Hey everyone, I need some brutal honesty and advice.

I recently built a B2B micro-SaaS called Margolio. It's a web-based compliance dashboard for Filipino CPAs and freelance bookkeepers. It basically helps them track BIR, SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG deadlines across their entire client portfolio in one place, so they don't have to manage everything in chaotic Google Sheets.

You just add a client, and it auto-generates the full compliance calendar for the year based on the business type. It sends email reminders and generates a shareable document upload link so bookkeepers can collect files without forcing their clients to create an account. It's a paid monthly/annual subscription (no free tier) with a 14-day free trial.

I was so eager to get my first few users that I read some generic "growth hacking" advice, went into local accounting subreddits, and tried to do the whole "stealth marketing" thing. I tried to sound like a frustrated freelancer who just casually "found" this solution.

They saw right through it immediately. I got called out, downvoted, and completely roasted. I honestly deserved it.

I'm not a freelancer or a CPA. I'm just a guy who saw a massive pain point with deadline tracking and built a system that I genuinely think can help them save time and avoid penalties. But my marketing approach was totally wrong, and now I'm stuck at zero users.

For the founders here who have successfully launched a B2B SaaS in the Philippines:

• How do you actually get your first 50 paying users without coming off as a spammer?
• Should I be cold messaging people on LinkedIn/Facebook groups, or should I try reaching out to accounting firms directly?
• How do I find "design partners" who are willing to just use the 14-day trial and give me brutally honest feedback on the workflow?

I'm done with the fake marketing scripts. Any advice for a struggling solo founder on how to do this the right way would be hugely appreciated.

Hey, everyone!

If you're a founder, builder, or just someone with an idea for fintech, this might be worth checking out:

We’re organizing the Build on Stellar Philippines Hackathon 2026 🇵🇭
A 7-day online hackathon (May 18–24) where you can build real-world financial solutions and turn ideas into MVPs.

You can still join until May 22!

What you can build

• Remittance solutions for OFWs
• Financial inclusion tools
• Stablecoin / PayFi apps
• MSME tools (payments, payroll, etc.)

Why join?

• ₱60,000 prize pool
• 100% online (you can join from anywhere)
• Mentorship + support
• Great way to go from idea → MVP → opportunity

Who is this for?

• Founders
• Developers (Web2 or Web3)
• Designers / product builders
• Students / aspiring builders

No blockchain experience required

Interested?

Follow the instructions in this Facebook post: https://web.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=944245155097571&set=a.118152934373468

If you’ve been thinking about building something impactful in fintech, this could be a good starting point.

Happy to answer any questions in the comments!

Hi, serious about building something around a real gap in the Philippine logistics space and looking for a technical co-founder who understands marketplaces, ops-heavy businesses and the messy realities of logistics here in the Philippines. A bit about me, started in finance but path led me to logistics and can bring the domain knowledge, operations, client development, and business strategy side of things. Looking for someone who can lead the tech/MVP side and help turn this into something scalable. Open to discussing equity/co-founder structure depending on fit. Also open to other experience-heavy individuals in this space that may be interested. Will disclose idea once we connect. DM me if interested.

https://preview.redd.it/e38pemzllh1h1.png?width=1672&format=png&auto=webp&s=0bac87e68944d3a1ad76982795171d5b2d9de4cc

Hi folks,

Just wanted to share something I personally found interesting. So, a senior Atlassian engineer got laid off after spending 8 years at the company. A few months later, he uploaded a 38-minute YouTube video explaining how Atlassian’s traffic infrastructure works. Not as some angry rant or revenge post, but as a genuine engineering breakdown of the systems he helped build.

He walked through how around 2,000 services operate across 13 global regions, how requests get routed across Atlassian’s cloud infrastructure, and the architecture behind products used by more than 350,000 customers worldwide.

What makes the story interesting is the timing. Around the same period, Atlassian reported $1.79 billion in revenue, cloud growth was up 29%, executives sold large amounts of personal shares, and the company approved a $2.5 billion stock buyback program. Yet the public explanation around layoffs centered heavily on “AI investment” and efficiency.

