... actually building projects, with mentorship from people who've shipped real products. Inspired by something Kunal Shah (Founder, Cred) once said: "The world doesn't need more degrees, it needs more doers." That line pretty much became our northstar. We're still early and learning a lot. Would love this community's take: What's the biggest gap you've seen between "what college teaches" and "what actually gets you hired/funded"? If you mentor students or juniors, what ...

... best user cost you nothing. There's a rule most of us absorbed without ever being taught it: engagement is free. One more session, one more entry, one more day in the app pure margin. That rule is why "northstar metric" articles exist, why every dashboard puts DAU at the top, why nobody ever asked you what your heaviest cohort costs. It held for twenty years because the marginal cost of serving a software user really was approximately zero ... ... bursty, transactional tools. Your product is the opposite shape, which is why I think your "design the ceiling into the session" line is the right end of the stick for you. Comment from Abrar Sami(@abrar_sami1): True, your

... scenes with small closed-eye movements. As the user responds less, the experience slows and fades. The goal is not to produce another score or streak. Engagement for us is failure. Speed to disengage (fall asleep faster) is our northstar. We have a working prototype, but three product questions are still open: Does interactive sound helpful at bedtime, or does it immediately sound too stimulating? Would you trust a product worn over your eyes if it clearly explained that ...

... about it here ). But a single metric warps things too. Activation can climb while retention quietly slips, and I've caught myself ignoring real signals just because they weren't the number. So I keep flip-flopping between: One northstar everyone recites 2 or 3 metrics with clear owners A wall of charts and trusting people to be adults Right now I lean

... hire, collaborate, share information, or build a relationship. That experience led me to create MeetKith pronounced Keith and introduce the idea of Human Trust Decision Intelligence . My journey from cannabis to technology may seem unexpected, but my attitude and northstar remain consistent: helping people make better decisions with greater clarity and confidence. I believe trust is the next digital frontier. Trust is the new currency. -Dr. Roz McCarthy Founder/CEO MeetKith ...

... something we actually understand. Comment from Dawid Baranowski(@dawid_baranowski): @omri_ben_shoham1  manual work for the win! Comment from Dawid Baranowski(@dawid_baranowski): @satchmo_saunders  Appreciate you man! For us, we're still deciding on the northstar metric, but it probably is user reached out to their second decisionmaker. Amazon's cited metric in Matt's book was iirc 'customer made second order'. Lots hinging on repeat uses of products generally:) Comment from Satchmo Saunders(@satchmo ... ... avoid? Contextual hints at the moment of hesitation, or more of a guided first-run path? Comment from Satchmo Saunders(@satchmo_saunders): @dawid_baranowski  Adding it to the list, thank you. "Second collaborator joins and edits" as a

... weekly. It's a much earlier signal than journaling quality dropping, so it gives us time to adjust before users silently disengage. And thank you for that framing of "curiosity vs. being watched" -- it's become kind of a north

... Every investor deck we've ever seen says the same thing: grow DAU. Daily active users is the northstar. If people aren't coming back every day, something's broken. We believed this too when we started Murror. We built push notifications, streak counters, and gentle nudges. "You haven't journaled today." "Your streak is at risk." The standard playbook. It worked. DAU went up. But something felt off. We started reading what users wrote on the days they ... ... came back because of a notification

... notion has the "official" version. nobody opens that one. confession: customer onboarding is a csv pulled from postgres pasted into airtable manually every monday. been promising to automate it "next quarter" for 3 quarters running. the funniest one: our northstar metric dashboard runs in retool but the underlying SQL is just a saved query pinned in our team slack from 18 months ago. nobody has touched it since. the spreadsheet isn't the failure mode. the failure mode ...

... whole point. That is the experience we want Buddy to help create, turning the weekly distill step into something the tool nudges you through. We are not all the way there yet, but you just described the northstar really well. Comment from Nolan Vu(@nolan_vu): @maxence_leguery_podtech  quietly in the day view, no question. notifications are just another thing to dismiss and feel bad about later. the nudge model works for alerts, not for tasks ... ... pretty much end of the week). This helps distill information in an informed way and as soon as I read the notes from past I almost walk in to the room. Comment from Hadi Farnoud(@hadifarnoud): The calendar-

... turned out to be word-of-mouth from people who barely use the app anymore. They recommend Murror precisely because it helped them move forward and that story is more compelling than any ad. We had to redefine our northstar metric. Instead of DAU, we track what we call "resolution moments" instances where a user's journaling pattern around a specific issue shifts from repetitive to exploratory to resolved. That's our real growth number. We learned ... ... already understood wellness or mental health they got it immediately. But for generalist investors, we had to reframe. Instead of saying "our power users barely use us," we'd say: "Our users reach meaningful outcomes faster than any

... working on Achiral AI , an independently-hosted shared brain for SMBs (Say bye bye to BigTech!). When I'm not wiring up GPU clusters, I play leads on my Ibanez JEM7VP for a band. Pink Floyd is our northstar, if you will. ;-) I've started learning piano recently now that AI writes all of the code I need. Looking forward to connecting with other makers here what's everyone working on? And yes, I invest in promising startups ... ... Comment from Rian Robertson(@rianbrob): Hey Marvin,love the intro and that Pink Floyd

... removed streak mechanics entirely. No guilt for taking breaks. 2. We added "graduation moments" when the app recognizes you've made real progress on something, it explicitly tells you it's okay to step away. 3. We shifted our northstar metric from daily active users to "life moments influenced" did the user actually apply something from Murror in a real conversation or decision? The results surprised us. Our DAU dipped initially, but monthly active users and referrals both went ...

