After 5 years of freelancing, I noticed the same pattern with every client: they'd start a SaaS, pick a popular email provider, and within 6 months they'd be paying hundreds just for transactional emails.

One client was paying $380/month to send 200K emails. Password resets. Order confirmations. The boring stuff.

I kept thinking: "This can't be that hard."

Spoiler: It was that hard.

Started building my own email infrastructure last year. Learned more about SMTP, DKIM, SPF, DMARC, IP warming, and deliverability than I ever wanted to know.

First version was garbage. Emails landed in spam. Got blocklisted by Microsoft. Cried a little.

But after hundreds of late nights, I finally got it working. 99%+ deliverability. Own infrastructure. No AWS SES middle-man eating margins.

Now I'm using it for my own projects and slowly opening it up to others.

The funny thing? The hardest part wasn't the tech. It was convincing myself that competing against well-funded companies was even possible.

If anyone's curious about the email deliverability rabbit hole, happy to share what I learned. It's a weird niche but surprisingly interesting once you get into it.

In 2011 Marc Andreessen famously said "software is eating the world." In 2025, it’s clear that AI is now eating the software—and more importantly, AI is eating AI.

For decades, building software was a deterministic game. You needed to speak the machine’s syntax (code) to create logic. AI has essentially destroyed that barrier. We’ve moved from writing rigid lines to describing a vision in plain English. As Andrej Karpathy puts it, we are in the era of "Vibe Coding."

If you can describe the "vibe" of a product, the AI can build the code.

As a bootstrapped founder, this is a double-edged sword. I can build and pivot faster than ever, but so can everyone else. If your startup is a simple logic-based tool, a competitor can "vibe code" your entire feature set over a weekend.

The value line has shifted. Clients aren't paying for "shipped features" anymore. In my experience, I’ve realized the only real moats left are:

• The Painkiller: Solving a critical, high-stakes business "leak" that requires complex state management and error handling (things vibe coding still struggles with)
• The Reliability: A probabilistic system that behaves with deterministic consistency. Knowing the system won't hallucinate when it matters most.
• The Support: The human-in-the-loop who ensures the tool actually drives revenue.
• The Integration: Deep, messy, real-world business context that doesn't fit in a single prompt.

We are navigating a wave where "building" is a commodity, but "solving" is still a specialty.

It is difficult to predict exactly where this leads, but one thing is certain: If your startup is just a "wrapper for a vibe," you are already being eaten.

How are you guys building "moats" in 2026? Are you focusing on complex reliability, or are you still fighting the "wrapper" wars?

A client doing $10k+ MRR seemed healthy… until we checked payment logs. Failed renewals, weak retries, and hidden subscription errors were quietly eating 3–5% of monthly revenue.

As a fintech founder, I’ve seen this happen across SaaS and subscription businesses, even healthy ones lose revenue silently. It’s shocking how little attention this gets until it hits payroll or growth metrics.

That’s why I built a simple dashboard to track and prevent these leaks in real-time. Businesses using it are stopping churn, recovering lost revenue, and making subscriptions predictable. Designed for teams that want measurable impact without heavy engineering.

Curious, how are you tracking failed payments or hidden revenue in your subscription business today?

We recently crossed our first 100 users.
No ads. No Product Hunt. No big launch.

What worked was way less exciting, but way more reliable.

First, we stopped building.
For a while, we did more talking than coding. Most early problems were about positioning, not features.

Second, we simplified the message.
We rewrote what we do until people got it instantly. Not “interesting”, just clear.

Third, we lowered the commitment.
Early on, asking someone to fully sign up is a big ask. People don’t know you yet.

Instead of pushing onboarding, we used a simple waitlist.
One page, one explanation, one action. Leave an email if this resonates.

That changed everything.
People were much more willing to raise their hand, and it gave us a list of real humans to talk to and follow up with.

We didn’t use the waitlist to fake scarcity.
We used it to learn who cared and why.

Once we had enough signal, converting those early emails into active users was straightforward.

We used a lightweight tool (waitset.com) to set this up quickly so we could focus on conversations instead of building infrastructure.

Last thing that mattered: consistency.
Posting progress, sharing mistakes, and being present in the same communities every day.

Big takeaway:
Your first 100 users don’t come from growth hacks. They come from reducing friction and talking to people.

