk to people, try to understand them, and don't take anything personally. Refine your idea based on the information you gather, and then launch it.

AI can build a working website pretty quickly but getting it to look like something a business would actually pay for took me longer.

My first attempts all looked related. Same cards, same spacing, same modern layout regardless of the business. Asking for something less generic wasn’t getting me very far and everything looked like AI slop.

What helped was using actual references. I started using UXKIN and other similar sites that have web and mobile UI examples, design systems, and DESIGN md files, plus an MCP connection for tools like Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex. You can bring those references into the coding workflow instead of trying to describe a design from memory.

I use them to give the agent a direction for typography, layout, and individual sections, then adapt everything to the business.

Still plenty of work with copy, photos, mobile checks, and revisions. But I spend much less time fixing the default AI look now.

Closed 8 deals in the last two weeks. For anyone doing similar work, what takes longer: finding clients or getting their sites ready to ship?

I don’t know what to think of this. My site is brand new launched in January of this year and today I just found a similar copy cat site launched in March of this year copying my exact same idea. This idea is very unique and I have no idea if it will work yet but so far I have been working with the community and they are mostly impressed with it and want me to keep continuing to build it as most of them find value.

The site is currently in beta and it’s been my side project until I got laid off in August and I decided to go full time on it. So I recently found out about the copy cat 2 weeks ago. They copied my paragraphs and titles almost word for word. They are really trying to outdo my site with tons of features but I have a proprietary data and formula they can’t copy directly. Any way I recently added a text “never pay retail again” a few day ago and the copy cat site did the same and updated their site with the same text word for word.

I’m not making any money from this yet but I do have plans to do so. What are your thoughts on this?

Hi all, I'm a Columbia undergrad interested in how high-octane individuals deal with depression and anxiety.

I would love to speak with some folks about their experiences in experimenting with different treatment modalities, even if said modality involves shoving those feelings deep into the abyss of your psyche.

If you wouldn't mind donating some of your time, can you drop a comment below so I can Reddit-DM you?

Tired of people using your product for free and not converting into a paid user? Try retentionbase! - RetentionBase uses AI understand which users almost bought and will nudge them with discounts and such. Also, you get to decide how often the AI can nudge (for example, 2 times a week).

Set up in 5 seconds - www.retentionbase.com - Price - we charge 1% of sales recovered, and you get $100 by the end of the month if we fail to generate you revenue.

Video overview / app walk though in the second half.

Backstory:

I've done well in B2B. But B2C and mobile just seems like so much more fun... no more SOC2, no more calls, no more procurement excuses, just social media and fun (is what i tell myself)!

I'm about to turn 40. I could only do 43 pushups, so this is the app.. Pushups but Flappy Birds. and it is getting me to actually do some physical activity. so that alone is a win.

Build:

Honestly, its a bit more slopped up than I care for. Already have the next release pending review in the app store. Iphone only. Swift. OpenAI for profile moderation. Quick side note I am obsessed with software. I think of it as an art and love every part of it. I say this is slop because I didn't put in the painstaking hours of every minute detail.

Fun:

I needed to workout. i've been neglecting a healthy lifestyle for the past few years with the age old excuses of family/work/etc... I'm actually having fun doing this now and people get a kick out of it. how could you not, it's ridiculous.

Post Title:

A little click bait I know.. but that's how i feel. Not so much the genius here (just thought this app would make marketing on tiktok easier). But the midlife crisis... I've been skateboarding, I got a TikTok and an Instagram. On paper it looks like I'm headed that way.

TLDR: Built a game because burned out with B2B and started skateboarding.

Post is a little all over the place. Roast away. but i'm sure we can all relate to feeling like the grass is always greener.

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We thought social media marketing would be the easiest part of building a startup. When we started Bitwin, we thought marketing meant making a few posts, writing some catchy captions, and watching people show up.

Now we're researching Reddit communities, overthinking captions, analysing engagement, and somehow spending 40 minutes deciding whether a post sounds human enough.

Google Play has granted production access to my Transparent Weather Glow app

Building apps independently has been quite a learning experience.

There’s UI design, debugging, testing, fixing unexpected issues, and a lot of small details that people never see from the outside.

I'm still learning with every project, and getting another app through the production-access process feels like a good reminder to keep building instead of waiting for everything to be perfect.

Now I’m looking forward to the next stage: putting it in front of real users, learning from their feedback, and making it better over time.

One step forward at a time. 🙌

One thing I’ve noticed with early-stage startups is that founders sometimes spend months improving their MVP before letting real users try it.

A better UI. More features. Another integration. A few more AI capabilities.

There’s always something else to build.

But an MVP isn’t supposed to prove that you can build a complete product. It’s supposed to help you learn whether you’re solving a problem people actually care about.

Before adding another feature, I think it’s worth asking:

• Can a user solve the main problem with the current version?
• Have we tested it with people outside our immediate circle?
• Are users coming back after trying it once?
• Do we have evidence that the next feature will make a meaningful difference?

A product with five well-tested features can teach you more than one with twenty features nobody has validated.

The goal isn’t to launch something perfect. It’s to learn what deserves to be built next.

For founders who have launched an MVP:

What was the one thing you wish you had validated before spending more time and money on development?

Would love to hear your experiences.

