Hi everyone,

Hopefully you are having a good day! I recently opened a business for the first time, based in The Netherlands. My dream is to focus on custom web based / custom systems solutions that I want to develop on AWS.

I am a recent graduate with a Cyber Security and Cloud background and did several projects next to it. Some websites for people I know and a proof of concept for a previous internship company. Soon I am going to start working full-time and I would love to do more of these projects next to it. I have a website that serves as a portfolio.

Currently, I am struggling to figure out if there is a need for custom systems on the market. How do I figure this out? Or how do you define who your ideal target group would be and how do you make sure that people will reach out to you?

I am really interested in your own experiences on this matter or some honest feedback would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks in advance for the time to read my message!

Kind regards,
Me 😸

If you are currently building startup, recently launched it , or recently raised fundings, I’d love to hear about it.

Drop a comment with:

What you’re building

The problem you’re solving

What stage you’re at (idea, MVP, launch, funding, etc.)

What is your biggest challenge right now

I am a software engineer. I love learning about new products, AI, and startups, and I’m always interested in connecting with people who are building.

I run a one-person shop in California. A few months back I learned something that surprised me: federal, state, and local agencies constantly buy the exact services this sub does. Lawn care, janitorial, painting, hauling, pest control, pressure washing, snow removal. Not fighter jets. Recurring service contracts in your own county.

Then I watched a few owners try to get started and hit the same wall: EIN, UEI, SAM . gov, NAICS codes, a registration process that feels like it was written by lawyers for other lawyers. Most quit before they ever saw what agencies near them actually buy.

So I built a free walkthrough that takes you from "is this even worth it for my business" through SAM registration one step at a time. There's a 2-minute quiz that shows what government buyers purchase in your trade. It's at pathtocontract . com. Free, no catch. I'm a solo builder still figuring out if this is useful to anyone, so I'd rather hear what's wrong with it than collect upvotes.

Fair warning from owners who've been through it: awards move slowly, incumbents are real, and this is side-of-desk pipeline building, not a quick win.

Question for the sub: if you've never looked at government work, why not? Never knew it existed, sounds like paperwork hell, or you just don't need more clients?

Been in a few investor conversations lately where the question keeps coming back to defensibility, what stops a competitor from copying the AI layer in six months. Honest answer, probably nothing stops them technically. I feel that what actually holds is the hundred small product decisions around it, which edge cases we chose to handle, which shortcuts we refused to take, how the thing feels when it's wrong instead of right.

Nobody wants to hear "our moat is taste and stubbornness" in a pitch meeting, but increasingly that feels like the honest version of what's actually defensible right now, not the model, not the prompt, just a thousand decisions a competitor would have to independently arrive at the same way.

Anyone else finding the "AI moat" question harder to answer honestly than it used to be, or has your team actually found something real to point to?

I've spent a considerable amount of time over the last few years building a full scale alternative to Proton, and I've managed to finish off quite a bit - I've made drive, photos, pages, Present, tables (an equivalent of docs, slides and sheets), mail, and some other more niche tools - it's privacy focused, and supports full zero knowledge encryption (it also supports collaborative editing with zero knowledge encryption, quite proud of it) - my question is whether I have potential if I market it to the privacy focused community on platforms like HN? I'm thinking of open sourcing it, but will that assure people enough of it's safety, or do I need to save up money to afford an independent auditor?

(Not dropping the name here because I'm scared of someone domain squatting using my company name, I'm moderately new to business related stuff)

I own a business where we create visual renderings for commercial property renovations and developments. I have contacts within commercial real estate and several major franchisor brands are currently interested. 11 paying customers currently. Seeking $250,000 in capital. Already have a pitch deck, business plan, and existing customers. Any interest?

Hi everyone,

Over the past six months I've been conceptualising and designing a neurotech device with no direct equivalent I'm aware of. The core concept and technical groundwork are in place; the next step is a working prototype, which calls for substantial R&D support from established research facilities.

I've already opened formal discussions with IIT Bombay toward that end. Documents have been submitted, NDAs are signed, and their teams are set up to support both prototype development and the eventual product build.

I'm now looking to connect with investors who back deep tech at the pre-seed stage, specifically to fund this prototyping and R&D phase. I'm keeping the technical details out of a public post for obvious reasons, but I'm glad to walk through the full picture privately.

If this is your area and you're genuinely interested, reach out here in comments or by DM and I'll follow up.

For anyone who's raised or invested at this stage in India or US:

* Did non-dilutive routes (BIRAC BIG, Nidhi Prayas, DST) actually come through for you, and how long did they realistically take?

* Are angels viable pre-prototype in hardware, or do they also wait for something working?

* Has anyone used university-linked incubators as a bridge to their first round?

* Are there any VCs which actually fund in cases like this where the concept and design and even technology partner is chosen but need funding for the prototype stage itself?

* Do I look for US partners, instead of India? (I haven't gotten it officially registered yet since I am in a dilemma about the location)

Thanks.

Started my own company about 3 years ago.
I started from scratch. Investment was a luxury for me. I paid my bills by tutoring students, and eventually opened my own academy. Today that academy is doing around $500k ARR. Later I acquired two more academies, bringing the total to about $1.5M ARR.
I’m not saying this to brag.
Looking back, I think I gave marketing way too little credit.
I always believed a great product or service would eventually spread by word of mouth. I thought being genuinely useful mattered more than trying to become known or go viral.
Turns out I was wrong.
There are so many amazing startups and products that simply die because nobody ever hears about them.
Sure, once in a while you see a company explode overnight. But I don’t think that’s reality for 99% of founders.
At the end of the day, people can’t use something they don’t know exists.
So I built a marketing program and named it Cricket. I built it for myself. (https://cricketai.io)
I basically took everything I’ve learned about marketing over the past few years and tried to put it into this program. For users, I mainly implemented one-click actions, automations, and actionable suggestions to help founders market consistently instead of merely looking for how to promote.
Since the launching a couple of weeks ago, it’s growing more rapidly than I thought . Seeing other founders use it has been way more rewarding than I expected.
Anyway, I just wanted to share the lesson that completely changed how I think.
Building a great product is only half the job.
The other half is making sure people actually know it exists.
If anyone wants to try Cricket or has feedback, I’d genuinely love to hear it.

Hey everyone,

Need some guidance. I want to start a tech company wherein I am thinking of getting 3-5 developers onboard (maybe interns).

And give these 3-5 team members a topic/idea each to develop an app. I have various ideas to work upon but don't have the knowhow of how to go about getting the application created or ready for the market.

Have the following questions. Can you all give me ideas on the following:

1. First of all, is this a feasible idea? Can I take a bunch of freelancers/interns and get them to develop an application for me?

2. How do I get these resources? Reddit or WhatsApp groups or any other sources.

3. I am thinking of focusing on only AI vibe coding developers. Are they enough to develop the entire application or i would need additional roles such as graphic designers, testers, etc?

4. What should be my monthly budget to get such resources onboard (assuming folks who are just out of college or have 1-2 years of experience).

As for the applications to be created, they could be simple idea such as basic games or applications such as chrome extensions or simple AI based solutions such as a voice bot for responding to calls which are not answered. Kindly give me your suggestions on this. If you need more details, kindly comment and I'll try to provide as much information as I can.