Look at the top startups founded in the last couple of years, nearly every founder seems to come from an Ivy League school, Stanford, or MIT, often with a perfect GPA. Why is that? Does being academically brilliant matter more than being a strong entrepreneur in the tech industry ? It’s always been this way but it’s even more now, at least there were a couple exceptions ( dropouts, non ivy…)

Edit: My post refers to top universities, but the founders also all seem to have perfect grades. Why is that the case as well?

Guys I was wondering about this for a while. ChatGPT gives optimistic answers but feels nothing close to reality. I hope you guys can answer this. Why did Facebook, even though MySpace has dominated the market like anything? They're not even fundamentally different in their concept.

What industry is the richest entrepreneur you know in, and how did they build their wealth? Slightly off-topic, but I am curious, are they in tech or a different field? Wondering if tech still dominates when it comes to massive fortunes or if it’s something else.

hey folks

I hope this post can help some of you in growing their business. I’ll list all the things I changed from failing several start ups to a first successful SaaS company.

You can have hard times, you can doubt, but please, NEVER GIVE UP !

4 years ago I launched my 1st start up at 25 years old, it was a Netflix platform for entrepreneurs. A bit like « Masterclass » but for people launching their business.

There was a big need in the market for a platform like this. I had a big ambition (still have today), but it ended up a total disaster.

I made a lot of mistakes :

> taking the wrong co-founder (he ended up leaving)

> wrong business model / industry (it’s very hard to scale content)

> thinking I need to raise to succeed (and not understanding the process)

I was clearly a noob, but instead of stopping there, I tried again with a new project.

But again, I made mistakes :

> I invented a business (a web3 platform to get real life discounts)

> I tried to launch something VERY HARD without raising funds, in a very volatile market.

> My co-founder was not 100% on the project.

So I cut after 4 months. It’s hard, because sometimes you think you always need to push and « never give up ».

But I learnt not to. If I feel like it’s not the right thing for me, or that I have to push too much to get customers, It means that there's no need for my product (in this form), so I pivot.

My ambition was still there, my goal was still the same. I’m just taking another horse.

For the 3rd project, I decided to change the whole approach :

• took co-founders that I knew for years
• took a business easy to pitch (ex : « we help you make more money »)
• took something already existing, and already working, but with a different angle / target market
• took something I can bootstrap
  

So at the end of 2023, I launched my WhatsApp Marketing SaaS for Shopify brands.

The pitch was easy : "we help you make more sales with WhatsApp", which was an untapped platform in Europe at the time.

We started building the product, and here we go : we made our first mistake.

We tried to build it in a way nobody asked for. We invented something. And it did not work. We lost 6 months.

BUT, in the meantime, we were pitching the product to Shopify brands, and we saw a BIG traction. Each time we pitched, even without the product yet, people wanted to start and pay.

So we rebuild the whole platform, exactly how the customers wanted it to look like.

We started getting our first customers in 2024, and we scaled to $500K ARR in 8 months with :

> LinkedIn outreach

> Cold emails

> Partnerships with agencies

> Referrals

> LinkedIn Content

After 8 months, we decided to exit (for many reasons), while the traction was still there.

We could have scaled it further, but we decided to exit and launch something else, and now we have some time & money to scale our new SaaS.

The goal is clear :
> bootstrap as long as we can
> 10M ARR in 5 years with a small & lean team

I hope this could help some of you guys. I'll probably make new mistakes along the way that I'll share in a few months here :)

Worked with 30+ startups over the past 4 years. The ones that actually scale past $1M revenue all figured out one thing early - they stopped trying to grow and started trying to keep customers.

Everyone obsesses over customer acquisition. More ads, better landing pages, hire sales reps, raise funding for growth. But I keep seeing the same pattern startups hit $200K-500K revenue then plateau hard. They're pouring water into a leaky bucket and wondering why the water level isn't rising.

What actually kills startup is that you're optimizing for getting customers instead of keeping them. Your churn rate is probably 8-12% monthly and you think that's normal. It's not. Companies that scale to $10M+ have lower churn rates . They figured out that keeping one customer is worth more than acquiring five new ones.

The most startups are building acquisition machines instead of retention machines. Fix your leaky bucket before you pour more water into it.

Every pitch deck starts the same way:

“Our TAM is $300 billion…”

Cool and I could be a billionaire if everyone on Earth paid me ₹5 for existing. So what?

Everyone knows TAM is fiction. It’s a number stitched together from random assumptions, padded with “adjacent markets,” and polished to make investors feel warm and fuzzy.

