Hi, long time lurker, first time poster. I am building an application (very slowly as I am not a programmer by trade). Therefore, I am wanting to bring on a co-founder that can act as the CTO/ developer to help build the application.

I wanted to get advice from entrepreneurs that successfully found a cofounder (after starting a venture) that they had a good report with and were able to launch/ grow. How did you find your co founder? What process did you go through to ensure they would be a right fit? What kinds of questions did you ask? And lastly how you protected your idea from potential cofounders you turned down?

What “keeps me up at night “ is meeting someone that either takes my idea and tries to replicate it or finding someone that doesn’t have the same passion.

Thanks

Hi everyone!

We’ve developed a conversational LLM that’s flexible and can be tailored to specific industries to help streamline workflows and boost efficiency. It can really reduce the time spent on research, enhance the customer experience, and make company websites more user-friendly.

We’d love to connect and explore whether this could be useful for your organisation. We specialize in sectors like Education, Law, Finance, HR, Operations, and Logistics, but we’re happy to dive deeper into any other domain you might be working in.

If you’re interested, let’s chat and see if we can work together to make your processes even more efficient.

We’re a team of 50, based in Noida (Sec-125), India. Looking forward to connecting!

Thanks!

I have a partnership firm providing Gen AI solutions and services for enterprises. We are currently exploring potential customers in middle-east, EU, US. Looking for someone with experience and connects in tech sales. We are bootstrapped and have a team of experienced data science professionals with masters from premier universities in India.
We have in mind a finder's fee/commission of 10% for the sale(negotiable). We are expecting enterprise clients with good deal value.
Please DM me if interested or let me know in the comments if you have any sugesstions.

Hello guys,

We are building open source agent evaluation platform (devtool) and will be launching MVP to couple of alpha users next week. We have struggled in idea maze for multiple months, built couple of mvps, did product hunt launch of another product to see the people's experiment till we reached to this.

Now we have couple of companies(Series A+) in our waitlist who are waiting. We also got in techstars but after speaking with a lot of founders around us - we decided to not go ahead with them.

We are looking for advisors now or mentors who can guide us with what all things should be prioritized, maybe help us with some connections for angel checks, or some possible customer intros. How exactly to find them? I see many people having advisors like Nat friedman, Guillermo Rauch or sometimes even Naval - apart from network what is the way to have them onboard?

One con which we have is we both are not in early 20s, we both are late 20s but have FAANG and IVY backing if that helps in anyway. Is cold outreach a good way to have advisors? What exactly to ping them? We cold messaged 2-3 people (Zooms CEO etc) - they checked the message but never replied- Pretty okay with it but want to see if that is the idea match as its more of vibe based instead of transactional way like most of the customers cold out reach is.

Looking at YC RFS.. it seems more like next week's weather report.. than a carefully thought vision for next ten years

Last year it was about spatial computing (rebranding for metaverse) but the apple vision pro flopped

This year it's ai agents.. rebranding for chatgpt wrappers..

They didn't really sit down for weeks to prepare this RFS not even hours.. probably had a few shots together, and prepared it next morning with hangover using chatgp in two hours.

Let me tell you why this idea sucks... Truth is it is inspired from Google and Apple app store (obviously).. the first problem is this idea again falls in to the category.. like Uber for bikes

Now the core issue with this horrible idea

everyone hates Google and Apple.. they have sucked a lot of blood of developers and companies.. 30 pc commission.. No one likes that.. no developer will want to pay that much. Then why are they paying that much? Because their app is running on apples hardware.. they can't do much. Same with Google, it's their OS

What about the "ai app store"? Will it run on the hardware of yc startup? What's the hardware for ai models? Nvidia GPU.. they are the owners. They can make such app store

If Nvidia wanted, they could make a lot more money by charging a subscription model for using cuda.. if Facebook wanted, they could have made money from pytorch.. made it gpl 3 license.

They didn't.. they wanted ai to grow. I can't go into the details why they didn't do that as that's out of scope.

But the nutshell is don't make AI App store . You have no moat. Unless of course you want to make it absolutely free.. that's not a profitable business.

Not to mention apple and Google are fighting hard in courts to continue this commission model

Perhaps the only smart way to use yc marketing materials nowadays is to do exactly the opposite.

Hey guys, this is actually my first time writing something in Reddit lmao. Been using Reddit for 2y.

Im looking for a potential CTO/co founder to build together a super app marketplace (i will give more details privately). Ideally my future CTO should be from Europe, but I do not care anymore, i just want someone ambitious but a good person, with good programming skills/full stack and that wants to embark on a new adventure that could potentially change people lives.

