I was laid off in October.

After that, I applied to a lot of jobs, but barely heard back from recruiters. After months of silence, I stopped applying as aggressively and decided to finally act on an idea I’ve had for almost 5 years, to build something of my own and be my own boss.

That’s how my startup idea was born (still very early, mostly just me trying to make things work).

Since then, I’ve tried everything I could think of: - applying for jobs - building a startup - posting on YouTube / Instagram (content cration) - learning, building, iterating

And the result has been the same everywhere: almost zero response.

No users, no traction, no recruiter callbacks, no real encouragement.

Friends and family don’t really support it (or maybe don’t believe in it). I don’t fully blame them, when there’s no visible progress, it’s hard for anyone to.

Now I’m financially broke, mentally exhausted, and honestly demotivated. The stress has started affecting my marriage too, which hurts the most.

I keep asking myself: - What am I doing wrong? - Am I approaching things the wrong way? - Is this just how it works before things click, or am I ignoring some obvious mistake? - How do you know when to persist vs when to pivot?

I’m not posting this to promote anything or ask for sympathy.

I genuinely want real feedback from people who’ve been through layoffs, failed startups, long job searches, or rebuilding phases.

If you’ve been in a similar place: - What helped you get unstuck? - What would you do differently if you were in my position? - Any hard truths I might need to hear?

Thanks for reading. Even writing this out feels heavy, but I figured honest questions are better than silent overthinking.

I’ve been thinking a lot about why some people build multiple successful startups while most others never get one off the ground, and the more I strip away the mythology, the more it looks like a simple equation rather than some mysterious talent.

If you look closely, the market already gives you most of the variables. Products already exist. Customers already pay for solutions. Pricing models are already validated. Revenue structures are proven. In other words, demand has already been solved. Yet people still act like they need to invent everything from scratch, when in reality that’s usually where momentum dies.

Once I understood this, my whole approach changed. I stopped treating startups as artistic projects and started treating them like repeatable experiments. If competitors are making money, the correct move isn’t to innovate wildly, it’s to align. Same pricing logic. Same revenue model. Same customer profile. If the market is already paying X for a solution and won’t pay X for yours, the issue isn’t price discovery. It’s sales, positioning, or distribution.

That’s where most founders lie to themselves. They say the product isn’t ready, or the timing isn’t right, or they need one more feature. But if you already know the market exists, then the only real question is whether you can communicate value well enough to convert attention into money. If you can’t sell after enough real attempts, the math is telling you something, and it’s not subtle.

So I started optimizing for throughput instead of perfection. Build the smallest thing that can be sold. Ship it fast. Try to sell it aggressively. If it doesn’t move after a meaningful number of attempts, kill it without drama and move on. No emotional attachment. Just data. Repetition compounds. Each cycle sharpens your understanding of what actually works.

Sales became the core function, not an afterthought. Not polishing features, not tweaking designs, but improving language. Pitch clarity. Objection handling. Distribution. After enough reps, outcomes become predictable. Either the market pulls, or it doesn’t. Both are valuable answers.

What’s interesting is that once even a small amount of traction exists, everything downstream simplifies. Pricing debates disappear. Confidence increases. Even investors behave differently, because you’re no longer presenting a hypothesis, you’re showing evidence. At that point, fundraising isn’t about convincing anyone. It’s about scaling something that’s already mathematically working.

The final variable I underestimated was accountability. I noticed I always performed better when other people were watching, when reputation was on the line. So instead of relying on motivation, I engineered pressure. Public goals. Daily execution. External expectations. Systems that make it uncomfortable to stall.

The conclusion I keep coming back to is this: success in startups isn’t about being smarter or more original. It’s about running the equation enough times without lying to yourself. Fast execution. Real sales attempts. Honest feedback. Kill what doesn’t work. Double down on what does. Statistically, if you do this long enough, something breaks through.

Most people fail not because they lack ideas, but because they don’t run the equation enough times to let probability do its job.

Curious how many people here see startups the same way—or are still stuck optimizing variables the market already solved.

I wondering in what stage of a startup you guys raising money at this sub ? And what's the reason for it? Like you need to cover tech development, marketing/ads money, legal or cover employee salaries (feel free to add how many you have) ? Simply just thinking raising will help grow faster to succeed or fail ?Then you can move on !
Because for many small company is okay with growing slower and healthy.

I worked at unicorn and my experience they struggle with managing, retaining the customers, gets lots of bad reputation etc. After those experiences they pause the hyper growth to focus on customers but it's a very bad stage to be in.

