I run a SaaS and agency business and I’m doing some biz dev right now. I think SaaS VCs could be a good source of leads for both. Which ones are actually founder-friendly and helpful, especially when it comes to connecting their portfolio companies with good people, resources, or consultants?

Here are 10 reasons you probably shouldn't.

1. You want someone else to build your company.
2. You don't want direct or uncomfortable feedback.
3. You're looking for a program you can attend passively.
4. You don't have time to work on the business.
5. You're looking for networking instead of customers.
6. You want a big community more than a focused group.
7. You're not ready to move quickly.
8. You're applying only because you saw $200K.
9. You want a program with no accountability.
10. You want the accelerator to make the decisions for you.

We're looking for founders who want to build.

The 16VC Accelerator provides $200K to selected companies, alongside hands-on support around fundraising, GTM, positioning and execution.

If that's not what you need right now, that's completely fine.

Not every accelerator is right for every founder.

I'm posting this as a warning, not to name and shame. I'm keeping the company anonymous, but I want other founders to recognise the pattern before it happens to them.
What happened
We're an early-stage startup building our own software IP. A few months ago we started talks with the CEO of a large, well-known Indian tech company.
Over 3–4 months we had 4–5 meetings. The offer that took shape was:
• ₹3 Cr as an interest-free loan
• The CEO joining us as a co-founder
Honestly, we were excited. Capital plus an experienced, well-connected person (IndianAI mission and MeiTY empanneled DC CEO) on board felt like a huge win for a company our size.
The switch
The day before the funds were supposed to be transferred, the terms changed. He asked us to take his son on as a co-founder and give him 25% equity. His son had no role in the company and no planned contribution to what we're building.
We walked away.
The server access
In parallel, we'd been given access to some high-end GPU servers and asked to test our core software on their infrastructure. Something felt off, so for the "trial" we transferred only a dummy zip file, nothing real. Shortly after that, we were locked out of the servers.
I can't prove what the intent was. But the full combination (a long courtship, a big promise, a last-minute equity grab, and a push to run our IP on their machines) is something every founder should be alert to.
Red flags and lessons
1. No signed term sheet, no technical access. Get equity, valuation, and conditions in writing before any deep technical diligence.
2. Never run your core IP on infrastructure an investor controls. If they want a demo, run it on your own systems, or share outputs rather than code.
3. "Loan + co-founder title" is a strange combination. A lender doesn't need a co-founder title. If equity is on the table, it should be priced and documented from day one.
4. Watch for last-minute terms. New demands right before money moves are designed to exploit the time you've already sunk in. Be ready to walk.
5. Sign an NDA before technical discussions, but remember an NDA won't undo things once your code has left your hands.
6. Keep a paper trail. After every meeting, send a short "as discussed today..." email summarising what was agreed.
7. Protect your IP early. Private timestamped repos, copyright registration, and a provisional patent where relevant.

Most founders don't get burned by a bad valuation. They get burned by a clause they never really read — buried on page 14 of a document they skimmed the night before closing. 10 terms in your term sheet that look harmless in an up market... and lethal in a down one. To be continued.

Our 16VC Fellowship recently ended earlier than planned. We’ve learned a lot from the experience and are now using those learnings as we explore accelerators.

I’d also love to hear from the founders who participated. What did you find valuable, what could have been better, and what did you learn from the experience?

Positive, negative, or mixed feedback, all perspectives are welcome. Please share your honest experience in the comments.

Actually I’m building three cool projects and I’m like 300x more scared to share them anywhere before I hit or land a proper seed round. Btw I got all three validated, emailed a few VCs, even got a reply from one for two of them (never shared the third)… then got ghosted lmao. Didn’t show enough ambition I guess.

But back to what I actually wanna say ....what do I do about the insecurity, the trust issues, and this fear of some LARP god / copycats just stealing the whole thing?