Funny thing is we all know it’s fake, and we keep playing along anyway.

Founders inflate it because they think it’ll get them funded, and investors pretend to believe it because it lets them justify the bet. But somewhere in the back of everyone’s mind is the quiet agreement: “Yeah, this is BS, but let’s not say it out loud.”

Meanwhile, the startups that actually change the world? They don’t fit into neat TAM charts. They invent new behaviors. They create markets. Nobody predicted Airbnb or Uber using TAM. Nobody predicted Instagram would replace entire industries with filtered photos.

Maybe we should stop obsessing over theoretical pie charts and start asking better questions, like- Do people actually want this? Or what new behavior could this unlock?

Because if TAM is the first thing you bring to the table, maybe you're just too scared to talk about reality.

i will not promote

Yesterday a number of people asked about VC benchmarks for investing this year. I only have targets for B2B SaaS companies, but I wanted to share.

🔹 Pre-Seed
• ~$180K ARR (or $15K MRR)
• Early signs of retention or paid pilot success
• Founding team with clear customer insight
• Maybe: LOIs or paid POCs if ARR is light

🔹 Seed
• ~$500K ARR
• 2–3x YoY growth
• CAC payback < 18 months
• Clear GTM motion emerging (PLG or sales-led)
• Maybe: 50%+ logo retention, early usage depth signals

🔹 Series A
• $2M+ ARR
• 110%+ NRR (for B2B)
• Strong cohort retention
• Repeatable sales motion + predictable funnel• 2–3x YoY growth still holding
• CAC payback < 12 months, or growing efficiency

🔹 Series B
• $5–10M ARR
• 120%+ NRR
• Scalable GTM engine (e.g., ramping sales team or PLG flywheel)
• 3–5x LTV:CAC
• 2+ quarters of margin expansion or burn control

This is based on information from Frederic Gray IV, who is an active and experienced fundraising consultant & VC with several unicorns in his portfolio. He put this together after reviewing 1000s of decks and these are what emerged as "strong traction".

He says you don't have to meet all of these benchmarks, but if you don't you had better have a good reason or you're not likely to get a shot.

#BuildInPublic i will not promote

Started a deeptech company a little over 2 years ago and with the current global situation and a very heavy contraction in VC deployments we're likely not going to raise our next round and will go our of buisness right before any meaningful revenue.

Is sad but I've accepted that this was always the eventuality.

That being said after becoming a founder I have felt that the traditional job market has almost cut me out. Recruiters don't respond back, job posters don't respond back, and the whole market seems to devalue me because I decided to try and start something. I know the job market it shit but I didnt think being a founder would hurt more than the value of the experience provides.

Is this everyones experience? What are people's tactics for bouncing back after their companies go under?

Not just ideas you’ve seen online, but real ones. Either the ones you are building, already built or pitched around you.

I think it'll be a good opportunity to weed out ideas, to know what’s actually working these days.

Just an observational preamble, all the ideas that have taken off are LLM wrappers and AI-first tools ( which are still dominating btw)

Folks are building more in SaaS infra, workflow automation, and some niche enablers, but are they taking off!

Or is it something completely offbeat, like a boring-but-essential product that just works?

Trying to feel the pulse of what people are really interested in, or building and what founders are actually finding attractive, especially right now.

Curious to hear what’s caught your attention.

Having raised money multiple times as a founder (YC alum) and now invested in early-stage companies, I'm curious about what founders are really dealing with in today's fundraising environment.

If you're actively fundraising or about to start, what's your biggest challenge right now? What's actually keeping you up at night or proving to be more challenging than expected?

I've been a Frontend Engineer for 8+ years and come to the realization that I want to work for a company without too much hierarchy. I've worked through some farther along startups (more hierarchy) before, but I'm really trying to figure out how to find opportunities that are just starting/early (that are able to provide rent $$$)? I would love to be a part of something like that, but I'm not sure where the best places to look are. Where are these people posting jobs?

How to Talk to Investors on Your First VC Call ( I will not promote)

1. The first VC intro meeting is short (20–30 min) but high-stakes. You need to show:

Clarity

Conviction

Founder–market fit

The investor is checking if your team, traction, and timing match their thesis.

