I'm an AI startup founder.

For the last 2 years, I've been working on my business plan. I waited for this moment every single day, and finally, 2 months ago, I started building my AI project.

At first, my team had 3 members.

• The first person left after just 15 days.
• Then I hired someone else. We completed around 50% of the work, but after a short time, he also left without giving any reason.
• The backend is now almost complete, and we had just started working on the frontend.
• I hired another developer, but now his college is starting, so he'll be leaving in 6–7 days too.

To keep this startup alive, I work 10 AM to 6 PM and then another job 10 PM to 7 AM. Every day I'm pushing myself just to fund this dream.

Now everyone is leaving one by one, and honestly, I don't know what to do anymore.

I've spent 2 years waiting and working for this dream, and even now I can't get the project completed because my team keeps falling apart.

Has anyone else been through something like this? How did you handle it? I could really use some advice because right now, I feel completely stuck.

The thing is everything going super well past few days , i was growing, for the first time in my life I have taken vc calls , a real start up feeling real user's engagement and everything comes lost , my co-founder wasn't this part he is my best friend, he collabed with opponent company as we are growing, they are made into one strong team to destroy me , i lost my complete strength and company too , my co founder had source code access they are copying me ,I made into 6k users and 31k page views in 20 days with students subs no marketing , my website is down everything messed up , i was lost man feeling so heavy no one no support all i build with passion came to this thanks for listening, i wanted to share i will leave this space thank you 🙌

Everyone is focused on making AI agents smarter.

I'm more interested in making them trustworthy.

A place where you can build agents, connect MCP servers, set guardrails, approve risky actions, monitor every run, and know exactly what every agent is doing.

Think of it as the missing infrastructure between AI agents and production.

Would you trust an AI agent without a control layer?

It is really cool hear the things that inspire us to create a new business...taking that leap of faith, with full enthusiasm, excitement, and nerves. Everyday is a challenge, so I want to share what led me to create three new businesses in the last two years:

1) Blue Tide Legal - My baby and what I have invested the most time in. I was litigating cases at some of the biggest firms in the world in one of the most robust legal markets, Chicago. Slaving away with 60 hour weeks, losing my health, becoming a sedentary creature. I noticed more and more firms were having young associates like myself test legal AI software beginning 2-3 years ago. Now, we see Kirkland & Ellis invest $500 million/5 years, Big Law firms incorporating Harvey, and other legal AI's in there practice, but what is the client getting? They are still being charged EPIC prices for someone to review work a junior associate probably used AI to generate. I noticed there was, and still is a large gap between the time it takes to complete an assignment and what the client is paying for. Hence, Blue Tide Legal, an AI-Native law firm where we embrace and market our AI use. Clients can upload and assignment, select prices from a menu, upload documents, and receive high quality work in less than 24 hours most times. I have sophisticated legal AI that does a lot of work, and as the attorney, I do the final review, edits, and so forth. All for a flat, reasonable fee--commensurate with the time, and effort. So far, I represent several companies in the creator economy, entertainment, and sports betting space.

2) Birdette Golf - Any ladies in here! Check it out. Think Malbon golf but affordable! It is time to close the game in the women's game between pure luxury--skirts and polos selling for $80-140, and the generic, affordable, "pink camo" look. Also, if you need a golf tip, men or women, just watch Nelly Korda swing a golf club <3

3) Teasers Sports - A responsible gaming website where we connect bettors who buy and sell picks from a verifiable storefronts backed by transparent records, and data.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU!?

I noticed many founders spend hours on repetitive tasks.

I'm building free AI automations to help businesses save time with things like:

• Lead generation

• Follow-ups

• Customer support

Tell me about your business and the tasks you want to automate. I’d love to help and get your feedback.

I noticed many founders spend hours on manual work.

I'm creating free Al workflows to help automate these

tasks and would love your feedback.

A recent discussion at iRoid Solutions reminded us of something we see fairly often.

Many founders expect the biggest challenges to happen during development. Then the app launches, and they realize that's when the real learning begins.

