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We hustle daily, right?

One day is great, followed by several down days, at times.

But we keep building and eventually we earn trust.

I decided to share my ~ 3 year journey on Solopreneurship on Medium.

People loved it.

Why though?

I was a bit surprised, but then again in hindsight it makes sense.

People love reading about how to make money.

Just think of the algorithms that rule our life.

1. I make $5K/day easy
2. How to make $349 in 1 day
3. etc.

The lists go on.

But as someone who lives in reality, I thought I'd share the hard truth behind solopreneurship and surprisingly how writing about it has resulted in a funnel for my freelancing services!

Spot Web3 scams via OSINT, tokenomics and contract checks. Practical checklist + real examples and safe‑reply template.

https://www.hokentech.tech/web3-antiscam-guide-osint-tokenomics--smart-contracts

Hey Huzzler community!

After watching 1000+ of you launch here, I've started noticing a common pattern among SaaS launches:

Month 1-6: Build incredible product ✅

Month 7: Launch on Huzzler and get great feedback

Month 8: "No customers.. Maybe I need more features?" 🤔

Month 12: Still struggling with real customers... 😰

Here's the thing, almost everyone in this community can build. You're all incredibly talented.

We try posting on Product Hunt, tweeting, building in public... but our acutal customers are not browsing these sites. They're busy doing their jobs at companies.

That's why I'm building Customer Engine: a systematic approach to getting customers where you get exact daily tasks to get your first B2B customers.

Instead of: "What should I do today to get customers?"

You get: "Send 8 LinkedIn requests to marketing managers using template #3"

And you can actually see what's actually working for other founders (with real numbers).

Question for you guys: What's your biggest problem after launching your product? Is it getting the first real customers (who are not founders themselves)?

Would love your thoughts!

Waitlist: customerengine.co

Hey everyone 👋

I wanted to share something I built recently vcdir.com a global directory of venture capital firms that I put together in just 3 days.

The goal was to make something simple, fast, and open a place where founders can easily discover investors, and VCs can get more visibility and inbound deal flow.

Most VC databases I found were either outdated, overly complex, or hidden behind a paywall.

So I decided to make one that’s:

• 🌍 Free to browse — no signup or paywall
• 📊 Lists over 1,500+ verified VC firms from around the world
• 🔍 Lets you filter by country, continent, investment phase, and market focus
• 🔗 Each firm has a dedicated page with portfolio links, website, and SEO structure
• 🗺️ Includes categories, breadcrumbs, and a bookmarks for easy navigation and browsing

I wanted a better domain, but everything decent was taken or insanely priced so vcdir.com it is 😅

This isn’t meant to be a massive SaaS or paywall product just a useful, open directory that can grow organically and maybe make VC discovery a bit easier for everyone involved.

Would love feedback from this community.

What kind of data, filters, or features would make a VC directory genuinely helpful?

Thanks for reading 🙌

Finally found a brand name and domain I love.

But now every social handle I need is taken, even variations with .com, most often by inactive accounts with 1–2 followers and zero posts.

It’s frustrating how this can block brand consistency before even building your product.

Has anyone here actually managed to take over an inactive handle?

Did support help, or did you have to negotiate directly?

Would love to hear what worked for you.

Everyone keeps preaching the same thing. Build an MVP. Test it fast. If it doesn't sell immediately, trash it and move on.

Here's what I've learned after years of building: that playbook wasn't written for everyone.

The YC model isn't your model

Y Combinator's approach makes sense for them:

• Invest in 100 startups, accept 90 will fail, hope one becomes a unicorn
• Their top 4 companies account for 84% of value created
• But first-time founders have only an 18% success rate

You're probably not building a unicorn on your first try. And that's completely fine. If you built something making a few million annually, you'd likely be thrilled.

