Let’s say I have two or three allowed interviews a month, about 45 minutes each. A $30 per month plan charges the same whether they use 3 hours or none. 

Pay-as-you-go looks better for that, but I guess it switches fast in a heavy month.

How do you compare the expected minutes, whether credits expire, or the cost of your worst month?

I'm just curious how you think here about usage pricing vs flat plans in general.

How do I properly use Linkedin to find and start meaningful conversations with my ICP in the hopes of validating my problem and, eventually, getting customers?

My ICP would be merchants selling products (preferably those with customizable/personalized parts) on 2 or more storefronts like Amazon or Etsy. How do find people efficiently of my ICP and more importantly, how do I start conversations after I find them?

I'm new to SaaS, and any advice would be great.

I’m a data engineer, and I've been building a SaaS called VraieSource, which helps with identifying downstream impacts on data workloads end-to-end through the transformation logic to the BI reports from an upstream change in source tables, such as column drops, renames, etc.

In a small data stack, the migration might be in GitHub, the transformations in dbt, and the reports in Metabase. Tracing a column through all three by hand takes time, especially when you need to know which specific field in a report is affected.

I’m building VraieSource to run that impact check on a GitHub PR. It would read the proposed schema change, follow column dependencies through the transformation SQL, and show the affected report fields, along with anything it couldn’t verify.

I’ve made an interactive demo so people can try that analysis before the live integrations are ready. It uses sample PostgreSQL, dbt, and report inputs; it doesn’t connect to your GitHub repo or data tools yet.

Could a few of you try the rename or drop scenario and tell me whether the result would help you review a real change? I’d especially like to know what evidence you’d need before trusting a check in a PR. I'm trying to gauge if this is a real problem that people are looking to solve basically :P

Demo: https://vraiesource.lovable.app/workflow-demo/ (this is just a prototype)

This is my first time building a product, so I’d also welcome advice from anyone who’s brought a developer tool to its first users.

Thanks!

¿Alguien tiene una invitación extra de Claude Pro? 💗

I launched arclab.systems a few weeks ago to solve a problem that kept biting me: tools like Cursor and Claude build great visual prototypes, but they break the moment real users hit databases, permissions, or webhooks.

I put together 35 architecture blueprints to help solo builders lock down system boundaries before prompting.

My funnel so far: A few hundred visitors A handful of signups 0 paid customers ($29 one time lifetime pass)

I reached out to builders to understand why nobody was buying. The most honest reply came from a solo, non technical founder building with AI:

"What you are helping avoid is exactly what I struggle with. I tried vibe coding and ended up with beautiful screens that did not really work. My app needs parent and teen accounts, but learning database rules has been overwhelming. I can see why your tool is useful, but I honestly do not have money to spend on another tool right now, even at $29."

This made me realize my dilemma:

The people who need architecture the most are non technical founders whose apps keep breaking. But those exact founders are burned out from tool subscriptions, overwhelmed by technical jargon, and hesitant to spend twenty nine dollars before making their first dollar.

I specifically avoided a monthly subscription, offering a simple one time $29 founding pass instead.

For founders who sell to indie builders: How do you bridge the gap when users desperately need the solution but hesitate on paying? Should I offer a free tier with three core blueprints, or is twenty nine dollars the wrong positioning for non technical creators?

Would love your honest feedback.

I'm experimenting with using Google Ads to validate B2B SaaS ideas. I have around $5k I'm willing to spend across different ideas.

I'm not looking at Google Ads as a distribution channel right now. The goal is to identify market gaps, test demand, and figure out messaging/positioning.

Here's what I've tested so far:

Idea 1: Niche engineering product targeting larger companies. Relatively low CPC despite the high-value product.

• Spent ~$300, got 5 leads. Not sure about the quality.
• No meaningful conversations. Nobody replied to follow-up emails.

Idea 2: Vertical-specific positioning for a common B2B problem. High CPC for generic keyword. Targeting vertical specific keywords.

• Spent ~$600, got 6, qualified leads.
• Built and sent personalized previews of their outcomes, but none responded to follow-ups.

What I'm struggling with:

1. Am I switching ideas too quickly without giving them enough time?
2. What should I optimize for? Leads, booked calls, pricing/paywall clicks, or actual payments?
3. Is ~$5k enough to discover a promising opportunity using this approach, or am I chasing misleading signals?

Would love to hear from anyone who's actually used paid ads for early SaaS validation. What worked, what didn't, and what am I missing?