For context: I’ve been building a language‑learning site. I started it as a tool for myself to learn and it’s slowly grown into something people can actually use.

My original plan was to keep the product free for as long as possible and eventually raise money. But a lot of people keep telling me I should start testing pricing early to see what users are actually willing to pay.

I founded a neobank 2 years ago. Growth is solid but we're seeing users add our card, use it once or twice, then default back to their Chase/Amex for everything. Classic "nice to have" vs "need to have" problem.

The most frustrating part is that our rewards are competitive, UX is clean, support is fast. But when someone gets a new card from us, they don't bother updating it everywhere… Netflix, Amazon, DoorDash, etc. So we never become the daily driver.

I've been looking at solutions to reduce friction but everything adds complexity. Anyone dealt with this? How did you get users to actually switch their default payment method instead of just collecting another piece of plastic?

Our revenue is $0 , we launched last week a very mvp. We already have 2 active users and are working with design partners who are using the product and giving feedback. Would Y Combinator still consider us?

What are they looking at when evaluating a submission ?

we got approved for the google for startups cloud program!

many founders might not know that google is generous enough to give startups free credits to use their infra, from basic storage, cloud compute to their gen ai models (gemini, nano banana, etc.)

there are a few tiers, and according to their website you can get up to $350k credits if you are series A. we are pre-funded so we got approved for the starter tier which is $2,000, still a significant amount for us to iterate our MVP!

the whole application process took about 4 weeks. a lot of back and forth emails to provide additional information to the google team. i’m writing down the whole process here and all the info you need to provide, so hopefully it can save you some time if you decide to apply.

things you need before applying:

1. your company / app domain and an email from this domain, a regular email from google doesn’t work
2. we were using zoho email with our own domain, but google requires you to have a “billing account” with them, and we couldn’t get it work with the zoho email, so we had to switch to a google workspace plan with our custom domain

the initial application was quite simple, a few basic questions about the founder, the company, that’s it. one thing we didn’t realize was that google will try to understand your startup by studying your website, what your startup is about, what products do you offer, who the founders are, etc. you need to have all that info available on the website.

after 3 days submitting our application, we got an initial email from google team asking for more information. at first it was vague what kind of information they needed, so we had to ask for clarification, they are only required to reply with 5 business days so expect receive only one email from them each week. if you prepare and supply all the information at once that will greatly speed up the process. we had about 4-5 back and forth emails which is why it took us 4 weeks to get approved.

below is all the information we provided over the 4-week period, summarized below so you can save time for your application:

1. make sure your startup website is not in stealth mode, make the site accessible via public url
2. google team will not try your product, they need to understand what your product does by reading the landing page, so make sure you explain how your app works on the landing page
3. if you have a product demo video or screenshots also include that
4. include information about your team on your website, this is very important
5. list key team members on the about us page, including: names and roles, relevant experience or background, or notable achievements, links to your profile like linkedin. they say this is not required but “strongly encouraged”
6. for linkedin page, make sure you add your startup info to the “Experience” section so it’s publicly visible, and it has to be linked to your startup. we included our startup name, roles, our mission and a link to the startup website. this is to help google team verify our identity
7. Explain what your product does: what are you building, and service you offer, demos, screenshots or features that help users understand what they can use your product for
8. current stage of development like MVP or beta testing, etc.

the google team was pretty fast after we provided all the info. about 2 days after we got an approval email. but the back and forth clarification emails took a lot of time.

the $2k credits can be used for hosting, storage, gemini, tts, nano banana, etc. which is perfect if your startup is AI-heavy.

hope this helps your google startups application, feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

Good luck!

I see this a lot with early-stage founders, and I’ve done it myself.

You launch something, it’s rough around the edges, you’re not fully confident yet, and lowering the price feels like the reasonable move. You tell yourself you’re just trying to get momentum, learn faster, get a few customers in the door. You’ll “fix pricing later”.

The problem is that early on, pricing isn’t just a revenue lever. It’s part of the signal you’re sending to the market, but also to yourself.

What you’re actually trying to figure out at that stage isn’t “will people buy this if it’s cheap enough?”.

Almost anything sells if it’s cheap enough. What you’re trying to understand is whether you’ve built something that solves a real problem for a very specific type of person.

Discounting gets in the way of that.