... with progress is such a perfect way to describe it. We were doing the same thing at Murror, celebrating deploys like wins when we had no idea if anyone actually wanted what we shipped. Your reframe about iteration cycles vs deployment frequency is spot on. Good luck with Hello Aria's launch on the 10th, it sounds like you have learned the right lessons early which is a huge advantage. Comment from Mona Truong(@monatruong_murror): @umairnadeem   You make ... ... real daily use. The "constraint before speed" insight you mention is real forcing ourselves to answer "what s the one thing this feature can break" before shipping saved us from several own goals. The broader point about iteration speed vs

... point, there are more users, and their expectations start to differ. So how do you decide which features will, or won t, be implemented? The most common approaches I ve personally seen are: Whether the request comes from paying vs. non-paying users Whether the feature aligns with the product vision (and isn t just fluff) How demanding the feature will be to build How many people are asking for it (size of demand) I worked in technical support ... ... designer of decisions." To avoid product bloat and unnecessary complexity, you need a strategic filter to decide what truly belongs on your roadmap. Here is the framework I use to prioritize features and stay lean: Prioritize with the "Attractiveness vs

... template. Drop a note, and I ll share the link. A few extra thoughts from the trenches: 1 A hockey stick looks more like a staircase when you zoom in. Don't be discouraged by the "big guys". 2 NorthStar is Customer love . Right after that: MRR. Cash is king . (Customer love drives revenue). 3 Short-term campaigns drive insane growth: Two months ago, we launched a limited AppSumo campaign. In 60 days, we sold more than ...

... With Android coming next, Filo will work across iOS, macOS, Windows, and Android , with the same workflow and the same brain everywhere you open your inbox. Our northstar is still the same: Never miss what matters. Not by throwing more notifications at you, but by making sure the important things naturally rise to the top, while the noise stays out of your way. A couple highlights we re genuinely proud of: Filo was selected to be featured ...

... Being an engineer myself, I see that many people are outputting more code than ever. Some of it being generated vs. written, the volume of code being outputted has definitely risen.  There seems to be a shift from "is this something we can build?" to "should we build this and ship it?" For people who have been recruiting or looking to recruit recently, what roles are you hiring for?  Role title (I've seen a rise ... ... clarity yet. Even the PMs today are judged on how quickly they can validate ideas, not just ship specs. If you re hiring, look for people who can prototype fast, break down ambiguity, and rally teams around a shared north

... unprofitable side project to tomb. Indie dev life is messy, and I kept asking myself: what s the leanest system that actually helps me move toward $10k MRR? That s how the TenK 6 system came alive: One Weekly NorthStar One Next Best Step per day, chosen from six universal patterns (List, Pick, Ship, Ask, Measure, Share). I ve been dogfooding it and it feels right less planning, more shipping, more real evidence that I m making progress. Would ...

... space, with plans to expand into other domains soon. It helps you: See Your Blind Spots: It analyzes your current skills to show you which ones are most vulnerable to AI automation. No more guessing. Find Your NorthStar : It identifies the specific strategic skills that top companies are actively hiring for, giving you a clear destination. Build Your Path: It provides a personalized, AI-coached roadmap with step-by-step guidance to help you close your skill gaps ...

... basket" -- this goes for YC, for venture funds, etc. Your comment of finding other points of validation is spot on, and I would argue the only true marker of validation is customer acquisition and traction. Keeping that as your NorthStar is vital but difficult ...

... Comment from Sultan Ansari(@deleted-8918785): The focus on production ready instead of demo hype is refreshing. Too many frameworks don't make that leap. Comment from Musa Molla(@musa_molla): @sultan_ansari1  Exactly, That s been our northstar from day one- no more fragile demos, only workflows that hold up under real-world production loads. Appreciate you seeing that, Sultan ...

... most important types of meetings? A job interview . We re building an AI scheduling assistant that actually works (our northstar from day one: holy $hit, this works ). We have active users, strong demand, and big growth ahead - and now we need an engineer to help us scale. The role: Backend-focused with full-stack skills (Nest.js / Node.js ideal) Remote, UK/EU-friendly time zone Shape the product & tech stack from the ground up Small, fast-moving, funded team that values ...

... Start With Why a classic, but it hits different when you ve hit a few walls. It made me go back and ask myself why I even started my creative and product journey in the first place. Still my northstar on tough days. Comment from Suvam Deo(@suvam_deo): @busmark_w_nika  Agree! That's is a sure shot 100%. Good thought Comment from Rusha Sen(@rushasen): Sharing the Ted talks that had a profound impact ...

... Results would be to increase Retweets, Likes or something like that by a given percentage or number. As Rohul commented, add SMART goals in to help with the Objectives and you start to build out meaningful and aspirational goals vs checklists. Comment from Igor Lysenko(@ixord): I have too many plans, I haven't accomplished them all Comment from Nika(@busmark_w_nika): @rohulp  aaaa, so website is not yet publicly available, right? Comment from Ashutosh Raj(@ashutosh ... ... will really move the needle for your business/brand. 2. Work backwards from your yearly vision: Did you plan out where you want to be at the end of 2025 and work backwards to set these quarterly goals? Having that north