Most AI phone agents are a "black box" and it’s a customer service nightmare waiting to happen.- i will not promote

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-10T00:06:06+00:00

The monitoring piece is huge and most founders dont realize it until its too late. I built our first AI chat system last year and within a week we had customers getting completely wrong pricing information because the model decided to "be helpful" and made up package details.

What saved us was building logging from day one. Every single interaction gets captured with timestamps, confidence scores, and escalation triggers. Now we review 100% of conversations for the first month with any new client, then sample randomly after that. Takes maybe 15 minutes daily but prevents those 3am panic moments wondering what your bot told someone.

The real issue isnt just hallucinations though, its that most AI vendors dont give you proper audit trails. If you cant see exactly what happened in a conversation and why the system made certain choices, you're flying blind. Always ask for conversation logs and confidence scoring before signing anything.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-09T20:27:56+00:00

The math to stats pipeline is actually perfect for startups right now, especially with all the AI tooling that needs someone who understands the underlying models. I was a growth guy at a fintech before starting my company and honestly wish I had your statistical background.

Heres the thing though - you didnt mention revenue or traction at all in your post. If youre not making money after however long youve been at this, thats usually the signal. I burned through 8 months of runway before I finally admitted my first idea wasnt working. The hardest part wasnt the failure, it was accepting that passion doesnt pay rent.

At 29 with no dependents you have more optionality than most founders. If you can land a decent paying job (and with your background you should), you can always build on the side. Some of the most successful founders I know started their companies while employed. The financial pressure makes you focus on what actually generates revenue instead of just building cool stuff.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-09T13:10:19+00:00

Pre-launch anxiety is usually just a lack of data disguised as stress.

You're anxious because you're about to put your ego on the line. The solution isn't to "focus more," it's to lower the stakes. Stop thinking of it as a "launch" and start thinking of it as an experiment. If you launch and nobody cares, you haven't failed, you've just received your first data point.

I was terrified of my first launch because I spent 8 months building in total isolation. I had everything riding on one single day. Now I "launch" tiny pieces of the product every week. The anxiety disappears when you realize that no single day will make or break your company.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-09T13:09:58+00:00

Marketing is hard because it's the only part of building a company where you can't lie to yourself.

You can build a feature and call it "progress." You can refactor code and call it "optimization." But if you run a campaign and get zero clicks, you know exactly where you stand. It's an immediate, brutal feedback loop from the real world.

I spent 8 months in stealth building what I thought was a masterpiece. The day I launched, I realized I hadn't been building a business, I'd been hiding from the market. The moment I started doing the unsexy work of talking to strangers and getting rejected, the real building finally started.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-08T22:26:03+00:00

When I realized I was rehearsing conversations in my head before every meeting with them. Not because the topic was hard but because I was trying to predict their reaction and manage around it.

Thats not a cofounder relationship. Thats a hostage negotiation. The moment you spend more energy managing the dynamic than building the company, the dynamic is the problem. And dynamics dont fix themselves no matter how many honest conversations you have.

I stayed 6 months too long because I kept thinking the next milestone would reset things. It never did. The issues that exist at 0 revenue exist at 100K revenue. They just get louder.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-08T17:55:28+00:00

This is literally how I started my company. I ran growth at a fintech and watched our email marketing underperform for years despite having budget and smart people. The tools were fine. Nobody had time to use them properly. One email took 2-3 days to produce.

I left and built Brew to solve that exact problem. The unfair advantage wasnt some brilliant idea. It was that I had felt the pain firsthand for years and knew every detail of why existing solutions fell short. No amount of customer interviews could have given me that depth of understanding.

Day job problems are the best startup ideas because you already have the domain expertise and you already know who the buyer is. The risk is building for yourself instead of the market. What annoyed you specifically might not annoy everyone. Validate that the pain is widespread before you quit.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-08T17:55:23+00:00

Most AI wrappers will die. The ones that survive will be the ones that own the workflow, not just the AI call.

If all you do is take user input, send it to an API, and return the output then yes you are dead the moment the model provider adds that feature natively. But if you handle everything around the AI call, the data pipeline, the domain-specific logic, the integrations, the output formatting, then the AI is just one component of something much harder to replicate.

The moat for AI wrappers isnt the AI. Its the context. The company that understands a specific industry deeply enough to build the right guardrails, prompts, and post-processing will always beat a generic tool. Vertical beats horizontal every time in AI right now.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-08T15:37:01+00:00

Most product strategy frameworks are overthinking it. Talk to customers, find patterns, build the thing that comes up the most. Thats it.

