Does anyone else feel like finding genuinely early startups has become way harder?
Lately I've been trying to put together a list of really early-stage startups, and it's been more frustrating than I expected. Every recommendation seems to lead back to the same places. Apollo, LinkedIn, Crunchbase, Product Hunt after a while it starts feeling like everyone is looking at the exact same companies.
By the time a startup shows up on those platforms, I kind of assume they've already had dozens of sales emails sitting in their inbox. What I actually want are the companies that are still under the radar. The ones that have just registered the business, quietly launched a website, or started hiring before they've made much noise.I stumbled across AtlasForgeX while looking into this because it apparently builds lists from public records instead of a stored database. I haven't used it enough to know if it's actually better, but it did make me wonder if I've been searching in the wrong places this whole time.
Curious how other people here do it. If you're trying to find startups before they're on everyone's radar, where are you actually looking?