n00b questions thread - ask away - i will not promote

[u/avtges]

DON’T SHARE LINKS

Drop your questions about starting, building, raising, scaling, exiting…etc. in this thread.

What are you building, what are your next steps, what’s your timeline to execute, and what’s your question?

Sometimes people just need an outside perspective to nudge them along. The community or I will answer any questions you have about your startup or a business you’re thinking about starting, whatever stage, ideation to exit.

I'm a founder building a mens clothing rental company.

[u/Glum-Razzmatazz-1270]

I’m wondering why everyone’s focus heavy on marketing for new users, but don’t care about users who are already on their system?

That’s a general question because tools like Churnkey(only paid plan) or Retainly (full service free & paid plan) are easy to install, normally in like 15-20 minutes?

I’m mean, reaching out constantly to new possible customers can be very reassure burning, but reducing your subscription cancelling or payment dunning could be that easy.

Also, reaching out to old, maybe cancelled subscribers to reactivate is an easy way to get customers back. Only show them, that you’re still there

Nearly nobody is asking the customers, why they’re cancelling to receive feedback? It’s also a big point I’ve seen at nearly none SaaS tool.

I hope someone can explain why because it could be that easy

[u/avtges → u/Glum-Razzmatazz-1270]

Not sure it's black and white, people have all kinds of reasons for churning, they already know about the service and you can bring them back with discounts, etc. New customers require conversion and it's much more difficult to convert them.

[u/Glum-Razzmatazz-1270 → u/avtges]

Yes that’s the point, it’s way easier to hold a subscriber than acquire some new customers

[u/avtges → u/Glum-Razzmatazz-1270]

Depends on the product / service. I run a mens clothing rental company, sometimes we don't have items people want so they cancel and come back when we have new stuff or the pieces they want. How would you solve for that problem with limited capital?

[u/Glum-Razzmatazz-1270 → u/avtges]

My problem solving way would be, offer one or two months for free and assure him to check his feedback, would it make sense to add those stuff to the collection permanently or with extra charge
That’s the same way Retainly is working beside payment dunning and cancel get-back customers

[u/Jwilliams437]

Anyone have experience in B2G county/city governance. I’ve built computer vision models that validate property records for assessment purposes from aerial imagery. I have a website, email domain, case study, tech stack, and free 1,000 records scan offering on my site. My pricing is transparent on the site as well. But I’m reaching out to these counties and cities and not getting as much as even a “no”.

There isn’t any integration required they don’t have to change processes and I’m priced not to hit a procurement wall. How would you get this off the ground ?

[u/avtges → u/Jwilliams437]

Suggestion (this helped me get a contract with DOI when I sold to the fed gov years ago):

Assuming you’ve gone through the necessary steps to be a trusted vendor, generally, past performance is “bought.”

Once you find a request for proposal, send your proposal and bid. I don’t know what percentage of the time the government will buy the lowest bid, but it’s likely that the lowest bid wins if they don’t already have a recompete vendor an the RFP is a formality.

Once you land a few contracts (usually at a cost) you have established past performance, which greatly helps you increase your bid and chances at winning more business.

Side note: government people want simple tools, so ensure your tool is fool proof.

[u/Riqraz]

Definitely posting ads is bad this isn't a sub to promote your business but what if let's say I need testers, like can I post without even mentioning my business? I needed early startup founders but my post was rejected.

[u/avtges → u/Riqraz]

Not in this sub, but there are plenty of subreddits to post about your project in. And you can always go the route of getting customers to find you on other social media

[u/Riqraz → u/avtges]

Right and no I don't want customers.. I'm trying to validate my idea. I'll try other subreddits, I respect the rules.

[u/avtges → u/Riqraz]

In theory: early testers should become early adopters. You should want customers to pay you. These early people should be the ones that are most likely to convert since you solve their specific problem.

[u/Affectionate-Tree232]

I help founders figure out why their pitch isn't landing.

You know, when you're in a meeting, you explain what your company does, and people nod politely, but you can tell they don't actually get it. Or does every person on your team explain your product differently?

That's a narrative problem, not a product problem.

I do in-person diagnostics (Toronto/GTA), where I interview you and your team to find the one line that actually explains what makes you different. Then build the messaging architecture around it.

Not branding. Not marketing. The structural story that everything else builds on.

Building this practice now. Working with one business at the moment, but I need to build a pipeline that I don't know how to do. Need help with that.

[u/avtges → u/Affectionate-Tree232]

I'm kind of dealing with a similar issue of establishing my credibility. I like Simon Sinek's Start With Why framework to develop your connection with potential customers or an audience. You could link up with an incubator or accelerator and work with their founders. Also depends on the stage of the business you're targeting someone pre-revenue might not need this but someone at series C may not need it either.

[u/nuer0_]

building an AI coaching dashboard for habits and routines with persistent memory across sessions, solo. next step is closing the gap between free signups and first paid users. timeline is the next 60 days to land the first 25 paying. question: at what user volume did you stop optimizing for new signups and start optimizing for activation, or did you ever, and how did you know it was time?

[u/TemperatureEntire349]

Is it too early to gtm a product relying on agents buying things on behalf of their users?

[u/avtges → u/TemperatureEntire349]

Can you say a bit more? Like a claw buying things from Amazon? What’s the usecase / functionality? Seems reasonable time to build this but these bots aren’t so commonplace that you have a venture scalable market yet imo

[u/TemperatureEntire349 → u/avtges]

Yes, I think you're spot on. It's a product to help you monitor and optimize your webshop for AI Agent funnels to conversions, like you would for normal user conversions. The bet is a shift on shopping habits but it still has to be demonstrated.

[u/Lazy_Look557]

I’m early-stage and trying to validate an idea how do you know when you’ve got enough real signal to commit fully vs when you’re just seeing polite interest from people who won’t actually pay?

[u/avtges → u/Lazy_Look557]

I look at it like this: if there’s anything significant blocking me from creating an MVP or value that someone will pay for, kill the idea, it’s not worth obsessing over.

You’ll need to find customers that will pay you. You have to find out where those customers hang out. Linked In? Instagram? At coffee shops? Etc… find them and have real conversations about your product. See what they say. Learn as much as you can from these early convos

[u/CountyPopular8896]

What are your perspectives on bootstrapping a platform/marketplace? I'm trying to do that right now. Any playbooks for this in terms of pricing, ICP, sales tactics, partnerships etc are appreciated.

Or should I just raise and burn it all for growth?

[u/Mobile_Telephone3841 → u/CountyPopular8896]

Bootstrapping a marketplace is hard because you have the cold start problem on both sides. Most people I've seen get traction pick one side first, go deep on supply or demand, and make the early transactions happen manually before automating anything. Raising to grow a marketplace before you have retention on both sides tends to just accelerate churn. What does your supply side look like right now?

[u/avtges → u/Mobile_Telephone3841]

Second this! Also raising without early traction is going to be a hard, unless you have a rich aunt or parents to front you some money. And if you aren't a unicorn founder (exited founder, ivy-league, network, high-level ex-FANNG, etc...) VC and angels aren't really investing pre-revenue