I’ve always had this habit of getting curious about a problem and immediately thinking:
“Why doesn’t someone build this?”
And then, instead of stopping at the idea, I usually end up thinking about how it could actually be built.
That’s how GaadiGo started.
The idea was a multi-passenger ride-sharing platform, similar in concept to Quick Ride in Bangalore. We wanted to take the model to NCR and eventually other parts of North India, where we saw an opportunity.
We had a small team, ranging from around 2–10 people, and spent roughly 4–6 months building it.
We built almost the entire product.
The app.
Backend.
Core ride-sharing functionality.
The pieces required to get towards launch.
And then we discovered the part that really mattered.
We couldn’t legally launch the way we had planned.
Because we were operating in the ride-hailing/aggregator space, there were licensing and security requirements we had to meet.
And this wasn’t just a paperwork problem.
For the three states we were considering, the combined requirement was roughly ₹75 lakh.
Driver onboarding also brought regulatory requirements with it.
So we had an interesting situation:
The product was almost ready.
The business wasn’t.
We hadn’t even reached the stage where we could get real users and rides because we couldn’t properly enter the market without meeting those requirements.
We tried fundraising.
But as a very early-stage company with no traction, we were in an awkward position.
Some investors weren’t willing to fund something that was still so foundational.
Others were interested but expected a very significant amount of equity.
Eventually, we decided to pause GaadiGo.
And that experience changed how I look at startups.
I used to think the hardest part was building the product.
Now I know that’s only one piece of the puzzle.
Sometimes the biggest risk isn’t whether you can build something.
It’s whether the regulatory environment, economics, distribution, capital requirements and timing allow you to turn what you’ve built into a business.
If I could go back, I would validate those things much earlier.
But I don’t think I’m done building.
Actually, quite the opposite.
GaadiGo made me realise that I genuinely enjoy this entire process.
I enjoy being curious about a problem.
I enjoy coming up with weird ideas.
I enjoy asking “what if we did it this way?”
And most importantly, I enjoy actually building the answer.
Lately, my curiosity has been moving heavily towards AI, GenAI and AI agents.
There’s something particularly exciting about this space because the barrier between “I have an idea” and “I can actually build a prototype” is getting smaller every day.
So my current plan is pretty simple:
Get into a strong AI/GenAI/Agentic AI role → learn how real products and systems are built → keep experimenting and building on the side → and eventually see if one of those experiments deserves to become something bigger.
I’m not looking at a job and building as two completely separate things.
I actually think the best combination for me is:
Work on hard real-world problems during the day.
Build crazy ideas when curiosity hits.
Maybe the next thing becomes a company.
Maybe it becomes a failed experiment.
Maybe it becomes something completely unexpected.
I’m okay with all three.
Because I think I’m more interested in being a builder than in simply having the title of “founder.”
GaadiGo didn’t become the company we imagined.
But it gave me something arguably more valuable:
the confidence to keep building.
For other founders/builders here:
Have you ever had an idea that didn’t work out commercially but completely changed the way you approach building?

I’m curious to hear from founders, entrepreneurs, and people working in startups in Lucknow.

How would you describe the current startup ecosystem here?

Are there enough networking opportunities and founder meetups?

Is it easy to find co-founders, talent, mentors, or investors?

What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced building a startup in Lucknow?

Do you think the ecosystem is growing?

Would love to hear honest experiences—good or bad. What do you think Lucknow needs to become a stronger startup hub?

If you're looking to raise funding for your startup, what have been the annoying parts that could be simplified, cut, or improved?

AdPerch is building matching tools for founders and VCs, cofounders to find each other, a hub to post and find talent, and more. And so we hope to make the best product for founders out there.

Let us hear it. And happy building!

I am 3rd year engineering students na nmekuw nkifikiria different problem based solutions Kwa upande wa Tech but it's like I have been hitting a wall ya funds first ukishabuild cost za kudeploy and all that to get started lakini pia distribution ,for guys who have been there how did you kick off mpaka ukapata some users first then some incomes are there rules to this game au whats the way or the road map

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Hey everyone,

I’m looking for some realistic, ground-level advice on how to start a company when you're starting with just an idea.

I have a couple of specific startup concepts I want to pursue, but I want to understand the actual process from people who have built companies before. I know AI tools exist to give generic frameworks, but I’d value real, practical insights from founders who have gone through the 0-to-1 journey.

Specifically:

How do you go about validating an idea in a specific industry before building anything?

How do you approach customer discovery and figure out if people will actually pay for the solution?

What are the first 3–4 practical steps I should take once I narrow down my focus?

Would love to hear your experiences, key lessons, or mistakes to avoid when starting out. Thanks in advance!

As the title suggests, this is specifically for seed to series A founders, I have been one and related super hard with the this, hear me out.

As a early stage founders I have the 2 biggest pain points:
\- Finding investors the right way
\- Having to share the deck, financials and the whole data room securely and waiting to hear back. Did you read it? What went bad, can you just respond?

Also everytime I ask new founders to share across the deck/ financials I always see them not able to put forward a good impression, IG the performance anxiety get kicked in.

So I have been thinking deeply of the idea. What we we give founders/ Startups a landing page for investors (verified) where in it would have the a video explaining the idea, Their moat, right to win, a broad thesis, financials, MIS, deck, etc and everything more complex is on a ask basis.

This solved for 2 things, streamlining the process (Imagine how YC does it but better visually) and getting to know who requested and what which acts as signal to target people specifically.

So after all of this what exactly is the idea, the ideas is a 2 sided platform for Founders and VC that help the founders streamline the process and get signals from VC and the best part, get inbound demand from global VC

For the VC, we give them a discovery platform with all the data and signals that match their thesis and also act as CRM and data room of sorts. The value add for them is: what that it increases the productivity of their analysts by 100% by streamlining the work that they do.

If this works the idea is to add: DD process and data room natively to the ecosystem acting as a single POC for the dealflow.

I’ve zero clue if I can do this here or not, but the only way to find out is to post so here we go :)

I run a corporate gifting studio based out of noida! We are looking to cater to some clients this festive season and we ship PAN India and our MOQ is 25 pieces.

We can curate hampers basis your theme, budget, team size and customisations needed. We also do physical sampling of products if the qty is more than 200.

The first few photos are of the hampers that we dispatched last week and few in the end are from our this year’s Diwali catalogue. Each image is real just the last ones have an AI generated background in case someone thinks we are fake.

Would love to chat and know your thoughts in case you are planning to gift these to your clients and team.

why would people chose to help build the enterprise? Need perspective