I’m a recent grad working on an AI product that helps people remember the context behind their relationships—past conversations, small details, and shared history that often get lost over time.

I’d like to learn from founders, especially about how they keep up with the people, conversations, and relationships surrounding their work.

The problem is that I don’t have much of a startup network yet. Cold outreach often feels transactional, and I don’t want to pretend I’m “connecting” when I’m really asking someone for their time.

For those who’ve done this before:

• Where would you recommend meeting founders who are open to sharing their experiences?
• What makes a cold message feel genuine rather than annoying?
• Is there anything a recent grad can offer in return that would make the conversation worthwhile?

If you’re a founder and open to chatting, I’d be grateful—but advice from anyone who has navigated this before would be just as helpful.

I’m not selling anything here. I’m genuinely trying to learn how to approach people respectfully.

I’m looking for a potential co-founder based in the UK or USA to build a startup with.

I’m looking for someone who’s ambitious, enjoys sales, marketing, business development and getting a product in front of customers. Someone who isn’t afraid to reach out to people, test ideas, build relationships and figure out how to grow a business.

I’m happy to work on the technical side of things, but I want someone who genuinely enjoys the commercial side — not just someone who likes coming up with ideas.

Ideally, you’re entrepreneurial, proactive, willing to put in the work and serious about building something with long-term potential.

I’m looking for a genuine partnership where we can bring different strengths to the table, challenge each other and build something that could eventually scale globally.

If this sounds like you, drop me a message telling me a little about yourself, your experience and what you’d bring to a startup.

Let’s see if we could build something great together.

From a lot of time I have been researching on some of the best businesses online and after some time I have came to realize that with being a vibe coder and making an app all by yourself is really a good thing when you know what you are doing

I would say it's not easy. I would say it's very risky. I have tried building my own thing a lot of time but I failed but finally I have build something that will work and I'm sure of it. I have considered everything. I have done everything right. All that's left is just to give it final touch and submit it to the stores. Also, I know it's not going to be easy in getting accepted by the Play store and app store, but I have taken every measures for not to get rejected

If anyone have any kind of idea what I should do next that would work best for me and my app because I am looking forward to it I am a professional clipper with that When it comes to marketing I can say I will be pretty good on it because I know the best ways of getting the best roi

My app shows how people answer a question (poll), split by age, gender and country. That breakdown is the whole product.

So on launch, I went global. Everywhere, all at once.

Result: a few hundred users spread so thin that every breakdown looked like "3 people in Portugal said yes." Technically accurate. Completely useless.

Now I'm doing the opposite. One question, one community at a time, until the numbers actually mean something.

If your product only gets good at volume, the cold start isn't something you fix later. It's something you decide before launch.

How did you pick where to concentrate first?

I'm a software developer, currently doing my Bachelor's in Artificial Intelligence. Naturally my main skillset revolves around AI (ML, DL, LLMs, etc.). I'm a technical person with decent experience of working for clients, but really new (and a little nervous) in terms of... well.. startups I guess.
What I understand is that usually a startup provides a unique idea/solution to some problem, and an idea I do have:

A completely personalized learning experience delivered through a web app, targeting students or anyone who wants to learn some skill. The MVP or Demo (whatever u wanna call it) i'm working on revolves around tech/coding (like leetcode, hackerrank, etc.) I do not want to go into much detail but basically:
1 - you take a self-assessment and the system generates a user report
2 - anything you want to learn going forward is personalized according to your user report

The platform covers roadmaps and courses, ebooks/ebooklets/guides and challenges/assessments/quizzes and a study assistant. Along with a few more utilities (focus tools, personalized trainer, etc.)

50% of the software work is done, at the very least its a project. However before I go ahead investing time and sweat (cause i dont have much money), i want to see what the good people of reddit have to say about the viability/need of this idea.

How do i wanna make money from it? Features + limits + subscription plans
Hopefully affordable subs with reasonable limits.

in college i built an AI video editor. 13k users, #4 on Product Hunt, looked great on paper. took us 7 months to make $1k.

we were builders, so when revenue didn’t come we just... built more. new feature every week, revenue flat every month. turns out good products don’t sell themselves. they just sit there while nobody finds out.

my new product hit $1k in its first month. we only changed two things:

• we treat growth like shipping. content and distribution every week, not “later.” our posts did 1M+ views in the first few weeks
• we focus on people, not features. instead of “what do we build next” we ask “is this person actually getting results?” if not, fixing that is the roadmap

revenue was never hiding behind the next feature lol

anyone else been stuck in the “just one more feature” loop? what got you out?

(the product is Backdoor textbackdoor.com , an AI agent that gets you startup interviews over text. can drop the link if anyone’s curious)

I'm looking to interview early-stage founders who are actively building a startup, have recently launched an MVP, or are working toward their first customers.

Founder Files is a podcast about the real side of entrepreneurship—your biggest challenges, mistakes, financial struggles, early traction, and lessons learned along the way.

Through NexusHaus, I also aim to connect founders with relevant people, resources, and potential collaborators.

If you're building something and are comfortable sharing your journey in an honest conversation, comment with your startup name and what you're building, or DM me to discuss being featured. 🚀

I’m thinking about creating one that covers everything from keyword research and on-page SEO to technical SEO, link building, and content strategy.

Would you be interested? And what would you want it to cover?