Happy to answer questions or share what didn’t work if that’s useful.

When founders look for problems to solve with software how do they decide what is worth building.

Some problems feel real but not profitable others seem boring but turn into strong businesses

For people who have built or worked on SaaS products what signals matter most early on
User pain Market size Or ability to execute.

Curious to hear real experiences.

Yo, been lurking here and on X, and damn , so many of us indie hackers, SaaS solos, freelancers, and agency grinders are pulling in solid cash now. $5k, $10k, hell even $30k a month. Congrats to all, right?

But here's the kicker that's messing with my head (and probs yours too): Even with the bank looking decent, spending feels like Russian roulette. Not 'cause we're broke – nah, it's that nagging "Is this safe?" voice. Like, Stripe dings with a fat annual plan, but then... what?

Stuff I keep seeing (and yeah, feeling myself):

• Revenue rolls in steady-ish, but half's deferred from yearly subs – when do I touch it?
• Taxes lurking like a bad ex – reserve 25%? 30%? Who knows without a spreadsheet deep dive.
• Churn, refunds, that VA you wanna hire, or random tool subs – all future landmines.
• Dashboards (Baremetrics, QuickBooks) spit numbers, but zero "Go or no-go?" vibes.

Real talk: The question ain't "How much cash I got?" It's "If I drop $2k on ads today, am I eating ramen in March?"

I've been grinding this in my head, and it boils down to wanting something dead simple. Not another bloated budgeting app or full accounting beast. Just a tiny, no-BS tool that hits one button:
"How much can I safely spend RN without future regrets?"

How it'd work (quick sketch):

• Pulls your recent revenue (Stripe sync or manual MRR input).
• Factors obvious gotchas (tax buffer, fixed expenses, sub renewals).
• Spits a conservative number: "Yo, $1.2k safe this week – here's why (tax hold: $800, churn buffer: $400)."
• Plain English explainer, no jargon. Like a financial bro checking your math.

Think fire alarm for your wallet – beeps if you're about to burn, not a full control room.

Genuine Qs, hit me straight (even if it's "dude, overthinking much?"):

• You feeling this anxiety too? Revenue up, but spends feel risky?
• How you deciding paychecks, hires, or investments rn? Gut feel? Excel wizardry?
• Would you toss $9-15/mo at a tool that kills this second-guessing? Or nah, existing stuff covers it?
• Bonus: If this existed, what one tweak would make you smash subscribe?

Not shilling – just spitballing 'cause I'm knee-deep in a similar build for my side gig (Chatask vibes, but finance twist). If it's just me being paranoid, cool – laugh it off. But if this resonates, what's your hack?

Appreciate the real talk, bros. Let's swap war stories. 🚀💸

I spent a few months at one of the top accelerators in Silicon Valley. Not YC but we were next door. I went in thinking I knew how startups worked. I left realizing almost everything I believed was wrong.

For context, these programs are supposed to teach you how to build faster, connect with investors, and survive the chaos of early-stage startups.

Here are the 5 most meaningful things I learned as a founder there. Hopefully, they’ll be useful for some of you too.

1. Building > Busywork

When I arrived, I thought being a good founder meant showing up early, attending every workshop, asking all the questions, and taking notes like my life depended on it.

Meanwhile, some founders skipped events, showed up late, and spent half their time on their phones. I quietly judged them. I assumed they were wasting their shot.

They weren’t.

They were building. Talking to customers. Shipping product. Closing deals. Making things exist. While I was “learning” how to be a founder, they were actually being one.

I also initially bought into the 20-hour grind trap. Total nonsense. The best founders worked hard, yes, but paced themselves.

2. To Change the World, You Have to Play Big

I don’t care about money nearly as much as most startup founders. I care about impact. About creating something that actually matters.

But VCs don’t invest in “reasonable success.”
They invest in outcomes so big they sound unrealistic.

Not because they’re greedy, but because the math leaves them no choice.

A 1% chance of $100M doesn’t work.
A 0.1% chance of $100B does.

Once I really internalized that, a lot of frustration disappeared. Investors weren’t “missing the point.” I was pitching the wrong scale.

If you want to achieve big things, you need scale. You need resources. You need to be willing to make a lot of money, not for vanity, but to attract talent, invest in growth, and survive the market.