1. What to expect:

1:1 call with associate/principal/junior partner

Quick intros

Your short pitch

Open Q&A

Wrap-up and next steps

1. Common questions to prepare for:

Why this problem, why now, why you

What traction have you seen so far

TAM (market size)

Competitors and differentiation

How much are you raising, use of funds

GTM strategy

Your team

Biggest risks

1. How to prepare:

Research the VC’s portfolio, thesis, and past deals

Tailor your pitch to what they care about

Practice your founder story and first 5 slides (problem, solution, traction, market, business model)

Know your numbers (CAC, LTV, burn, runway, user growth)

Prepare 2–3 thoughtful questions for the VC (e.g. involvement, portfolio support)

1. Common mistakes to avoid:

Over-pitching (monologue) instead of a conversation

Ignoring fit with VC thesis

Getting defensive about weaknesses

Not following up, or being too persistent

1. After the call:

Send a short thank-you email within 24 hrs

Attach any promised materials

Share updates in a calm, consistent way if they pass or go silent

Final reminder → Treat every intro call as a learning opportunity. Sharpen your story, track what worked, and build relationships for the long run.

Hey everyone, I’ve got a startup and I’m looking to connect with other young entrepreneurs or students who are also running startups. I’d love to make new friends and build a network worldwide, so if you’re interested or know someone who might be, let’s chat now!

took me way too long to learn this. a founder's most valuable currency isn't money. it's energy. i used to run full speed every day until I burned out. now I know better. sleep matters. breaks matter. family time matters. because you can't pour from an empty cup and your team needs you at your best.
take care of yourself first. the work will still be there tomorrow.

Some guys said they are so many ideas and do not know how to choose the roght one.

Some guys said they are struggling on idea, cannot find any startup idea.

What is your secret or approach to find your startup idea?

Will you find the pain point first or idea first?

Building a few businesses in multiple industries taught me that boring, targeted problems = easier to sell = easier money no matter where you look. Lots of people are building to build right now because the barrier to entry is much lower, while ignoring the real opportunities or validating their idea.

My lessons from studying some 'boring' billion-dollar companies:

- Retool: $3.2B solving admin panels

- Slack: $27B for internal messaging

- Stripe: $95B for payment processing

-Zoom: $16B for video calls

- CSI Software $40bn public company. All they do is buy niche software companies.

yes the tech behind these companies is great, but the problem to solve is a painkiller and 'boring'. Remember that once they were tiny, just trying to solve a problem.

here's some more examples that aren't billion dollar companies but are highly successful:

- Cloud Convert - converts files - has converted over 1.5b files.

- Your Golf Booking - golf booking / course management (I kinda think this one is cool but to each their own)

- One Plan Events - site plans for events

Why boring problems win:

- Affect 10x more people than "revolutionary" ideas & it's SUCH AN EASIER SELL.

- Less competition because many founders chase shiny objects (lol)

- Customers pay immediately (Ideally your problem saves time/makes money for users/makes life better - this is called a PAINKILLER product).

- Targets one or two problems in specific sectors rather than vague problems for the general public • Word-of-mouth spreads faster and should be ORGANIC

- Validation happens in days, not months

The boring problem test:

- Can you explain it to your mum in 30 seconds?

-= Would she understand why someone pays for it?

-Does everyone in an industry accept it as "part of the job"?

What I wish I knew earlier:

- Stop trying to change the world

- Start with your most annoying daily tasks

- Boring problems have measurable pain points

- TALK TO PEOPLE IN YOUR SELECTED NICHE - this is the most important thing to do.

- Universal problems = universal solutions

When validating my current business, I initially wanted something flashy as well and process mapped a huge flow to help people validate tehir business ideas.

Then I took it to actual founders who helped me cut out 50% of the stuff I thought was necessary and turns out was NOT. The boring but valuable piece for me was integrating real data and helping people benchmark against real businesses.

Disclaimer:

'Boring' doesn't mean bad. These are all great tools. If I can give another real life example - a cool business may be something like a coffee shop where it has great vibes, interesting design and a culture behind it. It's also the most competitive industry and something I never recommend people getting into. A 'boring' business could be something like a laundromat that just serves a function. Which, by the way, can be extremely profitable. The cogs behind building a laundromat are fascinating though it isn't inherently 'sexy' or 'cool'.

The post is just to illustrate that the shiny object in the room isn't generally the one that is going to be profitable for entrepreneurs.

Edit - had to repost this because I accidentally included links of these businesses. Oops!

Working on a potential startup, possibly being funded by angels. This angel group does not typically require vesting founder's shares.

But I'm wondering if proactively creating a vesting agreement as part of company formation will make raising the next round with VCs easier?

My co-founder is not fond of the idea.

How did you do founder share vesting?

