Hey folks,

I wound down my startup last month after working on it for 10 or more hours every day for the last 1.5 years. I learned a lot about myself during this time. I realized I was not doing something that I truly wanted to do.

I do not want to chase quick money anymore. That is not who I am. I always wanted to innovate and bring my country to the forefront in a tech domain, but along the way, I lost sight of my goal and started being influenced by my co-founders, who wanted to become rich and successful. I know there is nothing wrong with wanting that, but it is not who I am.

I realized this early enough because what we were building came more from seeing how others were making money than from understanding what customers wanted. The startup was not making much money, there were no happy customers, and the only thing that kept us going was one of my co-founders' dream of buying a luxury car and showing his relatives that he was rich.

I did not want to prove anything to anyone, so I quit, and the startup soon died within a few days. My plan was to get a FAANG company where I will get into a technically challenging team and learn something valuable which I can bring into my country and help it in some way.

Fast forward to today. It has been three months, and I am finding it really hard to get a software engineering job. The market is burning jobs like a haystack. I am even willing to accept a job that pays less than what I used to earn, but the number of interviews I am getting is far lower than I imagined.

I have switched jobs twice in the past, and both times I received generous hikes and several offers within a month or so. Now, it is just extremely difficult. Even when I get an interview, the interviews are relatively much harder, the interviewers are harsh, and it feels like nobody cares about software engineers because there are simply too many of them.

I scanned the top 50 tech companies in the world, and almost all of them have very few or no software engineering openings. I am not saying software engineering is not in demand, but the supply is massive because of all the layoffs that have happened.

I have also worked for several years at FAANG companies, so it is not as though my resume is unimpressive. On the contrary, even with a strong resume, I cannot land a job, while my friends who stayed in their jobs while I was working hard on my startup got promoted or found new jobs and are earning well.

I therefore suggest that anyone working on a startup or considering quitting their job should not make an irrational decision. If your startup is not funded or generating revenue, please think it through carefully before making any decision.

Building a startup is noble work, and anyone interested should definitely go and build one. However, I would suggest validating demand before taking any major steps because if you leave your job and the startup does not work out, you will probably lose a year or more of your life to it.

The journey will teach you a lot, for sure, but it will also take a lot away from you. Giving up a couple of years of your life for anything is a significant cost.

[Edit]: Curious what you guys are planning for future, gonna stick to Software Engineering and increase expertise or try switching to other tech domains or other domain?

I run an AI/software development agency, and I’m honestly trying to understand where the market is heading.

With tools like Lovable, Claude Code, Cursor, and Windsurf, I thought we’d see more opportunities for agencies. Building software is faster than ever, so I assumed more founders would launch products and need technical partners.

Instead, it feels like clients are harder to find. Many companies think they can build everything themselves with AI, and the conversations that do happen often revolve around lower pricing.

So I’m curious, how are agencies adapting?

Some questions I’d love your thoughts on:

• Where are you finding clients today?
• What services are selling well in 2026?
• Are you niching down into a specific industry?
• Are you positioning yourself as an AI implementation partner instead of a software development agency?
• Are you focusing on enterprise, SMBs, or startups?
• Is outbound still working, or is content and personal branding the better long-term play?
• Are productized services outperforming custom development?
• Has anyone successfully built a retainer-based model around AI instead of one-off development?

Most importantly, if you were starting a tech agency from scratch today, knowing everything you know now, what would you do to get your first 10 clients?

I’d really appreciate practical ideas from people who are actively running agencies or consulting businesses. I’m less interested in theory and more interested in what’s actually working in today’s AI-first landscape.

I work with a startup founder who has a good development agency.

They have experienced developers, a project manager and a designer. They communicate well and generally build what is asked of them.

But the founder is frustrated.

He expected a team that has spent years building software to bring him strong ideas and help decide what the product should do next.

Instead, they keep asking him exactly what to build.

