Does anyone have incubation experience? I have been selected for SMU BIG incubation August 2026 cohort. The incubation period is for 4 months where they would closely mentor and help in securing funding as well. Just want to know from others who have had similar experience in any incubation? How did it help your startup and what were your takeaways?
The more complex the community becomes, the more difficult it is to handle some things. I manage (several) communities and have to face many things that are not convenient to solve but have to do anyway so I would share my approach. It may help you. I picked 3 of the most common scenarios I face frequently. Hate comments, swear words, impolite convo I usually report these because some swear words can result in "copycat" behaviour (sometimes even for no reason) + which damages the brand. Bot comments Do not answer or report them as AI / fake accounts Concerns expressed over data in comments Although some businesses collect data, it is necessary to refer to the privacy policy you need to attach the link. (People are warned about this before using the product and they should be reminded to read it beforehand.) What were the struggles you had to solve?
We can enrich each other about "crisis communication."
i try a lot of AI products and my honest hit rate is low. most of what i install is gone inside a week, and usually not because it was bad. it just never turned into a habit.
the few that stuck have almost nothing in common on paper. the only thread i can find is that they took away a step i was already doing, instead of adding a step i probably should be doing. the ones that asked me to build a new routine all died.
Our old knowledge base was packed with massive articles trying to explain every single detail. Customers rarely read them and jumped straight to emailing support instead.
We revamped the entire center by keeping each page focused on just one simple action and adding short video clips for common issues.
Spent weeks coding a feature I personally thought looked super cool only to check analytics later and see almost zero usage. Meanwhile actual user requests were sitting ignored in my notes.
Now I force myself to stick to a strict rule where I only build something if multiple users explicitly ask for it first.
Was there a specific moment or failed launch that made you stop building for yourself and start listening to users?
Default image generation settings always default to the exact same boring composition and lighting.
When we were making marketing banners every batch looked like it came from the exact same template. Adding random focal lengths and lighting styles via script sounds like a smart fix to force some variety.
Have you tried playing with negative prompts as well or do you mostly focus on randomizing the main input parameters?
I launched a product today, and one of the biggest lessons came before the launch:
Building individual features was relatively straightforward. Explaining why they all belonged in the same product was much harder.
The moment the product became easier to explain, a lot of other decisions became easier too: what to remove, what to emphasize, and who it was really for.
Have you ever built something that worked well, but was surprisingly difficult to explain clearly?
Picking a flexible setup feels like overengineering when you're just starting out so we just threw everything into one flat database table to move fast.
It seemed like the right call at the time because we shipped our MVP in two weeks. But six months later when we needed to add relational data and user permissions, refactoring that massive table took an entire month of halted development. Sometimes moving too fast in week one creates a massive anchor in month six.
Did you stick with a simple database structure early on, or did you prep for scale from day one?
AI agents are getting better at finding products and comparing options but completing a purchase is a different challenge. Cart updates checkout forms shipping details and payment verification can all create friction along the way. Has anyone tested an agent against a real checkout flow? I'd love to know where it gets stuck and how much human intervention is still needed.
Our Net Promoter Score was consistently sitting at a depressing 12, yet our revenue retention was over 110%. We were completely confused.
When we jumped on 1-on-1 calls with customers, we discovered that users found our product's interface ugly and clunky, but the core data it generated was so indispensable to their daily operations that they couldn't switch to a competitor even if they wanted to. They were paying us every month while actively disliking the daily experience.
If you've ever inherited a product with high utility but terrible UX: do you pause all new feature development to rebuild the interface, or keep shipping value and live with a frustrated user base?
