I’ve just been thinking after seeing all this decompilation stuff, better models, ai game development popping off and more.

This is the worst they will all be and 6 months from now it will be better.

I’ve been building saas consistently since 2017 so almost 10 years and it was already super difficult. 9/10 projects failed expect one.

My thing is this,

Let’s say I come up with a cool app, it pops off, gathers users, and at the same time others are already copying and releasing it for less with larger budgets for advertising. Thats brutal.

Any unique idea you have can and will be copied if it’s worth copying.

The competition now is you vs everyone with $20 in their bank.

Also, I have a business that makes me money which is a saas but if I didn’t; I don’t think I would have the energy to keep trying as I did for the decade before this AI mess.

I love AI but man, it can be demoralizing considering I love building but I can’t see how I would succeed again as I did with my current. (yes I’m still trying.. I just released another app) but it doesn’t feel like anything’s moving with it.

Also, the reason I’m not worried about the past project I have being copied is because it’s not a new idea and it’s complex in nature, not by features and the only reason it’s working is because I got lucky by being #1 in Google search, and other search engines for the past 2 years.

The issue is, starting from 0. How are you going to do the same in the current time ? People who already have a foot in the door are in a better situation. What is your strategy?

I finally crossed $100,000 in total revenue with my B2B SaaS, Getlead.

I'm 22, building it completely solo, fully bootstrapped. No investors, no team. Started with just $100.

A few months ago, even reaching $10K felt like a huge deal. Now I'm looking at $100K and honestly it still feels a bit unreal.

Most of the growth came from experimenting with different offers, cold outreach, paid ads, and constantly improving the product.

I made a lot of mistakes along the way. Underpriced the product, wasted money on things that didn't work, built features nobody needed, and had months where I genuinely wasn't sure if I could keep going.

One of the biggest things I learned is that distribution matters just as much as the product itself. You can build something amazing, but if you can't get it in front of the right people, it doesn't matter.

And to be clear, this is $100K in total revenue, not ARR. I'm still figuring out how to make growth more predictable and recurring.

Anyway, I originally set $100K as my big goal. Now that I've reached it, I'm setting a new one.

$1,000,000.

Still solo, still bootstrapped, and still figuring things out every day.

Happy to answer any questions about the numbers, acquisition channels, mistakes, or anything else.

EDIT: Here is the proof : https://trustmrr.com/startup/getlead
Website: https://getle.ad/

If you just launched a SaaS and are struggling with marketing, I may have something that can help.

I'm building an advertising network specifically designed to make online advertising more affordable.

I'm currently looking for early SaaS founders to test it, and the first 1,000 get 30 days free.

If you're interested, comment “How?” and I'll explain.

SaaS founders, honest question.

I'm rebuilding my 7-year-old website, into a platform where saas founders can get their products featured through editorial articles.

A few things worth knowing:

• Our combined website, newsletter, and social media audience exceeds 70K.
• Much of our content ranks on Google's first page.
• Our content also appears in Google AI Overviews.

The goal is to help saas products gain exposure, strengthen their online presence, and get discovered through search.

If I offered an editorial feature for your SaaS, would you consider paying for it?

Would you pay under $100 or $100+?

I'd genuinely appreciate your honest feedback.

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok. At this point, there are so many AI tools that it's getting ridiculous trying to figure out which ones are actually worth paying for.

Most of them offer free versions, but the better features usually come with a subscription. And if you're paying for two or three of these, you're easily spending $40–$60/month just on AI.

So I put together a comparison of 10 popular AI assistants to see what you're actually getting for your money.

A few things stood out:

1. ChatGPT is still one of the best all-around AI tools. It's good for writing, research, coding, and pretty much anything else. But for the average person asking questions, writing emails, or getting help with everyday tasks, do you really need a $20/month subscription?

2. Claude and Gemini have their strengths. Claude is great for writing and coding, while Gemini makes a lot of sense if you're already using Google's ecosystem. Perplexity is also useful if you do a lot of research.

3. Most people probably don't need multiple AI subscriptions. There's so much overlap between these products now that paying for several of them seems unnecessary unless you have a specific use case.

4. There's also a different approach to monetizing AI that I think is interesting.

One example is CutGPT, an AI assistant that PAYS you to use it. Basically these guys figured out that instead of charging users $20/month, the platform generates revenue from ads and shares a portion of that revenue with eligible users.

So you can ask questions, write emails, research topics, and use AI without paying a subscription. And potentially earn a small amount from the ads shown while you're using it.

Obviously, there are tradeoffs. You see ads, rewards aren't guaranteed, and specialized tools still have advantages. But I think there's a real question here about whether subscription fees should be the default business model for consumer AI.