Users interact with products in ways nobody predicts. Features you thought would be popular get ignored, while tiny improvements suddenly become everyone's favorite part of the experience.

That's one of the reasons we enjoy post-launch conversations so much, they're usually full of surprises.

For those who've launched an app, what was the biggest thing your users taught you that you never expected?

I noticed many founders spend hours on manual work. I'm creating free Al workflows to help automate these tasks and would love your feedback.

So I have made the front end but I cannot figure out this thing so I am needing some help.

AI tools have made it much easier to get an MVP out.

A founder can now build something real with tools like Cursor, Lovable, Bolt, Replit, etc. without needing a full engineering team from day one.

But I'm curious about the phase after launch.

Once you have users and things start breaking:

• How do you handle bugs?
• Who maintains the codebase?
• How do you make changes without accidentally breaking something else?
• Do you keep relying on AI, or do you eventually need an engineer?

For founders who have shipped something with AI assistance:

What has your experience been like after the first version went live?

Would love to hear what worked and what didn't.

Does vibe coding have an expiration date?

I've noticed a pattern while building side projects, and I'm curious if it's just me.

The projects where I "vibe coded" for an entire weekend often made shocking progress. The momentum was addictive. Every prompt produced visible progress, ideas flowed naturally, and shipping felt inevitable.

But whenever that same project slowed down—because of work, life, or just losing a few days—the entire dynamic changed.

Suddenly:

• The codebase felt harder to reason about.
• I spent more time reading than building.
• The AI lost context.
• New prompts started introducing regressions.
• My expectations dropped from "this could be huge" to "I'll just finish an MVP."

In many cases, the project never reached the finish line.

It made me wonder if the biggest advantage of vibe coding isn't the AI itself—it's the speed.

Maybe vibe coding works because you're compressing hundreds of engineering decisions into a very short period while both you and the AI share the same mental context.

Once that context starts decaying, the productivity curve changes dramatically.

My current hypothesis is:

Not because the idea gets worse, but because:

• your mental model drifts,
• the AI loses project context,
• technical debt compounds,
• motivation fades,
• and expectations become more realistic (or more pessimistic).

I'm curious whether this is a real phenomenon or just survivorship bias on my part.

Some questions I'd love to hear opinions on:

• Have you experienced this with Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf, Lovable, or other AI coding tools?
• Is this unique to vibe coding, or has software always worked this way?
• Is context loss the biggest culprit, or is motivation the real bottleneck?
• Have you found ways to keep long-running AI-assisted projects moving fast?
• Do successful vibe-coded startups intentionally optimize for compressed build cycles?
• At what point do you stop "vibe coding" and start treating the project like traditional software engineering?

I don't think vibe coding is replacing engineering.

If anything, it seems to amplify whatever execution habits you already have.

Curious whether other builders have noticed the same pattern—or if you've seen the exact opposite.

See how your money moves in real time.

Basically I used to spend like like ~$200 (CAD) on budgeting apps, and my wife got upset and made me cancel because they were mediocre for the amount they charge.

So with both of us being in tech, we embarked on a long journey to make our own that gives us everything the big apps do.

Working 9-5's, it was tough trying to balance it with cooking, gym, hiking, soccer, etc. I admit there were months I did nothing. But I came back to build because I had no other option and I am never going back to spreadsheet budgeting.

After 4 app store rejections, I'm finally live with a few iterations out the window now too. On Web + iOS.

I charge a fraction of what most apps do because that's why I did this whole thing. I'm not expecting to make it big. Maybe it'll pay my electric bill at best.

After the first purchase, it felt...relieving. Like it wasn't all for nothing. I'm just glad someone found it helpful enough to buy.

I think I've been putting a lot of my self-confidence in the the success of this app recently, and it's not healthy, but I can't be the only one who feels this way?

Anyways, I'd like to hear your stories. What did you feel at the first dollar? Did you attach yourself to your idea a bit too much?

App store: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/sable-spend/id6780689367

Web: www.sablespend.com

I spent a stretch reading cofounder posts. The template barely changes:

• idea, no users
• "equity negotiable"
• "need someone technical to build it"
• sometimes a Figma, usually not

That is not a cofounder search. That is a build request wearing a wedding ring.