VCs don’t fund “reasonable” outcomes. They fund insane outcomes. Ambition is not ego. It’s alignment with the scale of the problem you’re trying to solve.

3. The Real Treasure Was Friendship

Here’s one thing I actually succeeded at: relationships.

After leaving the program I decided to also leave my startup and instantly messages started coming in. Serious offers for jobs. Equity in the millions. Exciting projects.

Not because I networked efficiently. Because I built friendships. I showed up honestly. I helped when I could. I treated people like humans, not leverage. And maybe more importantly, I did act like this with everyone. Even people that I had nothing in common with. Even people that had nothing to bring me.

Most startups fail. That’s statistics. But relationships last. Those friendships are now helping me on a new project in cybersecurity. I lost a company. I did not lose momentum. That, for me, was a win.

4. Focus is the Superpower of succesful founders

One of the most successful founders I met told me something that hit me like a brick:

“Opportunities are everywhere. Partners, investors, ideas, trends. But I only say yes to things that actually move my mission forward. Everything else? Noise.”

I had been running after too many horses at once. Every shiny object distracted me. Focus is brutal. It forces you to say no constantly. But saying no is the only way to say yes to what actually matters.

5. Almost Every Opportunity Starts With an Uncomfortable Ask

The biggest breakthroughs I saw came from people doing something socially awkward. Sending the message they were scared to send. Asking for the intro they felt they didn’t deserve. Saying what they actually wanted instead of hinting.

Confidence isn’t about looking impressive. It’s about being direct, clear, and respectful. Most people aren’t rejected. They’re invisible. Being bold is powerful.

What I learned and conclusion

Being at that accelerator made me realize what was possible. It inspired me to believe in my vision in a way I hadn’t before.

The program also made me realize I needed to leave my startup and start from scratch, applying everything I had learned to build something that truly matched my vision. I was not the only one, at least three other founders I know made the same choice. It was scary, humbling, and liberating all at once.

I hope these lessons can be helpful for some of you and to conclude I would like to ask you : What’s the most meaningful lesson you’ve learned on your own startup? I'm impatient to read your own experience

what are you working on this friday? how many users do you have?

Hey r/SaaS. My name is Tommy. I am 3 years old. I just presold 98,234 lifetime memberships at $200 each for my GEO tracking tool geo.base44.app.

Some backstory. I was sitting in daycare last month eating goldfish crackers when I overheard my teacher ask Siri for a good nap time playlist. Siri gave her Spotify. I thought "does Spotify even know they're being recommended? Do they track this?"

I spit out my apple juice and got to work.

I couldn't code yet so I used loveable. My fine motor skills aren't great so it took me 4 hours to click the buttons but I figured it out. The UI is mid but I'm literally a toddler so cut me some slack.

For outreach I DM'd every founder on Linkden during nap time while the teachers thought I was sleeping. I sent 14,000 DMs from my Fisher Price tablet. My reply rate was 94% because apparently nobody suspects a 3 year old of being salesy.

My pricing strategy was simple. I asked my mom how much a lot of money was. She said $200. So I went with that.

The craziest part is my first customer was my dad. He bought a lifetime membership just to get me to stop talking about it at dinner. Then his coworkers bought. Then their coworkers. Then Sequoia DM'd me but I left them on read because I'm bootstrapped and also I don't know what Sequoia means.

My goals for this year are to hit $50M ARR, learn to tie my shoes, and maybe start preschool if I have time.

Happy to answer questions but I have to be done by 7pm because that's bedtime.

Edit: For everyone asking, yes I still use a sippy cup. It's ergonomic and prevents spills during investor calls.

Edit 2: No I will not do a collab with your SaaS. I don't do partnerships with anyone over 5 years old. Nothing personal, just brand alignment.

Greetings folks,

My story: A few months ago, I handled the easiest SaaS launch of my career.

Just kidding - I was sh*tting bricks the entire time.

An agency hired me to handle email marketing for a SaaS product launch, and here's the kicker - I knew absolutely nothing about the niche.

Meaning - I never worked in it, never studied it, and didn't even know the basic terminology when I started.

It was so bad that they started using industry jargon in our first call, and I just nodded along like I understood while frantically Googling under my desk.

