The AI gold rush feels like it rewards teams who ship fast. Many teams are working on a 9-9-6 (9am-9pm, 6 days a week) schedule to keep up with the state of the art breakthroughs and features. Does this give teams an edge against their competition or is this slowly burning teams out. If you're building in the AI space, I would love to hear what your take is:
What works for your team and do you follow the 996 schedule?
Did following a 996 culture create more bugs or actually lead to breakthroughs and push you ahead of your competition?
How would you balance your life outside of work if you followed this schedule?
Making this post to raise awareness and ideally find a middle ground for teams that are currently growing and trying to keep up with the competition
This is probably one of the most debated topics in the startup world: Should you build an audience before you launch, or is it better to launch first and grow your audience afterward? I ve seen both approaches work, but each comes with its own set of challenges and rewards. - Building an audience first means you're creating buzz, validating your idea, and nurturing a community of early adopters who are invested in your success. But it takes time, patience, and a lot of effort to keep the momentum going before you even have a product to show. - Launching first lets you hit the ground running, gather real-world feedback, and iterate quickly. But without an existing audience, you might struggle to get those initial users and traction. So, indulge me: Which approach did you take or are you considering taking (those who haven't launched yet)? - Did you build an audience before launching your product, or did you launch and then focus on growth?
- What worked (or didn't work) for you?
- If you could go back, would you do it differently? Share your story with us so we can all learn from each other. There's someone here who could benefit from your experience. ----- P.S: If you're a growth-stage founder struggling with churn or stagnant customer acquisition (usually because of poor positioning and messaging), I'd love to help. I specialize in crafting impactful marketing strategies tailored specifically to your product so you can start seeing the results you deserve. Connect with me on LinkedIn today. Can't wait to hear from you!
Building in public and doing some research on my own scar tissue. I've rage-quit more finance apps than I can count YNAB three separate times, two spreadsheets I lovingly built and abandoned by week three, one app whose notifications made me feel like a parent was scolding me.
Every time it was the same story: the tool slowly turned into a chore, and one day I just... stopped opening it.
So I want the war stories. What money app or system did you rage-quit? Was it the manual data entry, the guilt-trip notifications, the endless categories to maintain or something else?
They say the best investment is in your health. (I agree, although I have to admit I don t really stick to that myself.)
Right now, health is mostly being supported at the level of:
physical fitness (workout apps, weight-loss tools, smart devices for heart-rate tracking, step counters) mental health (e.g., digital detox apps, a personal therapist in your phone) longevity (more of a long-term process, experimenting across different areas)
In the process of growing, you may have realized some things about yourself that you hadn't noticed before. For example, maybe you're more introverted than you thought or perhaps your sense of humor is a lot darker than you had originally imagined.
Hey everyone! Do you take notes while working and where do you jot down notes? Personally, I use the notes app on my MacBook, or some piece of paper, notebook, etc., and it is extremely difficult for me to find these notes when I need them. We are currently building BeforeSunset v2.0 to sync and bond with your team without additional messages. In the new version, you'll also have a personal space for taking notes about your tasks or your meeting (or whatever you want to take notes about). You can join our waitlist to know when we are ready: https://www.usebeforesunset.com/