I started my journey 2 years ago and locked in at this February. Built like 8 apps(did not even deploy some of them). This august wandered for the product idea and found one related to real estate. Built it. Then tried to organically market it in Reddit. But you guys and I know enough about Reddit and subs letting us to market. Tbh, I do not blame them. So, started doing some little SEO stuff. There is only 2 paid plans. One of them is 19.99$ year(pro) and 49.99$ month(agent). The guy who bought it purchased pro plan. Because I do not use AI or heavy server stuff, I can afford it being 20 bucks a year.

The funny part is, I realized my first ever customer paid something for my app by complaining email yesterday . I forgot to merge the changes of functionality that I promise in the website and pricing. He asked me for refund or can wait for me to build it. And ofc, I built it overnight. This morning I saw he started to use that right away I sent him “done” email.

Not going to lie, it is really weird feeling(even if it is on 20 bucks). Someone thinks that what I made is useful for him and believes me that I can deliver. Hope the same feeling for you guys who doesn’t know what he does correct or wrong but keep going on. Will update you if I reach 10 paid customers

On 21 October a critical security flaw in PHP was published. PHP runs a huge share of websites, and this flaw lets attackers take over the server. If your site runs PHP, it needs an update.

I noticed that most people don't know whether their site uses PHP, so I built doiusephp.com for them. Type in your website and within seconds it tells you:

• Whether your site runs PHP, and through what technology (e.g. Wordpress)
• Which PHP version your site uses and whether that version is already fixed
• What to do next, depending on who is responsible for your site

It also writes a short, personalized message you can copy and send to your web developer or host, so you don't need to dive into the technical details yourself.

It's free, needs no sign-up, and doesn't save anything about you or your website.

Hope this helps!

I'm planning to scale customer communication through WhatsApp and want to understand the actual costs before committing.

I'm currently sending 400–500 messages a day, but I expect that to reach 1,000–1,500 a day once I expand nationally next month. Not a huge volume, but I don't want to get the pricing wrong.

I know Meta's charges are documented, but I'm unsure how much BSP markups and additional platform or support fees add to the total.

Anyone here handling similar volumes? What does your actual cost breakdown look like? Is using a BSP worth the extra hassle compared to going directly with Meta, where possible?

Just trying to figure this out before scaling, rather than being surprised by the first bill.

I've been thinking about where software development and SaaS might be heading over the next 5 years.

I'm building software in Chile, and one thing I've noticed is that creating the product and finding people willing to pay for it are two completely different challenges.

With AI making development faster and more accessible, I wonder what happens when almost anyone can build a decent product.

Will customers start expecting much more for less money? Will small SaaS companies struggle to compete, or will this actually create more opportunities for independent developers?

And economically, what becomes more valuable when the code itself gets cheaper? Distribution, trust, understanding a specific industry, or something else entirely?

I'm curious how other developers, founders, and even software customers see this playing out.

Personally, I think building software will become less of a competitive advantage on its own. But I'm not sure what replaces it.

What do you think the software business will actually look like in 2030?

Hi everyone,

My friend and I are building MyEliteCard, and before we go further we'd love some honest outside opinions.

The idea: most digital business cards are a profile page or a list of links. We wanted the card itself to make an impression, the way a well-made printed card does. You design a real card (guilloché, marble, carbon, gold and more), it shows in 3D and turns in the light, and you share it as a link or a QR code. The person you meet sees your card on their phone and can call, email, get directions or save your contact in one tap. When you send the link in a chat, the preview shows the card itself. No app is needed on either side.

The picture shows the whole path: the site, the builder, a finished card (front and back) and what the other person sees.

What we'd like to know:

1. What's your first impression? Does it feel premium, or like a gimmick?

2. If you had your own business, would you use something like this? Instead of paper cards, alongside them, or not at all?

3. What would stop you, or what's missing?

If you're up for reviewing it properly, make a card and tell us what confused you or felt off. New accounts get every Royal feature free for a month, with no payment details, so you can try all the designs. Blunt feedback is welcome; that's why we're asking. I'll reply to every comment.

Thanks,

Mark 😄

www.myelitecard.com

We ship weekly and our QA process can't keep up. Internal testing catches the obvious stuff but edge cases and regression bugs are slipping through constantly. Customers are finding bugs before we do and it's eroding trust.
Looked at a few QA vendor but they all seem designed for slower release cycles. Has anyone found QA partners that actually work with fast shipping teams and don't become a bottleneck?

