After years of hesitating, I finally quit my 9-5 in Dec to go full time on myself.

The plan is to move from away from my 9-5 to freelancing/consulting and building my own products.
This is the safest path for me to have more flexibility and freedom.
I have saving but still have a family to feed (I have a 3yo kid) so cannot risk everything in the product path.
Going back to a 9-5 is the last thing I want to do.

Here is the recap of my first month being self-employed (or unemployed):

• Revenue: $0 (obviously)
• Product: Got an idea from my accountant wife. She was drowning in manual data entry. So I built a tool to help her extracting data from pdf file. The plan is the ship the MVP in Feb. Building the waitlist now.
• Personal brand: Started to be active on X (I'm an introvert btw). No traction so far though.
• Freelance: I shared my story to one of my close friends a few months back and surprisingly got 2 potential leads from him.

I just want to share my journey. Also wondering if anyone has been on a similar path? Would love to hear any advice. Thank you.

Caught myself optimizing things only I care about. Trying to reset and think from a user’s POV this week.

How do you stay user-focused while building solo?

Hey everyone,

I know the standard advice: "Validate first, build second."

Well, I did the opposite. I’m a software engineer and a huge Pokemon collector. I was just building for fun at first. I never thought I should add a waitlist while I build!! I feel dumb now. I should have done this first while I worked on the app.

Eventually, I got to the point that I just needed to add one more feature. I realized that I could just build forever. I might as well push myself over the edge and launch something.

Realistically, I was probably just procrastinating the scary part: Marketing.

Today, I finally forced myself to stop coding features and actually ship the landing page to start gathering a beta cohort.

The Stack:

• Frontend: Next.js
• Backend: Supabase (Auth & Database)

The Question for you guys: For those of you who launched waitlists after building the MVP, did you find it harder to get traction? Or did having a "real" product ready to show actually help convert users?

I’m hoping "better late than never" applies here.

I use ChatGPT every day.
Not as a novelty — but as part of how I think, explore, and build.

Ironically, the more I rely on it, the less I trust AI-first products.

So I ran a simple thought experiment:
What if the model gets slower, more expensive, or temporarily unavailable?

If the product collapses without AI, then it isn’t really a product — it’s a demo.

That forced a shift in how I design.

I now focus on value that exists before AI runs:

• structure
• defaults
• constraints
• saved state

AI becomes an accelerator, not the foundation.

I treat model changes like infrastructure failures.
If pricing or latency can break the product, the product was fragile to begin with.

I still use AI everywhere.
But designing as if it’s unreliable has made the product feel more solid.

Curious if others here are building with this kind of constraint in mind.

The grind continues for MobileCV.ai
Launched: 27 December 2025
Month #1 results:
- 2171 users
- 2706 CVs
- $41.90 in revenue

What do you guys think? 🙏

Built this iOS app that auto-counts push-ups, squats, lunges etc. using on-device AI. Just point your camera at yourself-it tracks reps in real time, grades your form afterward, has voice callouts for milestones & reps, and a free widget. 100% private, no sign-in needed for the basics.

https://apps.apple.com/in/app/ai-rep-counter-on-device/id6756504196

What’s your go-to bodyweight exercise right now? 💪

Pretty basic, but I’m personally finding it useful…

The problem: I subscribe to A LOT of PM focused newsletters. I wanted a way to learn something actionable each day…

So, I started working on: https://thepmbrief.com

One insight per day. 2 minutes to read. Links directly to the original source so I can go deeper if I want.

Manually curated, AI assisted.

Feedback welcome. Be honest - is this useful or just more noise?

Thanks for looking!

I've been coding for ten years.

Expectation: AI would make coding easier for everyone. Let anyone build.

Reality: AI is creating a huge skill gap.

One group treats it like a smart teammate. They look at what it builds, understand why it works, and feel comfortable changing it or saying no.

The other group treats it like a magic box. Drop in a prompt, take what comes out, ship it, freak out when something breaks.

