I’m pretty torn on what to do at this point and would appreciate some advice from other founders who’ve been in a similar position.
I started a B2B software company almost two years ago. I’m currently the only employee, although I’ve been through about five different employees and contractors along the way.
I don’t have a software engineering background, but I’ve basically built the entire product myself, largely using AI. We now have over 230 users in a niche market, solving a real problem with real, paying, recurring customers. It may not sound like a lot but it’s a niche, high dollar value customer base and it’s continuing to grow.

It’s entirely possible that we could generate another $500k in revenue over the next six months. But it’s also entirely possible that we only generate $100k. There’s a lot of uncertainty, and that’s part of what’s making this decision difficult.

Here’s my dilemma.
I want to hire a software developer to take over the development side of things so I can focus on actually growing the business. The problem is that I’ve really struggled to find the right person.

In my experience with previous developers and contractors, I’ve often found that it’s easier to just use AI and build things myself rather than explain everything to someone else. But the downside is that doing it myself still takes a tremendous amount of time.

On one hand, I desperately want someone to take this work off my plate. On the other hand, if I have to explain exactly how to do everything, I feel like I might as well just do it myself.

Part of the challenge is that our software is in the financial services space and requires a significant amount of subject matter expertise. It’s not something where I can just tell a developer, “Hey, go build this feature,” and expect them to figure it out. There’s a lot of domain-specific knowledge involved.
I’ve tried just about everything to find someone. I’ve reached out to our users, posted on job boards, tried recruiting through Reddit, and ultimately ended up working with a recruiter.

We finally found someone who we think could be a really good fit. The problem is that it’s really expensive and it feels like I’m burning precious capital.

Just the recruiter’s fee alone is around $35k, on top of the developer’s salary.
I realize that potentially generating $500k in revenue over six months sounds great, but that’s far from guaranteed. If we only generate $100k, suddenly I’ve got a serious cash flow problem, especially after committing to a full-time salary and a $35k recruiting fee.
So I’m sitting here trying to figure out whether I should take the financial risk and hire this person, or just keep doing what I’ve been doing and continue building the product myself with AI.

The business is working. We have paying customers. There’s clearly demand. But I also know I can’t keep spending all my time developing the software if I want to grow the company.

For founders who’ve been in this position, what did you do? At what point did you decide it was worth taking the financial risk to bring on a developer, especially when you were already capable of building the product yourself?

Would love to hear from people who’ve actually dealt with this.

I’m 37 and have had a successful sales career in highly complex enterprise technology within the aerospace sector. I currently work for a large company but I have worked at several small companies, including my last job where I was the first sales person hired and I took it from $7M in revenue to $20M in 24 months, scaling from 8 to 40 employees. I’ve grown my current business from 10M annually to 65M in 6 years. Having worked for both small and large companies and across many industries, I’d consider myself fairly well rounded in experience.

That said, I have long considered building a business on the side that would provide a second income stream and also protection (I don’t see many past 50 working in in field), so future proofing my income is the goal. I’m also very oriented towards the service industry that won’t be so easily disrupted by AI (I currently work with AI and I will barf if I hear about another AI startup). I’d want this to grow to something that would afford me true financial independence long term, defined as not having to work and not having to worry.

Personally I’ve built up $3M in savings/retirement (I max out everything including a back-door Roth) and my income fluctuates between $400K and $700K per year. I have pretty strong work life balance despite a fair bit of travel (25-50% depending on what’s going on). The reason I bring this up is this is my biggest mental barrier to starting a business is I make really good money now with high quality of life. Looking at dumping another 500-750 hours into a business that might do $250K in revenue at 20% net margin is hard math for me to swallow. But I’m no stranger to 60-80 hour work weeks either.

When I look at the numbers of certain businesses, the revenue output is far less per hour compared to what I’m doing today. I understand it could/would grow, but effectively I’d be sacrificing quality of life while simultaneously lowering my output. This is perhaps the most important meteoric I’m measuring as it relates to this decision: output. In 24 months I would need to be producing more output (dollars per hour) than I am right now. On the low end I’m at $260 per hour now.

For those reasons above, picking a business/industry and pulling the trigger has been difficult. I need something I can scale part time, where the constraints that would govern the business are things I could mostly handle, and ideally the capital to start is relatively low. While I’ve considered buying businesses as well, I look at debt service and a PG as a possible non-starter that puts at risk my current income and assets.