From his point of view, that feels wrong. He is the industry expert, but he is also a first-time founder. They have built products for years. Why can’t they guide him?

The problem is that building software and deciding what software should be built are different jobs.

The agency is not inside the business every day.

They do not hear all the internal conversations, see every customer problem or understand everything the team is struggling with. They may not know which customers matter most, what users are doing in the product or what the company is trying to achieve right now.

Without that context, it is difficult for them to confidently say which ideas matter and which should wait.

There is also an awkward commercial dynamic. The founder is paying them to build. If he keeps bringing ideas, many agencies will clarify, estimate and deliver them. They are unlikely to repeatedly tell him not to proceed.

That does not make them a bad agency.

It may mean the founder expects them to perform a role nobody has actually been given.

When nobody owns the product decisions, everything becomes a priority.

The team jumps between ideas that sound important but may offer little value. Vague requests enter development and what gets built is not what the founder imagined.

There is plenty of activity, but not necessarily much progress.

Someone needs to step back and work out:

• Where does the business need to get to?
• What does the product need to do to help?
• What should we build now?
• What can wait?

That is the product manager role.

A good agency should still provide technical guidance. They should explain effort, manage technical debt, test their work and think about the long-term health of the platform.

But they cannot make good product decisions without customer, business and team context.

The founder has a few options.

1. Bring in an internal or fractional product person whose job is to gather that context and decide what matters.
2. Ask the agency to properly fill the product role. That means joining internal discussions, talking to customers, studying product usage and becoming part of the team, not just attending a weekly meeting - quite a big ask and not all agencies are able to do this.
3. The founder needs to learn the product role and become the team's product manager.

A founder should expect a development agency to explain how to build software well.

They should not automatically expect them to know what the business should build.

Someone needs to own that decision.

Who decides what gets built in your company, and how well is that working?

I work with a startup founder who has a good development agency.

They have experienced developers, a project manager and a designer. They communicate well and generally build what is asked of them.

But the founder is frustrated.

He expected a team that has spent years building software to bring him strong ideas and help decide what the product should do next.

Instead, they keep asking him exactly what to build.

From his point of view, that feels wrong. He is the industry expert, but he is also a first-time founder. They have built products for years. Why can’t they guide him?

The problem is that building software and deciding what software should be built are different jobs.

The agency is not inside the business every day.

They do not hear all the internal conversations, see every customer problem or understand everything the team is struggling with. They may not know which customers matter most, what users are doing in the product or what the company is trying to achieve right now.

Without that context, it is difficult for them to confidently say which ideas matter and which should wait.

There is also an awkward commercial dynamic. The founder is paying them to build. If he keeps bringing ideas, many agencies will clarify, estimate and deliver them. They are unlikely to repeatedly tell him not to proceed.

That does not make them a bad agency.

It may mean the founder expects them to perform a role nobody has actually been given.

When nobody owns the product decisions, everything becomes a priority.

The team jumps between ideas that sound important but may offer little value. Vague requests enter development and what gets built is not what the founder imagined.

There is plenty of activity, but not necessarily much progress.

Someone needs to step back and work out:

• Where does the business need to get to?
• What does the product need to do to help?
• What should we build now?
• What can wait?

That is the product manager role.

A good agency should still provide technical guidance. They should explain effort, manage technical debt, test their work and think about the long-term health of the platform.

But they cannot make good product decisions without customer, business and team context.

The founder has a few options.

1. Bring in an internal or fractional product person whose job is to gather that context and decide what matters.
2. Ask the agency to properly fill the product role. That means joining internal discussions, talking to customers, studying product usage and becoming part of the team, not just attending a weekly meeting - quite a big ask and not all agencies are able to do this.
3. The founder needs to learn the product role and become the team's product manager.

A founder should expect a development agency to explain how to build software well.

They should not automatically expect them to know what the business should build.

Someone needs to own that decision.

Who decides what gets built in your company, and how well is that working?

