r/startupsavant

Helpful & slightly formal

Calling all founders: share your startup and get honest feedback.

Please use this format:

Name + link

One-line pitch (what + who for)

Stage (idea / building / launched / revenue)

One specific area you want feedback on

I’ll review every submission and reply with constructive, actionable notes. My startup is in the first comment — go ahead and critique it. Rules: no “buy my course” posts, no engagement groups. Real products, real feedback.

Im a 19 year old uni student who aspires to be rich af. If theres anyone out there who is good at building network with high quality people please tell me how did yall do it?!???

A few months ago I saw someone online complaining about AI chatbots on websites.

Not because they were “bad AI”
But because they all felt disconnected from what visitors were ACTUALLY doing.

The person basically said something like
> “Why are these bots still blind?”

And honestly… that sentence stuck with me.

Because they were right.

Most AI support/chat systems today are basically just floating chat boxes waiting for someone to type first.

They don’t actually SEE anything.

They don’t know
what product someone has viewed 7 times
when someone is clearly stuck
when someone is rage-scrolling pricing pages
when someone looks ready to leave
when someone has been comparing the same two products for 15 minutes

It’s like hiring a salesperson and blindfolding them.

So I got obsessed with the idea
What if an AI chatbot could actually watch behavior live and react to it in real time?

Not in a creepy way.
More in the same way a real store employee notices body language.

Like “Hey, I noticed you’ve been comparing these two plans for a while, want a quick breakdown?”

Or “I can see shipping is probably what’s stopping you right now”

That became the entire obsession.

And honestly… building it was way harder than I expected.

Because now you’re not just making “another chatbot.”

You suddenly have
real-time visitor tracking
behavioral triggers
live session monitoring
handoff systems
timing logic
AI guardrails
proactive conversations that DON’T feel robotic

At one point I genuinely thought
“Okay yeah… there’s probably a reason nobody built it like this.”

But we kept going.

Late nights. Rebuilding everything. Constant testing.

Some of the earliest versions were horrible.

The AI interrupted too much.
Sometimes it responded too early.
Sometimes too late.
Sometimes it felt creepy instead of helpful.

Finding the balance between “smart” and “annoying” took forever.

But eventually something clicked.

The conversations started feeling… natural.

Not like support tickets.

More like the website itself became aware of the visitor experience.

And that’s when things started getting interesting.

People testing it would literally ask
“Wait… how did it know I was looking at that?”

And honestly, that reaction became addictive.

Fast forward to now

We quietly launched.
No investors. No viral launch thread. No fake “AI revolution” marketing.

Just a product we became obsessed with building correctly.

And somehow we already have 3 paying customers using it live.

Still tiny.
Still early.
Still a million things to improve.

But seeing real businesses trust something that started from one random internet comment feels surreal.

The weirdest part?

The original person who inspired the entire thing probably still has no idea they accidentally sparked a startup.

A few months ago I was talking to an investor about VeritasLinks. At some point he said:

"Get to 1,000 paying customers and then come back to me."

I paused and asked him:

"If I already have 1,000 paying customers, why would I need you at that point? Right now I need money to actually reach that number. So if I manage to get there without you, what exactly would we be discussing later?"

He didn’t really have an answer. He just went quiet and changed the topic.

I've been thinking about this conversation a lot since then.

It feels like a growing number of investors have quietly shifted their approach. Instead of taking real early risk, they now prefer to join once the company has already proven product-market fit, has revenue, and the biggest uncertainties are gone. And they still often call these rounds “pre-seed” or “seed.”

I'm not saying this is true for every investor. There are still people who genuinely bet on founders early. But it does feel like this behavior has become much more common, especially after the AI wave started. The barrier to starting a company dropped significantly, so the number of startups increased. At the same time, many investors seem to have become more conservative with their capital.

This creates a strange situation: founders who actually need capital the most (to reach meaningful traction) often hear some version of "come back when you don't need us as much."

I'm curious how others see this.

Have you noticed a similar shift when talking to investors? Do you feel like the definition of "early stage" has changed over the last two years? And if you're currently raising - how are you dealing with this dynamic?

Would be especially interested to hear from other founders who are in the middle of fundraising right now.

#Startups #Fundraising #VentureCapital #Entrepreneur #RaisingCapital #VC #StartupLife

Built a geo-social app that puts your real-world social life on a map — would love honest feedback**
Been working on something for a while now and finally want to get opinions from real people outside my bubble.
The core idea: your social life, mapped. You open the app and see what's actually happening around you — people, events, local hangouts — all tied to where you are in real-time. You can host or join micro-events, connect with people nearby, and actually have a reason to meet someone in person.
There's also a business side — restaurants, cafes, venues can list themselves and post their upcoming gigs, special nights, or events directly on the map. So you'd know about the live music at the place down the street before you even think to search for it.
It works for both casual social discovery and professional networking — same app, you choose how you show up.
Still building, still improving. Would genuinely love to know — does this solve something you've felt? What would make you actually use this daily?

basically what the title says. drop a link to what you’re building and i’ll make a meme for you to post on instagram, linkedin, or tiktok and to your dm. just trying to help with distribution

When negotiating SaaS contracts like Notion, Slack, Figma, or Google Workspace, you have no idea what other companies are actually paying. Large enterprises have procurement teams and tools like Vendr to get this data. Startups just sign at list price.

So I'm building PriceDB. You anonymously submit your contract price, and in return you get access to real market rates from other companies. Kind of like Glassdoor, but for SaaS contracts.

Currently pre-MVP and looking for honest feedback before I build further. Does the core idea make sense? Any red flags you see with this model?

If you want to try it out as a beta tester, the link is below. Brutal feedback welcome.

https://pricedb2.vercel.app/

Most people nowadays have nobody around them that actually wants more in life.

You talk about business? Nobody cares.
You talk about making money? They laugh.
You want to build something? People doubt you.

So we made a Discord where ambitious people can actually meet each other.

Not focused on one thing only.

You can be into:

• business
• coding
• gaming
• AI
• editing
• content creation
• fitness
• startups
• design
• music
• self improvement
• or literally anything productive

The goal is simple: put motivated people in one place.

Networking. Ideas. Opportunities. Friendships. Teams. Growth.

The right conversation online can genuinely change your life.

If you want to join a community that’s actually active and full of people trying to level up, comment below or leave me a message and I’ll send the invite.

Just wanted to introduce myself my name is Ali and enjoy making things :D