So, we decided we are going to develop free tier of useaxon.com first. What do you think about that strategy?

1. Create general idea and launch a waitlist site.
2. Create a markup of final product – use a fraction of it to create a free version
3. Create a free tier of the final product – it was meant to be an idea for promoting and finding out what all the users will be willing to pay for.
4. Use feedback from three tier to develop final product – usage from free version was meant to help us understand what kind of commercial strategy to take: freemium, unlimited or unassisted free trial.
5. Shipping final product.

What do you think?

It seems to be an overkill at first. But then we realized that we might have to building the final product if we fail with free tier. After all, if we success, the free tier will be a great SEO tool for our traffic.

I see a lot of people jumping into coding or designing their product without first figuring out if it’s something people actually need.

For those of you who’ve built side projects or startups—what methods do you use to validate your ideas?

• Do you launch a landing page first to test demand?
• Post on Reddit & forums to gather feedback?
• Pre-sell the idea before building?

Would love to hear how others approach this!

Been obsessing over YC applications for months now. After going through hundreds of successful applications, I noticed some really interesting patterns in how successful founders frame their responses.

Quick backstory: I applied to YC twice before. Both times were embarrassingly bad. That sent me down this rabbit hole of trying to understand what actually works.

So I built this analyzer tool that basically does what I wish I had during my applications.

1. Shows exactly what YC wants to see in each answer (based on patterns from successful apps)
2. Flags weak spots in your narrative
3. Gives specific suggestions to improve each section
4. Takes a couple of minutes to run

I want to help some founders who are in the final stretch. Looking for 20 people to use this out and give honest feedback.

I can't guarantee your submission, but it will definitely take massive strides toward refining your idea and value proposition overall (Not just for YC).

I built a web app that helps you find pain points and software ideas from different subreddits. It shows common problems people talk about, possible solutions, and trends in specific categories. If you're looking for new ideas or want to validate one, this might help! Let me know what you think. Thanks!

Worked on this project over the last couple of months to let you build machine learning models using natural language: https://github.com/plexe-ai/smolmodels

Would really appreciate any feedback or thoughts!

What It Does
Shell Sage is a terminal companion that helps you:

1. Fix Errors Instantly: Automatically diagnoses command failures and suggests precise fixes
2. Example: giit push → "Typo detected: use git push"
3. Generate Commands from English: Translates plain language to executable commands
4. Example: "Find large log files" → find /var/log -name "*.log" -size +100M
5. Work Safely: Confirms risky operations (rm, chmod, etc.) before execution

Why It’s Useful

• For Beginners: Reduces "command not found" frustration
• For Experts: Saves time debugging complex pipelines
• For Everyone: Local AI mode keeps your terminal activities private

Key Differentiator
Unlike cloud-only tools, Shell Sage:
✅ Runs 100% offline with Ollama/Local AI
✅ Explains why a fix works, not just what to run
✅ Adapts to your workflow (Git/Docker-aware)

Try It If You…

• Forget tar/scp flags regularly
• Want to learn CLI patterns faster
• Prefer privacy-focused AI tools

I really need your help with known Quirks:

• Context-awareness isn’t perfect (e.g., sometimes misses Git/Docker hints)
• Local models can hallucinate (it’s trying its best!)
• Windows support is… a work in progress

GitHub 

Early-stage project – feedback on real-world use cases are really appreciated!

I combined ‘celebrity schedules’ with real accountability. Pillar’s harsh notifications might annoy you, but hey, it works. Let me know if you have any side project tips! https://thepillar.app/

Hello Everyone,

What I'm Planning

I'm writing a guide for new entrepreneurs that covers:

• ✅ Finding ideas from real-world problems
• ✅ Validating those ideas/problems
• ✅ Developing a tech product to solve the problem (leveraging AI)
• ✅ Launching the product
• ✅ Marketing and scaling

I want to open-source this book, similar to how code is shared on GitHub or articles are built on Wikipedia. This way, other entrepreneurs can contribute their experiences and case studies, making it a living, evolving resource.

Why I'm Doing This

I have been an entrepreneur and now work as a product leader in a ~$10B (revenue) tech company, and on the side, I have launched a few apps as side projects. With over 12 years in building and launching products, I want to share what I have learned in a business + tech book that grows with community contributions.