Im a great sales/business person but lack technical skills, although I have some notions.

If you can’t be a CTO I would very grateful if you could present me someone that you know.

Thank you all for the help.

Hello Reddit!

I’m working on an innovative FinTech startup called WealthMe, and we’re looking for a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to join our mission. We’re at an exciting stage, and we need a technical leader who can help us bring our vision to life.

About WealthMe:

WealthMe is focused on personal finance management, leveraging advanced AI to provide tailored solutions for consumers, helping them navigate financial products like investments, insurance, and loans. Our goal is to make financial decision-making smarter, more intuitive, and accessible.

We’re building AI-driven tools that analyze financial data and trends, making complex decisions easier for everyday users. We’re focused on delivering personalized experiences while ensuring compliance and oversight in the financial sector.

What We’re Looking For:

•	Experience in AI, Machine Learning, and FinTech
•	Strong background in cloud infrastructure, data architecture, and AI tools
•	Expertise in product development and scaling tech for consumer-facing platforms
•	Ability to work in a collaborative environment and lead a tech team

We’re a mission-driven team aiming to disrupt personal finance in a positive way. If you’re passionate about building something meaningful and have experience in scaling AI-driven solutions in FinTech, we’d love to connect.

Why Join Us?

•	Impactful work in the ever-growing FinTech space
•	Opportunity to shape the future of finance with cutting-edge AI technology
•	Be part of a passionate, creative, and goal-driven team
•	Competitive compensation with equity options

If this sounds like the right fit for you, please reach out via DM or comment below. Looking forward to connecting!

P.S. This startup is based in India but it has global applications. Open to share more details to interested individuals.

I run a small SaaS (~$6k MRR) and lately, I’ve been getting stuck in my head instead of hitting my growth goals ($10k MRR).

I tried using ChatGPT for accountability, but I think I need a real person to check in with.

I compete in crossfit and when I hired a crossfit coach, I had the most progress I've ever had in my life. He setups the plan and I execute. We meet weekly to track progress. I want that same structure for my business.

I’m super disciplined (Asian, so I always do my homework/work). but I need help with direction and someone to talk things through when things don’t go as planned.

Looking for someone more on the affordable side! (I'm asian..). I will not promote

Hi.

Long-time lurker, first-time poster. I'm looking to jump into the startup world and I'm hoping someone here can offer an opportunity. I'm based in Los Angeles and open to remote work (or in-person if you're local).

Basically, I'm craving the startup experience. I want to be part of a team building something from the ground up, from the initial hustle to (hopefully) explosive growth. I'm at a point in my career where I'm prioritizing learning and gaining hands-on experience over immediate compensation. So, for the right opportunity, I'm willing to work initially without pay.

My background is a bit of a mixed bag. I'm an English major with a strong writing background (freelance website copywriter on the side). I've also been teaching myself to code (front-end and back-end) for the past two years and I'm constantly learning. And here's the kicker: I'm a sales machine. I've been working in the automotive industry for 10 years (ironically, I hate cars) and consistently sell over $50k a month in services. So, I know how to connect with people and close deals.

Why am I doing this? I'm honestly just burnt out on the automotive world. I'm looking for a career change and I'm passionate about tech and building things. I think startups are where the real innovation is happening, and I want to be a part of it.

I'm flexible and willing to help out with pretty much anything – writing, coding, customer support, operations, sales… you name it. I'm a quick learner and I'm not afraid to wear multiple hats.

I'm not expecting a handout. I genuinely want to contribute and learn. If things go well, we can definitely talk about compensation down the line. But for now, I'm just looking for a chance to prove myself.

Okay, so, startup job. Free. I can write, code, sell. Cars are terrible. Startups... hopefully less terrible. So, yeah. Hit me up. Or don't. Up to you. Thanks.

A few closer friends and I were talking about starting a collaboration from our extra saving to establish a business to work on a few projects like VC into startups and stock market trading. I can’t think of how to start looking into defining it whether it’s private equity, or crowdfunding. We want ti do the searching for the investments ourselves but not sure about the paperwork and legal work. Any advice? I will not promote our work here since this is a closed circle work. Thanks

Actually I wanted to share about the work I am doing. But it may look like I am promoting.

Hence, I just took a step back.

For me, right now I feel like everything I post can look like promoting something or other other

Even a genuine question regarding my new startup idea may look like promoting something become I should give a background in first place to ask the question.

So, I am not sure. What has to be done in such cases.

Kindly suggest.

But for sure I want to comply with " I will not promote" motion.

So apparently links are banned. But anyway someone posted this idea (they called "Youtube layer app") in r/AppIdeas about creating a better YouTube client or platform that discourages certain undesirable things (notably clickbait, AI videos, etc.)

