u/ComputerSciToFinance

So some context, job portals feel broken; AI-written resumes going into AI screeners, humans nowhere in the loop. So I started cold emailing hiring managers directly and got a 20% reply rate (2/10 - small sample, but miles better than portal silence).

The approach recently got me a direct reply from a VP at OpenAI that turned into a warm intro.

The annoying part was the manual research: finding the right person, figuring out what to say. So I built a tool that does it - finds relevant hiring managers and drafts a short, punchy outreach email.

Looking for beta users and brutal feedback. If you're job hunting or just curious, happy to give access. Genuine question: has cold outreach worked for others here, or am I overfitting on 10 emails?

Edit: its Jugaadu.app if anyone wants to try

I frequently scroll Linkedin and X while traveling to my workplace and I often see a lot of people posting informal job openings and asking to DM them.

I used to screenshot the post, go home in the evening, look through my screenshots, find their email ids, draft email and send them - this was all time consuming and it was already 6-7hrs since the person posted so my email used to get lost.

To avoid the dependency of me being at home, I developed this workflow tool where I can draft and send the email the moment I see the post.

Helped me get a zoom call scheduled with a Google PM within a week 😄

Its still in beta as I am building more agents to automate my workflows - if this seems helpful, please reach out and I can onboard you and its still in beta.

https://reddit.com/link/1tblyz8/video/o7x20ntdbt0h1/player

I frequently scroll Linkedin and X while traveling to my workplace and I often see a lot of people posting informal job openings and asking to DM them.

I used to screenshot the post, go home in the evening, look through my screenshots, find their email ids, draft email and send them - this was all time consuming and it was already 6-7hrs since the person posted so my email used to get lost.

To avoid the dependency of me being at home, I developed this workflow tool where I can draft and send the email the moment I see the post.

Helped me get a zoom call scheduled with a Google PM within a week 😄

https://reddit.com/link/1tblxtn/video/puzvyqd9bt0h1/player

Its still in beta as I am building more agents to automate my workflows - if this seems helpful, please reach out and I can onboard you and its still in beta.

I frequently scroll Linkedin and X while traveling to my workplace and I often see a lot of people posting informal job openings and asking to DM them.

I used to screenshot the post, go home in the evening, look through my screenshots, find their email ids, draft email and send them - this was all time consuming and it was already 6-7hrs since the person posted so my email used to get lost.

To avoid the dependency of me being at home, I developed this workflow tool where I can draft and send the email the moment I see the post.

Helped me get a zoom call scheduled with a Google PM within a week 😄

Its still in beta as I am building more agents to automate my workflows - if this seems helpful, please reach out and I can onboard you and its still in beta.
Will be pushing this on Product Hunt in a few weeks.

https://reddit.com/link/1tbltrf/video/wtfbclecat0h1/player

Sorry if this is a dumb question but how is running computer on mac mini different than the online version of perplexity computer (w/connectors)?

If they are different, what are the use cases where you are using mac minis for that the online version cannot do?

Top AI companies (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, etc.) are releasing something new every week - some of these releases destroy existing startups, while others open up new opportunities.

Meanwhile, there are folks constantly posting on X and stirring up anxiety.

Founders - how do you keep up with what's happening in your domain: how AI is changing it, what your competitors are doing, and what they might do next?

Any advice/tools you use, would be helpful :)

Top AI companies (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, etc.) are releasing something new every week - some of these releases destroy existing startups, while others open up new opportunities.

Meanwhile, there are folks constantly posting on X and stirring up anxiety.

Founders - how do you keep up with what's happening in your domain: how AI is changing it, what your competitors are doing, and what they might do next?

Top AI companies (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, etc.) are releasing something new every week - some of these releases destroy existing startups, while others open up new opportunities.

Meanwhile, there are folks constantly posting on X and stirring up anxiety.

Founders - how do you keep up with what's happening in your domain: how AI is changing it, what your competitors are doing, and what they might do next?

Some of you used H1BPulse during the March results week. I'm the guy who built it one Friday night because my friend was refreshing Reddit at midnight waiting for his results. I did not expect 80K people to show up in 9 days. Thank you for trusting an unknown link.

We've been aggregating results on h1bpulse and the law firm numbers this year.
Posting the breakdown here because a few people asked me to share after the last thread.

Overall selection rate across 5,488 reports: ~61% (3,327 selected / 2,161 not)

By wage level:

- L1: 64%

- L2: 58%

- L3: 61%

- L4: 58%

The wage-level gaming theory that went around last year doesn't really show up in the data.

By education: Master's 60%, Bachelor's 62%, Other 67%. Also basically flat.

By law firm (minimum 50 reports):

- Fragomen: 47% (244 reports)

- BAL: 55% (97)

- Baker McKenzie: 66% (80)

- Ogletree Deakins: 50% (50)

Fragomen being 14 points below the overall average is the thing I can't explain. Could be sample bias (more Fragomen clients tend to be at big tech with multiple registrations, IDK), could be something else.

Obvious caveats: self-reported, people who got selected are more likely to report, not affiliated with USCIS, etc. But with 5k+ data points the shape of it is probably directionally right.

I’ve been studying recent YC batches trying to figure out what actually clears the bar. (I know PG says don’t pattern-match on demo day. I’m looking at the founders, not the ideas.)

One thing I can’t stop noticing: a lot of founders are 19–23, building in industries they’ve never worked in. Legal, fintech, healthcare, defense. Meanwhile the standard advice is “founder-market fit” i.e. you need unfair insight into the problem. So how does a college student have unfair insight into insurance underwriting?

Some guesses I’ve been kicking around:

- maybe founder market fit means something different for young founders - obsession and weird depth on a niche they’ve been nerding out on for years, even if never professionally.

- Maybe in an AI-native world, shipping a working prototype in a domain you don’t know is itself the proof.

- Or maybe I’m wrong about the pattern and survivorship bias is doing the work.

Would love to hear from anyone who got in young without industry chops - what did you actually say in the interview when they pushed on “why you”? And any partners/alumni who’ve watched this up close.

Applying S26, two rejections deep. Trying to actually learn something this time instead of just reapplying harder.