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Dheerajleft a comment
I think LinkedIn's network effect and established relationships gives a lot of staying power to be honest, but OpenAI's AI-powered matching could definitely shake things up if they nail the user experience. Personally, I'm just super curious whether people trust a newer platform with their career moves when LinkedIn already owns their and others professional identity.
Does OpenAI have the potential to replace LinkedIn? Their latest project.
Dheerajleft a comment
Love this thread, it's genuinely wild how fast we're watching this shift happening. Even as an engineer, I'm not completely sure what being "technical" means now.
What do folks think about the commoditization of automation as a skill?
Jason HenkelJoin the discussion
Dheerajleft a comment
Very cool. For me, it’s been grinding on MoMoney (our recently white-labelled market education app for anyone): just shipping updates, testing traction on Reddit/YouTube, and gearing up for our PH launch!
Summer is over. What business highlights have you had?
Dheerajleft a comment
Funny enough, my biggest insights came from cold DMs paired with a barebones landing page: watching who bothered to click told me more than any survey. Sometime, it feels like the messier the experiment, the clearer the signal. It gives you a lot of freedom, not having to worry about the complexity of the experiment setup.
What’s the scrappiest experiment you’ve run to validate an idea?
Andrei TudorJoin the discussion
Dheerajleft a comment
Yeah, I’ve felt that same loop, shouting into the void isn’t fun. A setup where feedback is guaranteed sounds like it could actually break that cycle, I'm trying to find something like that myself. The trick, in my case, has felt like making sure people stick around after the first exchange. Maybe anchoring it around accountability (like tracking updates or follow-ups) could help keep the...
How do you solve the catch-22 of getting feedback without having an audience?
Alex CloudstarJoin the discussion
Dheerajleft a comment
personally I’d probably lean toward smaller, community-driven models that maybe flexes numbers less and is more about making sure people actually learn and apply something. Doing and teaching are totally different muscles, and I think the you're favoured if you understand that
Do founders make good teachers? [The App Mafia case]
Priyanka SainiJoin the discussion
Dheerajleft a comment
Honestly, deciding to share my build publicly way earlier than I felt comfortable completely changed things. I had that huge block initially of wanting to do it all privately because what if someone took the idea? It sounds so juvenile now + the feedback I got in the process of doing this shaped the product so much more than my own assumptions. Risky, but probably the smartest move I’ve made so...
What’s the best (or worst) decision you’ve made as a maker?
JohannaJoin the discussion
Dheerajleft a comment
This is super helpful, I’m in the middle of prepping for my first launch myself and seeing it broken down like this makes it feel way more structured. I’ve been leaning into Reddit + YouTube mostly, but I’m curious: in your experience, which of these steps actually moved the needle the most versus just being avenues that are “nice-to-haves”?
What marketing activities can you do before the Product Hunt launch?
Dheerajleft a comment
I like this, especially the bit about simplicity. It’s crazy how often features get in the way of actual use. I’m building in a totally different space (trading education) but yeah I'm discovering the same lesson: the best traction comes from habits and communities, not polish or ads. Curious, how did you go about figuring out what the best way of engaging your first set of users?
What I Learned From Launching My First Wellness App
Kyle MorrisJoin the discussion
Dheerajleft a comment
Love this breakdown, it's actually refreshing to see someone actually spell out both sides (attention vs product) without just pointlessly flexing numbers. The “story first, product second” angle really hits, especially with how crowded feeds feel right now. I’m early with my own app and it already feels like grabbing attention is harder than building, so I like seeing how you engineered Ting’s...
How To Grab Attention (inc. some cool YC-founder templates)
Dan BulteelJoin the discussion
Dheerajleft a comment
Yeah I feel that, ads feel shakier by the day, and with LLMs scraping everything it’s only getting tougher. I’m building a trading & investing education app and we’re already steering toward community + direct value (still experimenting though), since relying on traffic feels like a dead end. Feels like the pivot is moving from “content for clicks” to “content people will actually pay to belong...
