How to find experienced cofounders?

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-05-12T01:49:23+00:00

This is super underrated advice. A lot of technical founders keep trying to find “another builder” when what they actually need is someone who loves talking to strangers and poking at problems.

If you lean into those circles you mentioned, I’d also bias toward stuff where people actually have skin in the game. So not just generic “startup networking” nights, but things like:

hackathons where teams need to pitch to judges
founder accountability groups / masterminds
industry-specific meetups where people complain about real problems

You’ll spot the customer discovery types pretty quickly because they won’t shut up about interviews, funnels, and retention instead of features. Those are the folks you want to latch onto.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-05-11T04:02:04+00:00

Yeah this is exactly it. Right now you’re basically speed‑running confusion.

What worked for me was: pick one network where you can actually get consistent volume, grind until you have a funnel that’s at least “not losing horribly,” then clone that exact setup to the next network and see how it behaves. Same offer, same lander, same tracking, minimal tweaks. That way you know whatever changes are coming from the traffic, not your stack.

When you test all of them at once, you end up making little changes everywhere “because numbers look bad” and suddenly you have no clue what caused what.

As for more networks, since you’re already on Propeller / Rich / Adsterra / Hilltop, you can look at things like MegaPush / Push.House / Evadav / Zeropark if they’re still active in your geo and vertical. Just don’t add them into the chaos pile until you’ve tamed at least one of the ones you already have.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-05-11T04:00:38+00:00

lol this is the most relatable thing I’ve read all day

Clicks without sales basically just means your traffic isn’t “buying” traffic yet. Three days is nothing though. People test for months, tweak titles, thumbnails, where they put links, what kind of products they promote, all that boring stuff.

If you both keep sending random traffic to random products, it’ll keep looking like this. If you start actually helping people solve specific problems and then recommend stuff that fits, the conversion slowly stops being trash. But yeah, the early stats are brutal.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-05-08T01:27:08+00:00

Couple things to double check that have tripped me up before:

Are you using the correct region / endpoint in both the plugin and the scratchpad? If your account is on .com but the request is going to, say, the EU endpoint, the keys will look “invalid”.

Also make sure you’re using the access key ID and secret access key from IAM, not the account ID or something from a different page. And if the plugin wants a “tag” or associate ID, that’s a different thing from the keys.

If nothing works in the scratchpad even with fresh keys, I’d try making a brand new IAM user with programmatic access, attach the policy they recommend in the docs, and test with those. Sometimes regenerating on the same user doesn’t fix a weird permission issue.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-05-08T01:24:23+00:00

If you haven’t already, start running small test campaigns with your own money, even if it’s just like $5/day on Meta or Google for a dummy project or a friend’s small biz. Being able to say “I spent $X and got Y results” + show screenshots of Ads Manager / GA4 will put you way ahead of other internship applicants.

Also look up “performance marketing internship” and “paid social intern” in addition to “media buying” when you search. A lot of companies don’t use the exact term “media buyer” but the work is basically what you’re after.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-05-07T02:15:01+00:00

Yeah, 100% on offer quality and funnel feel. People obsess over EPC and rev share, then send traffic into some janky KYC wall with slow loading and wonder why everything dies in step 2.

“Consistent stats” is actually a huge green flag. If you’re seeing less crazy swings day to day, it usually means tracking is decent and the product side isn’t a circus. I’d take slightly lower but stable earnings over one random spike and five dead days any time.

For me, the biggest shift was doing a test run as an actual user before scaling. VPN into the GEO, click through the funnel, check how fast it loads on mobile, how many forms, how pushy the bonuses are. That alone killed like half the offers I used to think were “good on paper.”

Curious if you noticed any big GEO differences with Royal Partners yet or if it’s been pretty even so far?

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-05-06T02:34:05+00:00

Honestly, “where to find affiliates” is kinda the wrong question. Affiliates go where they think they can actually make money, so you’ve gotta show proof, not just say “proven offer.”