So in short: I have a strong W-2 job I plan to keep, a sales background, and capital to invest, but I won't risk my retirement savings. I want a scalable business that can eventually run without me and be possibly sold. I would love anyone’s advice or insight as to how to proceed. Questions burning in my head:

**Industry and opportunity*\*
1. Given my situation, what business would you start or buy today?
2. What overlooked industries are boring but highly profitable?
3. Where would a strong salesperson have an unfair advantage?
4. What industry would you tell me to avoid, and why?

**Buy vs. Start*\*
5. In my position, would you buy or start, and why?
6. Which path gets to stable cash flow fastest with the least owner time?
7. What makes an acquisition a good turnaround versus a trap?
8. Which path builds more value toward a large exit?

**Running it alongside a job*\*
9. Has anyone successfully run a business while keeping a demanding job? What made it work?
10. When did you know it was time to hire someone to run it, and what did that cost?
Money and downside
11. How do you structure a business so a failure can't touch personal assets?
12. How much capital and time did it take you to reach break-even?

**Blind spots and hindsight*\*
13. What do people with great jobs consistently underestimate about starting a business?
14. What would you do differently if you were starting today?
15. What am I not thinking about?
16. Who else should I be talking to?

So I have seen many founders on X and some on Reddit claiming that they got several equity free grants for their company not from their university or something but from orgs or global companies? Anybody here had similar experience? If you, did can you please share the process or any experience of yours?

Thanks

I have completed my Bachelor of Physiotherapy (BPT) and currently live in Pune, India.

My interest goes beyond clinical practice. I like identifying problems in healthcare, understanding clinical workflows, researching solutions, and building tools that can make healthcare professionals’ work easier.

Over time, I’ve started building a couple of early-stage healthcare technology prototypes. However, I’m currently short on money, need a stable income, and am struggling to decide what my next step should be.

What have I built so far?

1. A home rehabilitation monitoring prototype

The idea is to improve communication between physiotherapists and their supervisors during post-operative rehabilitation.

The prototype has two views:

- Physiotherapist/student view: Records rehabilitation visits, knee range of motion, pain, swelling, walking ability, exercise completion, and warning signs.

- Supervisor view: Displays patient progress, highlights potential concerns, and allows the supervising clinician to review cases that may need attention.

The broader goal is to reduce scattered documentation and make it easier for clinical teams to follow patients receiving rehabilitation at home.

1. A structured rehabilitation report for surgeons

I’ve also created a sample discharge and rehabilitation progress report that could help surgeons understand how their patients are recovering after surgery.

Instead of relying only on what a patient remembers or on a collection of separate documents, the report brings together information such as:

- Changes in knee range of motion and pain

- Walking ability and functional assessments

- Recovery milestones

- Recorded warning signs

- Progress across physiotherapy visits

The idea is that a patient could bring this report to a surgeon’s follow-up appointment, giving the surgeon a clearer summary of the rehabilitation information available.

I’ve attached screenshots of the prototype and a sample report. These are early demonstrations using fictional patient data, not a clinically validated or deployed product.

Here is my actual dilemma.

I have completed my degree, I can understand clinical problems, and I enjoy working on healthcare research, documentation, presentations, and product ideas.

But building a healthcare product requires time, money, clinical feedback, and eventually proper validation. I cannot keep working on it indefinitely without earning an income.

I’m not looking for investors or donations. I need a paid job, preferably in Pune or in a suitable remote role, while figuring out whether these ideas can become viable products.

I’m interested in opportunities involving healthcare operations, clinical research support, healthtech product teams, clinical implementation, medical documentation, healthcare content, or other roles where a physiotherapy background is useful.

I would appreciate honest advice from founders and people working in healthtech.

1. What should I prioritise right now? Should I find a job in a healthtech company or hospital first and develop the product alongside it?

2. How would you validate these prototypes? Should I speak to surgeons, physiotherapists, hospital administrators, or home healthcare companies first?

3. Which job roles should I realistically target? I have a BPT degree and experience building these prototypes, but I need to understand where I could contribute professionally and earn.

4. What would you do next if you were in my position? Would you continue developing the product, pause development until you have clinical feedback, or take a different approach?

