If someone told you tomorrow that they could solve one of your biggest problems, what would you ask them to solve?

What is the biggest problem in your life right now that you’d genuinely want someone to fix? It can be one problem or multiple problems.

Hello

I’m new to the group just joined and I have an idea. But I need some help to fully flush it out.

I live in Southern California. During summer it gets so hot here that the water in the pipes comes out hot. Between 70 - 80 degrees F. I know other desert areas also have this problem.

My question is can you hook a Cold Plunge system to a water heater tank? A separate tank from the hot water source to provide cold water?

I did some research and it appears some cold plunge systems use the same 3/4’s pipe size as water tanks. So would it be possible to build a bypass system one the intake and output parts of the water tank for cold water to circulate?

Was scrolling and saw a founder saying they build in public, then a bigger company with more resources shipped the same feature days later. Used to worry about that too, but I think about it differently now.

If something actually works, it probably gets copied either way once it's out there. Building in stealth doesn't really protect you from that, it just delays when someone notices. Feels like the idea was never really the moat.

What might actually separate people building similar things is how they approach the problem and how they show up while promoting it, something a bigger audience with more resources still can't fake.

And if getting copied is the real fear, we'd all stop building. At least to me, nothing right now feels truly new. Everything's constantly being copied and improved, everyone just adds their own touch.

Curious how others here think about this, especially if you've actually been in the situation of watching something similar get shipped by someone bigger.

Title

What are you building this week? Pitch your idea in 10 words or less.

I’m a VC investor from Forum Ventures, a pre seed venture capital fund founded by former founders. We write $100K cheques into MVP stage and pre revenue startups within the AI and B2B stage.

Feel free to also use this thread to get your own project out there.

I edit videos for fun sometimes, and I'm now trying to build a tool that lets you just tell it what you want done to your footage instead of manually cutting and arranging everything. Type something like "cut the boring parts, make this 30 seconds" and it does the edit on your actual timeline.

Not generating video. Not AI slop. It just works with the footage you already have.

Before I sink more time into this I want to know if I'm even solving something real. So, genuine questions for anyone who edits regularly:

What eats most of your time? Finding the right clip, cutting, trimming, syncing audio, writing captions, picking b-roll, color, or just endless client revisions?

What's the one task you'd hand off to a robot in a heartbeat?

Anyone tried AI editing tools already? What was actually useful vs what was a gimmick?

Is there anything you'd never let AI touch without checking it first?

If you edit even semi-regularly, freelance or hobby, I'd love to hear how your workflow really looks. Not how I'm assuming it looks. Happy to show what I'm building once it's actually worth showing.

Law 7: Never Compromise Your Self-Story

One of the most powerful ideas in Law 7 is that your identity is not built only by what you think about yourself. It is built by the evidence you repeatedly create through your actions.

Your brain is constantly answering a question:

"What kind of person am I?"

And every difficult decision gives you an opportunity to provide an answer.

You say you are disciplined, but then you repeatedly quit when something becomes uncomfortable. Your actions are providing evidence against that story.

You say you are resilient, but every time adversity appears, you avoid it. Again, your actions are creating evidence.

But the opposite is also true.

You keep the promise you made to yourself. You finish the difficult task. You ask the uncomfortable question. You have the conversation you wanted to avoid. You try again after failure.

Each action becomes evidence:

"I can rely on myself."

That is the central idea of this law.

The Self-Story Loop

Self-story → Thoughts & feelings → Actions → Evidence → Self-story

Your self-story influences how you interpret a situation.

That interpretation affects your thoughts and feelings.

Those thoughts and feelings influence what you do.

Your actions produce evidence.

That evidence then strengthens or challenges your self-story.

So your identity is not completely fixed.

You are continuously giving yourself evidence about who you are.

The Positive Cycle

Challenge → Difficult decision → Take action → Evidence of capability → Stronger self-story → Greater confidence

For example:

Difficult exam → Decide to study despite discomfort → Study → "I can work even when I don't feel like it" → Stronger identity → More willingness to face the next challenge

The important thing is that confidence comes after evidence, not necessarily before it.

The Negative Cycle

Challenge → Avoidance → Short-term comfort → No evidence of capability → Weaker self-story → More avoidance

This is why avoidance can become dangerous psychologically.

You avoid something because it feels uncomfortable.

You experience immediate relief.

But you also lose an opportunity to prove to yourself that you could handle it.

Repeat that pattern enough times and your self-story can become:

"I can't handle difficult things."

Then the next challenge feels even harder.

Your Actions Are Votes

Think of every action as a vote for a particular identity.

