r/startup

Testing out my saas demo explainer - i need real examples pleeeeeaaase

One thing I didn’t expect when working on a startup was how much time could go into finding the right domain.

You find a name you like, the .com is taken, the owner wants a crazy price, or you end up changing the company name altogether.

How do you guys handle this?

Do you usually pay for the domain you want, negotiate with the owner, or just find another name and move on?

Dropbox: Drew Houston recorded a 3-minute demo video and posted it on Hacker News with the title "My YC app: Dropbox, Throw away your USB drive." The video was posted in April 2007 and brought the first wave of users. just One video posted in right community.

Airbnb: Founders manually posted their own listings on Craigslist and then reached out to other Craigslist hosts who were already renting their apartments, offering to help them post on Airbnb. They did this city by city.

DoorDash: Tony Xu printed restaurant menus as PDFs, built a simple landing page, and put his personal cell phone number on it. He answered calls himself and delivered food personally. The first 100 users were people who found the site through search and got a founder answering the phone.

Stripe: Patrick and John Collison went to developer hackathons with a laptop and integrated Stripe for developers on the spot. The first users were people who watched the integration happen in person and immediately saw the value.

Reddit: Paul Graham seeded the site with content himself under fake accounts to make it look active. The early traction came from PG's existing audience of Hacker News readers.

Segment: Published their internal tracking code as free open-source on Hacker News. 400 developers integrated it in 24 hours without a product launch.

Instacart: Apoorva Mehta delivered a six-pack of beer to a YC partner using his own app. That single delivery demonstration got him into YC. The first users after that came from the YC network itself.

The pattern: none of them used paid acquisition. All of them found one specific community where the right person already existed and showed up there in person or online.

I have collected the case studies on various companies on how they got their 100 customers and how to apply their strategies to our startup, happy to share if someone needs it...

I am curious about how foundersre dealing with this new issue. When people ask for recommendations in the market how do founders know if their startup is actually being mentioned?

Founders are probably wondering if people are talking about their startup when they ask for recommendations. Is anyone keeping track of this information, about their startup.

Does it still feel too early to measure what is happening with their startup?

Hi everyone! I'm working on a startup for a US staffing firm covering IT, non-IT, pharma, engineering, automotive, and healthcare staffing needs. I've got connections who can bring clients in from day one, but I don't have a pitch deck yet. I know roughly 80% of my costs and need to put together a deck to pitch investors.

I've never done this before and I'm not familiar with a lot of the investment terminology either. Anyone know how to build a pitch deck from the ground up, or is it worth paying a third party to put one together for me? Also curious what a solid pitch deck typically looks like.

I have build India's first habit first roommate matching platform for students and competitive exam aspirants in India, starting with major coaching hubs like Delhi and Prayagraj.

The idea comes from my own experience of spending almost 3 years preparing for UPSC in Allahabad. Finding a room was difficult, but finding a roommate whose study routine, sleep schedule, food habits and lifestyle actually matched mine was even harder. It is built to solve that gap by matching people based on compatibility, not just rent and location

The V1 is already live and the platform currently focuses on roommate discovery and compatibility matching, with features around privacy, profile matching and connections. I have started getting our first users and are now working on marketing, SEO and expanding the platform to more cities.

I am currently looking for pre seed/angel investment to help scale the platform, acquire users, expand to more cities and build the next version.

If you are an angel investor I would be happy to share the pitch deck and discuss the idea with interested and serious angel investors.

[Many subs Don't allow Links and direct name or promotion So i am not mentioning it here]

All, I am looking to transition my credit background into the early-stage startup ecosystem and support what you are building.

I have a Master's degree in finance and spent the last few years as a credit risk associate at a global bulge-bracket bank, following an earlier background in Big 4 risk advisory. My day-to-day experience is focused on underwriting and structuring complex corporate facilities, including broadly syndicated loans, high-yield issuances, asset-backed finance (ABF/ABS), and sponsor-backed LBO financing. I regularly validate integrated financial models through downside stress testing, analyze loan tapes across granular asset portfolios, and manage legal loan documentation like credit agreements and derivative/trading structures. I want to bring this institutional toolkit to a growing fintech or B2B team where I can help build financial frameworks, manage credit risk, and learn the business from the ground up. If there is any way my background can pitch in and help your team right now, I would love to be of use.

Alternatively, if you aren’t looking for this skill set at the moment but know someone in your network who is, I would be incredibly grateful for an introduction.

My friend and I are working on an app that is near completion which would operate more locally. None of us has really done anything related to business and I'm trying to learn the ropes so forgive me if all these are very basic questions. We are also both still in school and currently unemployed.