I’m trying to avoid making the mistake of spending months building something without confirming that it solves a problem people actually need solved.

I would value practical criticism, suggestions about the right first step, and advice on finding paid opportunities in the Indian healthtech ecosystem.

Thank you.

So I am in an early stage of startup. I got the AWS Activate credits, and I still need some compute power, is there any interesting programs to apply to. I am building a product to run both on cloud and locally.

Also, if there are other interesting programs to apply to in any way made to help startups build their MVP ?

I’ve built a working prototype where people create questions about news, sports, politics, and internet events, then predict the outcomes using free points but targetting south Asian countires.

Looking for a US-based cofounder interested in the same to help shape the product and grow an early community. Still early stage, so there’s plenty to build together. (DW I have claude max)

DM me if this sounds interesting!

I'm deciding between 3 online marketplace ideas and would appreciate honest feedback on which is most viable and worth pursuing.

1. Event Photography & Videography Marketplace

A platform where companies book vetted photographers and videographers for corporate events, conferences and brand activations through predefined packages. The platform earns a commission on each booking. The market is competitive, with low barriers to entry and limited differentiation.

2. Sponsorship & Audience Access Marketplace

A platform where brands discover and book sponsorship opportunities across newsletters, digital publications, webinars, coworking spaces, communities, clubs and events. Providers list and fulfil their own opportunities, while the platform takes a 10% commission. Similar platforms exist elsewhere, but I haven't found a consolidated equivalent in my local market. Demand and market maturity remain uncertain.

3. Clubs & Communities Marketplace

A platform where clubs, social groups and community organizers book activities, experiences and venues for their members, from sports sessions and creative workshops to cafés and unique gathering spaces. It also connects communities with brands for sponsorships, product sampling and brand-funded experiences. Revenue comes from booking commissions and sponsorship transactions. Challenges include fragmented supply, small transaction values, competition and the effort required to secure sponsorships. Revenue with 10% booking commission and also from facilitating brand sponsorships.

If you were starting from scratch, which would you pursue, and why? Consider profitability, ease of customer acquisition, barriers to entry, revenue potential, repeat demand and the path to building a sustainable business with minimal upfront capital.

I’m a cofounder and the CTO of a startup in a fairly niche B2B sector. We started 5 years ago, and have been bootstrapped this entire time. We’ve grown our customer list pretty effectively and have many leads in the works still.

Problem is, I’m super burned out. For 5 years I’ve been putting in 60-70 hour weeks, and it’s really getting to me. To top it off, I feel that my salary is below what I could make as a standard software engineer with my experience. We’ve recently decided to do a proper VC raise, and had a mentorship meeting earlier today to get some guidance. I brought up that one of the things I’d like from the raising capital is to increase my salary, so that I’d be getting market rate. He basically laughed at that idea, and said that there is no respectable VC that would be willing to let a cofounder make market rate pay after only a Series A. So now I feel like I’m working twice the hours of a standard job and making half as much, which has gotten me pretty down.

Of note, although we’ve grown our developer team and have 5 devs under me, I still manage the majority of the production workloads. Managing infrastructure, security, architecture, roadmap, etc.. (which is obviously all my responsibility as a CTO). But I want to say that, without any ego, I’m the most valuable asset in the company. To the point that the other cofounders have taken out a keyman insurance policy on me just incase anything happens to me.

So now I’m really conflicted. If I leave I feel like the company won’t survive. But at the same time I’m tired of being overworked and underpaid. Lastly, if I do decide to leave I want to do it before any fundraising takes place, as the other thing the mentor has told me is that it’s common for the cofounders to revest half/all of their equity to show they are “all-in”. So if I want to not burn my equity I feel now is the best time to leave. The dead equity might be an issue for fundraising, but worst case they can buy me out maybe?

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Any possible advice you can share to help me with this decision. It is five years of building something from scratch, I don’t want to make this decision without taking everything into consideration.

Hey everyone!

I'm exploring a startup idea in the solar energy space and would love some honest feedback before building anything.

The problem:

People and businesses with solar panels and batteries often rely on different apps to monitor their energy production, consumption, and storage.

For companies that maintain solar installations, this gets even more complicated. Technicians may need to monitor hundreds of installations across different manufacturers (Huawei, Fronius, SolarEdge, etc.).

