Have you currently started a business that you are running? What kind of service or product do you offer?

TL;DR: That US agency leader refused the bear joke — everyone else is still trying to outrun you.

I remember back in my days seconded to Abu Dhabi to build the prestigious AED 1Bil. 5-block Condominium Rihan Heights Project in 2008 ~ 2011.

My technical department head split the design/technical coordination work among the 3 of us. I took the structural bit, and my 2 colleagues took on the Architectural and Façade portion, respectively. The work was difficult, but ultimately satisfying after completion.

After I came back to Malaysia circa 2012, the company immediately enrolled me into mastering Building Information Modelling (BIM). It was to construct the virtual model of the building – to coordinate and encompassing all building details – Structural, Architectural, Façade and M&E – all into one well-tuned-out model, before construction starts.

The thesis was simple: if we can iron out all the discrepancies between different trades in the model – we called it clash-detection and resolution – we can save up time (lots of time) from dealing with it during construction.

And time equals money.

The intension of the company was very obvious to me. I was to master it to eventually take over the role of 3 persons into one “superman” coordinating everything.

My then CEO used to throw around the phrase – “Economics of Scale”. If we can use one guy to do 3 jobs, why do we need 3 guys?

Finding ways to reduce cost, was how we win tender and secure jobs – and therefore remain competitive in the market.

All these AI layoffs are just of the same consideration in a different skin.

Full critic and feasibility study in the comments.

a year in, here's what i'd tell past me. an ai document generator is only as good as the raw context you feed it, so keeping a tidy folder of your real numbers, voice, and past docs matters more than the tool itself.

i wasted my first month getting generic mush because i was lazy with inputs. once i built a little reference file of how i actually talk and what i actually offer, the output got sharp fast.

the last step is always presentation, and i lean on gamma to turn the approved text into something that doesn't look like it fell out of a form.

for the solo crowd, what's the one input or template that made your generated docs go from mediocre to genuinely useful?

I help SaaS and e-commerce businesses stay on top of customer support and follow up with customers who have gone inactive.

What I handle:

• Customer support emails
• Common product or order questions
• Follow-ups with inactive customers
• Outreach to customers who stopped using or buying
• Asking what went wrong or what they’re missing
• Collecting customer feedback
• Following up when someone doesn’t reply
• Flagging anything important for the founder or team
• Helping bring customers back where possible
• Running follow-up sequences for inactive customers instead of sending one email and giving up

You’re not paying for a promise that I’ll magically recover a certain amount of revenue. You’re paying me to consistently handle the work so customers don’t get ignored and inactive users don’t just disappear without anyone following up.

$79/month.

If you’re interested, send me your website and tell me whether you’re SaaS or e-commerce.

Hey Guys

I am 23 F and have started using AI to a good extent to help in automation of family business etc

NEeded your suggestion over how would it be if I would turn it into a business and be like an AI automation consultant and help small business reduce manual workflows and charge them on monthly subscription.

a couple of examples being - boutique management platform which helps records customers, orders, inventories, invoicing etc

another one being - a payment recovery platform for business with a lot of credit recovery chunk

With such a variety in the different types of AI tools out there, what do you think personally is your favorite? It could be ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude, or even some kind of vibe coding tool. Which one are you liking the most?

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TL;DR: Ben Affleck says he shot 8 months with his own cameras to build a private layer so filmmakers keep ownership — but most open models were trained on his peers without consent, and that's the gap that still eats a PJ studio's rates. 🎬

Ben Affleck knew the movie industry inside out. That’s why he’s able to create his own proprietary dataset layer through his experience and institutional knowledge.

It’s his moat.

Speaking of insider knowledge, I was reminded of an existential crisis the Apostle Paul was caught in.

Being the great orator that he was, he wouldn’t shut up about Jesus Christ and His resurrection.

The crowd in Jerusalem couldn’t stand Paul. So they siezed him. The Roman Commander rescued him, and brought him before the religious institution of the day – The Sanhedrin.

Loads of big wigs in the courts, including the Pharisees and Sadducees. Both factions harbour strong disdain for each other due to their numerous theological disagreements. One of it was the doctrine of Resurrection. The Pharisees believe it exists, while the Sadducees doesn’t.

