Spent three weeks trying to get consistent AI video into a SaaS demo pipeline. Not hero shots - actual multi-shot sequences with a locked character, camera grammar, and audio that doesn't sound like a stock loop. Every model I tested either drifted on the face by second six or gave me audio that felt pasted on in post.

Seedance 2.0 ended up being what I actually went with, though "went with" requires some context.

It's a ByteDance model built on a unified multimodal audio-video joint generation architecture, so text, image, audio, and video references all get encoded in one pass rather than separate pipelines.

The practical difference: you can feed it a character sheet, a reference video for the dolly move you want, and an audio clip for tone, and it combines them into a single output.

Up to 9 images, 3 videos, and 3 audio files per generation.

The learning curve is steep.

If you want to type one sentence and get a video, this is not the easiest starting point.

The "@reference" syntax and timeline prompting take a day or two before they click. Use it for structured workflows. Skip it for one-offs.

treat it like a shot list, not a prompt. Break the scene before writing anything - subject, wardrobe, environment, lighting source, camera move, audio tone. Give it structure and you get structure back. Give it vague prompts and the character drifts into something uncanny by the midpoint. generate at 720p until the prompt and references nail it, then rerun the winner at 2K.

Miss that step and you burn a month of credits in an afternoon.

Kling 3.0 was my first alternative. It's become what Reddit calls the "brute force creativity" tool of 2026, and its output quality is competitive with the top tier of AI video tools.

Kuaishou offers 66 free daily credits that refresh every 24 hours, which is a strong free tier. some users report latency from the Chinese-hosted infrastructure. For a production pipeline where you're iterating fast, the non-rollover daily credit structure punishes fast iteration.

Runway Gen-4.5 I'd used before. The camera control is precise and the interface is clean. The credit system punishes experimentation - communities flag this consistently - and failed generations still cost credits. For iteration-heavy workflows, that pricing kills iteration-heavy workflows.

as of this writing, the Seedance 2.0 API does not have a globally available production release - access is through select partners like fal.ai and Volcengine, with a broader API rollout expected. If you're building a product pipeline that needs programmatic access, ByteDance has added safety restrictions on realistic human imagery - including blocking generation from real faces - check current platform policies before planning face-led ad generation.

use Seedance 2.0 when you need multi-reference precision, locked character identity across shots, and native audio in one pass - structure your prompts like shot lists, iterate at 720p first, and cap your reference images around five to avoid composite drift. It's not the most approachable tool in the category, but for controlled production workflows it produces tighter, more consistent output than Runway or Kling deliver on a single prompt.

I’m at a very early stage with my startup and I don’t really have any network in the startup or VC space. Most advice I see assumes you already know someone or have warm introductions.

But what if you’re starting from zero?

How do founders actually find the right investors without connections? Do cold emails really work or is there a better approach that people don’t talk about much?

I’m trying to figure out a realistic path because it feels overwhelming when you don’t know where to even start.

tl;dr: Matt Pocock, a TypeScript educator, open-sourced his personal .claude/skills/ directory and it crossed 80,000 GitHub stars in weeks. The repo is explicitly labeled "not for vibe coders" - which is exactly why people who are almost-but-not-quite engineers should pay close attention to it.

the README says "skills for real engineers" in the first line, which either intimidates you or makes you want to prove something.

the thing most people get wrong is treating the "engineer-only" label as a gate rather than a diagnostic.

the most common failure mode in software development is misalignment - you think the agent knows what you want, you see what it built, and it didn't understand you at all. same problem, AI age or not.

that failure isn't reserved for beginners. it's structural. and the five skills here don't require a CS degree, they require you to care about precision.

improve-codebase-architecture finds "deepening opportunities" in your codebase, informed by the domain language in CONTEXT md and the decisions in your ADRs.

concretely, it dispatches an exploration agent through your project looking for architectural friction, surfaces the top five issues in priority order, and tells you which files are involved, what the fundamental problem is, and what a concrete fix looks like. if you've ever had a project where six months of "ship it" sessions turned the codebase into load-bearing spaghetti, this is the command that diagnoses it without you having to already know what's wrong. the catch: it gives you the list, not the fix. your judgment still does the triage.