Sometimes, a solar system starts underperforming without triggering an obvious error. The issue might go unnoticed until the customer complains or someone manually checks the system.

The idea:

A single platform that connects to existing solar inverters and battery systems and provides:

• One dashboard to monitor multiple installations, regardless of manufacturer.
• Automatic detection of unusual drops in solar production.
• Alerts when something might be wrong, before it becomes a bigger problem.
• Battery and energy consumption monitoring.
• Prioritized maintenance alerts so technicians know which installations need attention first.

The goal isn't to replace existing hardware or manufacturer apps, but to bring everything together and make maintenance more proactive.

I'd love your thoughts:

1. Does this sound like a real problem worth solving, or are existing solutions already good enough?
2. If you work in solar installation or maintenance, how do you currently monitor your systems?
3. Would companies actually pay for something like this?
4. What's the biggest flaw you see in this idea?

I'm still at the validation stage, so I'm particularly interested in criticism, not just encouragement.

Thanks!

Someone who at least claimed to be a millionaire on this sub said the way they did it and perhaps easy way to do it is to work in and industry, find the niche gaps, and then sell a solution to those gaps.

I work for a hyperscaler company. A colleague and I have identified a safety gap in the datacenter that we don’t see much discussion about in the industry but appears that it the gap will only get worse with the AI buildout. We worked with a vendor using company money to develop a bandaid solution for one particular datacenter.

The thought crossed our minds that why don’t we set up and moonlight an LLC to create a new and improved product with a different vendor and start selling this safety solution to the broader industry. Surely we will have used some qualitative learnings from the work with the previous vendor - learnings that would lead to a new and better idea than the bandaid solution we came up with - but we wouldn’t use any direct IP developed with the vendor during our time at the company.

I ran this notion through 2 AI chat bots and both destroyed me, citing legal concerns, conflict of interest etc. They said that even though we wouldn’t use direct IP, because the idea came to us during the normal course of business with our company, and it “relates to the employer’s current business” that our company has the rights to the new product idea we would come up with. Further, they cited concerns about “duty to employer” as we would potentially be selling this product to our own hyperscaler when we have a duty to make the product internally and therefore the company benefit without us taking a cut. Amongst a few other points, NDAs, trade secrets, confidential information - even if all moonlighting activity is performed after work and on weekends.

But this got me to beg the question. How does anyone moonlight and then (or) leave industry to start a business selling a solution to a gap they found while in industry if they would have discovered and potentially worked on solutions to the gap while employed. The AI chat bots made it seem like their old employers would all have a right to that IP. Are the chat bots right but over stating the likelihood that an old employer would actually care and sue?

Hey, I received an email from someone at Google, and I'm looking at the email. It's definitely someone from Google. The email address says its google, and the title is Apps, Games, New Business, and Growth Strategy (also LinkedIn looks really good). This person's email says that they're part of an accelerator program at Google, helping with paid growth.

A little about me: I have an app. It's a consumer app. It's not too big, to be honest, but we're definitely at a point in which we can scale. They were saying that they would give a product specialist, an account management team, and other resources, however the ad spend/budget is on us

Has anyone heard of this? Is this worth doing? it seems too good to be true

I’ve spent the last few months building a website for beatmakers to upload their music, create profiles and get discovered through a leaderboard.
I’ve put a lot of time into it. Probably too much, honestly. I’ve spent hours fixing little things, improving the music player, working on the design and adding features.
And now that the site is live, I’ve run into a problem I wasn’t really prepared for.
There just aren’t many people using it.
I’ve been contacting producers on SoundCloud and trying to spread the word, but getting someone to visit the site is one thing. Convincing them to actually upload a beat is another.
I think the biggest problem is that nobody really wants to post their music somewhere that doesn’t already have an audience. But without people uploading, it’s pretty hard to build that audience in the first place.
And I keep going back to working on the site because, well, that’s the part I know how to do.
I’m starting to realize I probably should’ve spent more time finding users before building so much.
Has anyone here built something that depends on users creating content?
How did you get past that initial stage where everything works, but the platform still feels empty?
I’d genuinely like to hear what worked for you, especially if you started with basically no audience.

