u/HomeworkHQ

I see so many people around me who have already dropped out and they seem to have this weight lifted off their shoulders, even if they are currently figuring out their next move. Meanwhile, I am still sitting in these lectures feeling like I am just wasting the best years of my life. The system tells us that if we leave, we’re failing, but the reality feels like we’re just stuck in a cycle of stress and irrelevant theory while the world outside is moving forward without us.

It feels like there is this massive divide between the people who are just grinding through the degree because they are afraid to leave, and the people who finally made the jump and are now trying to build something real on their own.

I’ve been trying to find people who are actually in that "post-college-life" transition because I honestly think that is where the real growth is, figuring out how to build skills that actually matter. Does anyone else feel like the "dropout" stigma is just a way to keep us from realizing there are other ways to actually build a career?

I came across one of those huge startup idea collections on Google a while back. You know the type. Thousands of ideas, clean categories, everything looking like a shortcut to the next big thing.

Normally I ignore stuff like that. It feels too easy. But curiosity got the better of me, so I opened it up and started scrolling.

There is no shortage of ideas. You can spend hours going through different industries, trends, weird niches you did not even think existed. It is almost overwhelming in a good way.

But here is the part that actually made it useful for me.

I was already working on a SaaS idea at the time. Something I had not really seen executed in the exact way I was thinking. Not some flashy trend chasing thing, just a solid problem I cared about solving.

Going through all those ideas did not replace what I was building. If anything, it did the opposite. It made me more confident about it.

Because once you see that many ideas in one place, you start noticing how surface level most of them are. Not bad, just incomplete. You realize that the real value is never in the one line idea. It is in the execution, the distribution, the details nobody writes down.

And that is where it clicks. You stop looking for ideas and start evaluating them.

You start asking better questions. Why has this not worked yet? Who actually needs this? What would make this 10x better instead of just another version of the same thing?

That shift is what makes something like this worth it. Not because it hands you a perfect idea. It does not. But because it sharpens how you think about ideas.

Also, it quietly kills a lot of illusions. You realise you are not competing on ideas. You are competing on how well you build, position, and ship. Seeing thousands of ideas laid out like that makes it obvious.

And in my case, it pushed me to double down on my own SaaS instead of getting distracted. If anything, it filtered out the noise. So yeah, it is worth it. Just not in the way most people expect. It is not a goldmine of ready to build startups.

It is a really good reality check. And sometimes that is exactly what you need.

Hey everyone,

Over the past couple of months I’ve been putting together something that I originally just needed for myself.

I was working with a couple of early stage teams and we kept running into the same problem. Not “how do we pitch” but “who do we even pitch to that is actually relevant and reachable”.

So I started compiling a database of investors. Angels, VCs, syndicates, micro funds. Not scraped junk or outdated directories, but people who are actively investing and have some level of visibility or contact path.

Right now it’s sitting at a little over 30,000 leads.

This includes things like
– name and firm
– stage preference
– geography
– thesis or focus areas when available
– and most importantly, a way to reach them or at least get in front of them

We’ve already used it across a few projects and it’s been surprisingly effective. Not in a “spray and pray 500 emails” way, but in a much more targeted outreach approach. You can actually filter down to people who make sense for your startup and then approach them like a human.

I’m not trying to sell anything here. I’m more curious how others here approach this.

Also if anyone here is actively fundraising or planning to, I’m happy to share a small slice of the list so you can test it yourself and see if it’s useful.

Would also love feedback on how to make something like this actually valuable for founders instead of just another noisy database.

Mindset & Productivity

You have a business idea, and suddenly everyone becomes an expert. They’ll tell you why it’s harder than it looks, why it won’t make money, why you’re underestimating everything. They’re not entirely wrong, but that’s not the point. You have to be in it to win it. If you want to start a clothing company, just go sign up on Companies House today and figure the rest out later.

People love to throw around startup costs, logistics, and risks. Cross that bridge when you get there. Just grind it. And if you don’t even have a clear idea yet, go search startup-ideas db on Google and pick something that clicks, not something that’s “perfect.” Perfect doesn’t exist at the start.

Everyone thinks every idea I have sucks and that I don’t know what I’m doing. Exactly. What do they know? Half the reason I started building things is because I didn’t know how hard it was. If I understood every detail upfront, I probably wouldn’t have started at all.

That’s the advantage, ignorance removes hesitation. The moment you pitch an idea to friends or post it online, especially on Reddit, people will shut it down. They’ll list 10 reasons it won’t work. Don’t listen. They’re not building anything either.

They don’t know your execution.

JUST START.