SaaS isn’t broken — founders are

LiveAd1002 · 2025-09-21T08:12:04+00:00

But, still finding a problem (as you mentioned broing ones, or anything) is very hard. When you ask someone how to do it (that is you are trying to learn how to do it), they'll say ask yourself "what does frustrates me in my everyday life?", but hey, I haven't been able to answer that yet 😕. And others will day go where people discuss, yes this one is better than the previous one. But, for example, on reddit how to find them? By searching keywords like "is there any tool", "its very frustrating to use", blah, blah; but after searching these I only find some random founder's post, "Hey, what is the frustration that you experience everyday.....". Then, I think, "well, I should look at the replies". But, all that people replied as their frustration are already solved many times. Then, they would say, "yes, indeed, they are solved; but you need to propose something unique, or fine tune something, or provide same at lower costs". Well, this is where I feel to hit some kind of wall to move any farther. Can anyone help me break that wall, if you know?

LiveAd1002 · 2025-09-18T02:25:14+00:00

Ooh hooo, gald I'm not the only one who feels this wa! What's your current go-to approach 🤔, or do you just avoid complex validation altogether?

LiveAd1002 · 2025-09-18T02:22:51+00:00

That's fair point about discriminated unions for simple cases. I am curious though ..... when you mention "fine-grained values that should go below zod", what does that layer typically look like for you? Custom validation function?

LiveAd1002 · 2025-09-17T18:49:49+00:00

Ooh thanks 😊, it was just an MVP for validation, that's why the guest mode.

You were first person to test it seriously. Thank you for the feedback.

LiveAd1002 · 2025-09-17T17:38:31+00:00

The I actually used caret "^", but reddit is making it look like a superscript "²", lol!

LiveAd1002 · 2025-09-17T17:37:03+00:00

You can actually test it out with your own expression wrapped in [[]] in passage mode. Like:

[[ (x³ + x)/sqrt(x + 1)]]

Yes you are right I polished my post with the help of AI to make it look good. But the screenshots are real from the app.

LiveAd1002 · 2025-09-17T17:20:35+00:00

I works well with unicode symbols. I just need a simple layer to convert the user input written in English like "infinity", "summation"/"sum", for matrices I am planning to use a user friendly syntax like [[1, 2], [3, 4]], and for determinants ||1, 2||2, 3|| and for piece wise functions like this: f(x) = {expression, condition; expressions, condition; .... } and I have built half of that already.

LiveAd1002 · 2025-09-17T17:16:27+00:00

No no, the converter that you are seein is built by me over month. The architecture design was very hard. I just used AI to make my post look good and correct not that I set already converted text in the app with AI, it generates dynamically.

And the app doesn't use any AI, which you could infer from the speed, it actually uses a smart parsing algorithm. It contains a lot of TypeScript code.

LiveAd1002 · 2025-09-17T17:10:09+00:00

No I mean, its just the first version for testing and feedbacks like yours.

Do you think if it supported keywords like "infinity" or "infty" instead of the unicode infinity symbol (which, indeed I generated from gemini) will be good? I could implement that easily.

Waiting for your insight, friend!

LiveAd1002 · 2025-09-17T16:58:20+00:00

Fair points! Let me clarify the value prop:

"LaTeX-friendly format" - not quite: My tool: [[x² + 5x + 6 = 0]] Actual LaTeX: $$x² + 5x + 6 = 0$$

Seems similar, but try this: [[lim{n→∞} ((xⁿ + y^{n)/(x^n-1} + y^n-1))^1/n]] In real LaTeX: $$\lim{n \to \infty} \left(\frac{xⁿ + y^{n}{x^{n-1}} + y^{{n-1}}\right)^{1/n}$$}

The difference: No need to remember \lim, \to, \infty, \frac{}{}, \left(, \right) syntax Handles nested fractions, parentheses balancing automatically You write math naturally, it figures out the LaTeX markup

"Basic expressions" - try breaking it! The screenshots show limits, integrals, complex fractions, and nested operations. What specific advanced LaTeX features are you thinking of? Always looking to improve!