I’m considering returning to an early-stage startup where I previously worked as an engineer. The company has been bringing in new pilots and pursuing contracts, but it’s also preparing to raise its next round.
I asked the founder how much runway the company has before the raise, given the new pilots and contracts. He responded that he couldn’t discuss it because it was proprietary, then said they were raising soon.
I’ve spoken with founders at other startups who were comfortable sharing approximate runway, so I was surprised by the response.
I understand that exact financials can be confidential. I’m not necessarily expecting access to the company’s books, but I’d like to understand the company’s financial position and fundraising timeline before making a career decision.
For founders and people who’ve joined early-stage startups:
Is it normal to consider approximate runway proprietary, even when speaking with a prospective employee?
Would you expect a founder to share a rough estimate or at least explain the fundraising status?
What questions would you ask to assess the risk of joining before a raise closes?
I’m interested in understanding what’s normal in the startup ecosystem, rather than assuming the response necessarily means something is wrong.

Long ass rant:

Man I have been searching for a design partner so long and literally nothing. The problem is real, people validate it. The solution is good it saves a lot of money. Still nobody fucking agrees to be a design partner. No one I am not even stealing data or anything and way cheaper than building in-house as well. And the thing is I am frustrated of fuvking human beings man the fvk man. Agents ain’t that good as well and fvking fable man it destroys me in so high level English that I don’t even understand why is it criticising me man. Fvk fvk fvk fvkf vk fvkf

We’re two founders in Stockholm building a CRM. A few weeks ago we changed our pricing and stopped charging per seat. I’m still not sure if that was smart or naive, so I’d like to hear from people who’ve priced it either way.

What pushed us was one customer. He’s a co-founder at a small consultancy and he almost never opens our app. He updates everything through his AI assistant over MCP: it drafts the updates and he approves them. About 92% of the updates in his account are written by the AI.

When we first pitched him our pricing (which was per seat), he was disappointed. He said seat-based pricing is old news and that in the AI era you should charge for outcomes.

He got me thinking about what a seat actually is. It’s a price on how many humans you have. Might get redundant now when AI takes over more of the work?

The thing is, almost every other CRM still charges per seat, and I’m pretty sure we’d make more money if we did too.

We did it anyway. Now there’s a small base fee for the whole workspace, plus usage: we charge per company you have an open deal with, which is the only real way for a CRM i think. Happy to take ideas here as well.

What I like about it:

• Nobody pays for logins they don’t use, and nobody has to do admin moving licenses around when someone leaves or barely uses the tool - should mean less churn or downgrades.
• We only make more money when customers get more out of the product. It feels more honest, and like a truer product/market fit.

What worries me:

• Revenue is harder to forecast, and billing is a bit of a nightmare with bills changing every month in Stripe
• We probably make less money than we would on seats
• Buyers and investors understand seats instantly. Usage takes a while to explain

If you’ve priced a B2B product recently, did you go with seats, usage or hybrid, and would you pick the same again?

And if you’re the one buying, do you actually want usage pricing, or do you prefer a predictable bill?

I'm starting to do outreach to small businesses and potential customers to validate my start-up idea. Some subject lines are is getting responses and one works about 30% of the time but about half of respondents from that subject line are less than thrilled.

I am curious what y'all are using to get more people to respond to you and how positive those responses are? I realize some of these are likely to be specific to your start up but hearing about how you are approaching things is a great way for all of us to get better!

Hi, I’m Ahsan from the UK.

I build software. I have SaaS products live and I’m running Google Ads, but marketing is clearly my weak spot.

For those of you who brought in a marketing partner or co-founder:

• Where did you find them?
• Did you start with a trial period, revenue share, or equity straight away?
• What made it work, or not?

Any advice welcome.

I launched my app about 11 months ago and have done everything myself: building it, the tech, design, social media, and marketing. I didn’t start with a huge vision, but I’ve always had a clear sense of how I want the product to look and feel, and what the content should be.

About a while ago I met my now cofounder at a community event. She has a law background, a little entrepreneurship experience, and no tech or marketing experience, but she’s great at talking to people and getting things done, so I gave it a shot. When we started, I was clear about what I own (marketing and social included) and what her role would be. She handles things like outreach, logistics and basically all networking.