Many existing books focus only on business or tech, but I see a gap for entrepreneurs today who leverage AI to be full-stack business + tech people. I aim to fill that gap.

Feedback Wanted

a) What do you think of this idea?

b) Are there platforms for collaborative book writing? I'm thinking of using GitHub with a website but am open to suggestions.

Would love to hear your thoughts! 🚀

https://spacetranslate.org/

Flask, MongoDb, Jinja.

Hey everyone,

I was tired of manually scrolling through endless job listings and thinking, "There has to be a better way." So I built a tool that lets you post your skills and experience just once by uploading your resume, and then automatically matches you with job opportunities that fit your background.

Here’s what it does:

• Smart Matching: It pulls in your resume details and compares them against a vast database of jobs..
• ATS-Friendly Suggestions: I've done a bunch of study on the ATS system to create a custom cv to each job you apply, increasing your chances to get hired.
• Data-Driven Value: It’s all about leveraging data—both jobs and resumes—to take the hassle out of the job hunt.

it's still very early phase so ANY feedback is valid. There are still some things to improve but I'm happy to hear your opinion!

Here's a demo: https://app.supademo.com/demo/cm6eve3f609r6wabovct1hn43
Here's the app: https://app.jobbyo.ai/

I am building a game-based learning platform mainly focused on Math for elementary school kids. We know how tough it can be to balance screen time, learning, and play, so we’ve added:

✅ Parent Dashboard to track your child's progress 📊
✅ AI Tutor to make tricky math concepts easy to understand 🤖📚
✅ Parental Controls like screen time limits ⏳

But I know that real parenting struggles go beyond just these features. So, I’d love to hear from you!

👉 What are your most significant daily challenges regarding your kid’s learning?
👉 What kind of features would make your life easier as a parent?

I would love to hear your thoughts—your input can shape the platform to be something truly helpful! 😊

Hey everyone! We´re building Otterly, an all-in-one tool designed to make freelancing easier and more organized—handling clients, projects, invoices, and more.

We know there are a ton of freelancer tools out there, but we want to make sure Otterly is useful before continuing. That’s where you come in!

Would anyone be open to testing it for free and sharing some honest feedback?

💡 What’s in it for you?

✔️ Early access to the tool

✔️ A say in shaping something made for freelancers

✔️ Potential free access or perks when we launch

No strings attached—just looking for real feedback from people who freelance! If you're interested, DM me, and I’ll send over the details.

Thanks in advance! 🙌

#Freelancers #BetaTesting #Productivity #FreelanceTools #Otterly

I’m Michał, and I’d like to share with you the journey I went through with my wife and how, thanks to her, we built our first SaaS, PDFBolt.

I’ve been a developer for over 10 years. In 2020, I decided to build a side project to learn all aspects of app development—deployment, authentication, payments, frontend, landing pages, etc. While looking for project ideas, I came across the Indie Hackers community, where I found a simple HTML to PDF API project. The creator mentioned a lot of interest in it and that it was generating revenue. I thought I’d build something similar myself and learn a lot in the process. But it wasn’t easy at all. After working from 9 to 5, it’s hard to spend another few hours in front of the computer in the evening. What about other responsibilities? Groceries, cooking, cleaning, hobbies, spending time with my wife? Still, I tried, very slowly. I had breaks lasting several months, and at one point, due to mental health issues, I practically stopped working on the project altogether.

My wife worked as a physiotherapist but, due to difficulties in her job, decided to switch to IT with my help, starting as a manual tester. She did it very quickly (maybe six months) and immediately found a job. In mid-2024, she started asking about my old project and insisted that we finish it. Thanks to her enthusiasm, we managed to do it very quickly. I focused on the backend, and she, in addition to testing, handled the entire frontend and landing page. Around the same time, we also adopted a dog from a shelter, which added a lot of positive energy to our lives and helped us stay motivated. In early January 2025, we officially launched the project. It’s been a long journey, and we don’t have any customers yet—we don’t even know if we will, as we have no idea about marketing :) But we’ve learned a lot and are already happy with the journey itself.

As for the technical aspects, the app uses:

Backend: Kotlin, Spring Boot, Postgres, Redis

Frontend: React, Next.js, Docusaurus

Auth: Firebase

Hosting: Render (the app is Dockerized)

Cloudflare R2 for file storage

PDFs are generated using Chromium via Playwright.