When MVPs don't work

• People won't pay for vaporware unless you're a natural salesperson
• If alternatives exist and your product barely works, they'll pick those alternatives
• If no alternative exists, the market probably doesn't exist either
• Most common startup failure reason? Lack of product-market fit at 34%

When you launch a broken MVP to a large customer base, you build brand association with that first version. Users don't think "this must be their initial stab" they ask "is this way better than what I already use?"

My journey: soft pivots over hard ones

I started with Aquiestoy (employee tracking), built free tools that got thousands of users, then created Linkbreakers (QR code generator with tracking).

The results:

• Traffic came immediately. Sign-ups poured in daily
• Thousands of users loved it
• But barely anyone converted to paid plans

Why? I'd attracted the wrong market. People wanted a tool, not a service. Design capability alone doesn't create enough value to justify payment.

The pivot that matters

Then it clicked: QR codes are workflows.

Now I'm building conditional QR codes that redirect based on country, device, or any factor. Testing restaurant use cases, email capture, gamification, coupon distribution. All built on the same workflow engine.

Everything accumulates: the QR scanner, device analysis, lead scoring attempts, workflow system. I'm navigating to find my market while building real expertise.

Why complexity creates value

Two years ago, I would've laughed at building all this. Too complex. Too time-consuming.

But I think that complexity might be exactly what creates value. The barrier to entry is the point.

This goes completely against conventional wisdom. You're supposed to fail fast and trash what doesn't work.

Instead, I'm doing soft pivots. I started wanting to track employees, now I'm building workflows for restaurants. The technical foundation remains useful.

What the data actually shows

The reality nobody talks about:

• Every successful tech company repeatedly reinvented itself (Apple, Microsoft, Netflix)
• 75% of founders report success after pivoting
• Median time from idea to product-market fit: 2 years
• Bootstrapped startups have 60-70% survival rate vs VC-backed companies
• Shopify didn't raise for 4 years. GitHub for 4 years. Wayfair for 9 years

My takeaway

I'm not saying MVP is wrong. I'm saying it's not the only path, and maybe not even the most common one.

Sometimes you build something substantial that doesn't convert immediately. So you examine what you've built and shift it slightly. Construction continues. It accumulates.

The real competitive advantage might not be speed. It might be persistence, adaptability, and recognizing when you need a soft pivot instead of starting over.

I'm convinced I'll eventually find the right value proposition. The genuinely compelling one where I could confidently run paid ads knowing they'd convert.

On top of that, I'm very happy building it.

this is so true

////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Hi everyone, I’ve got some good news! I recently sold my site getelectricaljobs.com, a small job board I built in just a few days, working a few hours each day.

It’s not life-changing, but for me it feels like a huge milestone especially considering that just six months ago I didn’t even know how to use GitHub and had zero coding experience. It’s a reminder that even small wins can really add up and open doors.

For anyone just starting out: keep building, experimenting, learning, and most importantly be patient. That’s the key!

(i've literally seen it across all founders that i worked with)

- lack of product demand. being first to market is often a wrong idea; targeting a non-existent niche is a critical mistake.  

- building features without speaking with customers.  

- not enough focus on sales. sales should begin from the day the mvp is ready.

- not building good relationships with employees. leading by fear alienates talented employees who have options.  

- promising equity but not putting it on paper makes employees hesitant to stay.  

- building with an exit strategy in mind, especially revolving around a single big business acquisition, is risky.  

- hiring interns rarely makes sense for ambitious startups.  

- following the hype instead of focusing on monetization.

- raising capital too fast, often before achieving traction or product-market fit (pmf).  

- focusing on unnecessary work at an early stage, such as adding analytics or excessive features.  

- not being fast enough: long meetings, unnecessary travel, excessive days off, inefficient capital allocation, wrong hires, etc.

- founder-market fit isn’t mandatory but accelerates progress significantly when present.  

- using buzzwords in startup features instead of providing clear value.  

- not iterating enough based on user feedback.  