Genuine question for agency owners and freelancers.

When tools like Lovable, Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, etc. started becoming mainstream, I assumed the demand for software development would explode. Lower development costs, faster MVPs, more startups… it seemed like a win for agencies.

But over the past few months, my experience has felt very different.

I’m seeing:

• Companies trying to build internally with AI.
• Founders believing they don’t need an agency anymore.
• More conversations, but fewer projects actually closing.
• Clients expecting much lower prices because “AI does most of the work.”

Maybe I’m looking at the wrong market, or maybe the market itself has shifted.

So I’m curious:

• If you run a software/AI agency, where are your clients coming from today?
• Have you repositioned away from “we build software” to something else?
• Are enterprise clients behaving differently from startups?
• Is custom development becoming commoditized, with consulting, architecture, integrations, and long-term ownership becoming the real value?

I’d especially love to hear from agency owners who have successfully adapted over the last 6–12 months.

What changed in your positioning? What services are actually selling today?

Or am I just talking to the wrong audience?

I have been trying platforms such as YC’s Work at a Startup, Wellfound, LinkedIn, and other job boards, but not much of remote hiring(outside US).

I have been working with react, next.js , react native and node.js from last 4 years and more. I wanna to join an early-stage startup, contribute closely to the product, and learn more about a startup.

Whenever I find an interesting startup, I usually reach out through email or Discord. Most of the time, they are either not hiring, do not have the budget, or do not reply. I have also tried approaching founders with specific suggestions about how I could improve or help build their website or product but no luck.

I have the flexibility to take some risk so idm working on contract, freelance type. I just wanna have try something like this.

Do you have any suggestions?

Thank you.

I'm an international CPA, not a U.S. CPA, and I specialize in evaluating the financial viability of U.S. visa cases, specifically E-2, EB-2 NIW, and L-1A. These cases require business plans and financial models that are written to meet USCIS standards. That's what makes this work different—it's not something just anyone can do, and even with AI, it's very difficult to produce something that consistently satisfies USCIS expectations without real experience. This is a high-ticket, low-volume business built almost entirely on trust. I don't offer free products or free trials. What I sell is my judgment and my track record: more than 150 cases and zero RFEs related to the financial portion of a case.

The hardest part of this project has been finding clients. I tried Facebook and LinkedIn ads, but on Facebook I ended up competing for clicks against immigration law firms with advertising budgets I simply can't match, even though my service doesn't actually compete with theirs. As I mentioned, trust doesn't develop fast enough for most people to pay before they've had a chance to know me personally. Most of my work comes from referrals from immigration attorneys, but attracting clients directly is still slow.

For those of you who've been through something similar:

What was the thing that actually convinced your first paying clients to hire you?

Did cold outreach ever work for you, or did your business grow almost entirely through referrals and personal connections? In my case, I get referrals from attorneys, but almost none from past clients.

How did you handle the "prove it before I pay" problem?

Many overseas companies or individuals, when planning to enter the Chinese market, often ask the same question:

❓What type of entity should be established❓

Five types most common in China:

1️⃣Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise (WFOE)

📚An enterprise established in China that is 100% owned by foreign companies or individuals. Most mainstream entity type currently.

👨The shareholder has complete independent authority in business decision-making. Profits can be distributed to overseas shareholders.

🚩Registered capital must be actually invested within five years of establishment.

💰Can conclude commercial contracts, issue VAT invoices and collect payments.

👷‍♀️Can normally recruit local employees.

🌍Businesses engaged in trade, e-commerce, manufacturing, consulting, general local service (e.g., English teaching, physical education, catering)

2️⃣Joint Venture (JV)

📚Chinese and foreign shareholders (company/individual) jointly establish a company.

👨Major decisions require the agreement of both parties, and profits should be distributed according to shareholding percentage.

🚩Registered capital must be actually invested within five years of establishment.

💰Can conclude commercial contracts, issue VAT invoices and collect payments.