Where should bloggers / creators pivot if ad traffic drops (due to LLMs)?
Daniel ZaitzowJoin the discussion
Dheerajstarted a discussion
Do "stealth startups" make sense?
I’ve seen this come about recently & I still never really understood the idea of a “stealth startup.” How do you make noise? You need users, you need traction, you need feedback: how do you get that without showing people what you’re working on? I get that secrecy has its perks, but how do you market a ghost. Personally, I lean more toward building in public, even if it’s messy: at least people...
Dheerajleft a comment
I’m in the same boat honestly, figuring it out as I go and I absolutely second what someone else said about not taking on a defeatist attitude from the start. I’ve learned there’s no magical “marketing guy”, in fact you're advantageous over a marketing person since you understand your product best so it's how to communicate that needs nailing. It's too easy to feel lost with this, I'm not out...
I am developer, not a marketing guy. Need help.
Muntadher M SaeedJoin the discussion
Dheerajstarted a discussion
Do you think founders should share failures in real-time?
I go back and forth on this a lot. As someone working on branding myself online as I build, I’ve shared some missteps as they happened: marketing experiments that went nowhere, outreach that genuinely just flopped and weirdly, those posts got way more engagement than when I only shared “wins.” It almost felt like people related more when things weren’t polished. At the same time, there’s always...
Dheerajleft a comment
Totally with you on this, there's real danger with this: AI feels a lot like rocket fuel but the ones at the wheel need to know how to navigate. I treat it as a hypothesis engine too, especially in trading/finance where I'm shipping, where a bad assumption can snowball especially fast. Personally, we keep human review baked in as we ship, as a guardrail: nothing goes live without a sanity check.
Speed vs. Judgment: Where do you draw the line with AI?
Valeriy YasakovJoin the discussion
Dheerajleft a comment
Absolutely hear you on this. I’m still early in my own journey too, and even with something real it can feel invisible without reach. I fell into the weirdly brutal trap of thinking a good product would make its own noise lmao What’s helped me so far has been leaning hard into Reddit threads + Discords where people already talk about the pain my product solves, and framing it as sharing lessons...
Launching without a social media presence — how do you get your first real users?
Ali ArshadJoin the discussion
Dheerajstarted a discussion
How to not get banned when marketing effectively on Reddit?
For anyone who’s tried marketing on Reddit, how do you avoid getting banned while still getting real traction? This is an issue I've seen so many creators face as they market on Reddit, especially initially as they start their journeys on there. Personally, one thing I’ve found is that contributing value first and tailoring posts to each sub works way better than dropping links instantly but I...
Dheerajleft a comment
Totally feel you. I'm in the literal same boat building my first SaaS and yeah, visibility is grating right now. Organic’s working for us (we're early though), but it can be exhausting: community posts, short-form content creation, cold outreach, that kind of thing. What I’ve seen is consistency beats flash: you just have to keep showing up and it has to be where your users hang out.
Is ‘organic’ still a real-world thing or has it joined the land of fairytales and unicorns?
Diana YashchukJoin the discussion
Dheerajleft a comment
Recently, I usually just swap socials (Linkedin, Twitter or otherwise), it's super underrated for keeping up with someone professionally but staying in touch with their work and progress too. Makes it way easier to actually start conversations later instead of letting the connection fade.
When you meet someone worth knowing — what’s your move?
Stefani SparyshevaJoin the discussion
Dheerajleft a comment
Yeah, I’ve seen that too: in the heat of finding a problem to solve, sometimes the “efficiency” mindset ignores the fact that people actually like certain tasks because they build trust, connection, or control. It’s easy to default to “can we automate?” instead of “should we?” when you’re deep in the build. I think the real win (as in some outstanding startups I've seen) is blending automation...
41% of YC Startups Automate Unwanted Tasks
Andrew JamesonJoin the discussion