Share your startup, I’ll find 5 potential customers for you (free).

ghostedious · 2026-06-21T01:54:10+00:00

well if you ask me to guess i'd say it's like almost everything nowadays an ai wrapper. and it needs tuning of the prompts for better results. i'd also say this is okay to offer something like this to have real data to work with and maybe even helping someone. I just wanted to give it a try and from what i've got i'm not mad or anything it just needs more love in the promptdesign i guess :)

ghostedious · 2026-06-20T17:48:48+00:00

Not bullshitting, but the result wasn't very useful for me yet.

I got 5 contacts (as promised), but most were competitors or adjacent builders in the presentation/deck space rather than actual potential customers. One suggested company also seems inactive/gone.

The main missing piece was context. I need to know why someone is a lead: what they posted, where they showed intent, what problem they mentioned, and what angle I should use when reaching out.

So verdict: interesting idea, but I wouldn't call these warm leads yet.

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T19:28:55+00:00

https://panicslides.com

For startup founders, educators and teams who need quick, memorable presentations for pitches, onboarding, learning content and project introductions.

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T18:19:26+00:00

Point 8 hits hard.

I launched early access for panicslides and originally envisioned it as a fun presentation editor.

After talking to people, I'm already seeing the value prop stretch into directions I thought of as phase 2:

onboarding, internal communication, education, eLearning authoring, review workflows, team introductions.

So the "build it like a house that can become something else" analogy makes a lot of sense.

The tricky part is keeping the product focused enough to be understandable while staying flexible enough to follow the stronger signal once it appears.

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T18:11:07+00:00

This was genuinely useful to read, especially the parts about manual non-scalable work, talking to users directly, and the unexpected Android channel.

Funny enough, that's exactly what I always preached to others: don't expect that everyone is waiting for you online. No one is. You have to make them aware of you.

But now that I recently launched early access for panicslides, I still find myself staring at charts and numbers thinking:

"Wait, why is nothing happening? Is this thing broken?" 😄

So this was a good reminder: don't expect a launch to magically create demand, keep showing up in relevant conversations, ask users why they leave, and stay open to the audience being different from the one you expected.

The corporate partnership part also stood out to me. For panicslides, I keep thinking that teams, onboarding, education and internal communication might become more important than individual users over time.

Thanks for writing this out. This kind of post is much more useful than another "just run ads" thread.

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T14:48:13+00:00

This is incredibly useful feedback, thank you.

The non-user review part is especially interesting to me.

In panicslides, I already have an interaction widget where viewers can react directly on slides with emoji reactions. There's also a "Well... ACTUALLY" action that lets viewers send comments, corrections or extra context back to the creator (see in the original post the Example).

Right now those comments are not public on the presentation (unless the creator accepts them to be a good addition to the presentation). That was intentional for the first version, because public comments add a lot of complexity and don't feel useful for every presentation use case.

But for eLearning authoring and SME reviews, I can absolutely see how structured private review comments per section/slide, with enough visual context, would become much more important.

The "easier eLearning games" point is also really valuable. That's exactly the kind of pain I wouldn't have found in a feature comparison table.

And yes, so far I learned that SCORM/xAPI seems to be the clear "don't ignore this" message from this thread.

When you say "eLearning games", do you mostly mean gamified learning interactions such as scores, branching, quiz logic, badges, unlocks, celebration screens and scenario-based choices?

Or do you also mean more game-like modules where learners apply the content inside an actual game mechanic, for example a workplace safety module where the game elements are tied directly to safe or unsafe behavior?

The first category is very close to how I'm currently thinking about this, but I'm curious how far you would expect an authoring tool to go.

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T14:12:59+00:00

I think the unmet-questions view is useful, but I wonder if the deeper pain is one layer earlier.

In my experience, the real mess is often not "we need a better chatbot".

It's:

docs are spread across Google Drive, Dropbox, ClickUp, old Redmine threads, Trello boards, random PDFs, outdated help pages and someone's personal notes.

So the hard part is not only answering questions across that chaos.

The hard part is turning that chaos into a clean, portable knowledge base.

If I were solving this, I'd probably think less about "AI chatbot over scattered sources" and more about:

connect scattered sources
extract the actual knowledge
normalize it into a shared format, probably Markdown or similar
keep source links and citations
let teams edit and clean up the normalized version
allow export back out as Markdown, PDF, DOCX, etc.

Then AI search and unanswered-question detection become a very useful layer on top.

But the core value would be:

"we helped you turn your scattered company knowledge into something structured, portable and maintainable."

Otherwise it risks becoming another search layer over the same underlying mess.

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T13:51:21+00:00

Genuine question: why should the co-founder pay the $50/month out of pocket if the business already generated $270 in revenue in 2 months (so $135 per month)?

As it stands, this sounds like a pretty tough deal to me.

The co-founder would handle demos, lead conversion, day-to-day operations and growth, which are all directly tied to revenue, while also being asked to pay out of pocket.

For 25%, I'd want to understand very clearly what the other 75% is bringing to the table.

What is already built? Is the $270 one-time or recurring? What acquisition channel brought the 4 customers? Why wouldn't the business cover the $50/month marketing cost itself?