How would we go about finding funds? What do i need to keep in mind?

If I were to involve siblings and sell some of our assets in exchange for giving them equity, would that be wise and how would we distribute it given that we are currently 50/50 with my cofounder.

What are some sources that I could use to get more business savy?

I am looking for people to conduct research. I want to check whether my idea works.
Here is my startup idea in short: a social media platform for debates and discussions.

I want volunteers to discuss the topic "Should children under 18 be allowed to use social media or not?"
I want to study how the discussion goes and the results.

There will be specific rules for the discussion we all have to follow. I will act as a moderator. I want at least 10 people. The discussion will go on for max 7 days.

I will be grateful for your support.

Just simply comment below, and we will discuss the further steps for the discussion.

Hi everyone,

I’m new to B2B and recently built a B2B services business. We’re getting some traction so far, but I’m not sure how to consistently generate sales.

From my initial research, I’ve come across a few options:

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator and InMail
• Tools like Lusha for finding emails from LinkedIn
• Email-finding tools such as RocketReach
• Outreach platforms like ReachInbox
• LinkedIn ads
• SEO and content marketing
• Ebooks, lead magnets and other resources
• Cold email and social media ads

The problem is that I’m not sure where to start.

Should I:

• Build a targeted prospect list and start sending cold emails?
• Focus on LinkedIn outreach first?
• Run LinkedIn or social media ads?
• Create ebooks or lead magnets?
• Invest in SEO?
• Collect market data and use it for email campaigns?

I feel like I’m looking at too many options and getting confused. I’ve also read that it’s better to focus on two or three channels first instead of trying everything at once

If you’ve built a B2B business or handled sales for one before, I’d really appreciate your advice:

• What channel worked best for you in the beginning?
• What would you avoid if starting again?
• Should I focus on outbound sales first or build inbound marketing?
• What tools or processes helped you get your first consistent leads?

Any practical advice would be really helpful.

I’m building a narrow SaaS for accounting firms, and one sales call changed how I think about integrations.

The workflow itself is simple: the firm has a transaction without a receipt or invoice, asks the client for it, follows up, gets the file and gets it back into the accounting workflow.

One firm saw the value in the product but used an accounting system I did not support.

So basically I could solve the problem and still not sell them the product.

Another possible firm had roughly 800 clients. A proper demo was waiting on the same integration.

That was when “do you integrate with our system?” stopped feeling like a normal feature request.

For some vertical SaaS products, the integration decides whether the customer can use the product at all.

I’m 17 and building alone, so that distinction matters. Every requested integration is work, but a requested integration is not a deal.

My first paying customer showed me somebody would pay for the problem. The other conversations showed me that the market on paper and the market I can actually serve are not the same thing.

For other vertical founders: what made you realize an integration was infrastructure, not just another feature?

I am genuinely curious. Devs/Solo Builders/Etc seem to have such a mix on X and Reddit. Prefer building solo, can't find a cofounder, bad experience with a cofounder.

I've also seen plenty of success stories solo and on a small team or duo.

I am curious what everyone thinks. Are you solo because you choose to be, can't find a cofounder/team, both? Or something else?

I have two applications that are live in production right now. One is completely solo, the other is myself and two others. I truly enjoy both dynamics and I don't think I would change anything.

Would love to hear what everyone else has to say about this.

Hi, I’m 17 and have completed two work experience placements in marketing and communications, where I’ve learned about key skills such as SEO, creating content, analysing data and creating campaigns.

I’m looking for an opportunity to build my CV further and would love to volunteer to help a small business stand out, no strings attached. Just casual and something flexible I can fit round my studies.

I’m particularly interested in market research, and I would say one of my strongest skills is finding and analysing data, and applying it to real life situations. I’d be happy to help with things such as: competitor analysis, consumer research, demographic reports, social media analysis, carrying out surveys and presenting data with recommendations. Although it’s not restricted to these as I’m willing to help out with any sort of marketing tasks. I’m very organised, stick to deadlines and I ensure that my work is always of high quality.

Thank you!

I'm at a point where I know I have to put myself out there more and generate more buzz and interest for the things I'm building. However, as someone who literally has two an a half photos of myself online and basically just lurks across most social media, how do I get things going when I'm basically an online hermit?

I'm in the middle of building a B2B SaaS (and a whimsical journaling app as a side project) so social media probably has moderate effect.

Any podcasts I can do? Female focused?
Any other women-focused communities?
LinkedIn is chock full of AI generated "Building in public" posts that make me want to claw my eyes out.

Any advice, how are you putting yourself and your product out there?