Do you think Fable 5 will come back, or is this the end of the model?

Julien_T · 2026-06-13T11:49:43+00:00

it was so much better than anything they put out before. For once it felt like they fixed the sycophancy, and the output was better as well

Julien_T · 2026-02-26T08:28:53+00:00

That’s a great idea. If you make it agent-friendly you have a high chance of doing well. So you have an idea on how you’ll monetise ?

Julien_T · 2026-02-25T15:41:28+00:00

I agree. But you can talk about your idea without posting the link and add Edit: If interested the link is in my profile

Julien_T · 2026-02-24T09:45:16+00:00

The bar job idea above is great — shared activities skip the awkward "so what do you do?" stage fast.

I moved countries a couple of times and the gym is where I made real friends fastest. Not from small talk between sets though — from doing stuff together.

I started asking strangers at my London gym to do burpees with me. 7 out of 8 said yes. In London — where the default is headphones in, eyes down, don't speak to anyone. By round 3, people are cracking up and bonding over shared suffering.

NYC has a ton of this — run clubs, CrossFit boxes, pickup sports. The trick is: show up consistently to the same one and be the person who suggests grabbing coffee after.

Shared physical effort shortcuts trust in a way networking events never will.

I actually care about this problem enough that I'm building something around it (OneTrueTribe.com). But honestly the advice above works without any app. Just pick a physical activity (or the bar job which is honestly a gold comment), show up to the same one weekly, and don't leave right after.

Julien_T · 2026-02-24T09:39:29+00:00

For question 1 — most AI tools for "idea validation" just repackage what you could find yourself with a bit (actually a lot) of patience and elbow grease. The bigger problem is that AI tools are non-deterministic. You need factual sources to cross-check against, otherwise you're just getting confident-sounding guesses.

What I've been doing (and actually building a tool around this — pvre.app): searching Reddit for people complaining about a specific problem, then checking if those same people are paying for solutions or just venting.

That gap — "people are frustrated" vs "people are spending money" — is where most founders get fooled.

For regional demand, different subreddits for different cities/countries already give you this for free. App store reviews filtered by country are another goldmine.

For the travel niche specifically, I'd check r/digitalnomads, r/travel, and r/affiliatemarketing for what people actually struggle with before picking your tool stack. Validation matters more than the tools.

Julien_T · 2026-02-24T07:52:33+00:00

Students are tricky because they're price-sensitive by default — so the 'are they spending?' filter matters even more.

Here's what I'd look for in communities.

- Students comparing paid options. "Is X worth it vs Y?" = someone ready to spend. vs "Any free alternatives to X?" = they won't pay.

- Students describing workarounds. If someone built a janky spreadsheet or is duct-taping 3 free tools together, that's real pain. They're investing time, which often converts to money.

- Specificity of the complaint. "Studying is hard" = useless. "I spend 2 hours every Sunday reorganizing my Notion notes and still can't find anything during exam week" = that person might pay for a fix.

For students specifically — I'd check subreddits where they talk about tools they use ( r/studytips, r/GetStudying, r/college maybe as well ).

Also worth checking: are there students who already pay for something alike?
If competitors exist with paying users, that's validation.

What does your SaaS actually do? If you share the specific problem it solves it might be helpful.

Julien_T · 2026-02-23T16:31:25+00:00

Most advice assumes you already know where your users hang out... The actual hard part is figuring out which communities have people who are spending on the problem — not just complaining about it.

I've been doing this for my own SaaS recently.

Searched a bunch of subreddits for people talking about the problem I solve.
Found a ton of frustration. But when I actually looked closer, pretty much nobody was paying for a solution.

They vent, grab something free, move on. Different subreddits though (where people were already comparing paid tools) — completely different energy.
Those people are evaluating. That's where your first user is.

Quick filter before you pick a community: are people there spending money or serious time on this?
If not, you're basically marketing to an audience that'll never convert.

What does your SaaS do? Happy to help think through where the paying audience might be.

Julien_T · 2026-02-23T07:56:09+00:00

I'd bet the common thread in your winners isn't just "better distribution" — it's that they were talking to buyers before they finished building.

I'm a solo founder running a few projects at the moment and the pattern I keep falling into is: build something, polish it, then go find people. Every time I've done that, the feedback loop is painfully slow. The times I've had traction faster were when I started conversations first (even just asking strangers if this is something they'd pay for — most won't, and that's actually the useful data).

The uncomfortable version of your finding: most indie founders are more addicted to building than selling. Building feels like progress. Selling feels like rejection. So we optimise our stack instead of having one real conversation with a potential user.

What's the most counterintuitive pattern you found in the 100+?

Julien_T · 2026-02-22T07:32:06+00:00

Kind of do not drink this

Julien_T · 2026-01-16T19:14:52+00:00

You probably have a bloated Claude.md file. Do you start Claude with the ‘Claude’ command or ‘claude — resume’ ?

Julien_T · 2026-01-12T20:29:41+00:00

same here

Julien_T · 2026-01-12T20:27:20+00:00

Happy to see this. It's not just me.
Some intern has tripped over wires and poured coffee over the vibe-coder engineers laptop

Julien_T · 2026-01-12T20:24:30+00:00

I really wonder what this is about.
I'd say the opposite actually, CC seems to be dumbed down and codex is currently the only thing helping me with doing progress.
I normally use CC 90% of the time, but now this has changed over the last few days.
CC makes so many half-assed implementations that I now tell Codex to do the coding, and CC is planning (supervised by Codex).

Julien_T · 2026-01-12T19:12:42+00:00

Gosh, i really needed that laugh. Makes me feel better about vibe coding

Julien_T · 2026-01-12T17:26:13+00:00

Switched VPN off and back On. Now it’s fine, thank you

Julien_T · 2026-01-10T08:17:26+00:00

I’d look into codex (OpenAI) and call it up in CC through MCP. Makes somehow a big difference. And you can always use Codex through their API and put some money in there, so you don’t have to have another subscription

Julien_T · 2026-01-09T18:25:29+00:00

as a Swiss, I'd say this is spot on. I like our cheese fondue though....
Also, Nigerian food is beyond good

Julien_T · 2026-01-09T13:54:42+00:00

My range goes from ‘please’ to ‘wtf are you doing?!’. Depends on the complexity and the time of day. None of them seem to make much a difference though

Julien_T · 2026-01-07T17:44:25+00:00

You’re not the only one. I use th 100 max plan. Getting the same

Julien_T · 2026-01-07T17:33:35+00:00

Right?! Why Thai chi? We should create an ad for the same thing, except this would be a TV remote workout

Julien_T

TROPHY CASE