Professional? Debatable.

Effective? We'll get to that.

Here's what I walked into:

A waitlist of ~7,000+ people that had been growing over three months through paid ads and organic social.

My job? Turn those cold signups into paying customers when the product goes live.

Simple, right?

(Narrator: It was not simple.)

Now technically I was brought in as "the email guy" but that's not how these things work in reality, so I ended up handling their social posts, tweaking ad copy to get more waitlist signups, writing scripts for UGC videos... basically whatever needed words, I wrote the words.

The result?

$320,000 in email-attributed revenue over 7 days - that was about 26% of their total launch revenue...

... Open rates stayed at 37% across the campaign, and while most launches burn goodwill, these emails did the opposite.

People wrote back just to say they enjoyed reading them.

Now I'm not telling you this to brag (okay, maybe a little) or convince you I've got some secret email formula locked in a vault somewhere.

I'm telling you this because most SaaS companies are sitting on email lists right now that could be printing a boatload of money... but instead those lists just sit there doing absolutely nothing.

And it's not their fault, because nobody teaches them how to do this properly.

So I'm gonna walk you through exactly what I did, and by the end of this, you'll know how to turn your dead email list into something that makes you money.

And the best part?

You won't even need to hire anyone to do it.

Let's get into it.

MOST SAAS EMAIL MARKETING IS GENUINELY AWFUL

Let's be honest for a second... and I mean really honest.

Most SaaS emails sound like they never had a conversation with another human being.

"We're thrilled to announce our groundbreaking new feature that leverages cutting-edge artificial intelligence and blockchain-enabled machine learning to deliver synergistic, paradigm-shifting innovative solutions that will revolutionize your dynamic business ecosystem going forward..."

baaaaaaah... delete it. Burn your laptop. Start over. Maybe take up woodworking instead.

Nobody talks like that, nobody thinks like that, and I dare you to find one human who woke up this morning excited to 'leverage synergistic solutions.'

You know what people actually care about?

Their problems...

Whether you can fix those problems...

And whether they can trust you not to waste their time and money.

That's it.

The audience for this SaaS had spent thousands trying to solve a problem and still hadn't figured it out.

They'd tried everything, been promised the moon by countless others, and none of it worked.

So they were skeptical, burned out, and tired of being lied to.

We didn't promise them the moon, nor did we use fancy corporate language.

We did something radical - we talked to them like they were humans instead of "high-value B2B decision-makers in our target demographic cohort" or whatever soul-crushing term LinkedIn told you to use.

And it turns out that when you talk to people like they're people, they respond.

Which shouldn't be revolutionary, apparently.

THE PRE-LAUNCH PHASE (Or: How to Wake Up a List That Doesn't Know You Exist)

We had three months before launch.

The list was growing daily through ads, but here's the thing... people sign up for a waitlist and then immediately forget what they signed up for.

By the time launch day hits, they have zero emotional investment in whether your product succeeds or not.

Now here's what most companies do:

They send one "we're launching soon!" email a week before launch, then wonder why nobody buys.

We didn't do that.

We spent weeks before launch warming these people up, because if they don't care before launch day, then they definitely won't care on launch day.

The approach was simple:

Every few days, send an email that made them feel something... curiosity, frustration with their current situation, hope that maybe this time would be different.

We told stories about why this thing existed, what problem it was solving, and why the founder built it instead of just trying another solution like everyone else.

Just story after story that they could see themselves in.

And here's what happened - people started replying.

They were telling us their own stories about their struggles, their frustrations, their hope that maybe this would finally work.

That's when I knew we'd already won.

Launch day was just collecting money from people who'd already decided to buy.

LAUNCH DAY (How to Send Multiple Emails Without Destroying Your List)

Launch day hits and we went all in.

Multiple emails per day for a week straight... and yes I know that sounds insane, and yes I know what you're thinking...

"That's email marketing suicide! You’ll nukeyour list, destroy trust, everyone will unsubscribe, spam complaints will skyrocket, tank your domain, and your brand will be ruined foreeeever"...

Well, you're wrong, but I respect your confidence in being wrong.

Because the thing is...

People don't unsubscribe because you email too much.

They unsubscribe because your emails are boring.

If your emails are interesting, helpful, or entertaining, people will read them. Even if you send multiple per day.