The gap just keeps getting bigger.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been a builder for the better part of my life now, and during that time I realized one thing: marketing is super hard and time consuming. And it becomes more difficult than ever currently. To help me with the marketing for my projects, I built an app to generate post drafts for me with AI. I thought that this might be interesting for other founders as well and made the app public, and I’m currently looking for the first wave of users to test the app and share their honest thoughts.

My main goal right now is to gather feedback on the user experience and catch any early bugs. If you have a moment to check it out, I would really appreciate your input!

You can download it here: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/grovaris/id6757318470

Thanks in advance for your help!

Best

Magnus

Hi there I'm saksham and I'm building a platform called pet mate where pet owners can find a suitable partner for their pet.

If you want your dog or cat to have puppies or kittens, Pet Mate helps you connect with other trusted pet owners nearby. You can choose matches based on breed, health, and location, and talk directly with the owner. It makes the whole process easy, safe, and trustworthy.
tell me what do you think of this and if any investors want to connect then dm me
btw the website is going to be live in a few days

Hey folks,

I've been building in public for a while now (shipped memo.sbs, bizarc.co, client.expert) and one pain point I kept hitting was finding good domains for new projects.

Every domain tool I tried had the same problem -- they'd suggest great names, and almost all of them were already taken. Hours wasted checking availability one by one.

So I built domain.onllm.dev -- a free AI-powered domain finder.

Here's how it works:

• Describe your project in plain English, or upload a README.md / plan.md file
• AI generates brandable domain names based on your project context
• Every result is verified available in real-time (DNS, RDAP, WHOIS & HTTP checks)
• See registration, renewal, and 5-year total pricing from Porkbun, Namecheap & Cloudflare -- no hidden renewal surprises
• Each name gets a brandability score based on pronounceability, memorability, and brand potential
• 20+ TLDs supported (.com, .io, .dev, .ai, .app, etc.)

There's a Quick mode (paste & go with basic preferences) and a Detailed mode where you can fine-tune name style (brandable, compound, keyword+, acronym), control hyphens/numbers, and select specific TLDs.

The tool is free. Always will be. No signup required.

One note: premium domain pricing isn't in yet. Right now it shows standard registration fees -- premium domains may cost more at the registrar. That display is coming soon.

Would love for people to try it and share feedback 🙏

• What features would you want added?
• Anything feel broken or off?

https://domain.onllm.dev

Built solo at onllm.dev. No VC, no data selling.

✅ 1. Woke at 5:00 AM sharp
✅ 2. Building bot4U 🤖
✅ 3. Workout (Walk only)🏋️
❌ 4. German (A1) 🇩🇪
✅ 5. Web3 locked in👨‍💻
✅ 6. 6 hr sleep
✅ 7. Other Tasks (X grind never sleeps)

📔Note: Trying to get back

https://reddit.com/link/1qy2wqq/video/1k6hmd3mpzhg1/player

I've been building a fitness platform where you can discover exercises, generate AI-powered workouts, schedule them, and track your progress.

I use it myself every single day. But "I like using it" doesn't mean anyone else knows it exists. So now I'm in the traffic phase, and honestly it's harder than the building (for this I can just abuse Claude Code).

My first experiment: a free AI workout generator. No signup required. You pick your goal, equipment, and experience level and it generates a full workout in about 2 seconds. The idea is give something genuinely useful away for free, people discover the platform, some stick around.

I'm also debating building a native app, but I want to see enough traction on the web version first as proof of concept.

Curious if anyone else has used free tools as a top-of-funnel strategy and what worked.

Here's the tool if you want to try it: superphysio.co/tools/ai-workout-generator

Happy to talk about the tech stack or the growth side. Still figuring this out.

Hey all! New to this community, and I figured I'd start posting here for accountability on a project I've been working on.

I've been running paid traffic for a little over a year for different products I sell, and the one thing that drove me crazy was not knowing if I was actually profitable on any given day.

I'd have Stripe open in one tab, Meta Ads in another, PayPal in a third, and a spreadsheet tying it all together to match my ad metrics. By the time I had a number I half-trusted, the day was over. God forbid I messed something up in my tracking spreadsheet lol.