- not discussing numbers (user retention rate, churn rate, revenue, profits, capital allocation, etc.) regularly

- failing to track essential kpis like ltv (lifetime value) and cac (customer acquisition cost).  

- not being transparent about pricing on the landing page; making customers click ‘request demo’ can deter them.  

- burning capital too quickly without considering the runway.

- overspending on marketing, product development, or hiring without a clear roi plan.  

PS. not sure what to build next or how to grow it? I can help you get there without burning time or cash via ZeroToCustomers .com - find all kinds of help you need over there as a founder.

Hey Huzzler community!

After watching 1000+ of you launch here, I've started noticing a common pattern among SaaS launches:

Month 1-6: Build incredible product ✅

Month 7: Launch on Huzzler and get great feedback

Month 8: "No customers.. Maybe I need more features?" 🤔

Month 12: Still struggling with real customers... 😰

Here's the thing, almost everyone in this community can build. You're all incredibly talented.

We try posting on Product Hunt, tweeting, building in public... but our acutal customers are not browsing these sites. They're busy doing their jobs at companies.

That's why I'm building Customer Engine: a systematic approach to getting customers where you get exact daily tasks to get your first B2B customers.

Instead of: "What should I do today to get customers?"

You get: "Send 8 LinkedIn requests to marketing managers using template #3"

And you can actually see what's actually working for other founders (with real numbers).

Question for you guys: What's your biggest problem after launching your product? Is it getting the first real customers (who are not founders themselves)?

Would love your thoughts!

Waitlist: customerengine.co

I don’t like reading books. Not novels, not even business books.

But I still want the knowledge inside them.

What if there was a way to get the core ideas of any book straight into your head — in minutes, in a style you enjoy (chat, VN, or short video)?

Would you use it? 👀

Hey folks,

I’m currently building out revenue attribution in my analytics tool. Right now I’m starting with Stripe, since that’s the most common one.

What other payment providers do you use to run your online business?

Any you wish had better integrations for analytics / attribution?

Would love to make sure I’m covering the main ones people actually rely on.

Like the title says, for those of you who have multiple side projects live at the same time.

How do you balance your time between each? especially if you have a full time job in addition to.

Hey everyone,

Today I’d like to share one of my projects with you: willtheyconvert.com. I actually built it a while ago, but it’s still one of my favorite little tools.

The idea is simple: it helps you test if people would actually pay for your subscription or product. You just generate a “Buy” button, and when someone clicks it and starts entering their details, you can show them a message that the app is still in progress (don’t worry – no card data is collected or saved).

Here’s a quick demo: https://willtheyconvert.com/demos#payment

This way, you don’t need to build a full product, set up Stripe, webhooks, or a whole app that maybe no one would ever use. Instead, you can just launch a landing page and promote it as if the product already exists. You’ll avoid the usual “Looks great!” or “Awesome idea!” comments that sometimes end up meaning… nobody was ever ready to buy. With this tool, you can see if people actually click “buy” in the first place.

You can also collect emails from those who clicked, so once the product is ready, you can reach out directly.

When testing this app myself, I experimented with different payment models:

• First I tried a monthly subscription (no trial). It sold 2–3 copies right after launch, and then nothing.
• Then I switched to a lifetime deal – sales picked up.
• I got greedy and changed it to an annual subscription (with a 3-day trial) – sales dropped again.
• A couple of weeks ago I switched back to lifetime only, removed the trial completely – sales started moving again.

For apps like this, I really think the lifetime model works best, and ironically it seems to convert better.

Hope you found this interesting and as always, keep shipping 🚀🔥

This week marks a big step for me — I launched Ray3 AI, my first HDR AI video platform.

Ray3 AI started with a simple goal: help creators produce professional-quality videos without weeks of editing or expensive tools. After months of late nights testing prompts, debugging, and refining the workflow, I finally reached a version that delivers both speed and cinematic quality.