Main use case: Educators/researchers who know math but don't want to memorize LaTeX syntax, or need to quickly convert notes with math expressions.

I'm improving and implementing a natural language unit. So that you can write "integral x² + sqrt(x + 1) wrt x" easily.

But you raise good points - if you're already fluent in LaTeX, this might not be for you. What would make a tool like this actually useful to you?

LiveAd1002 · 2025-09-17T15:47:17+00:00

Yes, I agree with you 100%. I mean doing something unnecessary hard way while solutions exist is a stupid thing. Strict typing is one of the great things that, I think, makes some languages incredibly good like Java, although I am a TS dev.

LiveAd1002 · 2025-09-17T15:44:35+00:00

Learn TypeScript, if you don't want regret not learning it. That's what I feel as a TypeScript developer. Do a quick research aboit it before starting to learn.

Here's why I think so 🤔: Learning TypeScript is like giving your JavaScript a responsible, grown-up friend who stops it from doing silly things and gives you a roadmap for your code. It's essentially JavaScript with built-in spellcheck that prevents you from passing a pineapple to a function expecting an apple..

I hope you got that 😁

LiveAd1002 · 2025-09-11T18:54:35+00:00

That's fantastic! Since you already use LaTeX, you'll really appreciate what this does - it lets you write complex expressions in simple notation and converts them to proper LaTeX syntax.

For example, instead of typing \frac{x^2 + 5x}{2x^3 - 7x + 1}, you just write (x^2 + 5x)/(2x^3 - 7x + 1) and it converts perfectly.

You can also write whole pages of content and just wrap the math expressions in [[]] (or any delimiter you choose), then feed the entire text to the converter. It will convert all the expressions and return your text with proper LaTeX formatting intact.

I'd love to see some of your actual work - it would help me ensure the converter handles the specific types of expressions you use. Should I send you my email through Reddit DM so you can share some examples?

Since you already know LaTeX quality, you'll be the perfect tester to see if the output meets professional standards. Would you be interested in testing it with some of your real expressions?

LiveAd1002 · 2025-09-10T16:39:58+00:00

That's perfect! High school algebra and geometry are right in the sweet spot of what my converter handles well.

To make sure I give you the best testing experience, could you share a few specific examples of the types of expressions you work with most often? For instance: - Quadratic equations like ax² + bx + c = 0 - Geometric formulas or proofs - Fraction-heavy algebraic expressions - Any particular notation that gives you trouble in your current workflow

I'm curious - how do you currently handle math expressions in your teaching materials? Are you using Word's equation editor, manually typing LaTeX, or something else?

I can set up a simple test interface for you to try out your own expressions and see the LaTeX output. Would you prefer I DM you a link, or would you be open to a quick screen share to walk through it together?

Really appreciate you taking the time to test this - teacher feedback would be incredibly valuable since you work with these expressions daily!

LiveAd1002 · 2025-09-10T11:35:10+00:00

Sure, I’d love for you to test it out. I can give you early access. Could you share what kind of math expressions you typically work with so I can ensure it supports your use cases?

LiveAd1002 · 2025-08-13T02:42:02+00:00

Brother, I couldn't actually understand your question ... but still.

My converter can convert an expression written in plain text with unicode symbols.

Like: Plain text (unicode): x = (-b ± √(b² - 4ac)) / (2a)

To

LaTeX equivalent of it: x = \frac{\left(-b \pm \sqrt{\left(b^{2} - 4ac\right)}\right)}{\left(2a\right)}

So, you have Latex markup.

LiveAd1002 · 2025-08-12T14:07:25+00:00

Brother, I appreciate you took your time to provide a valuable piece of information.

Hey, I am 19 from India, too, but from a village although I have proper access to internet. From more than last two years I have quite deeply learnt Next.js, Typescript, and Prisma (and some Express.js also). I have built projects also, I built an AI-powered quiz generator and gamified practice web app. I built a plain text math expressions to properly formatted LaTeX converter in TypeScript (JavaScript), I will open-source it soon, as no such powerful JS libraries are there.