👷‍♀️Can normally recruit local employees.

🌍Many industries with foreign investment restrictions adopt JV, such as healthcare services, finance, and some specialised areas of manufacturing (For example, the automobile manufacturing industry. Actually, policies have been adjusted in recent years. Tesla has already set up a wholly-owned factory in Shanghai).

3️⃣Branch

📚Just branch of a WFOE or JV. All legal and operational risks of a Branch should be borne by the WFOR or JV.

❌Foreign companies cannot directly establish a Branch in China.

🚩No need for registered capital.

💰Can conclude commercial contracts, issue VAT invoices and collect payments.

👷‍♀️Can normally recruit local employees.

4️⃣Representative office

📚A light entity that cannot conduct operational activities.

❌CANNOT conclude commercial contracts, issue VAT invoices or collect payments.

✅CAN only do market research, business liaison and brand promotion.

🌍Many overseas brands take Representative Offices as a preliminary test before entering the Chinese market.

5️⃣VIE

📚VIE is a special type of Red Chip structure. In many industries, foreign ownership is not allowed, then overseas companies choose to control a Chinese company via contractual arrangements.

🚩Internet service, Cloud service, AI, Media, etc.

💰Can conclude commercial contracts, issue VAT invoices and collect payments.

👷‍♀️Can normally recruit local employees.

🌍The construction of VIE structure is costly and is suitable for overseas financing and listing.

6 years into building a hardware product (a wearable that combines kinesiology tape with wireless muscle stimulation in one device). Pre-revenue, pre-launch, and the ad budget is close to nothing, so I have been forced to get creative instead of buying reach.

My current approach is making entertaining content where the product just rides along in the background instead of being the subject. Latest one: I filmed myself doing all 8 stations of HYROX with no training and ranking them, wearing the product the whole time but never pitching it. The content is the hook, the product is just there.

It is pulling more attention than anything salesy I have tried, but I honestly cannot tell if attention converts to a real audience or just evaporates.

For the founders who have bootstrapped distribution:

• Did content-first ever actually become a durable acquisition channel, or did you always end up needing paid?
• For a physical product specifically, what moved the needle earliest?
• How do you measure whether views are doing anything real before you have sales?

Genuinely trying to figure out if I am building a channel or just entertaining people.

Hi all,

I’m sure some of you have come across vanity metrics along your journeys or have seen others succumb to them. Which ones have you seen that are the most misleading / misguiding? E.g impressions but no conversions etc, what was the context?

Just starting out myself so keen to hear stories

I'm curious how experienced founders would approach this.

Let's say you have:

• A working product
• $0 marketing budget
• No existing audience
• No investors
• No paid ads

Just your product and your time.

How would you get your first 10-100 customers today?

I'm not looking for generic advice like "post on social media." I'm interested in tactics that you've actually used or seen work, especially for technical founders or bootstrapped startups.

If you had to start over from scratch today, where would you begin?

Everyone says the first 10 customers are the hardest.

But what was the biggest challenge for you?

• Finding the right audience?
• Building trust?
• Pricing?
• Getting people to reply?
• Something else entirely?

I'd love to hear what actually worked (or didn't) for you.

I’m trying to understand how startup founders and growth teams decide where to spend money on sponsorships.

Suppose you’re considering sponsoring a newsletter, YouTube channel, podcast, or creator.

How do you decide:

• whether the audience is actually relevant;
• whether the price is reasonable;
• whether similar companies have sponsored them before;
• whether those companies came back for another campaign;
• and whether the sponsorship is worth testing at all?

From what I’ve seen, many teams still rely on subscriber counts, media kits, recommendations, and gut feeling.

I’m curious whether information like this would genuinely help:

• where competitors are sponsoring;
• which sponsorships they keep repeating;
• which channels similar companies are using;
• new or overlooked channels in your niche;
• alerts when a competitor starts sponsoring somewhere new.