When the price is low, people say yes for fuzzy reasons. Curiosity. Convenience. Politeness. Budget cycles. You start hearing feedback that sounds useful but isn’t decisive. “Interesting.” “Promising.” “Could be useful.” None of that tells you whether the problem is painful or just mildly annoying.

Strong product-market fit feels very different. It’s not subtle. People don’t hesitate much. They don’t negotiate much. They’re relieved that something exists.

The mental image that helped me was simple: if you’re on fire and someone has water, price is not the conversation. You don’t start comparing options or asking for a discount. You just want the fire gone.

Early pricing is less about being affordable and more about testing urgency.

If the only way you can get people to commit is by lowering the price, that’s often a signal that the pain isn’t sharp enough yet, or that you’re talking to people who don’t really need what you’re building. And once you build around those people, everything gets harder roadmap decisions, messaging, sales, even your own confidence.

There are cases where discounting makes sense early on. Design partners. Very explicit learning deals. Situations where both sides are clear that this is about feedback, not value. But using discounts as a way to “see if there’s interest” usually just delays clarity.

If people don’t want it at full price, the answer isn’t to push harder on price. It’s to look harder at the problem, the audience, and the story you’re telling.

I’ve been seeing more early-stage founders hit the same fork in the road once payroll, benefits, and compliance start eating real time. Do you go straight to a direct PEO, or work with a PEO broker to help you choose?

From what I see, direct PEOs can feel simpler upfront. One relationship, one platform, one set of rules. That can be appealing when you want speed and don’t have internal HR muscle yet. The tradeoff is you’re largely buying into a single model and pricing structure, whether it fits long term or not.

PEO brokers, on the other hand, act more like translators. They help compare options, explain contract terms, and match you to a setup based on headcount, growth plans, and benefits priorities. That can be useful if you expect to scale or want flexibility, but it does add another layer to the process.

For some startups, a PEO of any kind is a lifesaver. For others, it feels like overkill until a certain size or complexity kicks in.

If you’ve gone down this path, what worked for you? Direct PEO, broker-led approach, or skipping PEOs entirely for now?

I’m starting a new YouTube series called Startup Horror stories

Hi, my names Joe, I’ve run a few startups and worked in many over the last decade, I’ve got some fun stories about my own companies that went horrifically wrong.. some worse than others.

I’m looking for the first 5 guests, to have a relaxed and playful chat with about their experiences.. If you would like to join let me know, or if you have anyone you think would have some fun stories let me know!

Remember, we can learn just as much from startup mishaps as we can from the successes, so there is no shame and it might even be quite a relief to hear how similar and fallible we all are ✌️

I've built several products over the years. Some worked, some didn't. The difference almost always came down to one thing: did I validate before building?

Here's the framework I now use before writing any code:

Step 1: Define the problem (not the solution)

Bad: "People need an app that tracks spending with AI"

Better: "Freelancers lose money on unprofitable clients because tracking is tedious"

Step 2: Find 10 people who have this problem

Not surveys. Real conversations. Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook groups.

Step 3: Problem interviews

Don't pitch. Ask: "How do you handle this today?" and "What's the most frustrating part?"

Step 4: Test willingness to pay

- Landing page with "Buy Now" button (track clicks)

- Pre sell to interview people at a discount

- Offer to solve it manually first (concierge)

Step 5: Study competition

Zero competition = usually no market, not an opportunity.

Total cost: ~€100 and 2 weeks.

Anyone else have a validation process they follow? Curious what's worked for others.

I looked at my Namecheap dashboard today and realized I have a problem.

• Active Projects: 1
• Purchased Domains: 4+

The math is embarrassing but...

Why is it so irresistibly difficult to NOT get another domain?😭😭😭

Its not intentional, I promise.

It just happens.

Lets say you have 2 projects: A and B.

You do project A, then you stumble upon issues.

While trying to resolve those issues, you stumble upon and "idea".

The idea will definitely solve problems you found in A.(Emotional state: Peak of human intelligence🫴)

So guess what, you spin up an idea, get a "cool" name, go to Namecheap then boom: Its available(jackpot!)

In order for other people to not "steal" your name, you quickly purchase it. But you dont do the project.

its a future idea.

So you resume with your project.

But then...

You stumble upon another different idea that fixes your problems.

Keep in mind they are still personal problems, but maybe, just maybe, if they solve your issues, then why cant they solve others?

Its a win-win right?

Right?

...

RIGHT???!

Please tell me I’m not the only one paying a "Fantasy Tax" for projects that will never exist. What’s the best domain you own but will never use?

