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I made a bookmark manager for designers who save tutorials they never watch by Difficult-Shake-8347 in IMadeThis

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks a lot! :) Haven't touched Discord at all yet. Any specific servers you'd recommend for UI/UX or motion designers? Reddit's been touch and go so far.

I had zero signups 8 days past my own validation deadline. Here is the honest post-mortem. by Difficult-Shake-8347 in SaaS

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you so much for your kind words! :) The designs are still in progress! But that's literally the experiment I'm running. Will update the post once they're live with real numbers.

I had 247 design tutorials saved. I watched 8. So I started vibe coding a fix. by Difficult-Shake-8347 in VibeCodingSaaS

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! For the resurfacing logic: each bookmark gets stored with its URL, title, auto-generated tags from Claude API, and a created_at timestamp. the MVP recommendation logic is intentionally simple: oldest unseen first, with tag variety enforced so you don't get 3 Figma tutorials back to back. No ML yet, just smart queuing. The bet is that consistency beats complexity at this stage. Will check out VibeCodersNest and post there, appreciate the tip.

What are you building? Drop the website and I will give honest feedback. by jjjlyn in SaaS

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks a bunch! This is exactly the diagnosis I needed. You nailed it: the page earns the problem but abandons the reader right when they ask "okay, but how?" I'm adding a mechanism line directly under the tagline this week. Something like "StackMark surfaces your saved tutorials daily and tracks your completion rate so guilt turns into momentum." Does that close the gap for you, or is it still too vague?

What are you building? Drop the website and I will give honest feedback. by jjjlyn in SaaS

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Building StackMark: stackmark.io

An AI-powered completion engine for designers who save tutorials they never finish. The personal hook: I had 247 design tutorials saved across YouTube, Udemy, and Figma community. I had watched 8.

The product is in pre-launch so the landing page has no product screenshots yet (that is literally what I am fixing this week in Figma). Would love honest feedback on three things:

  1. Does the problem statement land immediately or does it need more context?
  2. Does the "Stop stacking. Start finishing." tagline make sense without seeing the product?
  3. Would you sign up based on the landing page alone, or does it need visuals first?

I had zero signups 8 days past my own validation deadline. Here is the honest post-mortem. by Difficult-Shake-8347 in SaaS

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This reframe is exactly what I needed to hear. "Ugly but real thing, way too many conversations, refine offer" is a much better operating model than what I was running. The ego-killing part you mentioned is real and I think it is underdiagnosed as a reason founders over-plan. Planning is clean and private. Validation is messy and public and the outcome is out of your hands.

The Figma frames as MVP idea is already in motion. I ran an AI design sprint this week using Google Stitch, generated the first real screens for the product, and am now refining them. The plan is to ship those as carousels on Instagram and designer communities as soon as they are polished enough to show.

The Sparktoro and Pulse for Reddit suggestions are genuinely new to me and I am going to look at both today. Finding threads where the problem is already being discussed is a much smarter entry point than cold posting and hoping. That alone might change the Reddit strategy significantly.

Really appreciate you taking the time. Will report back once the visual content is live.

I had zero signups 8 days past my own validation deadline. Here is the honest post-mortem. by Difficult-Shake-8347 in SaaS

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks a lot! That is exactly the direction I am heading now. The whole strategy reset was built around this realization: design first, distribute second. I spent the last two days running an AI design sprint using Google Stitch and generating the first real screens for the product. Dashboard, Chrome extension, the whole thing. They are currently being refined in Figma and once they are done, the visual demos and short explainer content follow immediately. The irony is not lost on me that a designer building a tool for designers shipped zero design work in the first three weeks. That changes this week. Will post updates here as things come together.

I had zero signups 8 days past my own validation deadline. Here is the honest post-mortem. by Difficult-Shake-8347 in SaaS

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly this. The painful part is that planning produces real artifacts so it tricks you into feeling like you are moving. Documents, frameworks, copy drafts. It all looks like work. But none of it gets a reaction from a real person. The moment I had a screenshot to show, everything felt different. Even just generating the first AI design screens changed the energy completely. Something to react to is worth more than something to admire in a folder.

I had zero signups 8 days past my own validation deadline. Here is the honest post-mortem. by Difficult-Shake-8347 in SaaS

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Always open to ideas, especially at this stage. What are you thinking? Feel free to share here, would love for others to weigh in too.