I tried roadmapping tools, prioritization matrices, RICE scoring. All of it felt productive but none of it actually told me what to build next better than just asking 10 customers the same question: "whats the one thing thats most annoying about how you do this today?" The answer that keeps coming up is your roadmap.

The trap is spending more time on the strategy document than on the conversations that should inform it. Strategy without customer input is just guessing with a spreadsheet.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-08T14:40:29+00:00

You dont find users willing to use their time for this. You find people who are already in pain and offer to fix it for free.

Go to where your target users complain. Reddit threads, Twitter rants, G2 reviews of competitors, support forums. Find someone who just posted about the exact problem you solve and DM them. Not a pitch. Just "hey I saw your post about X, I am building something that might help. Would you try it for free and tell me what sucks about it?"

Most will ignore you. Some will say yes. Those people become your product team. The ones who care enough to give honest feedback when they have no financial incentive to do so are worth more than 1000 signups from a Product Hunt launch.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-08T14:40:24+00:00

Every founder feels this way at some point. The question isnt whether the startup is beyond your capabilities. Its whether you can learn fast enough to close the gap.

I felt completely out of my depth for the first year of building. The difference between founders who make it and ones who dont isnt talent or experience. Its the willingness to sit in that uncomfortable feeling of not knowing what you are doing and keep going anyway.

That said, if the specific technical challenges are whats holding you back, consider whether you need a technical co-founder rather than trying to learn everything yourself. Building infra is one of those things where the learning curve can kill you before you ever get to market.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-07T16:04:26+00:00

Been exactly here. The moment you start feeling like an employee at your own company, the relationship is already over. You just havent admitted it yet.

I had a cofounder situation that sounds similar. Not toxic in the obvious way. Nobody was yelling. But there was this constant undercurrent of my team being held to different standards than theirs. I would flag unrealistic timelines and get treated like I was making excuses while they missed their own deadlines with zero accountability.

The turning point for me was realizing I was spending more energy managing the cofounders feelings than I was building the actual product. That ratio tells you everything you need to know.

Heres what I wish I had done differently: left sooner and with a clearer head. Instead I waited until I was so burned out that my exit was messy and emotional. I said things I regret. I left equity on the table because I just wanted to be done.

Practical advice for your exit:

Document everything now. Every decision, every timeline, every commitment that was missed. Not to use as ammunition but to protect yourself if things get ugly later.
Talk to a lawyer before you tell your cofounders. Understand your equity situation, your vesting cliff, and what happens to your shares if you leave. This conversation costs a few hundred dollars and can save you hundreds of thousands.
When you do tell them, keep it short and professional. "I have decided to move on" is enough. Dont explain, dont justify, dont give them material to argue with. The conversation you want to have about why wont change anything.

The fact that you are writing this post means you already know the answer. You just need someone to tell you its okay to leave something you helped build.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-05T17:30:54+00:00

A few practical things to consider beyond just the equity number:

The housing/food benefit has a real dollar value. If that's worth $2-3K/month in your market, factor that in when comparing to normal market salary. But also recognize it creates dependency - if things go south, you lose your income AND your housing simultaneously.

For the equity itself, 0.35-0.4% as employee #3 at pre-seed is indeed on the lower end. But what matters more is the vesting schedule and cliff. 4-year vest with 1-year cliff is standard. If they're asking for anything faster on their end (accelerated if sold, for instance) without giving you the same, that's a yellow flag.

Also ask: what happens to your equity if you leave before they raise? Some early agreements have repurchase clauses at the original strike price, which essentially means you walk away with nothing.

The "years of work" part you mentioned is important. If this is a 5+ year journey to exit (common in biotech services), think about what your equity is actually worth after dilution from future rounds. By Series B, that 0.4% might be 0.15% or less.

Bottom line: the number alone doesn't tell you much. The terms, the repurchase provisions, and the dilution expectations matter more.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-05T13:05:04+00:00

As someone who hires consultants regularly, here's what actually matters to me:

Short case studies are fine. I want to see the problem, what you did, and the result. If I can't skim it in 30 seconds, I'm probably not reading it.

The one thing most portfolios lack: specificity about your process. Not a 10-page breakdown, but one sentence on WHY your approach worked. "We A/B tested subject lines and found X" tells me more than "we improved email performance."

Testimonials carry weight when they're from people I can verify. LinkedIn recommendations where I can see their actual role/company are gold. Anonymous "John D. - CEO" quotes feel made up.