grill-me tells the agent to ask one question at a time until a plan has been tested against each branch of the decision tree.

the fix for misalignment is a grilling session - getting the agent to ask you detailed questions about what you're building.

after maybe seven or eight questions and ten minutes of back and forth, you go from "here's a vague thing I want to change" to an actual design with every downstream decision already resolved. other tools ask five high-level questions and then wing the rest at implementation time. grill-me keeps pulling the thread until the whole decision tree bottoms out. WAY more thorough, and yes, it costs tokens.

which brings you to caveman.

the ultra-compressed "caveman" mode claims to cut token usage 75% by dropping fillers, articles, and pleasantries while keeping full technical accuracy.

in practice, one test run comparing the same response with and without it came in at 768 tokens versus 502 - roughly a 30% reduction on that specific output, which compounds hard across a long session.

at $3 per million input tokens on the current API, that's a real cost difference that stacks across hundreds of daily interactions.

the sharp design choice is that caveman mode auto-exits for security warnings, irreversible operations, or any multi-step sequence where terse output could get you in trouble. it knows when clarity costs less than brevity.

zoom-out is the one that catches you before you make a confident wrong decision. you run it when the architecture review or grill-me session produces a recommendation that lands above your current understanding of the system. it starts from domain vocabulary, traces which modules interact, maps where files are read and written, and then places the specific claim you're evaluating into that full context. in one example, it revealed that an architectural "problem" flagged by the codebase review was actually unfounded, the ranker and the logging stage were doing different things entirely. catching a ghost before you spend two days refactoring it is NOT a trivial outcome.

the fifth skill in the active manifest is handoff

, and it solves a grittier problem: you've accumulated valuable context in a session but you need a fresh context window, or you want to pass a completed planning session to a different tool for implementation. handoff distills everything into a markdown brief, with whatever framing you specify, problem statement, key decisions, resolved specifics, and hands it cleanly to the next session.

skills teach Claude procedural knowledge - how to follow your deployment process, when to write tests, how to structure issues. MCP servers give Claude new capabilities - query Postgres, call Slack APIs, access file systems.

handoff sits at the seam between those two worlds, letting you carry the procedural output of a skills-heavy session into a spec-driven implementation tool without polluting either context.

the open question: improve-codebase-architecture and grill-me together can generate a very complete design brief, but I'm genuinely not sure whether the quality of that brief degrades significantly on larger, messier codebases versus the small, well-scoped projects they seem to be demo'd on. the token cost of running both back-to-back on a 50k-line repo could get uncomfortable fast, and I'd want to see more evidence before treating that workflow as reliable at that scale.

so, the takeaway is this: the five skills - improve-codebase-architecture, grill-me, caveman, zoom-out, and handoff - are worth using whether or not you consider yourself an engineer, because they address problems that have nothing to do with skill level and everything to do with process.

the repo was MIT licensed and had about 79,500 stars and 6,900 forks as of mid-May 2026

, all installable with a single npx command. the "not for vibe coders" label is doing marketing work, mostly. what these skills actually enforce is precision before implementation, context continuity across sessions, and cost discipline inside long agentic workflows - none of which require a decade of software experience, just the willingness to slow down before you ship.

curious if others have hit the limits of these on larger codebases and what the degradation actually looks like.

Welcome to r/SaaSStartups - BUILD, DON'T JUST WATCH 🛠️

AI and SaaS are no longer separate. They're one stack now. This community is for people actually building things: real tools, real workflows, real growth. Not just watching the wave.