I've seen a lot of threads here lately asking about the 'best early channel' for user acquisition. Personally, for my own products, Reddit has been a great 'launch channel' (not an evergreen one, however, it only works in 'spikes), and I've been able to engineer virality on Reddit at least 8 times in the last 6 months that helped us get 500+ sign-ups across our product portfolio. So, sharing my approach here:

1. Go for the less obvious subreddits

Everyone’s favorite is r/SaaS or r/EntrepreneurRideAlong because self-promotion is allowed. But precisely because of that, these subs are terrible for actually driving leads. Unless you’re building for such a crowd, you’re likely to get a lot of upvotes with no traction.

Make a list of all the subs relevant to your product, for example, if you are Clay then r/automation, r/n8n, and r/ChatGPT etc., are all great subs to be in. They may seem tangential but that’s a good thing.

Rule to remember: Relevant and tangential is ideal.

1. Read the room before you say anything

A lot of people make the mistake of just writing a ‘launch thread’, and get downvoted or ignored.

Instead of a ‘launch’, think of narratives:
- What does this sub like to talk against?
- What do they believe that I can contradict?
- What do they believe that I can support?

These questions will help you come up with a thread idea that’s value-first and pitch-later. For example, when launching our in-browser voice-to-text chrome extension, I went to the r/accessibility and found out that the usual typing interfaces are a challenge for most people there. So, I chose this thread angle: “Why are we forcing people who can’t type … to type into AI?”

It got 10K views and 100+ sign-ups for our chrome extension (I also got banned from the sub for spamming links in comments but worth it).

1. Don’t stop at the first thread

If you just make a single thread and it flops, you don’t get to blame Reddit for it. You have to treat it like a campaign:

• Pick at least 5 subs to post in
• Choose 3 different thread angles for each sub (that’s 15 threads in total)
• Write all of them in advance

Then post one thread on launch day in each sub. Wait a week, test which angles flopped and which worked better. Adjust the next batch and launch next week. Again.

1. Optimize your profile

Yes, Reddit profiles also get views. And now, they get views directly from Google. Here’s how:

- Take all of your hit threads and then optimize them for the relevant keywords to your product/service
- Post them with an SEO-optimized (i.e., something will search for) title and post on your PROFILE, not in any sub
- Wait 2 days and see it rank on page 1 of Google

And yes, these people will land on your profile directly so it pays to have a username that can be identified with you and if not, then at least your cover photo and description should speak to what you do.

Last point:

DO NOT add links. And DO NOT post from a new account. Let your account age a little. A good rule of thumb is: At least one month old and 100 karma. If you have less than that, you'll get banned for just breathing so just don't do it. Always prefer to share links via DMs or replies to comments if the sub allows (you may still get banned but eh, you gotta do what you gotta do).

Hope this helps :)

Hello everyone! My name is Dmitry, I am a self-taught developer living in Ukraine.

Some time ago, I came up with the idea of ​​creating an application in which each user can anonymously share their thoughts, ideas, feelings and other things with the whole world. In current social applications, this is possible, but quite difficult, given that everything is tied to subscribers, promotion algorithms, and so on. I would like a person to express what is in his head and it could be seen by a huge number of people. No connection to your name, social status and other things. And so, I began to implement the Unsaid application.

I have long and persistently studied all sorts of subtleties and nuances in terms of the operation of all functions, from creating code to setting up and releasing the application to the markets. This day has finally come. I am immensely happy to have gone through this path, despite the difficulties that I managed to face.

I don't know how much enthusiasm I have to continue doing this, because I have many ideas and plans on how to make a whole trend out of this - a temporary refusal to consume visual content in favor of text content, so that instead of mindlessly scrolling reels or shorts, a person could turn on the brain and think about what his eyes are reading.

I have no team, no support, no funding. I am the only one who helps himself. I don't care, but I am worried about the future of my application. Perhaps, if someone sees something more in this than an ordinary application and has the ability to "get it on its feet" having the resources for this, then we can discuss a deal about this application. I am not writing all this with the aim of selling, I am worried about the development of this product.

And yes, I want to add that the application is currently only available in the AppStore. The Android version of the app is not available yet, because before publishing it in the Google Play Market, I first need to assemble a team of 12 testers and hold the test release for 14 days (these are Google's conditions).

In any case, I want to say thank you to everyone who read this to the end. I appreciate your time. Thank you and good luck in your endeavors! ❤️🙏

P.S. I don't have the ability to attach a link to the site or photos here, so if someone is interested, I can provide them in the comments or somewhere else.