That’s what makes the current tech environment feel strange. The systems engineers build are becoming more valuable than ever, while the people building them seem increasingly replaceable.

Honestly, though, the most fascinating part wasn’t even the layoff itself. It was the decision to openly share years of infrastructure knowledge with the public once the company relationship ended. For a long time, this kind of operational knowledge mostly stayed behind corporate walls. Now more engineers are realizing that their real leverage isn’t just employment at a big company, but the knowledge and experience they carry with them.

It feels like the industry is shifting toward a world where information alone is no longer the moat. Execution is.

Now, go Claude, kindly build me the next Jira or Confluece...

By the way, link to the vid can be found in the comments 👇

Hi, posted a few months ago, sharing our history today 😄 We'll be happy to answer any questions about our startup journey!

Dashlabs (YC W21) didn’t start as a company. It started as a volunteer project during the 2020 COVID lockdown to help people find places.

Dashboard Philippines homepage

How it started

• We built Dashboard Philippines, a software that mapped out military checkpoints and establishments, during the COVID lockdown.
• It was built for fun. The project grew to have 100+ volunteers and contributors!
• The project caught the attention of government agencies and NGOs like the Philippine Red Cross, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Office of the Vice President (OVP), and Office of the President

As volunteers, we built:

• Laging Handa Dashboard — the official COVID-19 data dashboard of the Philippines, with DICT
• Real-time shuttle tracking for Libreng Sakay, with OVP and the Armed Forces

Then, we were approached to help with a problem.

The Problem:

Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) arriving in the airport couldn’t go home.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1118789

• Returning OFWs had to wait long to receive the results of their RT-PCR COVID test because of the slow manual “pre-processing” of swab samples.
• A bottleneck was found: Manual pre-processing of swab samples, which amounted to 15kg of paper processing per day.

15kg for pre-processing OFW swab samples

So we fixed registration…

• Dashlabs deployed one of the first digital COVID-19 Electronic Case Investigation Forms (ECIFs), making that step almost paperless.

The \"pre-processing\" of swab samples became paperless.

…but then, the problem moved.

Medtech using Dashlabs for results processing

• With the improved registration speed, the laboratory team became flooded with too many specimens to manually process. So we integrated their machines.
• Then the releasing team got flooded. So we made them a patient results releasing module.

We cut the wait time of patients from 1 to 2 weeks to 1 to 2 days.

Dashlabs Esquire feature

Inquirer feature

Our first customer

• While traveling during COVID, a doctor happened to see the Dashboard Philippines’ logo on the printed patient registration QR code.
• The doctor was opening a molecular laboratory. They needed software to run their laboratory operations.
• Using the logo on the QR Code slip, they contacted our Facebook page. They were interested in getting our software for their operations.
• Kairos Diagnostic Laboratory became our first customer.

Kairos Diagnostic onboarding

What Kairos likely saw on our Facebook page

Y-Combinator & Seed Raise

• Less than 48 hours before the Y Combinator Winter 2021 deadline, we pivoted our original product idea to **Dashlabs. (**This was also around the same week we started talking to our first customer)
• Dashlabs was accepted for YC W21
• In 2022, Dashlabs raised 1.5 million USD. Was notably backed by: Good News Venture, ADB Ventures, and JG Summit.

Dashlabs Manila Bulletin feature

Finding (and losing) product-market fit

Between 2021 and 2022, the number of our Lab software users grew from 0 to ~50 laboratories. We found product-market fit with COVID laboratories.

In 2022, the COVID recovery started. Demand for COVID laboratory software declined sharply. We lost our product-market fit.

Internally, this period forced us into what we jokingly call the “austerity era.”

• The company had to operate lean and move faster with fewer resources.
• Every customer mattered. Retention, product iteration, and operational efficiency became survival-level priorities.

It was a stressful phase for the company, but it forced us to rethink what problem we were actually solving.

Finding product-market fit (again)

Between 2022 and 2024, we iterated on our COVID lab software and pivoted toward diagnostic clinics and laboratories.

We realized these clinics faced many of the same operational problems as COVID labs:

• manual paper-heavy workflows
• disconnected systems and machines
• slow patient turnaround times

We took the workflows our users relied on most, standardized them, and turned them into a repeatable product and service.