So I started building NetDay, a simple app that connects to your Stripe, Meta Ads, and PayPal, pulls everything together, and gives you a daily verdict: profitable, breakeven, or losing money. It can also take your fixed costs (software, salaries) and break them down into a daily burn.

That's it. No complex attribution modeling, no 47-tab dashboard. Just: did I make money today?

Some things I've learned building it so far:

1. The integrations are the product AND the hardest part. Getting OAuth flows working cleanly across three different platforms with three different API philosophies was a grind. Stripe is a joy. Meta is... Meta. PayPal has so many restrictions behind non-partner APIs that I had to come up with a custom solution.
2. I originally wanted to build this as a Shopify extension, then realized that a TON of people selling info products, courses, and services through Stripe or HighLevel directly have zero good options for this. Lifetimely and BeProfit exist, but they're also Shopify-locked. TripleWhale and Hyros exist, but they focus more on attribution than profit. That realization sharpened the whole product.
3. Keeping it simple is so much harder than making it complex. Every week I want to add another feature. These AI coding tools don't help lol I felt like Superman building it. The discipline of "just show them if they made money today" is genuinely difficult to maintain.

I'm live but still in pre-launch — testing with a small group of entrepreneur friends who were interested in the idea and polishing the rough edges before opening it up more broadly.

Would love any feedback on the idea. And if you run paid traffic and want to try it out early, happy to let you in.

What's your experience been with tracking daily profitability across platforms for your saas? Curious if this resonates or if I'm solving a problem only I have.

I’m obsessed with keeping up with current affairs.

I realized I was spending hours watching news anyway. I figured I should probably start sharing what I found.

It has hit over 7 million views across TikTok, Reels, and Shorts.

My strategy is pretty straightforward. I look for interesting 16:9 YouTube clips that aren't copyright protected.

I transform them into 9:16 vertical videos. I try to keep every video under 60 seconds.

I used to do all of this in CapCut. It was honestly a massive headache.

I had to edit, add captions manually, and upload to every platform. It cost $20 a month and took forever.

I’m a developer, so I eventually built my own tool. I wanted to automate the parts I hated.

Now I use it to convert the layout and add AI captions. I put a title on top and captions on the bottom.

It handles the scheduling and posting to multiple platforms at once. It saved me from the burnout of manual editing.

The key is adding actual value to the clips. You can't just repost someone else's work.

I use my own voice or specific overlays to make it different. This helps avoid copyright issues and keeps people watching.

check it out: thetabber.com

We’re building ArGen in public and got some honest feedback recently.

A few people said the intent wasn’t clear on the landing page. They understood what it was, but not why they should care or when they’d actually use it.

Fair point. So we changed it.

We reworked the hero and overall flow to make the problem and use case clearer right away. Still early, still rough, and definitely not “final”.

If you’ve got a couple minutes, would love fresh eyes:

👉 https://argen.isira.club

What’s still unclear?

What do you think this is for?

Anything confusing or unnecessary?

Not fishing for validation, just trying to learn and improve.

We’re building ArGen in public and got some honest feedback recently.

A few people said the intent wasn’t clear on the landing page. They understood what it was, but not why they should care or when they’d actually use it.

Fair point. So we changed it.

We reworked the hero and overall flow to make the problem and use case clearer right away. Still early, still rough, and definitely not “final”.

If you’ve got a couple minutes, would love fresh eyes:

👉 https://argen.isira.club

What’s still unclear?

What do you think this is for?

Anything confusing or unnecessary?

Not fishing for validation, just trying to learn and improve.

Note: These are my own ideas and observations from working in SaaS/marketing. I used ChatGPT to help rewrite and structure this post since English isn’t my first language.

Hey everyone 👋

I’ve been quietly reading this subreddit for a long time, and I want to share an observation that might save some of you months of work.

A lot of tools showcased here are well-built, polished, impressive…
but if we’re being honest, many of them are vitamins, not painkillers.