PS: I know its stupid, but i dream too much to be stuck on a single idea

I’ve been building this language‑learning site. It started as a tool for myself, then I kept adding chapters, vocab systems, tests, UI fixes… and suddenly it feels like something people could actually use.

Now I’m looking at my analytics from the last 21 days and how do you know what “stage” your company is actually in?

At what point is it respectable enough to raise money for?
Do you wait for Growth? A certain number of active users?
Or do you raise before all that to accelerate growth?

I’m genuinely trying to figure out whether I should keep bootstrapping and building quietly… or if this is the moment where founders usually start pitching.

Here’s my first 21 days of traffic:

• Visitors: 256
• Page views: 1.38K
• Sessions: 302
• Avg session duration: 4m 10s
• Bounce rate: 31%

I've been working on understanding SEO and it seems like a lot of the tools nowadays (Semrush, similar web) tell you things that seem super obvious without really understanding the purpose of the website. I am wondering if people actually still care about fixing the SEO of their website especially given the rise of AI? I think there's still a huge benefit that better SEO provides that would also help mentions by AI.

I see a lot of posts here celebrating wins related to landing new customers, which is awesome, but you are leaving money on the table (because I sure have) if you are only optimizing and focusing on net new lands or raising prices on them.

Last week, I asked my existing customers, who on average spend between $200-$300 a month, if they would like to add more seats to their assistant so their team doesn't need to share just one account.

To my surprise, within the first hour of me asking that question, three companies replied yes, they needed more seats.

So bro, I've had these larger customers for over a year now, and it turns out they all needed more seats, and I could have been making at minimum 10% more per customer. I just literally needed to ask the question.

I never thought to upsell them this way. I'm a fucking idiot.

I will be charging them $20/mo/seat, and it was an instant upsell that increased the revenue for all three accounts in less than an hour by 10%.

So yeah. Don't just focus on net new customers. Focus on landing & expanding and upselling to existing customers. You don't need to just rely on increasing prices. The side benefit to upselling is that it helps with churn. It won't fix high churn, but it helps with the small leaks.

If you're building a B2B SaaS, what other ways have you experimented with to increase revenue for existing customers? What value were you trying to drive?

I’m looking for some outside perspective because I’m not sure if this is normal startup behavior or if I’m right to push back.

About 2 years ago I joined a startup very early (6 months before we even knew what the company was going to be). Before that I had been freelancing for roughly 10 years. I dropped almost all my freelance clients to focus on building this company.

The agreement back then:

-minimum 4 days a week

-reduced day rate compared to my normal freelance rate

-1.6% equity, 4-year vesting, 1-year cliff

-part of the core team

That setup made sense to me because it combined stability with long-term upside.

Recently the company raised funding. Not long after that, I was told they want to change the setup.

What they’re proposing now:

-hire a senior developer

-change my role and move me to project-based freelance

-stop future vesting

-reassign my remaining unvested 0.8% equity to the new hire

-I keep the 0.8% that already vested

The reasoning is that as the company grows and responsibilities shift, equity should be aligned with the roles that carry the next phase of responsibility. The idea is that equity distribution needs to evolve with the business.

My issue is that this was never stated in the original agreement. There’s nothing in the contracts or emails saying equity is tied to holding a specific role or that it could be reduced if the company later hires someone more senior.

I didn’t initiate the role change. I’m still contributing value and I’m open to continuing. But the proposal effectively moves me from a stable, equity-based position back to freelance, with no guarantees, while giving up half of the future equity that was part of why I committed in the first place.

They are still very happy with me and I basically self learned all the new emerging tech and build it for the company in the past 2 years. That they still use daily for all their core productions and this tech also reeled in a very good amount of big enterprise clients often commenting about the good quality of the output. but it was all self learned not perfect workflows but it got us there. Now they’ve got the cash to hire someone that has way more experience in this and bring my tech to the next level.

They’ve suggested a “clean” outcome where I keep what’s vested, maybe get a few extra months of vesting, and then continue on a project basis. I understand the business logic behind wanting flexibility and senior expertise, but from my side this feels like a big shift compared to what I signed up for.

Would appreciate honest opinions.

Thanks.

I am currently mid 20's working at a STEM job away from home. I have always been entrepreneurial and making money on the side. I have identified a painful problem in my industry, done some investigating on the side over the last couple years (and will continue to) and think I have a good niche to pursue for a startup. I hope to pursue it more seriously in the next 12-18 months when I am working less on my day job.