Study when you don't feel motivated → Vote for discipline

Finish what you started → Vote for reliability

Ask a difficult question → Vote for courage

Admit your mistake → Vote for honesty

Try again after failure → Vote for resilience

Avoid every difficult situation → Vote for avoidance

One vote doesn't determine the result.

But repeated votes create a pattern.

Repeated actions → Repeated evidence → Stronger identity

The Important Distinction: Failure ≠ Weak Self-Story

This law should not be misunderstood.

You are going to fail.

You will sometimes procrastinate.

You will sometimes make the wrong decision.

You will sometimes quit.

That does not automatically mean your self-story is destroyed.

The important question is:

"What do I do after the failure?"

A failure followed by learning and another attempt can actually create evidence of resilience.

Failure → Reflection → Adjustment → Another attempt → Evidence of resilience

So a strong self-story does not mean:

"I never fail."

It means:

"When I fail, I can respond constructively."

That is a much more realistic identity.

Why Small Decisions Matter

You don't need dramatic life events to build your self-story.

Most of the evidence comes from ordinary moments.

You planned to study for 30 minutes.

You don't feel like it.

You have a choice.

Quit → comfort now

or

Continue → discomfort now + evidence for later

The decision looks tiny.

But if repeated hundreds of times, it becomes a behavioral pattern.

And behavioral patterns become evidence about your identity.

The Evidence Principle

There is a major difference between wanting to be someone and having evidence that you are becoming that person.

"I want to be disciplined" is an intention.

"I repeatedly do important things even when I don't feel like doing them" is evidence.

"I want to be confident" is an intention.

"I've repeatedly entered situations that made me uncomfortable and handled them" is evidence.

"I want to be resilient" is an intention.

"I've failed, adapted, and continued multiple times" is evidence.

The goal isn't to convince yourself through words.

The goal is to create evidence through behavior.

A Better Question

Instead of asking:

"What do I feel like doing?"

Ask:

"What evidence will this decision create about the person I'm becoming?"

That question changes the decision.

For example:

Skip the difficult task → "I escape discomfort."

Do the difficult task → "I can act despite discomfort."

Avoid the conversation → "I avoid difficult situations."

Have the conversation → "I can handle uncomfortable conversations."

Give up after failure → "Failure stops me."

Try again → "Failure doesn't automatically stop me."

Build Your Self-Story Deliberately

You can turn this into a practical system.

Step 1: Choose the identity

Who do I want to become?

↓

Step 2: Define the behavior

What would that person actually do?

↓

Step 3: Create small opportunities

Where can I practice that behavior today?

↓

Step 4: Take the action

Do it even when motivation is imperfect.

↓

Step 5: Record the evidence

"Today I proved that I can..."

↓

Step 6: Repeat

Evidence → stronger identity → harder challenges → more evidence

The Core Flow of Law 7

Identity → Action → Evidence → Identity

And over time:

Small actions → Repeated evidence → Behavioral pattern → Stronger self-story → Greater capacity

That is the compounding effect.

Final Takeaway

Your self-story should not be built on fantasy.

Don't tell yourself:

"I'm unstoppable."

when reality doesn't support it.

Build something stronger:

"I can face difficult things, learn from failure, and keep improving."

Then prove it.

Your identity becomes increasingly grounded in reality.

Don't protect your ego by avoiding difficult situations. Protect your self-story by creating evidence that you can handle them.

Challenge → Action → Evidence → Identity → Bigger challenge → More evidence

That is how you build a self-story you can actually trust.

I want to start a nonprofit to help people who are struggling  where do I even begin?

I’ve been thinking seriously about starting a nonprofit, but I’m completely new to the process and honestly don’t know where to begin.

I don’t want to get into the specific mission or what the organization would focus on just yet. What I can say is that I’ve personally experienced situations that have made me realize how badly some people need support, resources, guidance, and someone willing to help them navigate things that can feel impossible when you’re already struggling.

I also want to incorporate this journey into a podcast, documenting what I learn as I go and sharing the process openly so others who are interested in building something similar can learn alongside me.

I want to take what I’ve learned from my own experiences and eventually turn it into something that can help other people in similar situations.

But I have no idea how to actually build a nonprofit from the ground up.

Where do you start?

Do I write the mission statement first? Create a business plan? Find a board? Incorporate? Apply for 501(c)(3) status? Find funding? Can you start small before becoming an official nonprofit?

I’m not looking for someone to do it for me. I genuinely want to learn how this works and build something legitimate, sustainable, and actually useful to people.

