After four long years of grinding, building, fundraising, and hiring, we decided to pivot. I wanted to write down my thought process and timeline because I wish I d seen more honest pivot stories when we were stuck. Not just we pivoted and everything was instantly great but the real version where we kept trying to make the original idea work for way too long because we already put so much into it.

I went through YC S20 (the first COVID batch) as a solo founder working on @Basedash. After YC, I did what you re supposed to do. I talked to users. I built product. I did founder-led sales. I hired a great team. It felt like progress because I was constantly busy and the product kept getting better.

Many of us appreciate tools that save us time or money in our businesses. But there are also projects out there with a bigger mission (improving lives, supporting the planet, and helping those in need, to name a few).

Do you know of any inspiring projects that aim to make the world a better place?

I am curious how people actually do it.

There are tons of stories about founders launching SaaS products without an existing audience. No Twitter following, no newsletter, no community, nothing. Yet some still manage to get early traction and even hit real MRR.

If you have started from zero, I would love to hear:

• How you got your first users

• What channels brought the earliest traction

• Whether cold outreach works or not

• If content played a role or if you focused mainly on building

• What you would do differently if you had to start again

@mat_sherman and I have been talking about meditation and I was remembering I had tested out @Calm and @Headspace. I searched forums and see references to these in convos 5 years ago. They still seem like the main contenders, but I also just downloaded @Insight Timer App @Breathwrk and https://www.meditatehappier.com/ too.

Anyone have experience with any of these? I'm new to meditation, have tried it a few times but have yet to build a habit and need to! Any recs are greatly appreciated!

I remember reading an essay by @rrhoover about how he moved from his native Oregon to San Francisco after university studies, where doors full of networking opportunities opened up for him.

I saw the same thing in my country after graduation. About 80% of my classmates went to the capital, where there are the most opportunities in marketing and tech. (Or they went abroad.)

Almost every founder I know has one line from a customer that's better than anything they'd have written themselves. Usually it's the oddly specific one. The bit you'd never have thought to claim about your own product.

What I find interesting is how those actually arrive, because it's almost never the polite follow-up email asking for a testimonial. Mine turn up by accident. Someone says it in passing at the end of a call, or drops it into a support thread, and if you don't catch it right there it's gone for good.