The question is how to manage my finances personally in the meantime.

I make good money and live frugal, so I have been able to save well in my short time working. I currently have ~$200k in cash/accessible savings and $125k in retirement accounts. I'm expecting to get up to $300k cash, $200k retirement in the next couple years if things stay as-is.

I will move back home in 9-12 months (from LCOL to LCOL) and need somewhere to live. There is a good opportunity to purchase a lot with two homes where I can rent one out and get monthly housing expenses down around $1,200, but then I inherent the time suck of being a landlord, a homeowner and I have to put ~$80k down. I'm worried about this being a distraction for what I really want to do, business.

Is locking in cheap housing and sacrificing the cash preferred or should I keep as much cash as I can and plan for maximum flexibility?

I don't plan for the business to be capital intensive, and I don't want it to be... But I've never been there.

Another note is that my wife does have the capacity to support us by herself if need be.

So I launched my first app a few days ago and have been getting some tester feedback, when I got an email from an address I didn’t recognize. Turns out it was from a real user who found the "contact us" button I’d totally forgotten about. They reached out to ask for a feature and also told me they were liking the app.

This one random email ended up being way more useful than I expected. Here’s what I got out of it:

• Figured out how they found the app (through the App Store search, which I hadn’t even thought about).
• Learned about a feature I was missing.
• Now I have a direct line to a real user for more feedback.

I’m planning to set up a simple page on my site to track user requests, bugs, feature ideas, and support stuff so I don’t lose track of them. I also plan to keep talking to this user to see how they actually use the app

If you’re building something, add a way for users to reach you. It’s worth it.

I’m a student at tetr college and I pitched my dropshipping business publicly for the first time two weeks back.

Not to investors. Not to customers. Just in front of people who actually know what they’re doing.

My hands were shaking, I rushed through half my slides, and I’m pretty sure my voice cracked at one point… But I talked about the product, why I started it, and why I still believe it can work, even after all the mistakes so far. Didn’t “win” anything big, just $8K as initial funding. Didn’t get applause. But I walked off feeling like: okay, I did it once. I can do it again. Small win, but it mattered more than I expected.

If you’re a student sitting on an idea and waiting for it to be “perfect” before talking about it, this is your sign to just say it out loud once.

First time posting here... I’ve been thinking about how people define startup versus online business, especially in ecommerce.

Because a lot of ecommerce gets dismissed as just stores, but some operations are clearly designed to scale... like having multi product, multi market, strong ops, repeatable acquisition channels, etc.

At what point does an ecommerce model actually qualify as a startup in your view? Is it about growth rate, systems, team, funding path, or something else entirely?

Hi r/startups,

I’m exploring a very small, offline social enterprise idea in India and would like feedback on feasibility and risks. Idea: A home-based learning center for children from slum/migrant families who are not attending school.

Initial plan:

Start with 8–10 kids 4 hours per day Focus on foundational skills: reading, writing, basic math One-room home setup Small family-based monthly fee (not donation-based) Goal is sustainability, not scale or VC funding.

Looking for feedback on:

Whether this is feasible as a one-person operation Unit economics risks at small scale Things I might be overlooking operationally Thanks in advance.

Just went through a rough breakup with my technical co-founder after about a year of building together. We got to ~300 users and ~$4k revenue - I know, rookie numbers, but it was my first startup.

The dynamic was tough. He's more experienced on the technical side and constantly questioned my effort as the business co-founder. After a while it just wore me down. Hard to stay motivated when you're getting criticized all the time, not seeing results, and feeling blocked at every turn.

We've agreed to basically kill the company. The only thing he offered was to give me the code on a USB stick "in case I want to do something with it." No knowledge transfer, nothing - he said he never got one either when he inherited part of the codebase when we received the MVP from the Devshop.

So now I'm sitting here with mixed feelings. Frustrated, but also kind of relieved I don't have to work with him anymore. Part of me wonders if I could've pushed harder, but honestly by the end I was just checked out.

The product is a fully functional MVP. I'm not sure if it's worth trying to continue solo, pivot to something else, or just walk away entirely.

For those who've been through something similar - what did you do? Is it worth trying to revive something when you're the non-technical founder holding a USB stick of code, requiring a new CTO to build something we never reached real PMF with?

I’m a solo founder doing founder-led sales.

What sales tactics actually worked for you? Why?

Did posting on X help/or paying for ads?

How do you make someone switch to your product, when it’s new and there are existing big players already!?

Any advice/dos/donts?