r/TheFounders

I developed Weather World because I wanted a simpler, more helpful way to stay ahead of the forecast. I truly believe that a weather app should be a tool that makes your life easier, not a source of distraction with ads and confusing menus.

How it helps you: The core of the app is all about visual clarity. I’ve focused on creating intuitive graphs that let you see temperature shifts and precipitation trends at a single glance. Instead of reading through long lists of numbers, you can visualize exactly how your day will unfold. It’s minimalist, lightweight, and built for speed—perfect for anyone who values a clean Android experience.

I’d love your support! Please give it a try and see if it helps your daily routine. If you find it useful, please recommend it to your friends! As a solo developer, your support and word-of-mouth are what help me improve and grow.

In compliance with the community rules, I’ve shared the link via IndieAppCircle. Check it out there and let me know what you think!

Find it here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.danie.pocasisveta

It's been a little over six months since I launched and it has been quite a journey. No exponential growth or huge user spikes but rather slow and steady growth. But in my opinion that is the best for building something actually valuable because you can react to user feedback along the way and constantly keep improving the app.

It's so crazy, just two weeks ago I was celebrating 2,000 users here and now I have hit another unreal milestone of 2,400! I can't thank everyone enough. I really mean it, so many people were offering their help along the way.

Of course I will not stop here and I am already working on the next big update for the platform which will benefit all the community. More is coming soon.

I've built IndieAppCircle, a platform where small app developers can upload their apps and other people can give them feedback in exchange for credits. I grew it by posting about it here on Reddit. It didn't explode or something but I managed to get some slow but steady growth.

For those of you who never heard about IndieAppCircle, it works like this:

• You can earn credits by testing indie apps (fun + you help other makers)
• You can use credits to get your own app tested by real people
• No fake accounts -> all testers are real users
• Test more apps -> earn more credits -> your app will rank higher -> you get more visibility and more testers/users

Since many people suggested it to me in the comments, I have also created a community for IndieAppCircle: r/IndieAppCircle (you can ask questions or just post relevant stuff there).

Currently, there are 2402 users, 1969 tests done and 587 apps uploaded!

You can check it out here (it's totally free): https://www.indieappcircle.com/

I'm glad for any feedback/suggestions/roasts in the comments.

I added a new 3 Dice Practice mode to Dice Target.

The idea is simple: reach the target using 3 dice and basic math operations.

It’s meant as an easier entry point before the full 5-dice mode and Rush Mode.

Feedback on clarity, pacing, or onboarding would be appreciated.

Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kwokkinlau.dicetarget

Sensei is a diagnosis tool for founders. You run your idea or site through it and it audits your positioning, pricing, competitors, and whether you've actually validated the thing.

Here's the doubt I'd been carrying: every time I opened Reddit I'd see another "product strategy" or "founder feedback" tool getting promoted, and they all sounded like mine. I kept wondering if I was building into a space that was already saturated and didn't need me. It's a quiet kind of discouragement - not "this is broken," just "is this even worth it."

What changed wasn't the product. It was finding the actual audience for it. Once I stopped marketing to "founders" in the abstract and started showing up where the specific people who feel stuck on positioning actually hang out, it started clicking. And then people paid. Not a flood, but real ones, with real cards.

I won't pretend that didn't do something to me. After months of "is this worth it," a stranger deciding your thing is worth money hits different. It's the first external signal that the bet wasn't crazy.

But I'm trying to hold it loosely. First payers prove people will try it. They don't prove the thing is good enough to keep. The job just changed from "will anyone pay" to "will they stay" - and retention is a completely different, harder problem. So I'm celebrating quietly and getting back to work.

Which is where I'd love this sub's brain:

For those of you past first payers:

• What actually moved retention for you early on?
  • I'm trying to figure out where to put my energy.
• Onboarding that gets people to a win faster?
• A reason to come back week over week?
• Just talking to the early users directly?

Curious what made the difference for you, especially for tools people might only think they need occasionally.

If you're in the doubt phase right now wondering if your crowded-looking space has room for you: the room is usually in who you're talking to, not what you built. That's the thing that moved for me.

It's a platform designed to help people find the perfect gifts using AI-powered recommendations. You describe who you're shopping for (like "tech-savvy dad" or "creative teenager"), and the AI suggests personalized gift ideas.

https://prezntai.lovable.app

what do you think?

From PG's own essay "How to Apply to Y Combinator" this is the man himself describing what happens when he opens your application:

"All the YC partners read applications. We each do it separately, to avoid groupthink. The first question I look at is, 'What is your company going to make?' This isn't the question I care most about, but I look at it first because I need something to hang the application on in my mind."

He reads the first answer to anchor his understanding. Then everything else gets evaluated against that anchor.

"The best answers are the most matter of fact. It's a mistake to use marketing-speak to make your idea sound more exciting. We're immune to marketing-speak; to us it's just noise."