So I sent my first 50-100 colds emails. Two of them were reported spam. Now all my email seems to be going to spam folders. Anything I can do to salvage the domain? I’d rather not abandon it. Obviously I need to be more careful. Any workarounds or other thoughts?

Hey everyone, I need your ideas and suggestions. 🙏

I've been building a link-in-bio tool for around 2 years, and I've promoted it through another project of mine since the beginning.

I managed to make a few lifetime sales in the first months, which was enough to keep me motivated.

Then, in August 2024, I joined AppSumo, which has exceeded my expectations: over 400 sales, loads of user feedback and more importantly, knowing that I'm building something that its users actually like using.

The product was already validated, as there are many other players in the market, but I'm differentiating myself from the rest with a dead-simple UI (all others seem convoluted imo) and adding more types of content blocks, some that I actually haven't seen in the competition. I believe I have a good product in my hands, especially after all the user feedback.

Problem is, how do I find users outside AppSumo? For every sale, I get only around 20% of what I would make directly on the website. Sales on the website are slow, around 1 lifetime per month, and currently 6 on the monthly plan (MRR).

I've dabbled with ads, brought a lot of trials, but most of them were people abusing the service (stolen CC and creating pages for scamming), so I killed it. I tried a little cold outreach, no deal. I'm now thinking of hiring a marketing agency that is gonna create blog posts and handle the ads, but that is gonna cost me around $1500 a month, which right now is a little too much for my budget.

How would you go about it? The ideal plan is to only offer monthly and yearly plans, like the competition does. Also, I'm basing my pricing on the competition, except for the lifetime.

Any suggestions or ideas are much appreciated.

[Hiring/Seeking/Offering] Jobs / Co-Founders Weekly Thread

This is an experiment. We see there is a demand from the community to:

• Find Co-Founders
• Hiring / Seeking Jobs
• Offering Your Skillset / Looking for Talent

Please use the following template:

• **[SEEKING / HIRING / OFFERING]** (Choose one)
• **[COFOUNDER / JOB / OFFER]** (Choose one)
• Company Name: (Optional)
• Pitch:
• Preferred Contact Method(s):
• Link: (Optional)

All Other Subreddit Rules Still Apply

We understand there will be mild self promotion involved with finding cofounders, recruiting and offering services. If you want to communicate via DM/Chat, put that as the Preferred Contact Method. We don't need to clutter the thread with lots of 'DM me' or 'Please DM' comments. Please make sure to follow all of the other rules, especially don't be rude.

Reminder: This is an experiment

We may or may not keep posting these. We are looking to improve them. If you have any feedback or suggestions, please share them with the mods via ModMail.

i’ve been in startups for almost 10 years. Launched a few products. Some got users and made money, some didn’t. A couple just hit that dead zone: no users, no income, product feels messy and stuck.

How do you know when it’s time to stop? When is pushing more just wasting time?

Hey,

I'm working on a small B2B construction tech project. I've been in the industry for 20 years and know the industry from being a tradie to architect. The app is still in concept stage, very early days. But I posted in a construction sub recently and got interest from a very experienced and well-connected industry professional.

He's respected, has deep domain knowledge, and could be a great advisor. Right now, I’m thinking of bringing him in lightly, maybe 2–3 hours a week, just to help with strategy, validate ideas, and maybe help bring in 3–5 early adopters for launch.

If that goes well over the next 8 weeks while I build the MVP, we might consider stepping things up. Ideally, he'd grow into a co-founder-type role with ~10 hours/week helping with user feedback, outreach, and getting us to product-market fit.

A few questions:

1. How would you structure this kind of early-stage collaboration? (e.g. advisor first, option to grow into more?)
2. How much equity feels fair for 2–3 hours/week during MVP stage, with the option to increase later?
3. Have you gone through this before? What worked, what didn’t when bringing in a co-founder after the idea/code had started?
4. What kind of commitment or agreement should I have in place during this “trial” period?
5. How do you test "founder fit" before actually becoming co-founders?

Any advice from people who’ve been through this would be gold.

I will not promote

Everywhere I look (YC, successful startup founders, etc.) having cofounders seems to almost be a pre-requisite for success.

That being said, I've had a lot of trouble finding good cofounders. I've had a couple partnerships in the past, but they were short-lived (differing mindsets around how "invested / all in" we should be). I don't live in a startup hub like sf, so ig that makes it harder.

Any tips / help regarding finding high quality cofounders (remotely or otherwise) would be greatly appreciated.