If you have any questions about the tech stack or anything else, feel free to ask! I’ll be happy to answer. Any feedback or criticism will be greatly appreciated. Thank you! :)

🤩 Close to $1 million collected last year.

👉 Neeto products allow you to accept payments on the free plan with no transaction fees.

💹 Achieved over 87% growth, with 10,327 new accounts/workspaces created.

🗒️ Published 50+ technical blogs on topics like React, Ruby on Rails, Playwright, deployment, and more.

📽️ Saw a 744% increase in YouTube views.

🚀 Launched two new products: NeetoForm, a Typeform/JotForm alternative, and NeetoRecord, a Loom alternative.

Read more about our 2024 milestones and client feedback in our blog: https://www.neeto.com/neeto/blog/neeto-product-metrics-a-look-back-at-2024

Hey there. I'm a developer and create a lot of websites. I used to setup CMSs like sanity and the like, but I always found the setup too annoying. I wanted something that is:

• super easy to set up
• works locally and offline
• doesn't require setting up infrastructure
• allows me to create unlimited projects without per seat/project pricing
• easy to use for non-devs

So I created my own. The setup is ridiculously easy, and it has pay-as-you-go pricing. If anyone wants to check out the website or repository and give me feedback, I would appreciate that!

So I have this voice cloner that has really good results but is extremly slow and expensive to compute. This would definetly not be a free tool like my normal tts service. A 191 character sentence took about 6 minutes to generate. I have to say, I could not tell if the reference or the result was the real one if i did not knew what was what. It would probably cost 0.05-0.1$ to generate this sentence.

Do you think there is any interest in something like this? Should I make it available? I think it is just too expensive for anyone to make real use of it. generating large text would take hours even on a good gpu.

Ever feel stuck doing work you don’t enjoy, but unsure what you truly love?
Or maybe you want to learn something new but don’t know where to start?

I’ve been there. Finding what you're good at and passionate about is hard, and traditional learning paths are slow and frustrating.

That’s why my friends and I decided to build an AI tool: AI Accelerate Learning, which helps you discover your strengths and creates a personalized learning path to achieve your goals—faster.

This is my first post here, and I’d love to hear your thoughts! What challenges do you face in career growth and learning? What is your expectations for this product?

Let’s discuss! 🚀

User Interface

Hi all!

Back in December, i launched BookmarkX - a tool to make the bookmarking feature on twitter/x a little more useful.

Initially built for myself, I realised others may need it too.

Since launching it naturally got 10 sales within the first few weeks but since... nothing.

My question is - how do i market this thing without dropping a whole load of money on ads (especially as the LTV of a custom is so low).

People have said "post about it on Twitter, thats where your customers are!" - but, how can i constantly talk about it on twitter and provide value/insight without coming across as spam or low-value content.

Any advice/insight would be appreciated!

I have an idea for a web game, I have been planning this for a while and have the point system, rules and general display ready. how do I host this or where do I start with the full development cycle.

looking for guidance and any help if you did simple web game development

It's a Pokémon fusion guessing game built with Next.js, PostgreSQL (Prisma), and has 1,000+ registered users. Letting it go since I’m moving on to other things.

Edit:
It’s a completely free game and isn’t making any money.
All the little traction came organically, no paid ads.

Ok, I know... the posted photo looks ridiculous, but bear with me... that's 10-square-meters of surface area, or 2,000 watts of solar using PV solar cells, or 3,000 watts using tandem solar cells.

2,000 watt system

For blueprints, when they are ready visit dartsolar.com

I want to explain why I built this 2,000 watt solar expandable solar roof rack for my Tesla Model Y, and the results I am getting. I promise you it is worth the read. Over a year ago I posed another article on this Reddit channel with my 1,500 watt solar system (here) -- thank you everyone that provided feedback.

After a lot of research, I know this community would enjoy this experimental 2,000 watt solar roof rack. The goal of of my project is to finalize the blueprints of this things so anyone individual could build one or 3D-print parts to repair one -- either for a Tesla, or any other EV. All parts are designed to be easily repaired and replaced.