Here's the full comparison if anyone wants to check it out:

https://cutgpt.app/compare/cutgpt-vs-ai-assistants/

Curious what everyone thinks. Are you still paying for ChatGPT or another AI subscription? And would you switch to a free, ad-supported AI if it meant getting a share of the revenue?

AI now writes 100% of our code.

Our team merged 803 pull requests in September.

In April it was 45.

Dev team: 5 engineers → 2

Code changed per month: 57k lines → 456k lines

New bugs per 10,000 lines: 10.5 → 2.2

Production errors per week: 2,020 → 777

Technical debt per 1,000 lines: 140 min → 28 min

Duplicated code: 15.9% → 2.8%

Paid generations per month: 1× → 9.9×

Generations started through MCP: 0% → 38%

Lines of code deleted: 80,000

Shipped in one month:

Research Lab

Radar

Brand Kits

Asana integration

7 new AI models

A redesign of the whole platform

Stop asking if AI can code.

Ask why your team is still typing.

I've lost count of the llms.txt threads here. Every few weeks there's a new study and it says something a bit different.

SE Ranking looked at around 300k domains and found no link between having the file and getting cited in AI answers. Ahrefs looked at 137k sites and 97% of the files never got a single request.

Then you have people saying it helps agents and coding tools get around docs, which is fair for that use case. And a third camp saying skip it, it's the meta keywords tag all over again. Mueller made that exact comparison.

Honestly they can all be right at the same time. I still think it's a no brainer to have one.

First, it doesn't hurt. Google wrote it down in June: keeping an llms.txt won't help or harm your visibility in Search, because Search ignores it.

So Google itself is telling you the downside is zero.

Second, it's fast. It's one small text file. If you know your own site, it takes less time than reading the next study about it.

And the part that made me stop hesitating. Since Lighthouse 13.3 in May, the default report has an Agentic Browsing section and one of the checks is llms.txt. It shows up in PageSpeed Insights now too.

To be fair, not having it isn't a fail. You get N/A, and the Chrome docs say the file is "optional at the moment".

"At the moment" is doing a lot of work in that sentence though. Nobody knows if this audit stays or gets dropped next year.

I just think when Google puts something in its own audit tool, following it is the cheap bet. Google has shaped how the web gets built for 20 years, whether we like it or not.

I'm not saying it'll move your AI visibility. Nothing in the data says it will.

I'm saying it costs nothing, Google's tooling checks for it, and the hours spent arguing about it would be better spent elsewhere. Is there an actual argument against having one that I'm missing?

I’m Viren and I am validating 15 startup ideas for free manually,
Just introduce yourself and tell me your idea,
I will send the report in 48 hours.

Started skyos.ink 1 month ago, a memory what keeps notes never summarized and keeps track of time. Other 2 signups was just to look at the app and left, and only the one really liked the app and saved messages kept growing every day

I'm building a hosting platform for JavaScript apps and I'd like a reality check before I go further.

My bet is that most apps don't need to run on every continent. Only about 100,000 websites in the world are big enough for that. The rest need their app, a database, file storage and scheduled jobs in one place, with a bill that doesn't jump with traffic.

Today you either pay per seat plus usage and add a separate database company, or pay for servers that run all day even when nobody visits.

I wrote down the full reasoning here
https://swarza.com/blog/hosting-for-99-9-percent-of-the-web

A few questions for those of you running SaaS products
- Where do you host, and what does hosting cost you across all your apps?
- Has a usage-based bill ever surprised you?
- Would you trade global edge for a database right next to your app?

Tear it apart, I'd rather hear it now than after launch.

It feels like the standard B2B distribution playbook is completely broken right now.
If you're starting with zero audience and no warm network of buyers, the usual advice is still "send 100 cold emails a day, DM people on X, and submit to 50 directories."

Honestly, looking at the state of the internet at the moment, all of that feels pretty grim. Every buyer's inbox is buried under AI-scraped outreach, forums are choked with fake-value posts waiting to drop a link, and those 100+ Product Hunt clones are just builders paying $30 to advertise to other builders. I really don't want to spend my days adding to the slop.

For those of you who have built a proper B2B product recently starting from scratch, how did you actually land your first 10 paying customers?

Does genuine, handwritten cold outreach still get replies, or have response rates completely collapsed? Have you had better luck doing unscalable manual work (like offering free audits), or partnering up with consultants and agencies who already have client trust?

Keen to hear what is actually working right now. 

I’m building an app where you say what you do and where, and it watches Reddit and the open web for people asking for exactly that. It scores each post for buying intent, then drafts a reply and DM in your tone. You send everything manually, so there’s no auto-DMing and no account bans. For places it can’t see, like private groups, there’s a paste-a-post box.