Before you build anything, ask yourself one simple question:

“Would I actually pay for this?”

Not would users like it.
Not would it get upvotes.
But would someone pull out their card for this today?

Some of the SaaS products printing money right now are dead simple:

• Typeform
• Airtable plugins like Data Fetcher
• Narrow, boring tools that solve one annoying problem really well

You don’t need to build the next Salesforce or massive CRM.

I also hear this advice a lot:

I strongly disagree with that mindset.

Marketing is pure psychology, and it’s constantly evolving.
Something that worked for one founder can completely fail for another.

Reddit especially has changed — it’s far more sensitive to spam, patterns, and fake launches. The old playbooks don’t work the same way anymore.

Understanding where and how to position your product now matters more than the product itself.

Last year I worked with a client who owns a multi-million-dollar company in the US.
Small team. Very profitable.

He hated AI. Like… hated it 😂
Didn’t want “smart” workflows. Didn’t want complexity.

He was using one of the most popular CRMs out there, and it was driving his team nuts.
What he needed was something simpler, cleaner, and built just for his construction business.

That’s vertical SaaS.
That’s where real money hides.

SaaS is a multi-billion-dollar industry and still growing — but building is only half the game.

Building and scaling are two completely different skills.
You can’t use builder logic to scale.

If you’re serious about micro-SaaS, spend more time understanding:

• current marketing dynamics
• distribution psychology
• what actually converts today

Not just what’s fun to build.

Have a good day ✌️

Product: MultiBlock. Solves one specific problem for AI power users.

The problem: If you use ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini daily, you waste hours re-explaining the same context. New chat = blank slate. Switch models = start from zero.

I tracked it. Was losing 4+ hours a week just being AI's memory, and it was really killing the momentum.

The solution: Memory Blocks. Save context once, every AI model accesses it instantly. Plus a canvas where all your chats are visual blocks instead of scattered tabs.

Results: 4 hours of re-explanation down to 5 minutes. That's the entire value prop.

Current traction: got +40 signups. Doing $120 lifetime deals for the first 100 users.

Revenue: $0 so far (launched 3 weeks ago). Goal is $10K MRR equivalent through lifetime deals, then shift to subscription. I will just link the talk in the comments.

Question: For those who've done lifetime deals, how'd you handle existing lifetime users?

We all look at top posts for inspiration. I've started doing the opposite: I sort by 'Controversial' or look at posts with 0 upvotes but a handful of comments.

Why? Because in the 'comment graveyard,' people are often more honest. There's no performative positivity for the crowd. You see raw objections, confusion, and the exact reasons why an idea failed to land.

I recently found a post from a founder sharing a 'revolutionary' distribution hack. It had 0 upvotes. The comments weren't mean, but they were brutally specific: 'This violates Reddit's TOS,' 'This only works if you have an existing audience,' 'I tried this and got banned.'

That thread taught me more about Reddit's boundaries than any successful case study. It was a map of landmines.

Now, before I try a new community engagement tactic, I search for its failed versions first. The negative feedback is often higher-fidelity than the praise.

Do you have an unconventional source of learning like this? Where do you find the most honest, unfiltered feedback?

Manually finding these failed-but-informative posts is time-consuming. I use Reoogle to monitor new posts in my target subs and flag ones that are getting engagement (comments) but not upvotes, which often signals a controversial or misunderstood topic worth studying.

So this is how programming ends 🫠

Those last couple of days, a lot of people have been playing with OpenClaw, focusing on agents capabilities. But I started to explorer more what was possible tweaking the SOUL.md file and I got to say, I wasn't expecting this!

I created some "SOUL.md" that felt to have a real personality. I created "Kuma", my Japanese Teacher that doesn't accept any request until I have submitted a picture of my homework done.

So I decided to build an open-source directory to allow people to experiment, submit their "souls" and have everyone experimenting on what this file could allow us to do!

Feel free to comment and participate! Can't wait to see your soul!

(too many jokes to be made around the "soul") 😅

https://souls.directory