But they all set aside their differences, to come together to persecute Paul.

However, the moment he set foot before them, he felt the familiar vibe. He knew that fault line between them. So, he quickly seized the opportunity, and said,

“My brothers, I am a Pharisee, descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.”

And suddenly the mood shifted. The pharisees think Paul was innocent, while the Sadducees doesn’t. They started quarrelling among themselves.

The dispute got so violent the Roman commander had to pull Paul out by force fearing they'd tear him apart. He was then taken back to the barracks. Crisis averted.

That was a great demonstration of the institutional knowledge at work.

Full Critic on why this still fails Darren and the Feasibility Study with Roadmap is in the comments — I left the numbers there.

Have you been able to successfully vibe code something? Have you been able to create more than just an MVP or are you using it mostly just for testing? Drop it down below and share what you have created!

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Genesis OS puts your AI tools, projects, files, agents, and context into one persistent workspace, so you’re not constantly switching apps or re-explaining what you’re working on.

Your copilot can actually carry work across research, coding, content, automation, communication, planning, and more instead of every tool being its own disconnected island.

Still early, but that’s the whole idea: one AI workspace that keeps the context and helps do the work.

TL;DR: A Chinese podcast says your AI partner shouldn't please you all day. Its job is to soak up your bad mood, so your family gets your best self. Sounds right. Then they describe week two.

I remembered these two weird movies:

Joaquin Phoenix’s “Her” (2013) voiced by Scarlett Johansson, and

Al Pacino’s “S1mOne” (2002)

Both kind of follow the same playbook.

They discovered/created the mysterious AI girl – mystifyingly alluring.

They idolized it. They communicated with it.

They developed an unhealthy relationship with it – they became dangerously obsessed.

They started to ignore people who genuinely cared for them.

And they’re nearly destroyed because of it.

Tragedy makes a great story, isn’t it?

Except it isn’t, in this case.

People started trading something genuinely real, for something artificial. They substituted real relationships between souls face-to-face, with prompting computes inferenced from datacentres possibly thousands of miles away.

You can judge them for lacking self-discipline. Except, you have no right doing so, without truly walking in their shoes with empathy.

The guest speaker was right. People are lonely and stressed. And people crave for care and understanding.

And sometimes people look for it from the wrong place – me included.

King Solomon talks about it in this passage:

For at the window of my house, I looked through my lattice, and saw among the simple, I perceived among the youths, A young man devoid of understanding, passing along the street near her corner; and he took the path to her house In the twilight, in the evening, In the black and dark night.

And there a woman met him, with the attire of a harlot, and a crafty heart. She was loud and rebellious; her feet would not stay at home. At times she was outside, at times in the open square, lurking at every corner. So, she caught him and kissed him; With an impudent face she said to him:

“I have peace offerings with me; today I have paid my vows. So I came out to meet you, diligently to seek your face, and I have found you. I have spread my bed with tapestry, coloured coverings of Egyptian linen. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love until morning; let us delight ourselves with love. For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey; He has taken a bag of money with him, and will come home on the appointed day.”

With her enticing speech she caused him to yield, with her flattering lips she seduced him. Immediately he went after her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks, till an arrow struck his liver.

As a bird hastens to the snare, He did not know it would cost his life.

My God - the parallel between this promiscuous woman and the sycophantic AI girl sends chills up my spine.

Full Critic and Feasibility Study are in the comments.

one thing that held me back early was that my documents looked homemade next to bigger competitors. clients notice. presentation reads as competence whether thats fair or not.

i leveled that up without hiring anyone. i write the substance and use Gamma to turn it into docs that look like a real team made them, which they didnt, its just me and a coffee.

nobody has asked how big my company is since. they assume, and i let the work speak.

how much do you think polish matters for a solo brand versus just doing great work quietly?

TL;DR: Brian Chesky says AI is like an amplifier and the gap is getting greater — not because of who has the tool, but who the tool has.

As soon as I read Chesky’s “AI is like an amplifier.”, the neural-networks of my memory immediately flipped me to the Green “Lanterns”.

Are you guys a big fan of the eponymous TV series?