I had some back of the napkin technical concerns but personally—if such weren’t a problem—I’m kinda curious about this as a business model. 

IMO I think big tech companies are too fixated on algorithmically driven [everything] as opposed to community curated content. Also in a way, algorithmically driven [everything] can be too much at times. (As a Utahn I think Mormons have even talked about this in general conference.)

More generally, imagine a startup that markets itself as an algorithmically-free content consumption platform. How would you design such a business model? 

I will not promote

I'm a dev. I hadn't realized this till I had a member who did both. She realized a point of improvement by looking at the posthog session replay of one user. She saw them struggling to use a certain part of the site, because it was unintuitive.

She proposed a solution to me and I agreed. She wrote up the ticket, created a simple figma design to show where to place the new button, explained the functionality, and handed it off to a dev. That got implemented 2 weeks ago, and has since been a useful, meaningful feature since. Minimal oversight from me which was nice. My hands are already full.

Unfortunately she left since, but I realized the value of such a person. Every technical cofounder needs such a teammate.

p.s.: We are in beta, getting feedback from users, and work is in full swing. I am still looking for a replacement, dm's are open.

Background:

I am a phd student, about to gradaute. Based in houston, TX. Last month I just created a website which allows users to select an AI Model to chat with and then once the AI Model responds, the user can use any other model of their choice to critique the original response and refine it. I have made a website on it and now i am calling it my startup. i feel there is no competition to it. But the problem is I am not sure how to proceed. It will be ultimately a subscription based service where for free tier users can bring in their own APIs but for higher limits they can pay us and we will provide them enough token.

Use case:

A use case is lets say you ask ChatGPT how many "r's" in a strawberry, It says 2. But then the critique would check the response for correctness and would be able to identify thats wrong and provide the correct response which in this case would be 3 "r's". The reason I made this website is because I find lot of incorrect responses when using AI models. In cases where I have the domain knowledge I can easily point that out and correct it, but in cases where i do not, there is no way to find out if the response is factually correct or not.

Final Thoughts:

Reading online makes me think one needs to have a very strong network to pull off such startups. I am an introvert kind of person. I can apply online for funding etc but finding people, meeting high profile investor seems to be daunting for me. I am also not sure how to get first 10-100 users. Should I pursue this startup or just sell the website on platforms like flippa? I will not promote.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking to collaborate with a startup as a software engineer, ideally with a team that’s building something from the ground up. I’m eager to gain more hands-on experience in dynamic environments, contributing from the early development stages through growth and scaling.

I’m a freelance software engineer currently and I’m set to graduate next June, but I’m actively seeking a part-time job or internship to continue learning and growing. I’ve applied to many companies through Y Combinator, but I haven’t received any responses as most of them require at least one year of experience.

In terms of compensation, I understand that early-stage startups might have budget constraints, so I’m flexible. My main goal is to relocate to Europe or America, contribute meaningfully, and learn alongside a passionate team.

What do you suggest I should do to improve my chances of finding such opportunities? If you can help, I’d greatly appreciate it.

i will not promote

Hi everyone,

I’m looking to work with a startup, ideally a team that’s building something from the ground up. I really want to gain hands-on experience and see what it’s like behind the scenes—from the early hustle to the growth stages.

I’m an English teacher (26F) living and working in South Korea, and I’m open to working remotely. To be honest, I don’t have any specific skills to market myself with at the moment, but I’m hoping to find someone willing to give me an opportunity—just so I can see what it’s like to work with startups.

I have a degree and last year I started my own online business , but it didn’t work out. I think part of the reason I’m looking for this kind of opportunity now is because I want to be around people who are actively building something and learn from that environment. I’m also just not satisfied with the path I’m on (teaching English) and I was thinking that working with a startup could be a great way to explore something different.

If you’re looking for someone to help out with small tasks like operations, customer support, or anything else that needs an extra hand, I’d love to be involved. I know that startups require flexibility, so I’m open to taking on different roles and learning as I go.

In terms of compensation, I am looking to be paid for my work, though I understand that early-stage startups may have limited budgets. Since I already have a full-time job, this wouldn’t be my primary source of income, so I’m flexible in terms of what’s offered. Please DM me if you’re interested.

I have built a fairly functional web version of my collaboration project, but i don’t know how to build mobile apps. Are there AI tools that I can use to “convert “web apps/websites to mobile apps?

This is my first real buildout, would you recommend even building the mobile apps at this stage?