We also saw that many existing providers were charging millions for software that still felt stuck in the early 2000s.

Instead of following the market, we went the opposite direction:

• subscription-based pricing
• affordable enough for SMEs
• standardized implementations instead of heavily customized deployments

The pivot required the company to rebuild while still operating day-to-day:

• reworking the product for a broader healthcare market
• supporting existing customers while redesigning workflows
• rebuilding growth after the COVID demand collapse

Between 2024 and 2025, we grew from ~30 facilities to more than 350+.

What we realized

As we worked with more clinics and laboratories, we realized the software itself was only part of the problem.

Behind every patient's data was an operational system:

• Patient Registration
• Specimen Tracking
• Machine Integration (LIS/RIS)
• Billing and Payments
• Inventory Management
• Results Input and Generation
• Results Releasing
• Accounting and Reporting
• Multi-branch Data Centralization

Most clinics were still running these workflows through paper, spreadsheets, chat apps, and disconnected systems.

Turns out, the real problem wasn’t digitization, it was operational design. 

Dashlabs ANC Business Roadshow Feature

Today, Dashlabs has processed more than 20 million patients across 350+ healthcare facilities.

More importantly, working with hundreds of clinics taught us how healthcare operations actually break at scale, and what it takes to fix them.

That’s what we’ll cover in the next articles.

If you've reached this far, thank you! Ask us anything you're curious about

Im in Accounting and Finance background. Looking for Software developer na maging partner ko to build my Start up SaaS FinTech App.

Hi! Is anyone here using Shopify POS for their physical store? We’re thinking of switching from our current POS to Shopify POS since we already have a Shopify website, so it seems more convenient to keep everything in one system.

Our main concern is that our current receipt printer isn’t compatible, so we might need to buy a new one. We’re also not sure if a new printer would still work with our existing cash drawer.

Would really appreciate any advice or recommendations from anyone currently using Shopify POS — especially regarding compatible receipt printers and cash drawers. Thank you!

Hi there 👋🏻

Solopreneur here based in Clark pampanga, I’m all for learning, building in public, and the energy we can bring together.

Clark is booming rapidly and Id like to know if there are tech founder or even non tech founders building startup here. The idea is to build a community to help each other grow just like how founders meetup in big cities.

I think it’s always nice meet people that having the similar journey!

Let’s meetup! and organize this month!

DM and comments are welcome!

kindly join! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/clark-startup-meetup-tickets-1989437030713?aff=oddtdtcreator

Looking for a technical co-founder. I’m a solo founder with experience in the jewelry space previously handled high-value transactions and built a community around it. Now working on a platform solving trust in jewelry buying/selling (real problem, real demand). Not looking for a contractor I want someone who wants to build something big, long-term. Where did you meet your co-founder?

Also open to connecting with investors who resonate with this space

I’m a Filipino working on my own social media business though I’m not sure if it’s technically called a startup. Think of platforms like BuzzFeed, Vice, Elite Daily, or LADbible, but focused on a certain topic for global audience.

My question for Filipino founders is: why did you choose to base your startup in the Philippines or abroad?

I’ve already done some research on the pros and cons, but I’d really love to hear real-life experiences and insights from Filipino founders themselves. What can you advice also?

Looking forward to your responses. Thank you!

Sean, aspiring founder

Hello everyone,

I'd like to ask some help regarding an online store I am currently developing. I am to continue studies abroad (nearby HK) around September but I plan to leave this store running under someone else while I am there, although I will return to PH frequently.

My payment providers require me to register a sole prop/corporation and with the BIR. Unfortunately Stripe isn't available here which would make it a lot easier.
My questions are:

1. Do I need to travel back frequently for tax filing (Quarterly/Annual) or can it be done remotely abroad? If not, would I need to return at all?

2. Is it correct that the BIR requires maintenance of physical Books of Accounts / Ledgers when they do Tax Mapping on my online store?

3. Would it, then, be more advisable to use a Tax Proxy like Taxumo or JuanTax to easily manage all this?

Salamat po!