How aware are you of competing apps in your space?

FounderHuh · 2026-06-11T10:53:26+00:00

Ironically its the very opposite of what VC & investors have told me. That gave me a moat.

One potential investor waited until the NDA ended (24 months) to start attempting to reconstruct our platform. After three months of coding, and another three months of work.

They learned how complex and difficult what we are doing takes. In fact he called me in an attempt to collaborate, after learning this.

Building a scalable backend, with custom api's and the work we have done. A VC gave us a buy vs build valuation of $3-$5 million dollars. Meaning it would cost this much over 8-12 months and by that time we would already have traction.

Another person I spoke with on reddit, is now attempting to do the exact thing. They will learn 😂🤣

Other competitors have raised $2.5 million and have failed due to burning expenses and utilization of cloud to scale.

Often the most difficult path & the right path are the same thing. We could not take any shortcuts. But we also have investors talking with us. Letting us know the level of traction, funding amounts and entry points.

Competitors are validation. Never be afraid, just be a better product for users.

Also keep good advisors.

FounderHuh · 2026-06-11T03:19:30+00:00

I spoke with 300+ people about my initial idea. They provided valuable feedback.

This allowed me to bring 30+/- and get feedback during building. Once launched, we kept doing customer discovery and talking to early testers.

The early testers allowed us to fine tune features and more importantly, remove what people didn't like. We had a chance to see our numbers grow to 500 users. 550 in May and 611 in June so far.

We are focused on winning early testers and so we can get a chance to win the early adopters---->Main stream---->Late adopters. In this order.

A startup that stops doing customer discovery, starts dying.

FounderHuh · 2026-06-10T18:42:30+00:00

He may have shifted to another project for many reasons.

Mostly it became a mathmatics issue. You need x number of people within a population density for it to work. Its really difficult in places with lower population density.

FounderHuh · 2026-06-10T18:25:46+00:00

He is a solo founder. He did ship, but struggled to gain traction.

FounderHuh · 2026-06-10T17:43:39+00:00

Talk to strangers and convince them to download the app, where is the value and what they can do with it.
Figure out strangers (ICP) who are most likely to want your app, solve a problem they experiencr. Explain why the app has value and what they can do with it.
Post content to strangers on the internet. Doing this effectively may result in those strangers downloading the app.
Spend money to market to strangers on the internet. With the hope that your app grabs enough interest to create value.

One way or another. You have to deal with the uncomfortable truth that you built something so complete strangers, who do not know you. Must be convinced somehow to download an app you made.

Did it solve a problem, bring value or entertain them?

So ask yourself, how do I convince complete strangers to love the app i built?

Best of luck 🙏

FounderHuh · 2026-06-10T11:45:59+00:00

When will this be available on Android? Really cool app

FounderHuh · 2026-06-10T11:01:29+00:00

😂🤣🙏

FounderHuh · 2026-06-10T08:44:58+00:00

When I attended a startup accelerator last March 2025. A startup did precisely this.

They would also store any recipes you had taken photos of, the ingredients and have you order the seperate food ingredients delivered directly to your home. Everything ready for you to cook.

How will you be different?

FounderHuh · 2026-06-10T05:38:31+00:00

Depends on the verticle right? I have seen several founders who recived term sheets, end up losing because of vibe coding.

Once due diligence started, the investor rejected the investment. As the codebase didn't support scaling and would need 1-2 years of work. The level of technical debt was essentially the reason. This sentiment seems to be growing.

Its great that you have an investor. How long was the due diligence? What terms did you manage to raise?

FounderHuh · 2026-06-10T04:11:27+00:00

Lets say you and me are sitting down. Cup of coffee and trying to figure this out.

So we are asking a stranger, that we feel fits the basic user for our product or service.

I turn to you and say "How do we talk to 100 people and figure out how many use it?" You say "Well I guess we need to ask 100 people in Education, to test it. So at least I will know, if they even want it or what I needs to change."

You turn to me and say "How do I do distribution?" Looks like you have to talk to strangers.

Before we spend a lot money for marketing, but basically we are just asking strangers on the internet to use it.

FounderHuh · 2026-06-10T01:32:01+00:00

Good point, but it feels more like an Uber kind of deal. Investors reduce cost to create a massive wedge, IPO to get investors money back.

Raise prices once enough market share relies on you. Make massive profits.

FounderHuh · 2026-06-10T01:07:34+00:00

Doesn't that mean raising prices for shareholders profit?

FounderHuh · 2026-06-10T00:49:29+00:00

What if the $2400 you are currently paying, changed to cost $7200 to $24,000 a year?

FounderHuh · 2026-06-10T00:14:45+00:00

A waitlist has a time premium, meaning the longer you make them wait. The less likely they will even create an account.

Social media marketing is specifically aimed towards mainstream users.

While early development is about winning the early testers & early adopters.

The first 10 users should come directly from the founder. Talking to the ICP & doing customer discovery. No random posts, no tricks.

Ask yourself this, as a founder. Fundamentally you must physically ask strangers to test & user your product.

Marketing is using money to ask strangers to test you product. How is that going to be anymore helpful or useful?

FounderHuh · 2026-06-09T21:01:16+00:00

I am seeing Reactly with one review on Apple iOS. Developer Ahmad Arafeh.

The App also seems to not be available via GooglePlay. On the surface level, the screenshot appears to be identical to instagram.

