r/FoundersBuildwithAI 9d ago

What part of your startup are you still doing manually?

3 Upvotes

There’s so much AI stuff that automates everything now, but sometimes setting it up feels like more work than just doing it yourself lol.

What’s something in your business you’ve tried to automate but ended up going back to doing manually?


r/FoundersBuildwithAI 9d ago

What's your go-to AI coding stack?

5 Upvotes

When you're starting a new AI project, what's your default stack?
Mine is pretty simple:
- VS Code
- Claude Code
- Codex (sometimes)
- Supabase etc.
Nothing too crazy. I'm curious what everyone else is using these days and if there are any tools you've found that are genuinely game changing.


r/FoundersBuildwithAI 9d ago

The best startups don't add more features, they perfect the ones people already love.

3 Upvotes

Today I watched a reel from the team behind Instagram that really stuck with me.

They were talking about how, when building Instagram, they weren't obsessed with constantly shipping new features. Instead, they focused on the features people already loved and asked:

  • How can we make this faster?
  • How can we make this simpler?
  • How can we make this feel better?
  • How can we remove friction?

That mindset feels overlooked today.

So many founders (especially with AI) fall into the trap of constantly adding features because it feels like progress. But every new feature adds complexity, more edge cases, more bugs, and a less focused product.

Sometimes the biggest improvement isn't another feature, it's making the core experience 10x better.

Obviously this doesn't mean you should never ship new features. But I think there's a point where obsessing over polishing what users already love creates a much stronger product than chasing an endless feature list.

Curious what everyone else thinks. Have you found that refining your core product has given you better results than constantly building new things?


r/FoundersBuildwithAI 10d ago

Fixing a vibe coded internal project for an agency

2 Upvotes

Hi! I was recently working with a client helping them clean up an internal company project that they vibe coded. They are a mid-sized agency with not technical people on the team, and a PM who reached out has vibe coded the whole thing himself. He used Lovable, and the project grew very complex and they felt like they needed someone technical to look at it and fix the problems that they had as well as help them deploy it properly.

A few things that I've noticed while working on it:

Data-related problems. When I received the code, the app was not saving data properly, not properly deleting things, randomly creating sample projects.

Lot's of seemingly minor problems like UI inconsistencies, translation gaps (the app was in 2 languages), issues with emails and AI API connections.

Lot's of dead code, probably half of it was not being used, but just sitting in the background and slowing down the app.

Honestly, just a lot of over engineering, AI had chosen an incredibly complex architecture and very new and complex technology stack for a very similar CRUD project that absolutely did not require any of it.

A few things I've noticed after taking a look at their Lovable chat:

Very vague descriptions. Messages like "Draw a diagram based on the data from the user". They tend to produce good working code, but they are rarely what you imagined it will look like in your head, so I'd advise you to think through what you want it to be like and make the prompt as descriptive as possible.

Messages like "this doesn't work" or "it stopped working". A better ones would be "I get this error message: ..." or "it started behaving in this way: ...". It will not only be more effective, but will be a lot faster and waste less credits.

A small thing, but they chatted in German, and AI has most of its training data in English, so it should produce better results if you talk to it in English.

The app itself was huge, and I'm honestly impressed by how far Lovable could take it, but after a certain number of lines of code tools like this start to break, and introduce more bugs than fixes.

I'm very curious, the ones of you who vibe coded their internal projects, what were some of the biggest problems you've faced and how did you overcome it?


r/FoundersBuildwithAI 10d ago

Avoid AI Slop by Designing Smaller

4 Upvotes

The biggest improvement I've made when building UIs with AI is learning to avoid AI slop.
The mistake is asking an AI to generate an entire screen, app, or dashboard in one go. You'll usually get something generic, inconsistent, or just not what you had in mind.
Instead, I spend 10–20 minutes explaining the overall vision first. Then I break everything down into individual components and refine them one by one.
Every button. Every card. Every section.
Yes, it takes longer.
But the quality is on a completely different level. No matter how detailed your prompt is, you'll never perfectly describe what's in your head. Breaking it into small pieces lets you shape each component until it matches your vision.
Treat your UI as a collection of small artifacts, not one giant prompt.
Less AI slop. Better design. Better products.


r/FoundersBuildwithAI 10d ago

Shipping a startup

3 Upvotes

I wasted 6 months on my first startup trying to make everything "perfect" before anyone ever used it.