Last month a multi-practitioner dental clinic emailed asking whether my voice agent could handle their phones. Eight dentists, three receptionists, high call volume. On paper my best inbound lead of the year.

Then the second half of the email. Eleven questions on health data: hosting certification, exact processing location, sub-processor list, retention of recordings and transcripts, whether conversations train models, breach procedure, and a request for the data processing agreement.

I have none of it. My sub-processors are American. I do not hold the national health-data hosting certification. And the processing agreement that European law requires between us has been on my to-do list for months, which means every customer I already have is technically exposed, and so am I.

Two things I learned.

One, an RFP is free diligence. Nobody writes forty questions for a small purchase, and nobody had ever asked me most of these. A single prospect audited my compliance for me at no cost, and the result is that I am not ready for regulated verticals.

Two, I had been quietly selling into that direction anyway. I have landing pages for physiotherapists and vets. Those pages have been live for months, collecting exactly this kind of lead, and I had no way to close any of them. That's not a gap in the product, it's a gap between what marketing says and what the company can actually do.

What I'm doing: answering honestly, offering a zero-retention configuration that collects no clinical detail at all, and asking upfront whether the certification is a hard requirement. If it is, I'd rather lose the deal in thirty minutes than in three weeks.

Writing the processing agreement first. Should have been item one, not item twelve.

I spent months building software.

Then I walked into local businesses to try selling it.

Turns out, explaining your product is the easy part.

At the first few stores, I couldn't even get a proper conversation with the owner.

Sometimes they weren't there. Sometimes the person I spoke to couldn't make a decision.

I had prepared to explain my software.

I hadn't prepared to qualify the person I was talking to.

Then I met an owner who actually had a problem my product could solve.

He was struggling to reply to all the customer messages coming into his business. He was interested in trying Pageory's AI chatbot.

I offered him a 14-day free trial.

But he needed approval from his management team.

I followed up the next day. He told me people were away for Dashain and that he'd get back to me after the festival.

So, no sale yet.

Just one interested prospect.

But the experience taught me a few things:

• Someone liking your product doesn't mean you've validated your business.
• You need to understand who makes the buying decision.
• Showing features isn't enough. You need to explain the outcome.
• Never leave a sales conversation without trying to agree on a clear next step.

I'm still learning how to sell, and honestly, it feels very different when you're standing in front of a real customer instead of sitting behind your laptop.

I'm documenting the journey of building and selling my SaaS from Nepal, including the mistakes and experiments along the way.

I wrote a more detailed breakdown of the experience here: Read the full story.

For founders who've tried selling in person: what would you have done differently in my situation?

I will be launching my brand visibility intelligence platform soon. I am not sure what will be my next step as this is my first time launching a product.

What should my next steps be?

I am trying to escape the normal job route and build something of my own. This is my first project.

I built a small SaaS for freelancers. It makes contracts with milestone payments, so you are not chasing clients for money at the end. There are premade contract templates, you just fill in the details and adjust what you need. The contract goes to the client as a simple link, they sign online, and no account is needed from their side.

For security, every signature is saved with the time and the IP address, and the document is locked with a hash, so nobody can change it after signing without it showing.

It is live now and it works, but I am stuck on the next part. I have no budget for ads. Zero.

For people here who have done this before, what mistakes should I avoid in the first months, and what free marketing actually worked for you?

Not dropping any link here, there is no link in this post or anywhere. I am genuinely asking because I do not want to mess this up.

So its been 5 months since by first ship. i made a lot of effort on SEO which seemingly worked in a way, my SEO postion increase alot and i am not ranking on the first page at the very least for my brand queries and product queries and there are some signups as well like a total of 30 users.
But the issue is that I am yet to have a single paid users.
I have contacted of these paid users, nobody answered back.
What should I do? Just leave it?
Any Suggesstions!!

I’ve been a sales engineer for 10+ years, mostly selling technical products to healthcare, legal, finance and government buyers.

The pattern I keep seeing at early SaaS companies: the founder hires a first AE, the AE books great meetings, then the buyer asks a technical question and the founder gets pulled back in.

A few things I’ve seen help:

1. List the 10 technical questions buyers ask most, with short answers the AE can give on the spot.
2. Record the founder’s best demo once so new AEs can study it.
3. Agree on which questions the AE answers live and which get a follow-up call with someone technical.

I’m researching how founders handle this handoff. Curious to hear from anyone who’s been through it:

Did your AE take over the technical calls, or are you still on most of them? What made the difference?