He used the word immune. Not "less impressed by." Immune. Marketing speak registers as silence to him.

"If we get 1,000 applications and have 10 days to read them, we have to read about 100 a day. That means a YC partner who reads your application will on average have already read 50 that day and have 50 more to go. Yours has to stand out. So you have to be exceptionally clear and concise."

The partner reading your application has already read 50 applications by the time they reach yours. They'll read 50 more after. Your application is surrounded by 100 others, and the 99 that are vague and buzzword-heavy have made clarity feel like cold water on a hot day.

The thing i learned, clarity is your competitive advantage. You don't have a team to describe. You don't have a cofounder relationship to explain. You have one thing. State it with the directness of someone who has been inside the problem and knows exactly what it is. Matter of fact. Specific. Like a news headline, not a vision statement.

Curios, what you have learned from this PG's essay...?

Let me start with: Building != Work. You are just avoiding selling and lying to yourself.

I have probably seen this a thousand times. And you also probably have heard it a thousand times.

But for some reason people think it won't apply to them. Not gonna lie, I was no different. Let me tell you from my experience on my previous project.

This is especially hard for technical founders. Building is so easy for us, selling is not.

Its too easy to feel like you are WORKING when you are build. Its a big fat lie you tell yourself. Make no mistake, people raising millions with waitlist page is also a lie.

Build MVP quickly. Then stop. Stop building. Go sell the thing.

So how do I sell my product? How do I get the first customer?

• Straight to the point: You have to do manual work. Lots of it. Few years back cold emails used to work great but nowadays don't even waste time. LinkedIn works better. Twitter also works somewhat.

Next extremely important thing:

• Implement PostHog. Seriously! If you haven't already, do this right now. You need to know what people are doing.

Then talk, talk, talk. Talk to real human not fucking Claude or ChatGPT.

You CAN'T be SHY about this. If you are introvert like me, create a persona in your head. Think you are just acting. Then yap everywhere. Twitter, LinkedIn (yea cringe I know), Facebook (if boomers are your target), Instagram. Everywhere.

And don't use GPT to write to peoples. We can see its LLM and nobody fucking reads LLM bullshit.

Now that I have given you the basics. Next step.

You should be getting at least some traffic if you do the above. Now you need to talk to people who have landed on your site.

Brace yourself. I am about to yap about my product but it is IMPORTANT.

I built this whole thing just to stop founders from failing. So yea. It's HeyZinc

It literally rings your phone and forces you to talk to them when someone is live on your site. No more waiting for demo bookings or emails. Start the conversation first. You likely have to handhold first few users. In the initial MVP, your onboarding is not optimal, few thing might even be broken. So handholding is necessary. So you call and interact with customer, answer their question and basically pitch your product. If you do all this, chances of them converting them is very high.

Okay. You did all this. Got a few customers. How do you scale this now?

I will cover this in next part.

Curious how many people here are building SaaS solo vs with a partner or friend?

For those building with someone else, how’s it going? Do you think you’re at an advantage or disadvantage? How do you split responsibilities?

My husband and I have been building a year at a glance calendar app together as a side project alongside our full-time jobs for a bit over a year now. He’s a software developer and I’m in marketing, so we basically just defaulted into the same split for our own product, too.

I figured my husband would have a lot more on his plate than me, which would feel a bit unfair, but that really hasn’t been the case. Sure, our roadmap is extensive and he has a ton to do, but the marketing tasks never end, either. Especially difficult because neither of us have a following to use as a strong foundation.

One major benefit we’ve seen working together is that if only one of us was working on it, the other could possibly feel neglected, but at least when we’re working, we’re working toward something together.

On the other hand, if we disagree about product direction, that can of course cause some friction. But it hasn't been a major issue so far.

What’s been your biggest challenge working with someone else?

For those interested in the app we’re building: The app itself came from a frustration we had with existing calendars always stopping at a monthly view. We wanted something that let us zoom out and actually see our whole year with events visible so we could plan more proactively instead of just reacting week-to-week. We used to manage this in an excel but that got annoying fast. It’s called Glance: https://getglance.io/

A few other things that make it different:

• You can configure which event types appear in year view vs day view (for example: major events visible everywhere, daily routines only in day view)
• Syncs with Google Calendar
• Available as an Android app and web version
• 100% free (we’re in beta)

Hi, indiehacking founder here.

I've launched startups in the past, and I usually get stuck at finding real user growth aftee spending time and money building.

You usually can't get VC funding unless you show real promise.

So I created a framework, called Startup Velocity Score to help evaluate my ideas.

The goal is to build high growth​ and sustainably profitable startups from the go.

Check it out here and rank your startup ideas:

https://chatgpt.com/s/t_6a39144911d881919c9593da3541636f