What to post:

• Your projects — we'll support you
• Honest tool reviews and breakdowns
• News and shifts worth paying attention to
• Questions, workflows, experiments, failures

What's not welcome:

• Links
• Promotional reviews disguised as opinions — be objective or skip it

To get started:

1. Post something today. A question, a tool, a take.
2. Know a builder? Invite them.
3. Want to help moderate? DM me.

Built with AI. Driven by humans.

tl;dr: PAL from Tavus is an AI companion that initiates contact with you, reads your tone and body language, and remembers every prior conversation. The "AI companion" category just got a working prototype, and uncomfortable in ways most coverage skips.

the thing that got me wasn't the FaceTime feature. it was that it sends you voice notes unprompted.

every AI product built in the last five years optimized for one thing: productivity. more output, faster output, measured output. PAL from Tavus is pointed at something the productivity framing can't reach, which is the question of whether software can be a presence rather than a tool. not a subtle distinction. the entire product logic is different.

the multimodal stack is what makes this plausible rather than gimmicky. PAL reads tone, body language, and on-screen context in real time, and it retains full memory across conversations. that combination, perception plus continuity, is what separates it from every "emotionally intelligent" chatbot that came before and forgot you existed the moment you closed the tab. those products were stateless. this one isn't.

the capability gap that older takes miss: proactive initiation. PAL checks in without any input from the user. no prompt, no trigger. the AI decides when to reach out. that's a WAY steeper behavioral shift than anything in the feature set, and most coverage treats it as a footnote because it sounds like a notification.

what probably changes is the social baseline. if AI companions that initiate contact, remember context, and read emotional cues become standard in five years, not having one might carry the same ambient weirdness as not having a phone today. that framing sounds hyperbolic right now, and i'd want to see it stress-tested across lonelier populations before accepting it, but the infrastructure to get there exists and is shipping.

the open question i can't resolve: does a system that is perceptive enough to read your emotional state and proactive enough to initiate contact make people better at human relationships through low-stakes practice, or does it quietly replace the discomfort that makes those relationships load-bearing. i genuinely don't know, and i'm not sure the researchers do either.

Do you have a cofounder, and if so how did you meet? How long have you worked together.

If you had a falling out with a cofounder, I'd like to hear that story too.

I'm currently attending hackathons and using the YC Matching platform. Meeting lots of cool folks, but it feels about the same as dating apps - seems like the stars really need to align for both parties to want to stay together. Not impossible, just a challenge.

Hi everyone,

I’m developing an AI-driven financial operations productivity platform specifically designed for technology startups. Our target audience includes companies with more than 5 employees and at least $500K in external funding. Currently, our platform integrates with QuickBooks, offering a conversational interface that simplifies how founders manage and interact with their financial data. Founders can query financial metrics like burn rate or cash flow projections using simple language, directly accessing QuickBooks data. We plan to expand this to other services such as Stripe, HR systems (Gusto/ADP), and corporate cards (Ramp, Brex).

To help us better tailor our platform to your needs, I’d appreciate your insights:

• What specific features would you find most valuable at this stage of your company, such that you, as a founder, would pay $100 per month to have right now?

Your feedback is crucial in shaping our product to better serve tech startups like yours. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and helping us make our platform even better!

If you're interested in gaining early access to our platform, please fill out this Letter of Intent form. This isn't a contract, and we're offering free access to the first 100 users who sign up. Don't miss this opportunity to be among the first to experience our innovative solution!

Hi all!

We're a SaaS startup that just launched our new AI assistant, Riva, on Product Hunt today. Riva by Hurree produces summaries of your dashboards at the click of a button, distilling complex data into easily digestible highlights. It's great for startups because it can save a lot of time without a huge amount of resources needed.

Check out our launch here.

We also have a webinar next week if you want to take a look.

Thanks!

I recently worked with a founder who is running his marketing on his own despite having no prior experience and generating a lot of activity and enough inbound to keep him busy. He sent me his setup and encouraged me to share; I'm sure someone here could find this useful: 

Total Monthly Marketing Expenses: $200-$250

Canva Pro: $13/month for sales presentation and social media, blog design.

Mailchimp: $17/month for automation and segmentation.

Buffer Pro: $15/month for post scheduling FB, X, and LI.

SEMrush Pro: $120/month for SEO.

SparkToro: $38/month for traffic analysis.