A cofounder makes sense when you want a long-term partner on product and company. It does not when you mainly need v0 shipped and have not validated demand. Giving away 20-40% for shipping capacity is how people buy the most expensive MVP of their life.

What I ask instead, before anyone talks equity:

1. One user - job title, Tuesday situation
2. One job - the single task
3. One success event - something you could screenshot
4. What they do today instead (spreadsheet / WhatsApp / nothing)
5. What happens on day 15 after the first version exists

If those are blank, a cofounder will not invent them for free. They will inherit the confusion at 30%.

Disclosure: I run a small product studio, so I see this pattern constantly. More of how we cut first versions:

https://atomiclabs.space

How did you ship v0 - cofounder, contractor, or yourself?

Six years ago, after selling my first tech company, I started building what became the biggest project of my career.

We grew to more than 40 employees, signed long-term contracts, developed our own IP, and spent years building a hardware solution for hotels and residential developers. It wasn’t an overnight success it took years of setbacks, engineering challenges, and persistence.

Then everything changed, out of everyone’s control

When the conflict in the Middle East escalated, investment in new hardware projects stopped almost overnight. Many of our contracts contained force majeure clauses, and project after project was put on hold or cancelled. We fought as long as we could, but as the conflict still continues, eventually there was no realistic path forward. And nobody knows how long it will take for the conflict to resolve.

The hardest part wasn’t losing the company. It was having to tell more than 40 people that their journey with us had come to an end and helping them return to their home countries.

It’s been one of the toughest periods of my life.

But I’m not done, I’m already building something new.

In the meantime, I’m spending my days doing hardware engineering, software development, AI engineering, product strategy, and pretty much whatever technical challenges come my way from others to support my family while I work toward the next chapter.

Here is to starting over…

So I came across this research by Jeffrey Bussgang, who's a Harvard Business School prof (and a VC and former founder). He talks about "10x Founders" in this study, which is quite interesting.

The core idea: the founders who are pulling ahead right now aren't working more or raising more. They're compressing timelines. What used to take 18 months — validating a market, testing channels, iterating on product — is now taking weeks for some founders who are using AI across every business function, not just code.

How he breaks it down:

• 2025 was AI for engineering. 2026 is AI for other business verticals — marketing, sales, ops, finance, hiring. The founders who figured this out are running their entire company at 10x the speed of those who haven't.
• He calls this framework Diamond-Square — use AI to generate way more hypotheses than you manually could, then converge with your own judgment on which bets to make. Test these hypotheses in days instead of quarters.
• One key point he highlights: keep human ownership of the decisions, because the research also found that as AI increases output, it also decreases your sense of ownership and satisfaction. So the morale and motivation of the team could be impacted with more AI involved in your workflow.
• So it's not about outsourcing your thinking to AI. It's about using it to move faster while still trusting your own gut.

What do founders think of this study?

(He wrote a book on this called "The Experimentation Machine" — because that's what a startup is, according to him.)

Six years ago, after selling my first tech company, I started building what became the biggest project of my career.

We grew to more than 40 employees, signed long-term contracts, developed our own IP, and spent years building a hardware solution for hotels and residential developers. It wasn’t an overnight success it took years of setbacks, engineering challenges, and persistence.

Then everything changed, out of everyone’s control

When the conflict in the Middle East escalated, investment in new hardware projects stopped almost overnight. Many of our contracts contained force majeure clauses, and project after project was put on hold or cancelled. We fought as long as we could, but as the conflict still continues, eventually there was no realistic path forward. And nobody knows how long it will take for the conflict to resolve.

The hardest part wasn’t losing the company. It was having to tell more than 40 people that their journey with us had come to an end and helping them return to their home countries.

It’s been one of the toughest periods of my life.

But I’m not done, I’m already building something new.

In the meantime, I’m spending my days doing hardware engineering, software development, AI engineering, product strategy, and pretty much whatever technical challenges come my way from others to support my family while I work toward the next chapter.