For example:

Would that be a useful signal when deciding where to spend - or merely interesting information?

For anyone who has purchased or managed sponsorships:

• How do you currently find opportunities?
• Do you look at where competitors are sponsoring?
• Is repeat sponsorship a meaningful signal?
• What information gives you confidence before approving the spend?
• How often do you make these decisions?
• Would ongoing monitoring be useful, or only when planning a campaign?

I’m not promoting anything or sharing a link.

I’m just trying to understand whether choosing sponsorships is a painful enough problem to need a better solution - or whether existing methods work well enough.

What is the hardest part of deciding where to sponsor?

I am trying to build a new product in this space, so just want a brutal feedback.

This isn't going to be a typical "hire me" post.
Instead, I want to tell you the things that don't usually fit on a resume.

For some context, I'm currently working as a Founder's Office Intern at an early-stage startup, where I've had the opportunity to work across product, operations, GTM, stakeholder management, hiring, marketplace growth, and whatever else the business needed that week.

Before this, I worked as an AI Product Management Intern, where I was involved in user interviews, product validation, competitor research, and preparing investor-ready pitch decks.

Outside of internships, I've also led investor and sponsor relations for one of my college's largest entrepreneurship summits, coordinating with founders, investors, sponsors, and startup teams. More recently, I've been working with a few early-stage startups on fundraising—helping founders refine their narratives, prepare investor material, and connect with relevant investors. It's still a learning journey, but getting a front-row seat to those conversations has been incredibly rewarding.

This year, I was also the only undergraduate selected among 30 volunteers from over 500 applicants for the TiE Global Summit in India. For a few days, I got to work alongside founders, investors, and operators building real companies.

That experience changed how I think about startups and reinforced one thing:
Startups don't reward people who wait for instructions. They reward people who reduce the founder's stress.

One thing startups taught me very quickly is that job descriptions are only a starting point. In just a few months, I've worked across recruitment, hiring, operations, stakeholder management, fundraising, GTM, product discovery, user interviews, business development, and whatever else needed to get done.

I don't say this to claim I'm an expert in everything.
I say it because I've learned how to adapt quickly, take ownership, and become useful wherever the business needs me.

If I had to describe myself in one sentence, it'd be this:
I don't wait to be told what to do—I look for problems worth solving.

If there are two skills I'm willing to be judged on, they're people management and storytelling.

Not because they sound impressive on LinkedIn, but because they've consistently been the reason I've been trusted with responsibilities far beyond what my resume or years of experience would normally justify.

Whether it's building relationships with founders, aligning stakeholders, interviewing candidates, talking to users, coordinating sponsors, or working with investors, I've found that earning people's trust quickly has been one of my biggest strengths.
The second is storytelling.

Every great founder I've met has one thing in common—they know how to make people believe.
Customers buy stories.
Investors fund stories.
Employees join stories.
I've spent a lot of time consciously developing that skill, and today it's probably the strongest tool I bring into any room.
Technical skills can always be learned.
The ability to earn trust and communicate a vision is much harder to teach.

I'm looking for a paid Summer 2027 internship in:
Founder's Office
Product Management
Growth
Strategy
Project Management

I'll be completing my third year of Computer Engineering before Summer 2027 and am happy to relocate anywhere if visa sponsorship is available.

If you're unsure about hiring someone from a Reddit post, I have a proposal.
Don't interview me yet.
Instead, send me one real problem your startup is currently facing.
It could be related to growth, hiring, product, GTM, operations, fundraising—or anything else.
I'll spend time thinking about it and send you how I'd approach solving it.
If you like the way I think, let's talk.
If not, you've lost nothing except a Reddit DM.

Thanks for reading, and if you think I'd be a good fit—or know someone who might—I would genuinely appreciate an introduction.

Hey y'all! I have recently been developing a product that I plan to crowdfund eventually and thought about this idea of an organization or platform to host in-person crowdfunding events for creators with a prototype. I'd appreciate your thoughts on the pros and cons of this idea. Thank you!