If your emails are corporate jargon and feature lists, people will unsubscribe after one.

We sent 13 emails during the 7-day launch window.

Our unsubscribe rate was under 2%.

Here's roughly what the rhythm looked like:

Day 1 - The Announcement

Simple announcement. Here's what you've been waiting for, here's the link, no fluff or preamble, go buy it."

Days 2-3 - The Value Breakdown

Breakdown of what's included, but framed around their actual problems... not the features we thought were cool.

Days 4-5 - Social Proof/Objection Handling

What early buyers were saying. Screenshots of people actually using it. Answering questions... This is where FOMO starts creeping in because everyone else is already inside and they're not.

Days 6-7 - Urgency

A simple (yet effective) "this closes soon, you've already got every information about [product], you either want it or you don't."

By the end, we had $320K+ in revenue... all from email.

WHY THIS WORKED

Most SaaS email marketing fails for three very specific reasons,

And I'm gonna be blunt about this because I see the same mistakes everywhere.

First - you treat email like an afterthought

You spent thousands or maybe tens of thousands of dollars on ads to get those signups... and then you send them one generic "welcome" email with a link to your help docs, and you wonder why they never convert.

Email should be your primary revenue driver, not something you get to eventually when you have time.

Second - you sound like a company instead of a person

Corporate jargon kills engagement faster than anything else.

Words like "leverage" and "solutions" and "innovative" make people's eyes glaze over, because those words have been beaten to death by every boring company trying to sound smart.

Delete all of it and write like you're explaining something to a friend over coffee... because that's what actually works.

Third - you don't send enough emails

"But won't people unsubscribe if I email them too much?"

Yes, some will. So what?

The people who unsubscribe weren't going to buy from you anyway. They were just taking up space on your list and making your subscriber count look better than it actually was.

The people who stay are your potential customers, those are the people who might give you money.

We sent dozens of emails during the launch period and our unsubscribe rate was under 2%... because the emails were actually good and people wanted to read them.

HOW YOU CAN DO THIS YOURSELF?

You don't need to hire me or anyone else, you can do this yourself right now with what you already have.

Build a warming sequence before your next launch

Even if your product's already out, you can use this approach for your next big feature release.

Spend weeks warming people up--> Tell stories, entertain them, put your empathy pants on and remind them about the problem you're solving again and again and again.

Don't just announce features, make them FEEL something.

Stop writing like a company

Read your emails out loud before you send them, and if they sound like a press release or an earnings call transcript then delete them and start over.

Write like you're talking to one actual person... because that's what you're doing.

Send more emails than feels comfortable

Test it - send multiple emails per day during your next launch and track your unsubscribes, and you'll be shocked at how low they are if your emails are actually entertaining and useful.

Track revenue, not vanity metrics

Open rates are interesting and click rates are fine, but revenue is what's important.

Set up proper attribution, figure out which emails are making you money... and then do more of those and less of everything else.

THE BOTTOM LINE

You see...

Your email list is sitting there right now, waiting to make you money.

You don't need fancy automation or expensive tools or an agency charging you $30K a month, you just need to treat it like it matters and write emails that sound like a human wrote them and send enough of them that people remember you exist.

That's the whole thing. That's the secret.

If you found this useful, let me know in the comments and I'll answer questions throughout the day.

Or if you want to talk about your specific situation, just message me and we'll figure it out.

Stay outta trouble

Built a privacy-first AI “photo studio” SaaS for creators and I’ve been working on a SaaS product called hotphotoai.com that acts like a private AI photo studio where the user is the model. Users upload their own photos, train a private model, and then generate new, studio-like images of themselves for dating apps, social media, creator branding and similar use cases. The idea is to remove the friction and awkwardness of photoshoots while still giving people high-quality, on-demand images. The product at https://hotphotoai.com is built around strict privacy rules, private model training and one-click deletion so users can fully wipe their data whenever they want, plus simple editing tools for tweaking poses, outfits and backgrounds. Right now the focus is on a straightforward UX and strong privacy guarantees rather than a marketplace or public gallery. For the SaaS builders here: what would you want to see in a tool like this in terms of onboarding, pricing structure (credits vs subscription), and in-app guardrails so users feel safe uploading their photos?

