What do you think you are missing to take your startup off the ground?

Hi Huzzlers,

I've been wondering...

After seeing a few tools that help you find Redditors that might have the problem you are aiming to solve, and also talking to other entrepreneurs building AI products...

I'm just wondering, what's missing? It seems lots of people have great ideas, but those ideas barely get any attention, let alone people paying for them.

What do you think might be missing in this equation?

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@ostibuilds

1 week ago

I assume the beginning is the hardest, since the results won't be there at first.
I work as a SWE and I can build whatever I want, selling what I build and gaining distribution is the hardest thing for me.
I recently started working seriously on my own projects and I see those things to be very hard, but I assume it gets better with work and practice since fundamental business skills like marketing, copywriting, etc are learned over time like any other skill.
There's also a battle against yourself that you have to go trough, it's not easy to keep going when the results are not there.

@dg_

1 week ago

This makes a lot of sense!

How are you working on those (business) skills? Do you have any guidance or are you trailing and erroring?

@ostibuilds

1 week ago

I have some very expensive resources about creating offers, how to sell and how to think. The resources are extremely good in my opinion and they did help me a lot.

I like reading, so I consume business books that are proven to be good (based on internet opinion and amazon reviews).
Another learning resource is YouTube.
Honestly the information I learned and gathered from these sources is 10/10 for me.
I try to apply what I learn and see how it goes.
There is no direct guidance for me, there's nobody in my family that has a business or knows something about business.
I'm essentially doing this on my own. That can be categorized as trial and error.

@dg_

1 week ago

expensive resources as in books or is it like courses?

Have you ever thought of a business coach / mentor?

@ostibuilds

1 week ago

I wasn't specific enough, sorry.

The expensive one - a course that has like ~15 hours of video content on offers, sales, outreach + some very detailed documents
Free/very cheap ones - books (amazon), YouTube videos, social media posts, etc...

To answer your question, I would be down to have a business coach / mentor. I assume it would just shorten the time I need to succeed and obviously that person is much better than me and I can learn from them.
The thing is I for sure cannot afford a business coach that is proven and gets results.
But if there was someone who would be my mentor, teach me the fundamental aspects of business so I can continue on my own after that and build companies, I would be more than happy to share 50% or possibly more of everything I earn with them for X amount of time to make it worth their time.

My financial situation is not bad, it is fine right now. But I need more to help the people I have in my life.
That's why I am super focused on obtaining the knowledge and the character I need, money will follow later.

@dg_

1 week ago

That makes a lot of sense. And proves how committed you are to being successful!!

Well, I fit that mentor profile to a "t".

And that is also why I've been working on a tool that can replicate what I do, basically, replicate myself, so founders do not need to break the bank.

I'd love for you to try it and let me know what you think. Hopefully it'll bring you great insights.

This is the page that has more info about my background:
https://samwise.quest/support/

And then, if you click on brainstorm (on the sidebar), create a free account, you can start your quest to learning the fundamental to build a successful AIstartup :)

@ostibuilds

1 week ago

That's nice to hear!

I see the idea behind this and it makes sense. I'll try it as soon as I can and let you know how it works for me.
If this can do 50% of what you personally would be able to do then it has a great potential.
Thank you for helping out.

@dg_

1 week ago

That's a real treat for me :)

Let me know how it goes.

aNd always happy to help whenever I can.

@dg_

6 days ago

@ostibuilds, would you be open to having a video chat with me? I'd love to talk about this further with you :)

@ostibuilds

5 days ago

Yeah let's do it.
I visited your tool and was planning to give it a try as well.

I'm available from 3pm to 4:30pm on work days to chat.
Cannot do only Thursday in the next upcoming week.

We could alternatively have a more direct chat somewhere else if the time doesn't work.

Feel free to email me at [email protected], thank you for taking this much interest to help.

@vincent

1 week ago

I think there's some kind of fundamental mismatch.

Companies are often looking for very specific solutions: e.g. "I want a shopify extension that imports reviews from my woocommerce wordpress webshop?"

Most founders are building generic solutions such as "validate your saas idea AI tool"

There should be some way to solve this disconnect. But the hard part is incentivizing businesses to post their needs somewhere.

@dg_

1 week ago

I actually have a (very well connected) friend that ones to create a "marketplace of Enteprise problems"... Basically, leveraging his network, his asking VPs at big coporations to post their most pressing problems, and then he wants to match thatwith AI startups.

He still hasn't launched. But I agree that, if he is able to get corporations to actually hire the startups, that can be something big...

@RoseSkullIXIV

1 week ago

Possibly the ability to sell . I mean as an engineer we can do mostly anything but without the selling skill we get nothing back . Also marketing plays a crucial role cause it needs time and not having immediate results is a tough road to cross

@dg_

1 week ago

Yes.. this resonates.

Just out of curiosity, have you tried to hone your own sales and marketing skills?

@RoseSkullIXIV

1 week ago

To be honest, I feel that with the project I’m building now, I’ll be more focused and committed than I was with previous ones. In the past, when I reached the 'marketing bridge,' I’d step on and off , being kind of hesitant. But this time, I’m determined to cross it. 😅

@dg_

1 week ago

Sounds like a plan :)

@harvansh

1 week ago

I’m building something similar (Threddr) that helps indie founders find Reddit posts where people are actively looking for what they’re selling. The signals feel strong, the replies are authentic, and the leads are real.

But I totally get your point. Tools like these make sense logically, but they’re still hard to sell, probably because they’re “founder-assistant” tools, not painkillers for end-users. The buyer is usually a solo indie hacker juggling 10 things, not someone desperate to pay.

So yeah, it’s not always about whether it works. It's who cares enough to pay consistently, and if they see the value fast.

Curious, what do you think is missing? Why do you think they/we’re not breaking through?

@dg_

1 week ago

I'm aligned with other comments above. It is probably something in between skills and grit around Sales and Marketing.

How you talk about your product is as important as what it does.

I have a working hypotheses that the name "PMF" has actually clouded our judgement. It is not really about the product, nor the market, it is about how the founder makes them "fit".

And to make them fit, the founder needs to know how to influence common beliefs in their target audience to create new beliefs (basically that they really need the product you are building)

@harvansh

1 week ago

Got you man

@Lemon

6 days ago

I like this take

making them fit, not trying to get to a point where it 'fits'

@dg_

6 days ago

Yes... think about it. There's a reason why some companies out there with shitty product still sell a lot, or even why there is the expression: "it's a feature not a bug"...