MKBSP

"ugh someone told me this thing was an example of a successful company. if you have popups and moving shit on your website you are not successful, full stop. like if you are successful just don't do that shit. oh you need it? your customers are OMG IT MOVED I CLICK buy? low quality. shein tier. not success

comma website for reference. nothing moves. no pop up. and we should probably even tone down the contrast.

only you can help prevent eyesores. if you work at a company like this, tell your boss you are offended by your website today."

Awesome, I need this, will sign up and try it out.

I just made the AI Granny public! Copy any property listing description into Granny’s Opinion, and she’ll tell you what’s actually up: https://propertyhunty.lovable.app/granny-opinion

"Cozy and intimate"? → Hope you like living in a shoebox. "Vibrant neighborhood"? → Pack your earplugs (and maybe some pepper spray).

Try it now and see what Granny thinks of your dream home!

Game-changer alert! I just came across a new phone provider called Popcorn and I'm sold! They're offering a global phone plan with unlimited talk, text, and data in 150+ countries for just $69/mo with NO roaming fees! I'm talking one plan, one price, no hassle. I'm definitely considering switching my phone provider. Anyone else intrigued?

Paul, this is quite amazing. Can I email you later? I have been "sniffing" about this idea for a little while and I am finishing up a smaller project, this is the next thing I want to tackle.

Still work in progress, and I'm a noob, so will take a little while.

I'm scraping the posts every 30 minutes, and categorizing according to whether it is just a link to another page (a), or if there is actually content(b).

a => open link, and scrape said content b => is scraped from the beginning, open and scrape links if possible.

This effectively gives me an "enriched" database, so each week, I can use the "extra" data to do a "semantic search" like: Submissions that talk about Beauty, Spain, and Beauty in Spain, or different combinations of the topics. (RAG https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8868588-retrieval-augmen...).

The problem with only doing this once per week, is that content, that is within a niche topic, that didn't get sufficient upvotes, gets lost. But, I want to add the "weight" of upvotes and comments.

What do you think?

I'll never forget the day I joined a pre-seed startup, full of optimism and ready to build something from the ground up. However, it quickly became apparent that the non-technical CEO and COO had unrealistic expectations, and the CTO's limited software knowledge left me to handle everything tech-related. As time went on, I faced a series of red flags, including the CEO's dishonesty about revenue, micromanagement, and demands to "dumb down" my explanations. The work environment became increasingly toxic, with the CEO and CTO living in the office and creating a blurring of personal and professional boundaries. I was constantly asked to create new products only to have them scrapped, and was even asked to fake data to impress investors. Despite my concerns and requests for salary adjustments, the CEO prioritized his own interests and created a culture of fear and control. After a series of demoralizing experiences, I realized that no amount of funding or potential could overcome the lack of integrity and competence in leadership, and I knew I had to leave to find a workplace that valued transparency, respected expertise, and delivered on its promises.

This is a YC Startup writing incognito. If you have a horror story, you can send it to the newsletter.

“I found my cofounder on LinkedIn. We got along well, but early on, I noticed how slow he was. He insisted on being a "full cofounder" and CTO, and I gave him the space to grow, even trusting his decision to build in PHP from scratch. We raised $1M, but progress was slooooow, and soon, runway was running out.

The worst part? He deleted all our code and data, setting us back to square one. He also never took our word for what users wanted. He ended up building what he thought was right, ignoring feedback. Eventually, we had to cut the engineering team, and the CTO took time off. But things took a turn for the worse—he refused to leave, stirred up drama, kicked collaborators off Slack, and even recorded meetings without permission.

Legal battles, deleted accounts, and a rogue CTO who just wouldn't quit—this story has it all. If you've ever faced cofounder drama, you’ll relate.”

I’ll go first:

A friend of mine raised $2.1M from a US fund in the construction space. I had also tried to raise from this fund but wasn’t successful. Later, another contact in the same industry shared his experience with this fund. They spent two months "reviewing" his data room, holding meetings, asking questions, and seeing demos. In the end, they passed and funded his competitor instead. While frustrating, that's part of the game.

Now, back to my friend. The fund led his round, and he’s currently raising his next round. They initially committed to an additional $2M. He successfully secured $4-5M from other investors and returned to the fund, asking for the term sheet to finalize the round. However, the fund suddenly claimed they had lost confidence in him and his startup—even though he had grown revenue 5x in 9 months to over $150K MRR. They asked him to reach out to the new investors to help buy them out.

This is a $250M fund (Fund III), so they’re certainly not running out of money. Needless to say, he felt completely blindsided and betrayed.

Hello,

I am considering moving from Hubspot to erxes.io, as it is muuuuuch cheaper.

and from the looks of it, it is just as powerful, but more flexible.

I’d love to hear the thoughts of someone who has used it?

Thanks

Yup, for some people apparently, you might still be in the running.

Im not sure I understand your comment? I havent down voted this...

And a good question: "What do you do?" I guess I do accounting, recruiting, legal, product, design. And to your advice: "Maybe learn a skill and have a functional product before selling". Learning a skill, sure, I can learn a lot of skills, python to start with, but how long time before I am as a good as a CTO should be? And "have a functional product before selling" I fundamentally disagree with that point. Rather launch mvp after mvp, iteration after iteration.

Great feedback, thanks, good karma, good energy, good luck!

[CONTINUED] The second reason: Traction. As you may understand from the above timeline, we have not yet launched. Or, we have launched something, but we didn't validate what we should have validated. In other words, we have no traction that shows 1) that we can grow a business, or 2) that our hypothesis is correct about the users and market.

The final nail in the coffin: Timing. Our venture is in Travel Tech, which is not the most promising industry to be in 2020. We believe that this represents an opportunity, but others may disagree. And I believe, from the viewpoint of YC, that with 2 red flags already identified, the 3rd one can only be identified as a negative too.

Now I ask myself, as a serial failed entrepreneur, with some OK experiences under his belt, and a serious imposter complex: "Will I ever be accepted?" Should I perhaps hang up the hat and try with another project? Or try to correct the above errs and try again? I can fix the 2 issue, and I am trying to fix that now. But I doubt I can fix the 1st, and biggest issue. Should I then just hope that me, and my passion will shine through? Or should I apply with another startup? Another idea, which I might be less passionate about, but that might have a bigger chance, because of Team, Traction and Timing? And I continue thinking: "Does it even matter if I ever get accepted into YC?" Should it matter? Is it the recognition I am looking for? The applause? The validation? Or perhaps it is a Napoleon complex which is driving me towards YC... Anyways, I am left with mildly damaged self-esteem, but I'll continue doing the only thing I think I can do at this time, keep moving forward...

Thank you for reading, any feedback will be appreciated