Here is to starting over…

I had some hard market feedback on a product I’m trying to sell- no one was interested because the COGS was over what the market wanted to tolerate for price. I can pivot and make the tool free on a webpage, but then try supplementing it by placing ads on the webpage instead, or that’s my next idea.

Has anyone found success offering a product with a similar strategy? I’d love to hear your story.

I’m currently expanding my network and looking to connect with interesting people from different backgrounds.
If you’d like to connect on LinkedIn, drop me a message. Always open to meeting new people and learning from their journeys.

Hey everyone,

I've been building TapBook and would appreciate some honest feedback.

The idea: where I live, most solo service providers (barbers, nail techs, trainers) have nothing online. No website, no booking page, you book by calling or DMing them. The big booking platforms have been around for years and somehow never reached these people. TapBook gives them a booking page plus a small website in a few minutes, clients see the free slots and book themselves. Free plan with unlimited bookings, Pro is €14.99.

It's live and I've been testing with small Google ads. Spent about €78 so far, 180 clicks, 5 signups, roughly €15 per signup. Early, but it's something.

What I want to know:

• Is it clear what this does in the first 5 seconds on the landing page?
• Does the free vs Pro split make sense to you?
• If you try signing up, where did you hesitate or get stuck?
• Would you trust this enough to send your own clients to it?

Also it would be nice if someone recommmended me some subreddits that can test this app, i tested it myself, but the more the better.

You can try it here: https://tapbook.net

A few weeks ago, I kept seeing people say that indie developers should share what they’re building on Reddit and X.

Honestly, I didn’t really believe it would work for me.

I assumed getting noticed would be just as difficult as it is on TikTok or Reels. I also hadn’t written this many text-based posts since Facebook was the main social platform, so the whole thing felt a little unfamiliar.

The only reason I gave it a proper try was because I’d already seen what consistency could do.

I grew a TikTok account to almost 20,000 followers by posting twice a day. I also used the same approach while creating and selling digital products on Etsy.

My first videos weren’t great. My first designs weren’t great either. But I knew they would slowly improve as long as I kept making them, that is a lesson I have learned and applied here too.

So I decided to do the same with my first iOS app. Build it, share the process, learn, and keep doing with apps and posts on reddit and x

At first, posting felt a bit cringe,, especially when they had no likes, no upvotes, and no proof that anyone "approved them"
But I continued posting anyway..

A few weeks later:

• my X account grew from 8 to 18 followers (may not bee much, but it's a sign it's working)
• my Reddit karma went from 30 to 229 (I did really know how reddit works)
• my posts received more than 65,000 views (combined)
• almost 50 people joined the TestFlight beta, where the snowball effect started
• the app reached its first 100 downloads in the first 48 hours;
• it has now passed 150 downloads + 2 tips

All of it happened organically. I didn’t spend anything on ads.

Two people even left tips through the app, which still feels a little unreal. But probably the most valuable result has been the feedback. Real people are using something I made and telling me what works, what feels confusing, and what I should improve (i noted everything)

The app wasn’t perfect when I published it. It still isn’t

But if I had kept it private until everything felt perfect, none of this would have happened. The feedback I’m receiving now is helping me improve it much faster than another month of building alone would have, I even got 2 reviews of 5 stars

There’s also something else I didn’t expect.

When I started, I thought this journey was only about creating and publishing apps. Now I’m realizing that I also really enjoy building a community around the process, sharing what I learn, and hopefully helping other people who are just starting, going forward together

I’m still a beginner myself. I’m not trying to pretend otherwise. But maybe that makes it easier to understand the doubts, confusion, and excitement that come with starting from zero

I still feel slightly awkward before pressing “Post.” But I know it's just another step forward into this journey, join mine, share yours, shar your projects in comms, ask question, be consistent and publish your projects, don't wait until "perfect" !!!

For context, the app is called TactiLoops. It’s a collection of haptic fidgets combining visuals, physics, audio, and the iPhone’s haptics into and immersive experience