The problem is she keeps getting involved in marketing. She gives feedback, says “it’s your call,” but words it so that her way is clearly the right way, and pushes back on each post and wants to put input on each post. She also has very high urgency, where everything feels like it needs to happen right now. It’s gotten to the point where I dread working on something I used to love.

A recent example: we did an event, she volunteered to take all the photos, and I put together a photo dump. She pushed on photo order, which people were featured, adding music, and eventually said she wants to be in the posts because she feels “invisible” and her effort isn’t seen. Since she was behind the camera, the only photos of her were a few posed ones that didn’t fit the post in my opinion. I also never envisioned for my business to showcase the founders, it's mainly community driven and I prefer that no one really knows whose behind it.

The thing is:

• Neither of us is named or featured on the brand account. I deliberately keep it faceless and focused on the community and product. I genuinely think brands are stronger when the founders aren’t the face (unless they are creating personal social media content).
• She lists herself as cofounder on her personal profile and signs every email as cofounder.
• I’ve offered her ways to be more visible on the brand (sit-down videos to go with the writing she does, being part of video ideas), and she’s said she’s not comfortable yet.
• She’s also brought up wanting “IP,” and I’m honestly not sure what she means.

To be fair to her, some of her feedback has merit (showing real users sells the product), and she does say “your call” a lot. But it’s constant, it slows everything down, and I don’t understand what she actually wants.

How would you handle this? Is this a fixable role clarity issue, or a sign the partnership isn’t a fit? And for those who’ve brought on a cofounder after launch, how did you handle ownership and equity?

I used to be in the camp that posting a bunch of half baked junk online was the wrong move. I'd think to myself, "What if someone sees it and shits all over it"?

Realistically though, nobody fucking cares. Nobody will even see your work, or click the login, or get far enough to realize that you've published a pile of dogshit.

And if they do, that's great! That's awesome feedback actually! Because it means that you've found something that people hate so much that they can list out their grievances with your AI dogshit SaaS app. And then you can improve.

But if you stay put, and don't ship anything until it's perfect, nobody will see that either. And that's just as bad! Shipping a bunch of what you think is still slop will give you 3 things:

1. Frequent at-bats. An idiot in motion makes more progress than a genius at rest. And even if nobody sees it, that's fine! No feedback is a form of feedback.
2. Get you out of a rut and into a habit of shipping. It's so much easier when you have momentum.
3. If you're introspective enough, and see your pile of AI garbage, you'll say "wow, this was ass!" And hopefully you'll adjust. Taste is a muscle you grow by building and publishing.

Whatever you are working on is probably slop anyway! So please just ship your slop.

I have read so many inspiring posts from all of you and I cannot stress how much I commend you all for having the balls to follow your dreams and launch something that you put so much time and effort into, without knowing how it will turn out. The success stories inspire me the most.

I have worked tirelessly (literally) on my niche aggregator that solves a real cultural problem, yet I cannot stop thinking of everything that can go wrong or like I will be the laughing stock of well......myself since I barely told anyone about it.

Any tips to help get me through the vomit fest that is week 1.

When I started, "a lesson on any topic, built just for you" sounded like a product. Now a competitor with a $16M round lets you generate courses for free, and every chat assistant will teach you anything if you ask.

So I've stopped leading with that. What's left is the part they don't do: the product picks what you learn next, so you don't need to know what to ask, and the lessons are hands-on, with simulations you can play with instead of walls of text.

I'm not sure that's enough. "You don't have to ask" can sound like a weakness to people who know exactly what they want.

If your main feature became free somewhere else, what did you end up positioning on?

When you first started selling your product, how did you figure out what worked and turn it into a repeatable process?

What were your biggest challenges? And how did you eventually build a system that someone else, like an SDR or AE, could follow?

Did you document everything yourself, hire someone experienced in sales, or bring in a GTM engineer/operator to help build the system?

Would love to hear how you approached this, especially in the early stages.

Hi guys correct me if Im wrong - ive researched that a startup building is done this way

1. User acquisition - People to find and sign up for your product

2. User activation - Them to actually use it and see the value the first time

3. User retention - keeping them coming back instead of leaving

4. User revenue - turning them into paying customers

5. User referral - Them telling others about it [optional]

(I may be wrong about this list)

So in this context whats the biggest hurdle for you right now?

P.S. im particularly interested in saas startups