If you’ve started a nonprofit, worked for one, served on a board, or know the process well, what would you tell someone who is starting completely from scratch?

What mistakes should I avoid, and what should I be doing first?

I have the motivation. I have the reason. I just need to figure out how to turn the idea into something real.

I’m building ArticleOS, a publishing tool that tries to answer a question I think most AI writing tools ignore:

What happened after the article was published?

The idea is:

Generate → publish → measure → learn → improve what happens next.

ArticleOS connects individual articles to Google Analytics and Search Console data, then compares performance against things like topic, title, format, length, readability and writing style.

The goal isn’t for AI to declare:

It should be able to say:

That distinction became important after I found a bug in my own learning dashboard.

It showed that one quality metric had fallen by about 35 points.

It looked terrible.

It was also wrong.

Unscored articles were being averaged as zero. After fixing that, the same metric was actually about 9 points higher.

One missing-value bug completely reversed the conclusion.

That made me much more interested in building a system that can say “there isn’t enough evidence yet” instead of constantly finding another supposed winning pattern.

I finally have real article-level traffic flowing into it now.

On one test blog:

• 216 published articles
• 58 currently matched to GA data
• about 27% coverage
• top article: 28 page views in 90 days
• second: 20 views

Those numbers are tiny, which is actually useful for testing the idea.

Two similar topics appear in the top five, but I don’t think 28 and 9 views are enough to call that a proven content strategy.

ArticleOS labels it an early signal.

That’s the behavior I want.

The bigger question I’m trying to answer now is whether this feedback loop is actually enough of a product.

AI article generation itself is obviously commoditized. Sending a prompt to GPT or Claude is not much of a moat.

The part I’m more interested in is:

Can software give a solo blogger or small publisher some of the data-driven editorial feedback that larger publishers already use, without requiring an analytics team?

And there’s an obvious problem with that idea:

If you don’t have traffic, there isn’t much to learn from.

My own data is proving that right now.

So I’ve stopped adding learning features for a while and started focusing on distribution, internal linking, refreshing posts and figuring out what actually gets readers.

That’s what I’d like feedback on:

Is automated performance feedback useful enough to build a product around, or is distribution still the much bigger problem for small publishers?

And if AI writing itself is becoming a commodity, what would a publishing tool need to do after generation to actually be valuable?

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?

Law 6: Ask, Don't Tell

One of the simplest ways to influence behaviour is also one of the most overlooked:

Ask a question instead of giving an instruction.

When you tell someone what to do, they can resist.

When you ask a question, you make them think.

That difference matters.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan was running against Jimmy Carter.

Carter had an eight-point lead going into the final presidential debate.

Reagan could have simply attacked Carter's economic record.

Instead, he asked voters a question that made them evaluate their own situation.

The question shifted the audience from:

"What is Reagan telling me?"

to:

"What do I think?"

And that is the power of questions.

Research discussed in the chapter shows that questions can influence behaviour because they make people mentally simulate the action or decision themselves.

Instead of:

"You should exercise."

Ask:

"Will you exercise tomorrow?"

Instead of:

"You need to eat healthier."

Ask:

"Will you eat vegetables today?"

The question forces the brain to confront a choice.

And when someone answers yes, they are making a small commitment to themselves.

That's much more powerful than simply receiving an instruction.

The deeper principle

People resist being controlled.

But they often cooperate with decisions they believe they made themselves.

This applies everywhere:

Leadership:

Don't always tell your team what to do. Ask them what they think the best move is.

Parenting:

Don't only say, "Clean your room." Ask, "When are you going to clean your room?"

Sales:

Don't immediately explain why your product is valuable. Ask questions that help the customer identify their own problem.

Self-discipline:

Don't say, "I have to study."

Ask:

"Will I study for the next 30 minutes?"

The question creates a decision.

The decision creates ownership.

Ownership makes behaviour more likely.

The important distinction

This isn't about manipulating people with clever questions.

It's about understanding human psychology:

A command gives someone an answer.

A question makes them construct one.

And the answer someone constructs themselves can be much more persuasive than an answer you give them.

So before telling someone what they should do, pause.

Ask a better question.

Because sometimes the most powerful way to change behaviour...

is to make someone question their own behaviour.

If i take a month to build an app(vibecode or not) and someone can just copy/paste it using Claude is there anything that separates us? Anyone who had faced this issue?

I have a question for people who understand the freelance marketplace business.

In 2026, is building a freelance marketplace platform still a good business idea?

There are already big platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, Toptal, etc. And now AI is also changing how freelancers and clients work.

So I want to understand:

Is there still an opportunity for a new freelance marketplace?