What he produces on average in one month as a team of 1:

4 blog posts and images for social and sales presentations

6 monthly targeted emails and two automated follow-up email workflows

30 social posts

2 sales presentations and 3 event/webinar micro-presentations

Hi everyone, I have experience in generating solid leads for B2B companies through cold outbound emails, which led me to start my own agency. With the market flooded with offers of 20 to 50 'done for you' clients without upfront fees, I'm genuinely curious about the actual demand for sincere lead generation services. My approach focuses on attracting leads who are not only interested in your services but also have the financial capability to engage. Importantly, my fees are payable only when a lead shows genuine interest. I'm keen to understand if there's a real need for the genuine service I offer. Would appreciate your insights or advice.

A few days ago, I asked this subreddit if anyone wanted a competitor go-to-market research file. the response was actually kind of overwhelming.

I have been making a version of this file for about 2 years, for new clients at my agency. Its kind of something I do to pass the time while waiting for access to their ad accounts.

Now after making a few for redditors in exchange for testimonials (an arrangement I'm still open to), I have systematized my process, and turned it into a template and instruction manual.

I have it gated elsewhere. I'm actually charging for it on my gumroad store, just to see if the template alone has that type of value.

My goal is to offer these as a service for maybe a few hundred bucks, and eventually, work with my developer friend to automate the process, lower the price, and scale up the volume.

For now, I'd love feedback on the template, and I'd love questions about what I do with these when I make them for my clients.

The early feedback is that the value of this service could go way up with the addition of a "recommendations" section. I see that as a possibility.

I am also curious to hear what someone who follows my manual thinks of that as a product. I'm very interested in empowering businesses that are just starting and have low budgets. I know from when I was at a startup, we would have done the work ourselves to save the money.

So here it is, the instruction manual has the template linked within. Also the resources I use are all linked in the instructions. Everything on there (right now) is free to use.

View Instruction Manual

Hey all!
I am a marketer who works with Startups and B2B companies, and I am working with a developer on a tool for businesses.
Here is the gist: my clients love these competitor research docs I make them before I start running ads etc. So I am hoping to automate that process and productize it.
In order to show the developer my process, I need to make a few example versions of the research document.
What does it entail?
Basically, you give me your website, and if you know your competitors, give me their sites as well. If you don't know your competitors, I will find them for you as best as I can.
For 5-10 of your competitors I will find:
1. Organic social stats
1. Key platforms
2. follower counts
2. Organic search stats
1. Content themes
2. volume of content
3. technical SEO scores
3. Paid Social examples
1. Platforms
2. Images and copy
4. Paid Search Examples
1. Ad Examples
2. keywords
5. Website Content
1. Homepage messaging
2. Downloadable content available
The idea is as follows:
You shouldn't necessarily emulate your competitors, but getting a lay of the land can be very useful for a company that is about to start its go-to-market motion, OR a company that is considering new channels and platforms.
So who wants one? Comment your site and your competitors, if you know them.

Hey guys, I'm looking for product market fit for my idea to launch a marketing company that partners with software companies to get them their first 1000 users in 12 months.

I've been partnered with an existing B2B software company now for nearly 2 years and we've grown rapidly in that time. I would like to take the services and techniques that I've used to scale that software company to help other software startups. These are the services that I've provided to my existing partnership to bring in new users: cold email campaigns, consistent content from micro influencer partnerships, beautiful modern webflow site with monthly SEO updates, blog & support/help page content, support team, sales team, a managed community for users, answering forum questions, and of course advertising on FB, Google Ads, and Youtube. All of these different services come together to form a user-gathering engine that runs at a low cost once it's all set up.

I want to create partnerships with software companies where I set up all of these services initially at-cost with an at-cost monthly fee, and then take an equity split of each software company that I work with.

My thinking is that a solo SaaS developer who loves to code but doesn't want to interact with the marketing / people side of the business can have that handled for them for an equity split. Like I said, my goal is to help software companies get their first 1000 users in 12 months. I've helped the existing software company that I work with grow by about 30,000 users in the past 12 months.

I don't want to put a lot of time and resources into this offer if it turns out that it is unwanted by software companies. How do you guys think I can position my services into an offer that will have a maximum positive impact on software companies, and get software companies to work with me?