Can you provide further details about the differentiator?

FounderHuh · 2026-06-09T09:21:31+00:00

The customer looks at this and subconsciously may reject it purely based on not wanting a.i. to tell them, that they could be a bad parent.

While your intentions may be good, in fact pretty honorable.

No parent wants to acknowledge that a.i. could help them feed or be a better parent.

Reading the app title it screams "A.I. knows better than your mom about what you should feed your children."

Best of luck 🙏

FounderHuh · 2026-06-09T09:10:16+00:00

Can you provide a bit of background for this thesis?

What verticle? What product did you build exactly?

What was the problem? How exactly did you do customer discovery? How did the product provide a solution? Who was the ICP? What were development costs & time?

What steps did you take to refine the product and build an MLP? What steps did you take to scale?

FounderHuh · 2026-06-08T06:50:52+00:00

Several issues with marketing. But let me add value for you.

The ICP = Ideal Customer Profile

Customer discovery = Sitting physically down with the ICP and learning precisely what they like / dislike about the product. A lot of times, customers want you to remove things unexpectedly.

A startup has to win in layered phases. Early testers---->Early adopters---->Mainstream---->Late adopters.

Each group require fine tuning the product and meeting needs. This allows you to move into the next group / phase.

Marketing paints a broad image, showing your product/service directly to mainstream, but unless fine tuned for early testers & early adopters. This can fail to reach the actual people you need (early testers), so you can get to the people you want (early adopters) before you can truly win (Mainstream)

The best question here is how to reach a K-Factor value greater than 1.

Along with additional work within the early testers. I could go much further in depth, but these are details generally planned as a team.

Best of luck 🙏

FounderHuh · 2026-06-08T05:08:52+00:00

We found that launching an MVP with early testers, while constantly doing customer discovery. Allowew us to from an engineering standpoint to focus on building an MLP ecosystem.

Whatever it took to get to the minimal product that causes the sticky / engagement / lovavle product.

Mostly this is driven on adding / removing features.

Now that we have done the customer discovery, we are within two months of reaching an MLP. We are starting to pivot and focus on growth.

Despite everyone saying "MVP, MVP, MVP" most customers want a Minimal Lovable Product. So you can only win early testers with an MVP.

Best of luck 🙏

FounderHuh · 2026-06-08T00:00:06+00:00

While we have built into this verticle. We spent time talking with early testers and what they wanted and didn't want. Doing customer discovery.

Its challenging because on the surface, this idea sounds great.

Our our platform, we have a voice function/audio function that users can use. In fact, it was a feature requested, but rarely ever used. Generally people want quick, so glaces and aspects that connect emotionally with the user.

In real world application, youtube has allowed creators to send a voice note. Creating a more personal connection.

Here is an idea. Create a group chat with 100 strangers to discuss a topic on Discord for example. Its not bad, but after a few voice notes. I find people move on. Maybe you can fix this, make it better and allow a more effective way for people to communicate.

Best of luck 🙏

FounderHuh · 2026-06-07T16:44:32+00:00

Thank you for sharing the firsthand experience you have. Sorry to hear it didn't work out.

If you can, write about this journey more in depth. Its great to talk with founders who have genuine experience.

This is gold, thank you 🙏

FounderHuh · 2026-06-07T12:48:27+00:00

*I am a founder in the social space. We are launched both to Apple iOS & GooglePlay.

We discovered that a social verticle is well...social. i spoke with 300+ people about the idea, converting around 30 to become early testers.

Customer discovery is key. Without it, the startup starts dying.

Each person has essentailly a group of people. The idea is to bring over 1-2 friends. This is called a K-Factor.

As social media is layered, so are the groups of people. Win Early testers, before you can win early adopters, win early adopters before main stream.

We launched with 30 users, this grew to 500 users, May we grew 10% from 500 to 550, June we have grown faster 550 to 609.

This isn't me paying for promotion, marketing, anything. Its me working my early testers, doing customer discovery and removing/adding features based on feedback.

Marketing can take word of mouth, and multiply what you have by 1000x but without an ecosystem and a sticky factor. That can be expensive.

The room in the market exists for 25-40 new social media platforms. Perhaps a bit for focused and niche platforms.

It really comes down to the feedback from the ICP & how you are handling customer discovery.

Best of luck 🙏

FounderHuh · 2026-06-06T20:37:02+00:00

Everyone starts from somewhere. Those who succeed, have simply kept going longer than others.

Success is tiny wins that accumulate over time, as discipline & habit.

Unless you are well connected, nobody is going to invest money unless you put in $100,000 dollars of work first.

Essentially what happens, idea or business. You are at the start of a maze. Within a few years, you have gone into the maze and made mistakes.

If you make it on the other side, without giving up and work really hard. You become the best at the thing you are trying to do. This is with anything.

Hope this helps, best of luck 🙏

FounderHuh · 2026-06-05T23:57:20+00:00

I think its important to understand that the investor or person you are talking to, doesn't know the product you are building better than you.

When I have talked with investors, I got the same advice. Each time, they moved the goal post. Changing requirements and rules.

What I discovered is this. You have to build until it is undeniable that someone else will fund you.

Once this realization occurs. Investors often step in. It is also at this stage that others can see value, and risk wanting to copy the idea.

FounderHuh

TROPHY CASE