I’ve built an AI problem finder on Reddit. I struggled to find pain points and saw a lot of relevant posts on Reddit. So decided to try an AI search here is the output:

• AI tool for summarizing and proofreading documents
• AI agent reaching out restaurants and hotel owners to connected them with tech solutions
• AI based prediction for climate change
• Figma plugin for localization workflow simplification
• AI form generation tool

What do you think of these ideas?

Hi people,

I know everyone is frustrated these days with product hunt and that's why I decided to build an alternative. I want to create something that people will actually like and use everyday. I will not promote. Thus I would like your help in few questions:

What are your main pain points when launching a product?

What would make you more likely use an alternative?

would you pay for this alternative and how much?

Thanks a lot in advance and I really appreciate the help here ❤️

Hi All, I am living in germany and looking for technical cofounder who has solid software engineer skills and experience. I am working on idea on prem AI assistant for a specialised domain. My background is ML and NLP. I have a phd and 10 years working experince. I can code but project requires more advanced software skills. I will not promote

I've been curious about what exactly a data company does. Does anyone here have experience starting a data analysis or data science company? I’d love to hear about your journey and get some insights into how these businesses operate. Any advice or stories you can share would be really helpful!

I got my co-founder to join my startup a year ago by offering him equity vested over 2 years with promise of a salary in the future. He was working another full time job at the time. About six months ago, I was able to start paying him a full time salary and he quit his other job. His salary is still lower than market value.

We are now trying to raise a round and we were sent term sheets from a VC, that is asking us to sign a hard lockup (both of us "vesting" over 5 years, and we have to work for the company as our main job, or else the VC can buy our "unvested" stocks from us for like 0,1% of the value).

I wasn't expecting this (newbie), but a locking us to the company makes sense. I still want to protect my company though, especially since it still feels weird and new to even expect a pay/salary (I am currently working another part time job while giving myself a part time salary from the company).

Does anyone have any input on what to write in lockup terms that would allow us to a) get more if we left and b) guarantee a certain pay, at least long term, in order for us to be that locked up. I definitely understand why my co-founder would want to get a better paid job in 3-4 years if I'm not able to get his salary up to a decent level, and I feel like his work so far should be valued - these new term sheets means that he would get nothing at all if he left now, not even the stocks he bought himself separate from him working for the company (he joined the last round). As for myself, I know I will be paid last so if I can't afford to give myself a salary in order to keep the company afloat, I don't want to lose ownership of my company by getting another part time job.

Hello everyone,

I recently joined a 3-year-old startup in a "leadership" role and would need some advice. Before I came on board, the company had already raised some funding and closed last year with a bit more than half a million in revenue.

Currently the operational team consists of three people: one co-founder, a sales rep and myself.

There are two other co-founders but they are employed elsewhere and contribute part-time. Since they don’t get a salary, they could be seen as very hands-on advisors, I guess. They bring valuable resources and ideas to the company and have shaped its strategy from the start. One focuses primarily on fundraising and investor relations, while the other handles product development, marketing initiatives, and some administrative and accounting tasks.

My role is quite broad but the main responsibilities are:

• Expanding into a new region and driving revenue growth there, including building and maintaining relationships with clients and partners
• Launching and managing wholesale distribution
• Leading a PoC in another country, including planning and some of the execution (we plan to hire one FTE to focus on sales there)
• Improving the overall internal infrastructure, like CRM, reporting processes,...
• Accounting and admin stuff
• Representing the company at industry events
• Supporting fundraising efforts
• Shaping or helping to shape the company culture

I’m excited about the challenges but this is the first time I have such a broad range of responsibilities. What advice would you give someone stepping into this role? The business is very operation intensive and some days I can't do anything else than that, leaving me feeling like I am making no progress on the thousand other projects I have.

I’d also appreciate some insights on my compensation. I get $75K/year plus 4% options for non-voting shares with a 3-year vesting period. Based on my responsibilities and the stage of the company would you say this is competitive? Happy to hear any thoughts or comparison to similar roles.

Thanks for any advice or experience you can share!

I will not promote.

I'm looking for book recommendations that have genuinely helped founders in their entrepreneurial journey. I'm particularly interested in books that cover various aspects of business strategy, fundraising, and scaling. Whether it's something recent or classic, I'd love to hear what books people here recommend. Preferably ones that provided practical insights rather than just theoretical concepts.

After building several unsuccessful software products, I think I finally hit PMF (Product-Market Fit)! Seeing more and more positive feedback from users has been an incredible feeling. AI-generated UI design & prototyping, a tool that helps generate UI and prototypes automatically with AI.

But before it, I built a user behavior recording & analysis tool, and… well, it flopped. 😅 The idea was to use AI to analyze user behavior and extract meaningful insights. But we quickly ran into major limitations:

• AI can’t watch videos – It could only process logs, making insights from session replays nearly impossible.