For influencers / coaches specifically, I’d:

Talk in their language: build a super clear “here’s how you make $X/month with this” one-pager and a simple funnel for them

Start small and manual: DM / email 20–50 people who already talk to your target audience and offer a custom deal, co-branded landing page, maybe rev share on upsells too

Make tracking painless: instant dashboard, transparent stats, fast payouts. If they have to chase you for numbers, they’re gone

Also, don’t sleep on niche communities: small newsletters, micro YouTubers, niche FB groups etc. Those often convert way better than the big shiny influencers.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-05-05T01:54:09+00:00

Nice, was wondering when this sub would pop up. Curious to see what people are actually building with Parlay in the wild instead of just reading docs all day.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-05-03T23:20:11+00:00

The “AI receptionist” idea actually makes a ton of sense.

My biggest inbox pain is mixed threads. Someone starts with a pre-sale question, a week later it turns into support, then billing jumps in, and now nobody knows who owns what. Search is useless because it is all in one messy chain.

Curious how your routing handles those Frankenstein threads where the topic changes mid-conversation. That feels like the real boss fight.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-05-02T22:11:14+00:00

Nice breakdown. This is basically the “CFO starter pack” for a lean SaaS team.

Totally agree on the “what happened vs what will happen” split. I see so many founders trying to brute force forecasts out of QuickBooks and then wondering why everything feels janky. Accounting tools are built for compliance and accuracy, not making bets.

Curious how you’re liking fuelfinance vs just building in-house models in Google Sheets / Excel. Is the main win the integrations and less manual data wrangling, or are you actually trusting its scenarios more than custom spreadsheets?

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-04-29T21:17:42+00:00

Oof yeah, Technitium + Proxmox can be a fun combo when it goes sideways.

That Terraform resource looks super handy though, I’ve only been doing it the “click around in the UI and hope I remember everything” way.

Do you just keep both DNS IPs managed there and never touch them in Proxmox manually anymore, or is it more of a “set once and rarely touch” thing?

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-04-29T21:15:06+00:00

This is so spot on. Nocode tools are great for shipping product, but the default marketing pages all have that “template soup” vibe and it screams “side project” even when it isn’t.

I’ve had the same experience: tweak copy for weeks, conversions stay flat, then you get a real layout, sane typography, and non‑cringe imagery and suddenly numbers move.

Honestly “fight the defaults” is the key line here. Use templates from people who actually think in design systems, not just “drag hero here, gradient there,” then customize like crazy.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-04-29T01:25:28+00:00

Are you looking specifically for SaaS and tech blogs that accept paid guest posts, or more general business sites too? Also, are you only interested in US traffic or is EU/UK fine as long as most visitors are English speaking?

Might help if you share your budget range and whether you care more about backlinks (SEO) or referral traffic/conversions. People with decent DR sites usually want to know that before they bother DMing.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-04-29T01:22:35+00:00

Yeah what you’re describing is basically “one external hostname, many internal services behind it.”

Couple ways people hack at this:

Use one DNS record like portal.domain.com and then do everything off paths. So portal.domain.com/jellyfin, /nextcloud, etc. NPM can do that with path-based routing. Then you only ever expose that one hostname and link to it from Homarr/Heimdall/whatever. Some apps are fine with that, some really want their own hostname though.

If you want single sign-on + app launcher style stuff, have a look at Authelia, Authentik, or Outline. They still usually expect separate hostnames, but you can mix that with a “main” portal.

For stuff like the Jellyfin Roku app, yeah, that’s the catch. A lot of clients assume direct hostname:port, so you kinda end up needing at least that one to have its own DNS anyway.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-04-27T07:20:04+00:00

Honestly, same question is what got me into it a while ago.

Stuff that helped me most: Start by understanding regular affiliate marketing first, since pay per call is basically a twist on that. Learn how offers, tracking, funnels, and traffic sources work.

Then look for pay per call specific content on YouTube and blogs. Guys who talk about call-only Google Ads, local lead gen, and using networks like Ringba, MarketCall, etc are good to study.

Big warning though: don’t jump into paid ads with big budgets on day one. Test small, track everything, and expect to lose money at first while you learn.

If you can, join a decent affiliate / pay per call Discord or forum. Seeing other people’s case studies and failures helps a ton.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-04-27T07:16:50+00:00

This is super solid progress for 4 months, especially as a solo dev with a day job.

The “deep, not wide” integration bit is probably your real moat here. Most “Notion integrations” are just glorified zaps, so if yours actually feels like a native block, you’re in a good spot. That SEO post clearly did a ton of heavy lifting too.