Vision For 30-to-60 Miles Per Day With Solar

The 2,000 watt solar roof rack (picture above) can charge 25 miles per day to my car (breakdown below). And if I could get my hands on the new commercial tandem solar cells which use Perovskites to increase solar efficiency to 30%, then I'll be able to charge my vehicle 37 miles per day. In 2024 Perovskites solar cells were successfully commercialized by Oxford PV. LONGi is also looking to release their tandem solar cells with Perovskites. I just haven't been able to get my hands on them yet. So in a few years, maybe by 2027, we should be able to charge our electric vehicles 30 to 40 miles per day by just parking them under the sun. In the picture above, the black area is 10-square-meters. With 20% efficient solar cells it generates 2,000 watts. However, using Perovskites, that same surface are would be able to generate 3,000 watts. The custom solar panels I built don't have junction boxes or anything (my diodes are elsewhere), so I can use the full surface are with 182mm solar cells.

Now I live in the souther states (in Los Angeles, CA), but anywhere else in the world a 3,000 watt solar system on an electric light-duty vehicle would be able to provide enough current to charge any EV, or supply enough power for an entire apartment or small home.

Pretty thin from the side. Only one-inch from the glass top.

Aerodynamic Drag

Based on the different prototypes I've built, let's talk about weight and aerodynamic drag. Here is a photo of the 1,000 watt prototype I built earlier this year.

Driving collapsed

That system weights about 90 lbs. That's about 40 lbs for the solar panels, and 50 lbs for the mechanics. Now I get it..., 100 lbs sounds like a lot, but from a weight point of view the extra power needed to roll 100 lbs is minimal. The efficiency difference as far as the weight is concerned, is the same as if you had a kid in the passenger seat vs. not. What really affects the efficiency of the vehicle is the aerodynamic drag that the roof rack creates. That said, the prototype I have is only 1.25-inches tall. The entire structure is really close to the glass roof top (yes, I built my own roof rack). Without a wind breaker and skirt I get 270 wh/mi compared to 250 wh/mi when I drive without it.

The extra power needed due to aerodynamic loss is 20 wh/mi, or an extra 8%. That extra loss means that if you drove 100 miles without the solar roof rack, you would be able to drive 92 miles with the roof rack. That said, very few people drive 100 miles every day. The primary household vehicle in the US drives 50 miles per day, and the secondary household vehicle drives 30 miles per day. So the system is net positive.

Deployment

I know the thing does not look sexy, but remember I am still doing research. It is unsexy but it can be opened fast. The 1,000 watts version can open in 10 seconds, and the 2,000 watts in about 20 seconds -- and you only need one hand to open it (in case your other hand is holding a baby).

Opening with one hand

The expanding solar panels are locked in place with a lot of magnets and a mechanical lock. If you were to be driving at 100 mph and hit the brakes to decelerate to 0 mph in less than 2 seconds, the magnets are still not going to give way. So I drive without the mechanical locks -- I only use the magnetic locks. But I am including a mechanical lock in the blueprints for the people that don't trust magnets.

The solar panels I am using are custom made, the next iteration of the solar panels are going to be fiberglass coated, so that even hail can not break the solar cells in the panel. I am trying to make everything super rugged. The reason the solar panels slide so easily is because I use many custom made aluminum extruded telescopic tubes with ball-bearings, so that the whole thing flows like ice. Also, all the metal is 1/8-inch thick.

Rugged & Tests

When I started building this thing I wanted to make sure the entire solar roof rack could withstand a tornado. After a few tests and simulations I wanted to make sure that if people use this in the event of a disaster, that they could open the solar panels in winds up to 50 mph. So me (black in photo) and Thomas (yellow in the photo) built two prototypes and added weights on a slab of plywood to test our over-engineered telescopic tubes to see at what point do the tubes fail.

Testing load

Long story short, the solar panels that ride on the telescopic tubes can sustain up to 90 lbs of downward weight before failing. That means we have engineered this thing to sustain horizontal winds of up to 80 to 110 mph. We have also added an escape where the rear of the solar panels detach when winds reach 40 mph... when the solar panels detach on one side only they stop working like sails. So the telescopic tubes will never break.

Knowing that wind is no longer an issue when the solar panels are deployed, we moved to other components of the device. The entire frame of the device is build with 1.25 x 1.25 inch square tubes that are 1/8-inch thick. So in a magical way, we were able to attach 2,000 watts of solar (or 10-square-meters) without going over the weight limitation that a Tesla roof has. Overall, we have about 20 tests we do to make sure all our parts can withstand 500 lbs of compression/tension/shear.