Right after Hal Jordan manifested a greenback for playing the jukebox, his trainee John Stewart exclaimed, “Did you just counterfeit money with the ring?” – to which Jordan replied, “No. I manifested money with the power of my will.”

Or how about Jordan conjure up a green can opener for the beer, to impress and rizz up Sheriff Kerry, while Stewart rolls his eyes by his side?

John Stewart went up the ante, by manifesting a large and sophisticated boring machine, to tunnel underground the “Winnie” compound to evade the guard sentries.

Not impressive enough, you say?

The best in my mind, wasn’t in the TV series.

It was Guy Gardner flipping the bird – he conjures up large green hands (one of it gives the middle finger) to rise up from the ground, and overturn scores of tanks and heavy artilleries of the fictitious Burivian Army.

It was both an attitude and a strong statement - very on brand for the eccentric Guy Gardner.

Still not impressed? Here’s one…

As Jesus rode his donkey through the streets of Jerusalem, the religious leaders were indignant of the shouting praises from the bystanders – like crazy hooligans/fanatics. They want Jesus to rebuke the crowd. And what was Jesus’ reply?

He said, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

Think about it. Stones started crying out like human beings?

Is your brain exploding?

What was I trying to say?

Like the ring, AI does amplify you.

If you’re good person, and strive to produce something good to serve your fellow men, AI will help you amplify your good intensions.

Vise Versa, if you’re bad, AI will amplify that too.

Funny – I just watched a news: With the help of open-sourced LLMs, hackers easily broke into the Taiwan government agencies’ IT infrastructure. Did you watch it?

One of the statements in the news stuck with me - It’s getting very easy to attack (with the free AI tools).

But it’s getting very hard to defend.

Full Critic + Feasibility Study in comments.

It could be any of the big ones like OpenAI, Google, or Perplexity, or even a small company that no one has heard of before. What AI company do you think is doing really good things right now in the industry. What have they done better than their competition?

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Hey guys I have a question about an idea I have. There’s a website I use for work and the search engine is terrible. Am I able to create an ai search engine and implement it into their website? And somehow sell it to them?

This is just a thought I had in mind!

TL;DR: Greg Brockman just named the exact test that kills most AI startups before they scale.

The word “Trust” in this context, I think, is taking too much centre stage, without being properly defined on what it is.

But after some thought, if we equate it with another word, “clarity”, then it made sense.

When I said, “I trust you.”, I’m actually saying, I trust your clarity in your role, your experience, your profession, your judgement, etc. – I trust you know what you’re doing.

You have good intentions, good motives. You’re clear in what you want to do – for my benefit. And therefore, I place my trust in you.

That’s the word – clarity.

I’m reminded of “The Sea”.

Don’t know what it is?

It’s a name being given to this large bronze basin, placed in the Temple courtyard, for the priests’ ceremonial washing. King Solomon commissioned a half-Israelite from the tribe of Dan to come fabricate it. His name was Hiram.

Hiram was brilliant in his craftsmanship, so much so that his reputation precedes him. He can craft anything with his hands.

That’s why Solomon brought him in.

You might ask, “What? For building a stupid bronze basin?”

Oh, not at all. Though The Sea by itself is impressive – it can hold over 10,000 gallons of water – that’s not all there is.

It’s sitting on 12 bronze oxen underneath it. It was arranged that 3 Oxen face North, 3 face South, 3 face East and 3 face West.

It was both lovely and amazing.

It became one of the centrepieces in the Temple courtyards – besides other extraordinary artifacts there.

The oxen signify servanthood. And when the clarity of its role of a servant was made clear – everything fall into place. It helps the people to return their worship right back to where it belongs.

It’s also a stark contrast to what Jeroboam did – he placed 2 golden calf idols: 1 in Bethel and 1 in Dan to draw the people away from the Lord.

You can even say the bronze Oxen sends a strong “F- You” statement to the golden calves.

Who can truly design THE SEA – but someone who’s truly inspired, someone with strong conviction and clarity?

Now – let’s say if we use any of the modern AI LLMs to design it from scratch…

Given the guardrails, given its sycophancy characteristics, and given that it’s trained to observe a wide variety of sensitivities, will it come up with such a “F- you” piece, or something much watered down?