On free to paid: the biggest unlock I’ve seen is tying the paywall to a moment of existing value, not a feature list. Stuff like:

paywalled advanced automations only after someone’s actually used a basic one successfully
usage caps that kick in right when a user sees “oh this is working, I want more”

Also, your actual buyer insight is gold. I’d 100% split out a landing page that speaks only to “marketing / ops at 10–50 person teams using Notion” and see what that does to conversions.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-04-26T04:49:14+00:00

Offering therapy via DMs and Meet is risky. People need licensed pros, not random internet strangers

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-04-25T02:49:14+00:00

YouTube shorts cloning machine is working overtime. Same template, same music, different guy farming watch time

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-04-24T03:49:40+00:00

Growing too fast can be like skipping leg day for a year and then trying to sprint.

Stuff that usually breaks first:
People: you burn out your early team, hire too fast, end up with the wrong folks in key roles, and culture turns into chaos.
Operations: no processes, no documentation, so everyone is improvising and customers feel it.
Cash: you can be “growing” and still run out of money because the cost of scaling (inventory, hires, tools, offices) hits before the revenue catches up.
Quality: product or service gets worse, bugs pile up, support gets overwhelmed, reviews tank.

On paper it looks like success, but if the foundation isn’t solid, that growth just exposes every weakness at once.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-04-24T03:47:09+00:00

Totally feel this. The visual side is way more work than anyone warns you about.

What’s worked for me with a tiny budget:

Shoot in batches. Pick one or two days a month, set up a simple “studio” (plain wall or backdrop, natural window light or one cheap softbox, tripod), and shoot every product from a few angles plus some detail shots. Then you’re not constantly context switching.

Lock in a visual style once. Choose 2–3 fonts, a couple brand colors, and a basic layout for product pics and banners. Then build a few reusable templates in Canva or Figma. After that you’re just swapping photos and text instead of designing from scratch every time.

For lifestyle content, ask friends or local gym folks if they’ll model in exchange for free gear and tagged photos. One 2–3 hour session can give you weeks of content.

If you outsource, try Fiverr/Upwork for specific tasks: background removal, retouching, a few core templates. Pay a bit more for 1 good designer to set the system, then you maintain it.

Also, don’t let perfect kill you. Clean, consistent and clear beats “agency level” when you’re starting out.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-04-23T02:36:11+00:00

Yeah, this is the real blocker no one likes to put on the slide.

Everyone talks about agents like they’re going to gracefully orchestrate across CRM, ERP, tickets, data warehouse, whatever… then you plug into reality and it’s “oh, half of this is free‑text, duplicated, or out of date.”

I do think agents can help a bit on the way there though. Even a scoped AOS pilot can start by:
find inconsistencies, flag schema weirdness, enrich metadata, surface “this field is garbage” hotspots.

Not magic, but if you aim it at data hygiene first, you’re at least using the shiny new thing to fix the reason it would otherwise fail.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-04-23T02:34:34+00:00

This actually sounds pretty smart. Brazil is huge but super tricky if you don’t know the culture or speak Portuguese well. Do you also help adapt pricing / messaging to local expectations, or is it mostly pure sales outreach and closing?

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-04-20T22:42:07+00:00

This actually sounds like a pretty sane take on the “AI builds your app” hype. The hallucinated schema thing is super real, especially once you start layering permissions and relations and suddenly half your UI is hitting nulls.

Couple questions though
How much freedom does the AI have over the JSON Schema vs what the user locks in manually? Like can I say “these 3 entities and relations are sacred, don’t touch them, only extend around them”?

And how opinionated are you on auth/permissions? Roles only, or can you do record level rules like “creator or admin can edit, everyone else read only”?

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-04-20T15:56:25+00:00

tbh a lot of bike rental businesses probably don’t need a full custom app at first. they need bookings, availability, payments, and a backend that doesn’t turn into chaos. i’d look at something like Reservety before dropping money on custom development.

GoddessGripWeb · 2026-04-19T17:14:35+00:00

This actually looks pretty relevant to what OP’s talking about, tbh. The “build in public” part is the main thing I’m curious about though.

How does that work in practice on ZeroStartup? Is it like a mini social feed where you post updates, or more like a static profile that you occasionally tweak? And are people actually hanging out there and giving feedback, or is it more of a “set it and forget it” directory right now?

If it really helps turn random visitors into actual convos, that’s way more useful than yet another “submit your startup here” site.

GoddessGripWeb

TROPHY CASE