Power From Solar to Vehicle (or any tool)

In my previous post many people asked how does the solar current enter the battery. I have researched everything, and the safest way, and the way in which your Tesla's (or any other brand) warranty won't be voided is if use an intermediary power unit. Here I am using an EcoFlow Delta Pro, which too much gun power for this use case. The solar current basically gets stored in a temporary battery in the power uint, and laster you can use the 120 volt, or 240 volt outlet of a power unit to connect your Tesla's charge adapter. The power unit I suggest people use is about 1/3 the size of the one depicted in the screenshot below. Its pretty cool (and weird) seeing the charger cable come out of your car, and charge your car.

Power unit to charge

Tesla Roof Weight Limit

Not sure if you knew this, but your Tesla Model 3 can only hold up to 155 lbs of weight on the roof (Model Y is 165 lbs). So I've engineered this thing so that the 1,000 watt version is about 100 lbs, and the 2,000 watt version will be about 150 lbs. Other EVs have higher roof weight capacities, so carrying 10-square-meters of solar should be fine.

Miles Charged?

Many people ask about the energy losses that occur, and how is it that I think we can charge EVs 60 miles per day with the setup above. To keep things simple let's use a 1,000 watt solar system. After do the math, we can multiple by 2x or 3x to think about a 2,000 watt or 3,000 solar system.

• Start with 1000 watts of solar. The solar manufacturer will claim X watts. But they don't include the losses you get from the coating of the semi-flexible or glass cover. So remove 10%
• Now we have 900 watts. Given the way the sun moves in Los Angeles and most places, a good estimate is to consider than an 8-hour day, will really give you 5-hours of power at 900 watts. So now you have 5 * 900 = 4,500 watt-hours, or 4.5 kWh.
• Using the EcoFlow Delta Pro, when I push 4.5 kWh though it to charge my Model Y, only 3 kWh ends in my Tesla's battery. Why is that? Because the solar current comes in DC, and the Tesla can only accept power in AC, later the Tesla converts the power to DC to charge its own batteries. That double conversion causes a 25% loss.
• Any genius would say, hey! hey! Why don't you charge the Tesla with DC? That's because even if I could, Tesla will heat the batteries and do other things to prepare its batteries to receive high-current (supercharge Level 3) levels of power. Currently EVs are not equipped to receive soft drip solar power. That was never the vision for EVs, but today that is possible as solar cell technology has advanced dramatically.
• Tesla claims 250 watt-hours per mile. So 3,000 watt-hours / 250 gives me the miles I get -- 12 miles. I've also tested this in real life. If I could charge by Tesla's batteries directly (and void my warranty, or if Tesla allowed for this) I would be able to get 16 miles! I write 16 miles and not 18 miles because there is still a 10% loss when transferring current battery to battery.
• So now let's 2x or 3x it:

• So there you have it, real numbers using solar in Los Angeles sometime in September. Some regions in the world will give you even more miles (Chile, Australia, Ecuador, etc.), other places will give you less miles. The fluctuation based on region and weather is +/- 30% (give or take).
• The numbers above don't include the savings one gets from the shade the solar provides. It drastically reduces your "Cabin Overheat" AC power used -- if you have it turned on.

Researching

As I've embarked on this project I've received A LOT of interest from non-Tesla users, specially van and truck users. Ultimately, this entire project was started to help people use solar to charge their EVs, so when we release the blueprints to this thing, I want to make sure that it can work on any vehicle.

As such, here is my self-less plug. I need your help. Based on your questions and concerns I can break from my tunnel-vision and hear from others what they think of this project. I call this project DartSolar, and it has received some press (if you Google it you'll find it) but I want to learn more about how this project can continue. Are there needs that you feel I am not addressing. Are there questions, concerns, am I doing something useless? To end this article and $200k research endeavor, I leave you with the most artistic photo of the 1,000 watt prototype.

Last photo

Thank you all, and I'll be online for the next few days trying to answer any comments and learn as much as possible.

I made a fun tool that calculates the distance covered by your cursor.

Here check it out - https://www.stilest.com/cursome

( PLEASE USE DESKTOP )

Hope you have fun!