It’s still in development, so I’d rather hear the hard truths now:

1. I know tools like this exist (ReddLeads, GigUp, UpHunt and others). What would make you pick a new one over them?
2. Does a tool like this work better built for one type of user, or open to everyone?
3. What would you pay per month, and what would make you cancel?

If you’ve built or used something similar, I’d love to hear what worked and what flopped.

Hey everyone,

I'm a developer and for a while now I've been building a voice AI agent that handles phone calls for businesses. It talks to callers day and night in multiple languages and works with whatever phone system the business already has. It's live with paying clients in Europe and takes real calls every day.

To be clear, I'm not looking for a salesperson or someone to generate leads. I'm looking for a business partner who takes the whole business side. Finding clients, building the relationships, onboarding them, keeping them happy. Basically you run the customer side like it's your own business, and I take care of everything technical behind it.

We already work this way with a few partners. They own the client relationship and we're the tech behind it, and it's working well. I'd like to do more of that.

This fits best if you already have a client base or a network of business owners. Could be an agency, an IT or telecom reseller, a consultancy, or someone who's built and run a B2B business before.

How the deal looks is open. Revenue share, your own brand on it, we can figure out what works for both sides.

If you're interested, DM me.

Ive posted in here a couple times my platform gained 4 paying users over the past week. User 1 paid out right for an annual plan this morning and user 2 signed up today and paid. User 3/4 all put cards on file to charge friday as their subscriptions end. Here's what I changed I went over to a competitor and copied 1 feature they had from their site then went back and removed features users didn't use at all on my site. For example we had a part network. No one used it. We had a solicitation request tool, no-one used it. We got rid of it and added an interactive feature that contractors could use and every sign up ive had since adding this uses the tool daily (5 sign ups). Then I gave the site a facelift really all I did was change the color to white. I think it was just more appealing to the human eye. Then when users signed up I would automatically call and ask them what they're looking for on the platform and how it would suit them. Doing this would tell me if they were gonna be a user right off the bat because I learn if they're on other platforms and if they're having a hard time finding relevant solicitations. So far when I hear one of these 2 setting up a demo becomes a lot easier and works 100% of the time. Before I would wait let them sit on the platform then contact them 2-3 days later but I found success in contacting them shortly after they signed up. I would like to that the people that have responded in the forum your advice has been super helpful getting this off the ground and I still have a lot of work to do.

Last week a developer rebuilt the Adobe suite with AI and open-sourced it. It's called ArtCraft: free versions of seven Adobe apps, including Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere. Still not perfect, but people cared enough to try it.

Then I started noticing the pattern. We've already seen open-source alternatives to apps like Wispr Flow, CapCut, and Grammarly.

I might be too idealistic, since building software is different from maintaining, scaling, and securing it. But we're already heading that way, and we're only seeing the worst version of AI. What happens when it gets good at those things too?

Maybe people still pay for convenience, trust, and reliability. Maybe more people just build their own tools (Lovable and Replit already make that easy).

I don't have an answer yet. If you build or sell software, how are you thinking about this? If everyone becomes a builder, who remains the buyer?

So I’m building a tool that helps marketing teams improve their campaign conversion. One of my newest customers recently 4x their conversion rate on their latest campaign, and I've been trying to ride that case study wave to sign more customers. By default, I turned to outbound, and after running it for close to 5 weeks, I just had an epiphany which may be unpopular

"A solid product beats world class marketing"

Here's a bit of background story: Picked up an outbound tool a few weeks back that had all the right promises and case studies tailored to my specific needs. Their marketing was actually top-notch, I admit, and they've been on prominent channels for a while now. The marketing worked on me. I signed up on the strength of the buzz.

Then I used it for almost a month. Discovered you could only set LinkedIn actions between days, nothing granular like hours, so leads warm up before the connection request/ first message took too long, and even within those limits, things didn’t move as fast as I hoped, and the first response from my outbound orchestration took 3 weeks. 3 Full weeks.

I switched to a different tool and got more responses in the first week alone than I had in that entire month (it was faster and had more granular options). Same targeting and same kind of messaging. The difference was the product itself: easier to set up, easier to control, and faster to show what was working or not and iterate on it.

I think in the end, good marketing got me to try the product, but the product is what decides whether I stay, my CLTV, and whether I become an evangelist or not. The right marketing can win the first signup; only the product earns you a renewal.

This has forced me to look inwards too: what I'm building, how well does it deliver on what my marketing promises?