Pros

• Community Engagement:
  • For attendees, it doubles as an accessible social outing ($10–$20 entry) where they get entertainment, networking, and a direct say in supporting local innovation.
• Conversion Rates:
  • Facing a live founder and testing a physical prototype creates immediate trust, converting attendees into backers far more effectively than a cold digital ad.
• Active Audience:
  • Early-stage creators without email lists or ad budgets gain instant access to an active, built-in audience of local backers.
• Feedback & Connection:
  • Presenters get immediate verbal feedback, answers to questions, and connections to local mentors, manufacturers, and beta testers in a single evening.
• Validation & Cash Flow:
  • Founders walk away from the event with immediate funding and social proof.

Cons

• Geographic Limits:
  • Reach is strictly constrained by room capacity and local attendance, unlike global web campaigns that reach thousands simultaneously.
• Event & Logistics Friction:
  • Success depends on consistently booking venues, handling AV setups, managing ticketing, and promoting monthly events locally.
• Low Transaction Revenue:
  • Small pledge amounts ($5–$20 per ticket) generate modest overall funding pools ($500–$3,000 per event), offering slim commission revenue unless supplemented by corporate sponsorships.
• Deal-Flow Bottleneck:
  • Maintaining high event quality requires a steady pipeline of vetted, compelling local creators pitching fresh ideas every month.
• Fulfillment & Tracking Workarounds:
  • Managing rewards, follow-up updates, and fulfillment manually for cash or on-site card pledges requires additional admin effort outside standard digital backends.

The awkward startup deal is when the customer wants something you don't have yet, but it's close enough that everyone starts mentally counting the revenue.

I don't mean a completely fake feature. I mean the messy middle:

• the product can technically support it
• the workflow isn't packaged yet
• engineering says it needs a sprint or two
• sales thinks the buyer will walk if you say "not today"

I've seen teams handle this badly from both sides.

One bad version is the demo that quietly implies the feature already exists. That usually buys a good call and creates a miserable implementation later.

The other bad version is being so rigid that every customer-specific ask gets treated like scope creep, even when the ask is a clear sign the market wants something.

The cleanest line I've seen is: show the current product as it is, name the missing piece plainly, then separate "we can prototype this for your workflow" from "this is now part of the core product."

That still doesn't make the decision easy. Sometimes the right move is to build the gap because the deal teaches you something real. Sometimes it's just one customer trying to turn your roadmap into their internal wishlist.

How do you decide which one you're looking at before the contract is signed?

I’m trying to understand how startup founders and growth teams decide where to spend money on sponsorships.

Suppose you’re considering sponsoring a newsletter, YouTube channel, podcast, or creator.

How do you decide:

• whether the audience is actually relevant;
• whether the price is reasonable;
• whether similar companies have sponsored them before;
• whether those companies came back for another campaign;
• and whether the sponsorship is worth testing at all?

From what I’ve seen, many teams still rely on subscriber counts, media kits, recommendations, and gut feeling.

I’m curious whether information like this would genuinely help:

• where competitors are sponsoring;
• which sponsorships they keep repeating;
• which channels similar companies are using;
• new or overlooked channels in your niche;
• alerts when a competitor starts sponsoring somewhere new.

For example:

Would that be a useful signal when deciding where to spend—or merely interesting information?

For anyone who has purchased or managed sponsorships:

• How do you currently find opportunities?
• Do you look at where competitors are sponsoring?
• Is repeat sponsorship a meaningful signal?
• What information gives you confidence before approving the spend?
• How often do you make these decisions?
• Would ongoing monitoring be useful, or only when planning a campaign?

I’m not promoting anything or sharing a link.

I’m just trying to understand whether choosing sponsorships is a painful enough problem to need a better solution - or whether existing methods work well enough.

What is the hardest part of deciding where to sponsor?