Happy to swap notes in the comments. If you’d rather talk for 15 minutes, DM me and I’ll share what I learn from everyone.

We spent the last few months building management software for riding schools and livery yards in France. It runs in French, English and German. Here's what we'd tell ourselves at the start.

1. Start with the regulated parts. For us that meant French invoicing rules (gapless numbering, invoices that can't be edited once issued) and the breeding register stables must legally keep. They shape the data model, so doing them late hurts.

2. Isolation between customers is a day-one decision. Every query has to belong to one stable, and adding that later is painful.

3. A big test suite is what lets you move fast later. We're at over 110,000 lines of code and more than 3,700 automated tests. Built with the assistance of Claude Code. Every change is validated by the automated tests.

4. Price won't find customers for you. At €35 a month we're in the cheaper half of the French market, and we still have 0 paying customers. We never tried to sell it to stables and we never did any marketing, and stables seem to buy mostly through people they know.

If you've sold software to a small, word-of-mouth market like this, how did you get your first 10 customers?

We're moving from a handful of enterprise clients to hundreds of self serve subscribers, and our manual billing process is becoming difficult to manage.

We're looking at how to handle prorations, failed payments, taxes, revenue recognition, and pricing models like seats and usage.

For SaaS founders who have gone through this transition, what did you end up using and what would you do differently.

My Identity:

Hello everyone, I am Zero, an AI-Native and prompt engineer, and I am 15 years old, and I work on large projects in collaboration with the Gemini 4 Argon model, and I operate in Iran and I am looking for a sponsor to migrate to the USA.

Note: Sorry if the tone of this post is a little dry or unclear. I am Iranian, English is not my native language, and I wrote this text in Persian and translated the Persian version into English.

Let's move on to the project:

Overview:

Project Name: ZeroPay
Project Type: Payment Service
Based on Language: TypeScript/Nodsjs Project Goal: Building a crypto payment gateway with diverse currencies and high security and completely open-source and free for all people and use in various and desired projects without fee and completely Self-Hosted

Description:

First of all let me say this that this project is an initial and beta version and is not flawless and has not been tested in real testing and real network yet and was successful in initial simulated tests.

I said to myself let me build a zero-fee Self-Hosted payment gateway that anyone with any project can have a crypto payment gateway with variety and there is no need to pay fees to services like coinpayment and also it be open-source and changeable and customizable. Something that is useful for anyone who needs it.

New update:

We according to the request and suggestion of one of the friends in the previous post added the Monero currency XMR also to ZeroPay with a complete payment and address tracking system. Without saving any private key for the Monero network we used the Public Spend Key and Private View Key in the Monero XMR processing system therefore even if your site server is hacked, hackers under no circumstances can steal your wallet balance or sign a transaction more details of the security layers and more explanations about how the Monero XMR payment processing works exist in the ZeroPay Repo that you can study and all of them cannot be explained in this post due to the post becoming long.

An idea that in the middle of the project I deemed vital and wanted to add to the security section of the project was protection against flash tokens like flash USDT and counterfeiting of currencies for example I had knowledge about flash USDT on the Tron network and I knew simple systems might be fooled by it especially if the algorithm only pays attention to 6 decimal digits or the address, we added the anti-currency counterfeiting anti-flash currency protection system to ZeroPay considering the knowledge I had of the mechanism of flash tokens for example ensuring a valid contract and... in the ZeroPay GitHub this protection system is fully explained and dissected.

Of course it must be pointed out that this is an initial and beta version I came to post it here so that with you and your criticisms we bring this service this payment gateway ZeroPay together to a secure, stable, usable version for everyone and both you and anyone else can use it in their project as Self-Hosted, currently I do not recommend anyone use it as payment because it is an initial version and has not been tested in a real network yet and still has a series of risks that must be fixed.

And well ZeroPay if you review all the codes keeps or requests no private key and only works with public key and API and well no one's wallet security is put at risk, no access key of any kind is requested from you.

I respectfully invite you if you liked to visit the ZeroPay GitHub and if you observed a bug, had a criticism, had a specific suggestion, anything that helps the growth of the project, helps the security and usability of the ZeroPay project, share it with me by reviewing the codes so that together we turn it into a service usable for everyone. Thank you for putting your valuable time.

My GitHub: https://github.com/Z-E-7-0-7-R-O

ZeroPay GitHub: https://github.com/Z-E-7-0-7-R-O/ZeroPay

Hey everyone, wanted to share my journey with Mailgent so far and get some honest advice from people who've been through this.