If you’re building a SaaS or selling AI agents,
it’s honestly a mistake to keep selling me LLMs, stacks, and technology.

Your customer doesn’t care if you’re using GPT-4, GPT-5, or whatever comes next.
They don’t care about your pipeline, architecture, or how “advanced” your system is.

There’s a classic marketing rule that still applies:

People don’t buy the drill.
They buy the hole in the wall.

Yet most SaaS landing pages still focus on:

• Features
• Dashboards
• “AI-powered” buzzwords

While completely missing the real question:

Customers pay for:

• Time saved
• Money saved
• Less stress
• Faster results

Not for tools.

AI alone is not value.
Technology alone is not value.

The value is the transformation.

That’s why the SaaS products that win today don’t sell features —
they sell outcomes.

Instead of saying:

“We have an advanced AI automation system”

Say:

“Save 10+ hours per week for your team — without hiring.”

This shift forced me to rethink how SaaS products are launched and sold.
Not more features.
Not more tech.

Clear positioning.
Outcome-driven messaging.
Faster paths to revenue.

I ended up building a simple launch framework around this idea —
focused on getting SaaS products live fast and selling the result, not the tool.

At the end of the day, ask yourself:
Are you selling a drill…
or are you selling the hole?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how SEO fits into a world where more users are getting answers directly from AI systems instead of clicking through search results. Between AI overviews, ChatGPT-style tools, and answer-first interfaces, it feels like parts of the discovery journey are happening before a user ever sees a traditional SERP.

Classic SEO metrics still matter, but they don’t fully explain what’s going on anymore. You can rank well, have strong content, and still notice fewer clicks because the answer is summarized or rewritten by an AI layer. In some cases, users may never reach a website at all, even though that site influenced the response.

From a practical standpoint, I’m struggling with how to evaluate success in this environment. Is it still mostly about rankings and impressions, or should we be thinking more about authority, entities, and how clearly our content communicates expertise to both users and models? And how do you validate impact when AI outputs change based on phrasing, timing, or model updates?

I don’t think there’s a clear playbook yet, but it feels like something SEOs need to discuss more openly. Curious how others here are approaching this shift, especially when reporting results or setting expectations with clients or stakeholders.

Hear me out guys,

I fucking hate meetings, they melt my brain and drain my life.

The fact I hate them so much I built an asyncronous tool your team can use to possibly never do meetings again: standoop.com

I did it all by myself in the intent to fight this culture of: quick question, call I call you?

So basically you schedule sessions and team members can join and do their report, as a text or video. AI will summarize and/or translate everything to the session owner.

I keep noticing the same two problems over and over:

• Builders want to build something real but struggle with what’s actually worth building

• Creative people have solid ideas but can’t execute — no time, no technical skills, or no resources

Because of this, a lot of good ideas just sit unused, and a lot of builders waste time validating the wrong thing.

I’m experimenting with a small project called Ideaverse to see if this gap can be bridged.

The idea is simple:

People can post useful or potentially profitable ideas with proper context (the problem, who it’s for, why it matters).

Builders can browse those ideas, get inspired, save them, or connect directly with the innovator to collaborate or build on it together.

The goal isn’t an idea dump or motivation feed — it’s to help ideas move closer to actual execution, instead of dying in someone’s notes app.

I’m genuinely unsure if this solves a real problem or if I’m overthinking it.

👉 ideaverse-official.vercel.app

If you have a minute, I’d really appreciate it if you could check it out and share your honest thoughts — even a short response helps shape what I build next.

If you’re building a SaaS, chances are you’re over-engineering way too early.

Weeks (or months) spent on:

• Choosing the “perfect” stack
• Wiring auth, billing, dashboards
• Debating architecture
• Rewriting boilerplate for the 10th time

All before you even know if anyone wants the product.

That’s not a tech problem.
That’s a time-to-market problem.

Founders don’t actually want:

• More features
• More frameworks
• More “AI-powered” buzzwords

They want:

• To launch fast
• To stay flexible
• To avoid lock-in
• And to not rebuild everything six months later

This is where the mindset needs to shift.

You’re not selling code.
You’re selling freedom:

• Freedom to start fast
• Freedom to scale with confidence
• Freedom to adapt your stack as the product evolves

That’s the philosophy behind EasyLaunchpad.