The biggest lesson along the way? User experience and technical performance must grow together. I learned that speed and quality don’t need to be trade-offs if the workflow is designed thoughtfully.

For me, Ray3 AI is more than just a launch — it’s proof that even the most ambitious projects can move forward step by step.

I’d love to hear from you: what’s the most recent “small but meaningful” win you’ve celebrated in your own work?

Finally hit 1,000 products launched for Huzzler!

What I learned most is that small, consistent habits, even on tough days, lead to results.

Big thanks to all early members.

Hello everyone,

While building my first SaaS I realized that I may have to spend time daily answering questions about API usage, billing, features etc. However I am also going to have a documentation, but it probably won't be read by actual users as much as I'd like...

How do you guys deal with this? Is this an actual problem you are facing as well?

I'm researching solutions and would love 2 minutes of your insights:

https://aicofounder.com/research/bpFw8fS

Thanks!

Hey Huzzler community!

After watching 1000+ of you launch here, I've started noticing a common pattern among SaaS launches:

Month 1-6: Build incredible product ✅

Month 7: Launch on Huzzler and get great feedback

Month 8: "No customers.. Maybe I need more features?" 🤔

Month 12: Still struggling with real customers... 😰

Here's the thing, almost everyone in this community can build. You're all incredibly talented.

We try posting on Product Hunt, tweeting, building in public... but our acutal customers are not browsing these sites. They're busy doing their jobs at companies.

That's why I'm building Customer Engine: a systematic approach to getting customers where you get exact daily tasks to get your first B2B customers.

Instead of: "What should I do today to get customers?"

You get: "Send 8 LinkedIn requests to marketing managers using template #3"

And you can actually see what's actually working for other founders (with real numbers).

Question for you guys: What's your biggest problem after launching your product? Is it getting the first real customers (who are not founders themselves)?

Would love your thoughts!

Waitlist: customerengine.co

LaunchDirectories.com got a shoutout in the 'Product Hunt is Dead' post, and my traffic absolutely spiked at 4 AM.

Seriously appreciate that mention! It's incredible what a single post can do.

This week I hit a milestone I’m really proud of — I officially launched Wan Animate, an AI-powered tool that turns static images or videos into fluid character animations.

The journey wasn’t easy. I had to learn how to balance ease of use with professional results, and there were plenty of technical challenges (like making sure characters stayed consistent across different motions). But seeing the first smooth animation come to life felt like a real breakthrough.|

What I learned along the way:

• Start simple: focusing on just two core features (image-to-motion and video recasting) made the product more reliable.
• Talk to users early: feedback from creators and marketers helped me refine the workflow.
• Small wins matter: each working prototype built my confidence to push forward.

I’m excited about the future of Wan Animate and how it might help creators save time and explore new storytelling possibilities.

👉 What about you? Have you ever had a “small project” suddenly feel like a big win? I’d love to hear your stories.

Hi everyone, I am launching a new web design and development service, specifically targeting founders and startups to help them validate their ideas. Will also be sharing our own "startup experiments" too.

To showcase our work and share our services, I have put together a portfolio site using Framer. Would really appreciate any feedback or if you could spot any bugs!

https://artalabs.framer.website/

This video tutorial shows how to build a complete web scraping workflow by combining Crawl4AI, n8n, DigitalOcean, and Supabase. It walks through checking site permissions (robots.txt, sitemap.xml), setting up a Docker-hosted Crawl4AI endpoint on DigitalOcean (with memory sizing, port configuration, and securing via API token), and then building an n8n flow to fetch URLs from a sitemap, loop through them, scrape each listing, and finally push structured data into Supabase for retrieval and use in a RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) system. The result: you can ask natural-language questions (e.g. “any four bedroom listings?”) and have your AI agent answer based on fresh scraped data.

Watch the tutorial here

The Self-Hosted Software List provides a broad selection of software that you can host yourself. It emphasizes customization, privacy, and minimizing reliance on third-party services.