• LLM context windows are limited – We couldn’t process large-scale user behavior data in one go, making it hard to provide useful, actionable insights.

• Only two paying users – And I suspect they were just paying for the basic session recording & playback, not the AI-driven insights we envisioned.

Key Lessons Learned:

1. Ship an MVP to real users ASAP – Don’t overthink it. Get your core AI-powered feature in front of the earliest possible target users, even if it’s rough.
2. Focus on the core AI value, not legacy features – Just because you’ve already built something doesn’t mean it deserves to stay. Cut anything that doesn’t serve your AI’s core purpose.
3. Charge from day one – If people aren’t willing to pay immediately, you might not have PMF. Pricing is a test of real demand, and waiting too long to introduce it is a mistake.

With ​new product, we took these lessons to heart and built an AI-native workflow rather than just bolting AI onto an existing process. This shift has made all the difference.

Would love to hear from other founders—what are the biggest lessons you’ve learned from failed products? 🚀🚀

I've been working with a hardware startup for almost 1.5 years, starting from when it was my capstone project in college at the beginning of '23.

Since this time, I've been putting in 10-20 hours/week handling:

• All PCB design & firmware development
• Driver development and debugging
• Hardware/software integration, protocol design
• Technical presentations and discussions with investors
• Coordination with mechanical engineering teams

Compensation has been slippery throughout this time, with a stipend originally discussed, but after a few months of back-and-forth, we decided on equity. It's a small percentage, some of which is milestone based, up to 2.5% of the current pool.

Currently I'm the only engineer with comprehensive knowledge of our technical stack. I started fresh out of college, so initially I was happy for the experience, but now I'm wondering if I've been undervalued.

I'm primarily wondering the following: is working purely for equity normal in early-stage hardware startups?

Looking for perspective from others in the tech startup space.

Hi all! This equity grant feels low to me, but I want to sanity-check that with others who know the market better.

Offer Details:

• ~$100K base salary
• $40K commission (can go up to $60K OTE)
• Equity grant of ~$10K vesting over 4 years
• Series A startup – recently raised, valuation in the eight to nine-figure range
• First hire in implementation – very project management-heavy, currently handled by CSM

The cash side I can make work I think, but the equity feels very low if this is a place I want to stay for 1+ years. From what I’ve seen, similar roles at this stage typically get 0.05%–0.2% – mine looks closer to 0.01%–0.02%.

I really like the company and the role, but this would be a big pay cut from my current consulting job (4 YOE). Is this standard for post-Series A, or should I push for more? If so, what’s the best angle – higher equity, better commission structure, or something else?

Would love to hear from others who’ve negotiated startup offers! [I will not promote]

As a college student I am learning data science. But to upgrade myself I have to join startups for gaining some experiences before joining a company . I want some tips and tricks how to find and join startups can someone help me please.

Currently I am doing Data science and Machine Learning and i came to know that if i will join some startups it will be good push to career and portfolio as well and also gained some experience . Can anybody will help how to get in

I’m 24 and founded a robotics startup 2 years ago. Have raised $35k from investors with $400k committed for our next round closing this month. I have contracted engineers, advisors, and someone who I have already planned on making the CEO for a while.

Last month, I thought of a new idea in music tech and was able to raise $20k already by just putting some feelers out. Through my cofounder, I have the opportunity to work with some big people in the music industry as well, which is something I’m really interested in since im also a musician.

Advice for pursuing both? The investors behind these ideas know I am splitting my focus already, so it’s nice that they support me but I know delegation will be a huge factor.

🤔 Fellow PMs! Built something to make data analysis actually make sense...

Ever stare at your data thinking "Cool... now what am I looking at?"

Here's the idea: Instead of throwing charts at you, this tool plays "20 Questions" with your data to get to exactly what you need to know.

How it works:

1. Upload your data (from anywhere - Mixpanel, GA, spreadsheets, whatever)

2. Tool asks smart follow-up questions like:

   • "Seeing lots of user activity. Want to focus on new users or power users?"
   • "Noticing some patterns in feature adoption. Interested in drop-offs or success paths?"
   • "Several time periods available. Last quarter or year-to-date?"

3. After 4-5 questions → Boom! You get:

   • Relevant charts (ready for your deck)
   • Key metrics that matter
   • Actual insights you can use

No more "which chart should I use?" moments. No more puzzling over what metrics matter. Just guided exploration to exactly what you need to know.

Quick question for you all: How do you currently narrow down what's important in your data? Would this questioning approach help?

Let me know what you think! 👇

I will not promote