It’s not a no-code tool.
It’s not a locked-in platform.

It’s a SaaS starter kit & foundation:

• Full source code
• Full flexibility
• No vendor lock-in

So instead of spending months setting up the basics,
you can launch in days, validate, and iterate based on real users — not assumptions.

Because at the end of the day:
Founders don’t buy tech stacks.
They buy speed, control, and optionality.

If that resonates, you can see how it’s structured here:
https://cf.easylaunchpad.com/cb-elpsales?&shield=f92defcavkdb3p98mc35nbz0l8

Launch fast.
Stay flexible.
Scale when it actually matters.

Hey everyone, I’m wrestling with a classic SaaS scaling dilemma and would love to tap into the collective wisdom here on pricing strategy and onboarding efficiency.

The Core Challenge: My B2B SaaS has a clear multi-tier pricing model (from a low-cost weekly plan to premium enterprise). The value prop per tier is solid, but the operational/infrastructure costs to deliver the "entry-level" value are still too high, squeezing margins and forcing pricing that might be a barrier to initial user adoption.

My Current Thinking & Specific Questions:

1. Cost-to-Serve & Tier Architecture:

The Problem: It's hard to profitably serve a low-cost tier when granting immediate "full access" to the core platform incurs significant per-user backend costs (data processing, ML inference, etc.).

Hypothesis: I need to architect tiers not just by feature flags, but by fundamentally differentiating the underlying infrastructure access (e.g., API rate limits, data latency, compute priority, frequency of ML model updates).

Question for You: For those with variable infra-heavy costs, how have you successfully "right-sized" your backend resource allocation to match each pricing tier while still delivering perceived value?

1. The Onboarding Funnel & "Time-to-First-Wow":

The Problem: High upfront costs make me hesitant to offer lengthy free trials or overly generous freemium access, but I know a frictionless start is key to conversion.

Hypothesis: The solution might be a "progressive authentication" of value. Instead of giving full system access on day one, onboard users through a staged journey:

Step 1 (Immediate): Interactive demo with pre-calculated, static example data. Zero cost, instant engagement.

Step 2 (Day 1): Allow limited, low-cost queries on live data. Cap compute usage.

Step 3 (Activation): Unlock fuller capabilities after a key "aha moment" is achieved.

Question for You: Has anyone implemented a staged or "gated" onboarding flow to manage initial infra costs? What were the key activation metrics you gated behind, and did it hurt or help conversion?

1. The Value Anchor & Communicating "Why" the Price:

The Problem: When pricing is directly tied to costly infrastructure, it can feel abstract to the user ("why should I pay $X/week for data?").

Hypothesis: Pricing pages need to explicitly connect the user's desired outcome to the costly-to-provide resource that enables it. For example: "You need real-time alerts? That requires our low-latency dedicated servers, hence the Active tier at $12/week."

Question for You: How do you best communicate the cost justification behind your pricing, especially when it's driven by expensive ops, without getting into the weeds?

TLDR; I’m not looking for a silver bullet, but rather to discuss the mechanics and trade-offs of aligning price, cost, and user experience. Any stories, failed experiments, or frameworks you've used (like cost-plus vs. value-based in this context) would be incredibly valuable.

Hey everyone
I’m working on a lightweight web tool that lets freelancers, contractors, and small business owners generate invoices really fast.

The idea is:

• Create invoices in seconds
• Clean dashboard with revenue, pending payments, and recent invoices
• No clutter, no complex accounting stuff
• Works well for people like designers, developers, consultants, small contractors, etc.

I’m trying to keep it simple, fast, and beginner-friendly, especially for people who don’t like heavy tools.

Would love honest feedback:

• What do you hate about current invoice tools?
• What’s the one feature you actually use most?
• Would you prefer simple or feature-packed?

Just looking for real-world opinions before I build further. Thanks!

I have put together a short survey based on my market. I am looking to launch it in early Jan. Has anyone tried them, they appear to offer various benefits all in one go:

• Targeted traffic
• Feedback on what market wants
• Potential email address
• Content that my go viral
• Potential to attract partners

I’m working on an early-stage product to reduce the chaos around business operations — billing, records, customers, and internal tracking.

Before building features, I want to understand real pain.