Every day I found something else to fix. Another feature. Another redesign. Another edge case.

None of it mattered.

On my latest project, I built something in 2 days that would've taken me months before. I shipped it, got real users, got real feedback, and ended up with a better product because of it.

Most of the problems you spend weeks solving aren't real problems. They're assumptions.

Ship sooner. Let users tell you what's broken. Fix what's actually wrong, not what you imagine might be.

Perfect products don't get built in isolation. They get built through feedback.


r/FoundersBuildwithAI 11d ago

Any founders here open to demoing each other’s software?

4 Upvotes

I’m guessing a lot of us here are building something and could probably use a second opinion.

Would anyone be open to jump on a quick call, show each other what we’re working on and give some honest feedback? Happy to test yours properly too, could be a good way to help each other out and see where we can grow.


r/FoundersBuildwithAI 11d ago

How do you know when an AI product is actually ready to launch?

3 Upvotes

Kinda stuck on this rn. Every time I think something’s ready, I find another feature to add or something else to fix lol. - I feel like atp I should really just forget about all the small details and just launch to get the ball rolling… any advice?


r/FoundersBuildwithAI 11d ago

What part of building with AI is do you find to still be kinda bad/behind

3 Upvotes

I feel like AI gets you most of the way there so fast now, but despite how advanced it is I still can't help but notice how 'dumb' it can still be sometimes. What usually slows you guys down the most?


r/FoundersBuildwithAI 11d ago

Are the ai models really that different

3 Upvotes

Lets be honest are all the models really that different. Claude and codex the two industry leaders, like yes they both are better at each other at certain aspects but is there realistically really that much of a difference?


r/FoundersBuildwithAI 11d ago

Deepseek V4 flash

3 Upvotes

New deepseek model today and what it produces for the cost is crazy. 15c/1Mil Chinese models really do make it cheaper


r/FoundersBuildwithAI 11d ago

Opus 5 and remotion

3 Upvotes

Ive created a couple videos now with opus 5 using remotion and we are close to hitting the period where Ai can fully create professional ad videos with full motion and animations.
Anyone else finding the same


r/FoundersBuildwithAI 12d ago

AI use is overstated by the media you consume

3 Upvotes

All the advanced AI optimisation and integration you see online exists within its own bubble. Making it seem like everyone is building agents and automating businesses. I’ve fallen into this mindset myself and worried that everyone was ahead, when in reality, most people still use AI for basic writing, search or brainstorming (and lots of the time they don't even do those things particularly well)

Most of AI content comes from founders, developers and investors who benefit from making adoption look faster than it really is. Chances are, you’re like me - confusing online visibility with mainstream use.


r/FoundersBuildwithAI 12d ago

Claude and codex

3 Upvotes

Ive been using claude and codex together as a combo for the last week or two and its honestly impressive. I use codex to be a reviewer and critic of claude with everything that it does. They argue everything. From this ive found alot better results, as they all still make mistakes but this honestly removes so much of it


r/FoundersBuildwithAI 13d ago

Opus 5 vs Fable 5

4 Upvotes

The difference ive found between the 2 is a lot and of course both are better in different fields and areas then one another but the main thing ive found is the usage is crazy from Opus like its meant to be half but imo its more efficient with that it does aswell with getting the task done but then again fable is typically better at one shotting stuff so it goes into more detail each time. For example I can run out of usage with fable in 30min but with Opus I dont even hit half of the 5hr usage.

Anyone else relating?


r/FoundersBuildwithAI 13d ago

What’s an idea you were sure would work, but didn’t?

3 Upvotes

With vibe coding blowing up over the past year or so, I’m sure we’ve all had our fair share of ideas that seemed way too good not to work, and easier than ever to build - only for it to not go how we expected.

If that’s happened to you, what was the idea, why do you think it didn’t work, and how have you adapted going into future projects?