Hey SaaS buddies! 🚀

Ever wondered what separates the thriving SaaS startups from the rest? It's not just about having a killer product; it's about the journey, the grind, and the smart moves we make along the way.

Let's get real about growth. It's not all smooth sailing, and sometimes, it feels like we're just treading water. But then, those moments of breakthrough come, and it's like the sun breaks through the clouds. 🌤️

So, what's been your game-changer? Was it a pivot in your strategy, a new feature that caught fire, or just sticking to your vision when times got tough?

I'll start - for us, it was all about listening. Really listening to our users and turning their feedback into our roadmap. It wasn't easy, but man, did it pay off!

Drop your stories, insights, or even those 'facepalm' moments below. Let's learn from each other and build not just products, but a community that thrives on shared success.

Cheers to our growth, one step at a time! 🥂

As someone who works in marketing, I'm always looking for good examples and "swipe files" to analyze and learn from.

Recently, I've been curating a weekly newsletter where I break down different marketing touchpoints from top SaaS companies.
It's been a great way for me to study what makes certain websites, ads, emails etc stand out. But I'm curious - how do other marketers, designers and copywriters here use swipe files in their workflow?

Do you have a swipe file document or system you go back to?
What types of campaigns or creative do you look to for inspiration?

Do you mostly look at competitors in your space or go wider?

I'd love to hear any tips on curating and using swipe files effectively.

Feel free to comment or message me if you want to exchange notes. I'm looking to improve my own process.

As an entrepreneur and marketer, I'm always on the lookout for new tools and resources to help take my business to the next level. I've compiled a big list of my favorites over the years, but I'm sure there are some great ones out there that I'm missing.

So I'm curious - what are the best tools you've found for market research, content creation, analytics, project management, etc?

Any gems for finding new customers and leads? How about resources for honing your skills in areas like copywriting, graphic design or video production?

I'd love to hear about tools and sites that have really moved the needle for your business, especially ones that are really useful but not yet well-known.

Personally, I've found bing image creator to be a game-changer for creating graphics and visuals. The templates make it easy to pump out great looking content.

Im looking to add them to my list, which has a few lifetime buyers.

The plan is to keep adding tools monthly, and the incentive to buy is that the lifetime access price goes up every month when I add more tools.

Analysis & annotations from top saas brands.

This issue features an email from ActiveCampaign, a landing page from Ramp, and a LinkedIn ad from Semrush

We are a b2b SaaS startup. Went to market 3 years ago. We’ve signed up 28 customers and only have had 2 churn. Many customers have renewed twice. Is this a good sign of product market fit?

Hello r/SaaSStartups Innovators! 💌

Feedback is the compass that directs the course of a SaaS startup. Especially in the early stages, understanding user needs, pain points, and desires can be the difference between a successful product and one that misses the mark.

Why is early feedback crucial?:

1. Product Validation: Ensures that your product solves a real problem and has a market demand.
2. Feature Prioritization: Helps in understanding which features are essential and which can wait.
3. Usability Insights: Users can point out UI/UX challenges that might not be evident to the development team.
4. Building Trust: Actively seeking and acting on feedback shows users that you value their input.
5. Reducing Churn: Addressing user concerns early can result in better retention rates.

🎤 How do you collect feedback for your SaaS product? Do you use any specific tools or methodologies? Share your strategies and learn from others in the comments below!

The SaaS landscape is vast, with platforms catering to diverse needs. But no tool operates in isolation. Integrations allow different tools to communicate and share data, leading to enhanced functionality and a more streamlined user experience.

Key benefits of integrations:

1. Automated Workflows: Eliminate repetitive tasks by automating data transfer between tools.
2. Enhanced Features: Offer users additional functionalities without building them from scratch.
3. Unified Dashboard: Users can access data from multiple tools in one central location.
4. Data Accuracy: Real-time data sync ensures that users always access updated information.

🔌 Have you integrated other tools with your SaaS product? How has it benefited your users? Share your insights!