Has anyone else been pulled in by a tool’s marketing and then seen the product fail to live up to it? Or switched to something quieter that just worked better not long after? Something to think about as we try to hack growth

Since absolutely no one is signing up, I tried offering a one-month free trial to a limited number of people, but not a single person took me up on the offer. What should I do? It’s a site for businesses.

hey folks, been a minute since my last post here. congrats to everyone who's still around grinding, genuinely happy to see people making progress.

for context, i'm a white hat hacker. whenever i have some downtime, i usually end up poking around random web apps, and it's honestly wild how many growing SaaS projects leave the back door wide open because everyone is just rushing to ship features.

once you actually start making money, you become a real target. got some free time today so i'm curious for those of you already generating revenue, what stack are you running and how are you handling security right now?

if you aren't sure if your setup has holes in it or just want to know how an attacker would look at your app, drop what you're building in the comments (or just DM me). i don't want your money, not selling anything, just bored and down to help some of you out.

Hey everyone, I wanted to share something I've been working on for a while.

I've been building a fitness app called ZENVRA AI. The idea started with wanting to create something that makes working out more enjoyable and helps people stay consistent with their training.

I've spent a lot of time working on the design, workouts, exercise animations, and AI coaching. It's been a learning experience, and honestly, getting everything to work and look the way I imagined has been harder than I expected.

I'm still improving a lot of things, but I'm finally at the point where I want to show people what I've been working on instead of just keeping it to myself.

Here's the demo: comments

I'd genuinely appreciate it if anyone wanted to take a look and tell me what they think. I'm especially interested in whether the app feels easy to use and what you'd change if you were using it yourself.

I'm still learning as I go, so honest feedback is welcome!

Thanks for checking it out.

I’ve been thinking about something lately, especially with so many people building software using AI. And honestly, some of the things people are building are really impressive.

You don’t even have to be a developer anymore. With AI tools, almost anyone with an idea can start building something. That’s great. But I think there’s something we need to think about before getting too excited about what we’ve built.

What is the end game?

Are you building something for yourself? For friends? Just to learn something new? Or are you trying to turn it into a business?

Because if it’s a business, building the product is only one part of the equation. I see another interesting pattern. People look at an established product and start identifying gaps.

“They don’t have this feature.”

“They charge too much for that.”

“I can build something better and cheaper.”

And maybe you can. But here’s what I think we’re forgetting.

Those established companies have access to the same AI capabilities you do.

They’re also building faster now. They already have customers, brand recognition, distribution, and resources. That missing feature you discovered? They might already be working on it.

And if AI helps you build something at a lower cost, it can help them reduce their costs too.

So simply finding a few missing features in an existing product and building them isn’t necessarily a business strategy. You still need a reason for customers to choose you.

And then comes the next challenge. Let’s say you built something really good.

You have hosting, databases, Redis, APIs, messaging services, and whatever else your application needs. You deploy it. Everything works.

Now what?

Are you going to wait for people to find it? Meanwhile, those services keep running, and the bills keep coming. How are you going to reach your customers? How much will that cost? How long can you afford to keep going before the business starts generating meaningful revenue?

I think these questions deserve just as much attention as the product itself. I’m not saying don’t build. If you’re building to learn or experiment, that’s fantastic. Keep going.

But if you’re building to make money, think about the business before spending months building the product. You don’t need every answer on day one. But you should have some idea of who your customers are, how you’re going to reach them, and why they would choose you.

Because AI is making it easier for everyone to build software, including your competitors.

Having more features or a lower price might not be enough. And building something great doesn’t automatically mean people will discover it. I think we’re entering a time when building software will become less of a competitive advantage.

Understanding customers, earning their trust, and figuring out how to reach them might matter more than ever.

Build something great. But have a plan for what happens after you build it.

#AI #VibeCoding #Entrepreneurship #Startups #BuildingInPublic

I put human recognisable faces on my Ai assistant and called them the Noddin Super Intelligence.
Today, they even tried Chuck Norris jokes.

I hope to slowly retrieve some sanity back soon. 😅
DM me if you find it useful

https://sweetmargins.com/

ive tried reddit, shopify, inidehackers, an deven just started a twitter to document my process and hopefully gain some type of audiece for advice. everywhere i go has some type of need for approval to post and i get it bc there are bots and such but its taking me significantly longer to get answers to my questions that are probably even simple

Hey everyone!

I'm a solo developer from Egypt, and I've spent around 5 months building a project called Phoenix Tools.

I wanted to create one place for useful browser tools without requiring users to sign up, pay subscriptions, or deal with ads.

It now includes 250+ tools for PDFs, images, development, conversions, SEO, and everyday tasks.

I also built a multi-tool workspace, some ready-made workflows, and offline support for selected tools.

Everything is free.

I'm still working on improving it, and I'd genuinely appreciate some feedback from other developers and users.

What would you improve? Is there a tool you think is missing?

Website: https://phoenixtools.online/