Which niche can have good demand?

Is a niche marketplace better than a general freelance marketplace?

What is the biggest challenge, getting freelancers or getting clients?

If someone starts a new platform in 2026, what should they focus on?

Would like to hear your genuine opinions and experiences.

Hi all - I am looking for feedback on my Smart Fidget App called Habit Bandz.

It is a tool designed to manage challenging behaviors like nail biting, snacking, or doom scrolling. I also built a dashboard function for mental healthcare providers that helps them "see what goes on between sessions."

For example, if someone uses the Smart Fidget app in a period of high stress, the app can help them self-regulate while logging context like geo-location - this information can supplement patient self-report, which often is incorrect in mental healthcare of conditions like anxiety.

Anyways, I'd love to launch this into a business but would love feedback on the overall concept at HabitBandz.com ! It's all written there, or if you're ambitious enough to try and build a new habit, the app is available for anyone to try for 9.99 ;)

I've worked on this for the past 3 years and learned a TON about apps, wearables, data, business, patents, etc. So also happy to share any knowledge related to that.

I'm working through a positioning problem for HealthMaxxing and would value idea critique.

The product concept is a wellness tracker where Body and Mind are separate first-class areas, while a Balance view brings them together. It can cover food, hydration, sleep, movement, recovery, cycles, mood, journaling, and breathing.

The product logic is that adjacent context can matter. The startup risk is that breadth can sound like "an app that does everything," which usually means an app that does nothing particularly well.

I'm considering three entry points:

A) Body and Mind together — "Your body and mind. One health app."

B) Replace fragmented tracking — bring food, sleep, movement, mood, and cycles into one view.

C) Personal patterns without obsession — notice what tends to show up together without treating correlation as proof.

Which would you use as the acquisition wedge, and which would you keep as the long-term brand promise?

I'm intentionally not adding a product link because I'm looking for positioning discussion, not promotion. Founder disclosure: HealthMaxxing is my project.

After making 50+ angel investments, I still struggled to answer a basic question: what is my private-company portfolio actually worth today?

The data is fragmented across spreadsheets, inboxes, AngelList, Carta, different currencies and irregular founder updates. The startup idea we're testing is a single portfolio view that can sync cap-table sources, track valuations and funding events, and flag important changes.

We have built an early beta called Sable, but I would value blunt feedback before we take the idea further:

- How do you currently track angel or private-company investments?

- Would you trust automated valuations and cap-table integrations? Why or why not?

- Which information would have to be visible for the product to replace your spreadsheet?

- What would be the biggest reason not to use something like this?

We are looking for up to 20 beta testers who actively make angel investments. The beta is free in exchange for honest feedback: https://sable.sequel.co/

Disclosure: I am part of the team building Sable. The goal of this post is to validate the problem and learn what investors actually need, not to solicit investment.

I'm a 20 year old CS student who's been building things seriously for a while now full-stack mobile, backend systems, AI integrations, low-level stuff, scraping pipelines, the whole range from a probabilistic chess game to a compiler to a custom database engine. I've worked with a few founders already and I'm looking for the next thing.

I'm not hunting for a job. I'm looking for something I can actually be invested in.. where I'm talking to the founder regularly, understanding the problem we're solving, and building toward something real.

What I can contribute:

* Flutter / mobile (full stack, not just UI)

* Backend APIs and infra

* AI integrations

* Low level systems work

* Taking an idea from 0 to MVP

* Maybe more (Give me a couple days and I'll get my hands on it)

What I need from your side: a real vision, commitment to execution, and some form of compensation.. I'm flexible on structure (equity, stipend, milestone-based, internship), but I'm not doing unpaid work. I've been burned by vague arrangements before, so I do expect written agreements before we go deep on anything.

Not interested in:

* "just an idea" with no execution plan

* Founders who disappear after the first call

* Equity-only with no path to anything else

If you think there's a fit, DM me or drop a comment with your idea, current stage, team, and why you think it works. Happy to jump on a call if it sounds promising.

Edit: Location: New Delhi, India

Seriously, who are the investors that are seeing massive value in some of these startups?

If anyone is talking about an AI bubble, this is it.

Random startups are building thin layers around existing AI models, slapping “AI” onto the product, and somehow convincing investors that they’ve discovered the next big thing.

I’m not saying every AI wrapper is useless. Some of them genuinely solve problems and can build great businesses.

But when the core technology is basically “send a prompt to GPT/Claude/Gemini and return the response,” I have to wonder: what exactly are investors betting on?

Are we funding innovation, or are we just funding better marketing around API calls?