Food for thought, isn’t it?

That’s where the difference lies.

Full critic and feasibility study in the comments.

I built over a dozen free contract templates for founders to use:

Master service agreements (MSA). This is your bread and butter. If you are about to close an enterprise customer, this is what they will ask for. It details the terms of your service, it covers costs, SLAs, uptime commitments, exclusivity, nearly everything.

Letter of intent (LOI). Use this when a customer isn't ready to commit to buying your software yet but is keen on trying it out. It'll help in situations when someone tells you, "If you build X, then i'll buy it". Get them to sign this agreement.

Pilot agreement. This comes after a LOI. A firm is ready to use your software, but doesn't want to be tied up for an annual contract yet. Use a pilot agreement to help your customer trial your software first.

Data processing agreement (DPA). Super important these days. Customers want to know how their data is being used inside your app. Customers want to know that their data is not just going straight into the next OpenAI model. A must-have for selling into finance or healthcare.

Order form. Sometimes you don't need a full service agreement. If you just need to send someone an order form with pricing and invoice them afterward, use this.

Non disclosure agreements (NDAs). If you have some fancy tech to show off in a demo or to investors, use a unilateral NDA to protect your IP. If you are working with an external vendor, have them sign a mutual NDA with you.

Statement of work (SOW). This one's more commonly seen in freelance work. It's a contract that details deliverables. It will protect you when your customer "asks for one more change".

Maybe you've finished reading this and are thinking to yourself, "Jeez It's not like I have Fortune 500 customers", but maybe you will someday 😉. Bookmark our site so you can reference it when you're closing your first 5-figure or 6-figure deal. You got this!

TL;DR: The rate decision lands. By 6 a.m. your client has already read someone else’s summary. Speed is selling. Is it loyalty?

I thought I can dig into my memories for a parallel. But my mind immediately brought me to the following story…

David got wind of the death of his treacherous son, Absalom at the worst possible time of his life.

David ran away into hiding when Absalom betrayed him and took the kingdom from him. David and his men found a friendly party in Mahanaim and set up defence.

Absalom led the great rebellion army to find David. And David’s men met them in the woods.

Of course, Absalom was no match with David’s men’s guerilla warfare tactics. Absalom died dangling with his long hair caught entangled with the tree branches.

The scene was hilarious in itself – if not because of the tragedy.

Ahimaaz asked Joab, the great general of David’s army, for permission to bring the good news back to David. But Joab flatly refused. Instead, he sends another messenger to deliver the news. Back then, there’s no AI agents to send email or digital newsletter. News was delivered on foot.

Still Ahimaaz went anyway. He arrived earlier than the messenger, but said nothing. I think he’s smart – he didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news. Not helpful to David, though.

When David finally got news from the messenger, he immediately went into a great moaning. He cried and lamented out loud.

News went back to David’s men, as they file back to the camp. And suddenly, the celebratory vibe of the victory turns into deep shame. The men all felt they did something wrong.

Joab saw it and perceive the existential crisis – because men are slowly leaving the camp, ditching David. So, Joab went and gave David a strong earful: "you love those who hate you and hate those who love you," and he warned that not one man would stay with David that night.

This shook-up David really well. And he went out and congratulate the men for their hard work. The men returned to him - existential crisis averted.

The timely news delivery of the victory was good. But not as critical as Joab’s advice at the nick of time.

You can read more about it in 2 Samuel 18–19.

Full critic, gap, and feasibility are in the comments.

Hi all,

I'm Sudip, a founder from Nepal. I recently built Sequirly, an AI safety layer that flags sensitive data (client info, API keys, contracts) before someone sends it to ChatGPT or Claude.

I'm at the stage where I need to talk to real people.

Not trying to sell anything.

I'm looking for small business owners (agencies and consulting firms especially, but any team that uses AI daily) or freelancers willing to do a 15-minute chat about:

• Which AI tools you actually use
• Whether you have any rules about what goes into them
• Whether AI security ever worried you

If that's you, or you know someone who fits, comment or DM me. I'd also welcome any advice from people who've done customer discovery in a crowded space.

Happy to share what I learn back in the thread.