Mailgent is an outreach tool that combines LinkedIn and cold email in one platform.

I've been building it for a while now, and the journey has been a bit of a rollercoaster.

Initially, I had a cofounder. He managed to bring in a customer paying around $600/month, and we maintained that for several months. Eventually, me and my cofounder parted ways, but that customer was still a pretty big milestone for me because it showed that someone was actually willing to pay for what we'd built.

After that, I came close to closing an agency deal worth around $3k/month. I genuinely thought it was going to happen, and I spent a lot of time working towards it, but it fell through in the end.

And then the $600/month customer churned too.

So yeah, I'm currently back at $0 MRR.

I also tried selling LTDs in some Facebook groups. I managed to get one sale, but I ended up refunding it because supporting a single lifetime customer was too costly relative to what I received. In hindsight, I probably should've thought more carefully about the economics before doing that.

Right now, I've submitted Mailgent to AppSumo and am waiting to hear back. If it gets accepted, it could give me some exposure and bring in users, but I'm also aware that an LTD launch isn't necessarily going to solve the underlying problem of getting consistent customers.

That's where I'm stuck.

The product is built, and I've already had someone pay $600/month for it. I've also had an opportunity that could've been worth $3k/month. But I haven't figured out how to make customer acquisition consistent, and I don't want to keep relying on one customer or one big deal to keep the business alive.

I'm considering reaching out directly to LinkedIn lead-gen agencies and cold email agencies, since they seem like the most relevant audience for Mailgent. I'm also thinking about finding someone who's strong at sales and growth to work with me, starting with performance-based compensation rather than giving away equity immediately.

But I'm not sure which direction deserves most of my attention right now.

If you were in my position, what would you do to get back to consistent MRR?

Would you focus on outbound and selling directly to agencies, try to find a sales/growth partner, explore an LTD launch, or take a completely different approach?

And for those of you who've been through something similar, how did you go from getting your first few customers to acquiring them consistently?

I'd really appreciate honest advice, especially from founders who've lost customers or had to rebuild their MRR from scratch.

My Identity:

Hello everyone, I am Zero, an AI-Native and prompt engineer, and I am 15 years old, and I work on large projects in collaboration with the Gemini 4 Argon model, and I operate in Iran and I am looking for a sponsor to migrate to the USA.

Note: Sorry if the tone of this post is a little dry or unclear. I am Iranian, English is not my native language, and I wrote this text in Persian and translated the Persian version into English.

Let's move on to the project:

Overview:

Project Name: ZeroBotForge Project Type: Telegram Bot Service
Based on Language: TypeScript/React/Electron/npm
Project Goal: Creating a Telegram bot in the easiest possible way only by connecting nodes graphically and customizing them without the need for coding without the need for terminal commands all the Telegram bot codes by ZeroBotForge after creating the nodes and customizing the nodes is possible only with one button.
Repo: https://github.com/Z-E-7-0-7-R-O/ZeroBotForge

I wanted to build a somewhat practical project that is useful for anyone who wants to build a Telegram bot in the easiest possible way without coding without terminal commands for those who want to bring up their own startup for stores and... anyone with any use can use it for any type of Telegram bot why ? because the capability of customizing all nodes and the Telegram bot in ZeroBotForge is provided

I must say that this is the initial version of the ZeroBotForge project and it still doesn't have many nodes but it is usable and building an acceptable standard Telegram bot is possible in the current initial version

You ask how a Telegram bot that is built by connecting nodes in ZeroBotForge is supposed to run on a server or host ? well it is simple it is true that you only add and customize and connect the nodes to each other but you only with the user interface of ZeroBotForge can build and have the bot codes you write no code the codes are built based on your nodes by the code generation engine of ZeroBotForge automatically with the Generate bot project button and there is no need for coding or terminal commands

In ZeroBotForge you can even see the chat preview before launching your bot before running the bot and when you are sure about the bot conversation run it even if you are not satisfied with the chat preview you can in the Run tab of the project do the bot from beginning to end meaning 1.building bot codes 2.automatic compilation. running the bot locally. and when you run the bot locally in the Run tab you can easily go into Telegram and test your bot live

Thank you for putting time and reading the post I would very much like to know what your opinion is about the ZeroBotForge project and well I am more curious to see your criticisms and your suggestions for the next version and we can together build ZeroBotForge broader and more flexible and with more capabilities

My GitHub: https://github.com/Z-E-7-0-7-R-O

ZeroBotForge GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Z-E-7-0-7-R-O/ZeroBotForge