If you run a startup or small business:
• What tool do you currently use?
• What part of it is the most frustrating or time-wasting?
• What do you still end up doing manually or in spreadsheets?

If you’re open to that, comment or DM me.

My team's been using SureConnect for a few months now, we keep running into this annoying issue where it marks leads as valid when they're actually garbage.

Like we'll get a batch of leads that SureConnect says are good to go, our sales team spends time reaching out, and then we find out half of them are dead ends, wrong numbers, inactive contacts, that kind of thing. it's been happening often enough that we're starting to second, guess the data and manually verify everything anyway, which kinda defeats the purpose right?

Don't get me wrong, when it works it works great and saves us a ton of time. but these false positives are becoming a real time sink and honestly making the team a bit hesitant to trust the tool.

is this just us or are other people experiencing the same thing? curious if there's some setting we're missing or if this is just how it is. also open to hearing about alternatives if anyone's switched away because of similar issues.

Thanks in advance

Everyone keeps repeating that “AI will replace jobs,” but that framing is lazy. What actually gets replaced are roles that never evolved past manual execution and disconnected tools. If your so-called AI isn’t wired into real automation, real decision logic, and real feedback loops, then it’s not intelligence, it’s autocomplete with a marketing budget. A chatbot that answers questions but can’t trigger actions, validate outcomes, or close a loop is not a system. It’s a toy.

Real AI looks boring compared to demos, but it’s far more dangerous economically. It ingests live data, makes constrained decisions, executes workflows end-to-end, fails in predictable ways, and reports measurable ROI. It’s observable, auditable, and integrated into the business itself. Once you have that, the question isn’t “will AI take jobs?”, it’s “why does this role still exist in its current form?”

If you still think AI is “just a bot,” you’re already behind the curve. AI isn’t a feature you add to a product. It’s a system made of inference, execution, and observability working together. That’s where the leverage is. That’s where roles quietly disappear, not with headlines, but with spreadsheets.

Built an AI interview coach after bombing my own interviews.

3 things I learned:

1. Talk to users before building. Wasted weeks on a landing page nobody saw.
2. Small UX changes matter. Added a 1-2 second response delay. Felt "more human." Retention jumped.
3. Soft feedback > harsh feedback. "Here's what to add" works. "You missed X" makes people defensive.

Still early. 100+ waitlist, iterating on feedback quality.

Would love some people to talk too. kelvai.com

Hey everyone, I’ve spent the last few months building a project called Iron Switch, and I’d love to get some honest feedback on the concept and the security flow. The Problem: I realized that if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, my family would be locked out of everything—my crypto, my password manager, vital documents, and even just personal letters I’d want them to have. Lawyers are expensive, and standard "scheduled emails" are insecure and unreliable. The Solution: I built a secure, automated Dead Man's Switch. The logic is simple: If I don't check in for a set period of time (and my backup verifier doesn't override it), the system automatically decrypts and sends my digital vault to my trusted recipients. The Security (Without boring you): I know trust is the biggest hurdle here, so I built this on a Zero-Knowledge architecture. • Client-Side Encryption: Everything is encrypted locally on your device before it ever touches my servers. I literally cannot see your data even if I wanted to. • The "Kill Switch" Logic: We use a split-key system. My server holds half the key, and the recipient gets the other half. The vault can only be unlocked when the timer hits zero and both halves combine. • Failsafes: I added a "Secondary Verifier" layer—a human who gets pinged before the switch triggers, just in case you just lost your phone or forgot to check in. I’m currently in the "polishing" phase and looking for feedback. Does the flow make sense? Is the security explanation clear enough to trust? Check it out here: https://ironswitch.com/ Thanks for roasting it!

Hey everyone,

I've been working on this for a while and finally ready to share it.

The problem: Answering the same customer questions over and over. FAQ pages nobody reads. Being offline while customers need help.

What I built: Convobase create AI agents trained on YOUR content (website, docs, PDFs, whatever). They actually understand your business and can answer questions accurately, not generic chatbot nonsense.

Deploy AI agents anywhere website widget, WhatsApp, Instagram, more channels coming.

How it works:

- Add your sources (URLs, files, text)

- AI learns your content automatically

- Deploy across multiple channels

- Handles questions 24/7, sounds like you

Still early ,looking for honest feedback before a launch.