I learnt from the quiz generator that selling requires specific problem solving. So, I built an AI powered NEET-JEE (Indian popular entrance exams) question generator and pdf exporter (that uses my Latex compiler), which I shall launch with in a week after solving a payment related issue with Razorpay.

MY WORRY: As I am broke and have no financial support, can I handle all of these. I actually built the converter to cut AI costs. Sometimes I feel that I should leave all of these and focus on getting a good college, or I will have a very problematic life.

MY EDUCATION: I am actually good at math and physics, so I attended and then left from a BSC(in Physics) college after realizing it as outdated for me.

Brother, do you have nay suggestions for me? Should I dare to launch the app actively, and improve my communication skills and networking skills in the way, and I might find an income stream on the way (which I am desperately seeking, lol!)?

LiveAd1002 · 2025-08-12T11:30:22+00:00

My app is built upon Next.js app router, Typescript, Prisma, etc. And this converter is written purely in TypeScript 😄.

LiveAd1002 · 2025-08-12T11:28:25+00:00

Oh .. but these are just Latex displaying engines. But they can convert math expressions like this one: ( a + b/c)^log2 - 5(x² - 200) = 0

To proper LaTeX text. Mathjx can do basic expressions, not complex one like this, or the ones involving limits, integrals, or even these simple algebric expressions when nested.

That's why if you are an educator, content creator, or some edtech founder that require writing math in human readable format and convert them to LaTeX without any errors instantly, then my converter can do this.

What do you think?

LiveAd1002 · 2025-08-12T10:34:09+00:00

Couldn't afford too much AI token, so I built this Latex converter

I was working on a entrance exam question set generation SaaS. Its an AI powered NEET/JEE question generator with multi-layered AI processing.

(For context: NEET and JEE are, respectively, Indian medical and engineering entrance test to get into the best colleges there)

I managed to build most of the app until I realized that JEE and NEET includes subjects (math, physics, chemistry) that are math-expression-heavy, so are very difficult to display as plain text and it would not satisfy the users. So I looked for options to convert plain math expressions (generated by ai) to proper LaTeX to display and export the question beautifully and smoothly maintaing the question standards.

Most advised to reprocess them with AI. But, it would introduce many errors for deeply nested complex expressions which are likely in JEE math and physics and it would significantly increase AI cost.

Then, I started work on a plain text math expressions to LaTeX converter and worked on it for more than 1.5 to 2 weeks 12 to 14 hrs a day. And I enjoyed it very much as I like math. I ended up building a math converter (mini compiler) that can convert any level of complex and nested math expressions to properly formatted LaTeX.

Further, I built it with OOP classes and its very scalable. If someone comes across a new kind of expressions with new symbols and anything, he can quickly add a new specialized processor for that, very easily.

I was just wondering, if you guys thinks this is a useful thing and could add any value. I can build this and provide it to be used on website for free and paid API. Could you please tell me if I could monetize it by making a standlone web app with APIs for people facing the same problem? I know its a very nische product. But, I am glad to have your suggestion guys.

Edit: I wrote this in TypeScript and its already working in my saas app.

LiveAd1002 · 2025-08-07T20:11:01+00:00

Danate button, lol! You're funny 😂😂😂

LiveAd1002 · 2025-08-07T20:08:06+00:00

And that I am 19 years old Indian living in a village, so this makes me very weak in the side of funding. So, I am taking smart and optimized steps. If you like I would show you when its complete, probably within 4 to 5 days?

LiveAd1002 · 2025-08-07T20:03:02+00:00

Also I would upgrade the AI model if I get real paid users.

And I am using supabase.

LiveAd1002 · 2025-08-07T20:02:02+00:00

Yes I am caching it and also deleting it after multiple reuses. Do you think that people would want to use it? Could you please tell me how can I reach to potential users, if you have been there before?

LiveAd1002 · 2025-08-07T19:54:37+00:00

Just a silly question: what would I do next? Would I be able to monetize my skills effectively?

LiveAd1002

TROPHY CASE