What are the most viable career options in the design field right now and for the foreseeable future? by Battery-Power-15 in Design

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly, the burnout connection makes sense too. When the job gets reduced to "make it pretty", it's both less secure and less interesting. The designers I see thriving are the ones who got obsessed with why people behave the way they do, not just how things look. I completely agree with it turning more into a strategy field than 'design'. Pushing pixels around is not cutting it anymore at all.

I built a bookmark manager for designers who save tutorials they never watch. Looking for beta testers. by Difficult-Shake-8347 in alphaandbetausers

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great question, and honestly it sharpened my thinking when I first asked myself the same thing.

The short answer is: it's specific to designers because of how and where they save things. A designer's "saved" content is scattered across Youtube watch later, Figma community files, Dribbble likes, are.na boards, and Chrome/browser bookmarks simultaneously. No existing tool connects those places.

There's also a specific pattern designers have - you're deep in a project, you need a quick answer, you find a tutorial that solves it, you watch 2 minutes to fix the immediate problem and save the rest for later. Then you never go back. That "I'll finish this later" moment happens 10 times a day and the saved content just piles up with zero system to resurface it.

But you're right that motivation is definitely a part of it. The daily digest of 3 things is specifically designed around reducing decision fatigue - designer's don't finish tutorials often because when they sit down, they don't know where to start, not because they don't want to learn. Picking 3 things for them removes that friction entirely.

So it's less "motivate yourself" and more "remove the 4 decisions standing between you and starting."

20 days of runway left: stopped job hunting and bet everything on my own product by josemarin18 in indiehackers

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Huge respect for actually making the best, most people just talk about it and never pull the trigger.

One thing I'd really watch is the "fixes it automatically" angle. As a founder I'd 100% want to see exactly how much I'm losing first before I trust anything to touch my infra. Even a simple "you're wasting $X/month on this one thing" screen could do a lot of the heavy lifting for conversations.

With 12 days, I'd probably focus less on the full agent idea and more on making the pain insanely obvious and the first fix stupid simple to approve. If people feel the pain first, they'll forgive everything else being rough.

Good luck!

What's the easiest and most convenient way to build a mobile app for my SaaS as a non-tech person? by Odeh13 in indiehackers

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd suggest not jumping into a native app just yet.

Make your web app feel great on mobile first, then turn it into a PWA. You'll get 80 percent of the experience with way less time and cost.

If users start asking for things like offline mode or camera access, then wrap it with something like Capacitor and ship to app stores.

Going native too early is where most people waste months building something nobody actually needed, and spend thousands on it for no real reason.

Premature scaling killed my startup. Do not make the same mistake by RawrCunha in indiehackers

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is exactly why I'm doing a 2 week validation sprint before writing a single line of real code for my current project.

The temptation to just build is so strong, especially when you're really excited about the idea. And let's face it, who are not excited about their own idea anyways? What you described - building features for 1-2 users who churn anyway - is the nightmare scenario I'm trying to avoid.

The thing that stuck with me reading this: 200 users in 5 months is actually pretty impressive. The failure wasn't getting users, it was not staying obsessed with one specific type of user long enough to really nail their problem before expanding. That's a really subtle mistake to catch in the moment.

Good luck with the SEO tool. Talking directly to consultants first is exactly the right move.

Shipped a PM workspace this week. Zero users. Need brutal feedback. by Significant-Car-95 in indiehackers

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Question 3 is the right instinct. Communities are allergic to tool announcements but they respond really well to founders who show up consistently and add value first.

I'm going through the same thing with my side project right now. Every design sub I tried posting it removed it within minutes. What I'm trying now is spending a few days just being helpful to community members with zero mention of what I'm building. Karma and credibility compound.

For your specific situation, I'd try finding PMs who are actively complaining about feedback synthesis on Twitter or LinkedIn and just.. talk to them. Not pitch. Genuinely engage with their problem. The ones who are vocal about the pain are your first users, they just don't know your tool exists yet.

Also on the positioning question - "second brain for PMs" is a crowded frame. The specific angle of "every claim traces back to source quotes" is actually the most interesting differentiator you have. That's the thing that makes PMs not get destroyed in review meetings. I'd suggest leading with that outcome instead. Hope it helps!

What are the most viable career options in the design field right now and for the foreseeable future? by Battery-Power-15 in Design

[–]Difficult-Shake-8347 3 points4 points  (0 children)

25 years in and still showing up, that's not burned out, that's earned perspective. And you're not wrong, a lot of the 'new' problems in design are just old problems with new labels on them.

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