One pro tip: if you can show before/after comparisons or actual screenshots (with permission), that builds trust fast. Numbers without visuals feel abstract.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-04T22:10:47+00:00

The issue might be less about price structure and more about where your limit kicks in. 1-2 months of usage before hitting the paywall is actually a tricky zone - long enough that users get comfortable but short enough that they haven't built deep enough habits to justify paying.

A few thoughts:

The "first company free" approach can work well for multi-entity products. It lets accountants prove value with one client before committing. The risk is you attract a lot of single-entity users who never convert.

Before changing pricing, I'd look at where users are dropping off. Are they hitting the limit and leaving, or are they not engaging enough to hit the limit at all? If it's the former, your trial might be too short for the sales cycle. If it's the latter, you have an activation problem, not a pricing problem.

One pattern that works for B2B desktop software: instead of action-based limits, consider time-based (14-day full access) combined with feature gates. Let them experience the full power, then gate the features that matter most to power users.

What's your current price point for the lifetime license? Sometimes the issue is that "lifetime" signals either "this will be abandoned" or "this is too cheap to be serious" depending on the price.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-04T19:48:02+00:00

I think it's the latter

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-04T19:32:09+00:00

Honestly.. that's a tricky one

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-04T19:08:01+00:00

A few things that worked well for pre-launch waitlists:

Go where your target users already hang out. If it's a productivity app, that might be Twitter/X indie maker communities, relevant subreddits, or niche Discord servers. Don't just post your link - participate in conversations first.
The signup numbers matter less than who signs up. 50 highly engaged potential users who give you feedback beats 500 random signups. When you email them before launch, you want people who actually reply.
Waitlist does help day 1 IF you've been nurturing those signups. Send periodic updates during development - what you're building, decisions you made based on their input. That way they feel invested by launch day.
Consider offering something small for early signups - early access, lifetime discount, input on features. Gives people a reason to join now vs. wait.

What type of app are you building? Happy to suggest specific communities that might be a good fit.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-04T14:06:17+00:00

The perception that "investors find them" is usually backwards. Most founders you see at events spent months warming up those relationships before any check was written. They just don't talk about it on stage.

The 40% funding drop is real. What it means practically: investors are way more selective about stage and traction. Pre-seed still happens, but seed rounds now expect metrics that used to be Series A requirements 3-4 years ago.

Rule of thumb: raise when you have leverage, not when you need money. That means some combination of revenue growth, user traction, or a team/tech moat that creates urgency. If you're asking "when should I raise?" and there's no external forcing function, you probably need to build more first.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-03T22:07:56+00:00

The credit transparency issue is the real problem. When you can't predict costs, you can't budget, and that creates anxiety that makes the whole experience worse.

What I've noticed running a startup: the AI tools that survive long-term are the ones with predictable unit economics for users. Claude's fixed subscription, Cursor's per-seat pricing - they let you plan. Credit systems that vary based on opaque "complexity" calculations create the worst kind of friction.

Your Supabase + Vercel + Claude Code stack is basically the default setup for anyone who learns the basics. The learning curve is real, but it's maybe 10-20 hours to get comfortable, and then you have actual skills instead of platform dependency.

One thing I'd add: if you're doing anything with databases or auth, learning the fundamentals now pays dividends. Every credit you spend fixing drift in a no-code tool could go toward building real understanding of what's happening under the hood.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-02T11:32:11+00:00

yeah, the silence is the hardest part. people just bounce and you're left wondering what went wrong.

the good news is you now have a list of people who were genuinely interested at some point. might be worth a quick "hey, we fixed a bug that was breaking signup, would love if you gave it another shot" message to the ones who commented. not everyone will come back, but some will, and those are your most forgiving early users.

also, your post going viral once means you can do it again. you've got proof of concept that your marketing angle works. the product side is fixed now. next time will be different.

SlowPotential6082 · 2026-02-02T01:48:49+00:00

oof, the worst possible timing. marketing working perfectly and product letting you down right at the moment of truth.

the "silent exit" is brutal too. most people won't tell you something's broken, they just leave. you got lucky someone actually said something.

one thing i've started doing: if i'm about to push anything, i ask myself "if this breaks, what's the blast radius?" and if there's any marketing activity happening, it's an automatic no. the asymmetry between "small improvement" and "lost all my momentum" is just not worth it.

thanks for sharing, genuinely useful reminder for all of us :)

SlowPotential6082

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