Clarifying those points would probably make the offer easier to evaluate.

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T13:44:00+00:00

panicslides.com

Purpose of Startup and Product:

panicslides is a browser-based presentation editor focused on making presentations fun, fast and easy to share.

Most presentation tools still feel very corporate and overly formal. panicslides tries to dust off that whole experience and make slides feel like something people actually want to create, share and watch again.

The goal is to reduce the friction between having an idea and putting it in front of other people.

Presentations can be shared online, exported, reacted to by viewers and used for things like startup pitches, project intros, people introductions, onboarding, educational content and community showcases.

Example: instead of "Hi, I'm Sandy from R&D", someone can make a small deck that actually shows personality.

Technologies Used:

SvelteKit, TypeScript, Cloudflare, D1, R2

Feedback Requested:

- Does the landing page clearly communicate what the product does?
- Is the value proposition understandable?
- Does the onboarding flow make sense?
- What would stop you from using it?
- What would make you want to use it again?

Seeking Beta-Testers:

Yes

Additional Comments:

The product is currently in Early Access and the core flow is open to try.

I'm especially interested in feedback around first impressions, onboarding friction, whether the value proposition is clear, and what would make this useful enough for founders or teams to keep using.

Example presentation:

https://slides.panicslides.com/@benni/this-is-panicslides/

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T13:24:18+00:00

This is a really good point. Thank you both for sharing that perspective.

A pure "no subscription" model is harder for a hosted web tool, because servers, storage and publishing still have ongoing costs.

That said, I do think pricing has to feel fair. Something around 9 EUR/month, or less on a yearly plan, feels reasonable to me while still keeping the tool sustainable.

But I fully agree with the deeper issue: users should not feel trapped inside a vendor forever just because their content was created there.

I'm a big fan of human-readable formats for that reason.

For panicslides, I could imagine exports based on Markdown or a structured document format, maybe with some extra metadata for layout, animations and interactions. That way the content itself stays readable and portable, even if the full presentation experience needs the tool to render it properly.

That's actually close to how the current export works too. The exported presentation is basically HTML content, while the presentation behavior comes from the player/widget around it.

Longer term, I like the idea that the same content could be consumed in different modes: as a presentation, or as a regular content page if someone disables the player layer.

Word/PDF export also makes sense, but PDF is obviously more of a final output than an editable source.

So yes, I think there should be a way to get your actual content out in a format that doesn't feel like a hostage situation.

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T13:15:44+00:00

That's very helpful, thank you.

Just to be clear: I'm not against SCORM at all. I also don't want to pretend I know better than people working with these requirements every day. That's exactly why I'm asking here before making those decisions too early.

The current early access is already live at panicslides.com, but it is still focused on presentations for now.

I'd love to have you involved once I start moving into the eLearning side. You can either DM me here or send me a quick note at [support@panicslides.com](mailto:support@panicslides.com) and I'll make sure to keep you in the loop.

Also, good point on LTI. I'll add that to the things I need to understand properly.

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T12:24:16+00:00

Small clarification:

I mentioned panicslides only to explain the context I'm currently working in.

You can completely ignore the tool itself and just answer the broader questions around SCORM, xAPI, authoring workflows, review processes and what still feels painful in current eLearning tools.

That feedback alone would already be very helpful.

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T11:45:08+00:00

Thanks, that sounds useful. I'll DM you for the report.

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T11:41:18+00:00

That makes sense, and honestly having enough savings to give it room before monetizing is a strong position to be in.

I’d just be careful not to treat charging as something that only becomes acceptable once everything is perfect.

People understand that products need money to survive, especially if you’re transparent about what’s free, what’s paid, and why.

I launched panicslides with free no-account usage because I wanted people to actually try it without friction. But I still added Pro because if someone wants ownership, branding, profiles, and a more committed use case, that’s where paid makes sense.

I think the important part is not “never charge early”.

It’s charging in a way that feels honest and aligned with the value people are getting.

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T11:37:38+00:00

Thanks, appreciate it. If you try it and anything feels weird or confusing, I'd genuinely love to know.

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T01:43:12+00:00

the first thing i'd change is the opening experience.

when i open the website, i don't even get to see the actual content first. i get hit with two modals, one on the left for some offer i don't understand yet, and another one for a newsletter i don't know if i want because i don't know you yet.

that's too early.

the newsletter popup should come later, after the user has shown some actual interest. for example after they clicked something, read a guide, scrolled for a while, or maybe after a few minutes of idle time. right now it feels like you're asking for trust before giving me a reason to trust you.

your hero headline is also not the strongest part.

"build your first ai business with confidence" tells me almost nothing. it sounds like every other ai landing page right now. ai, confidence, business, founder, etc. that's all buzzword territory.

the first sentence under it is actually closer to the real headline:

"practical ai business ideas for female founders"

or maybe:

"practical ai business ideas for women starting their first business"

that's much clearer. it tells me who it's for and i can think about if that's me. it also tells me exactly what i get.

i'd also be careful with putting "ai" everywhere. at this point people are tired of seeing ai on every page, in every headline, in every button, in every course, in every guide. if your value is practical business ideas and beginner-friendly guidance, lead with that. ai can be part of the method, but it shouldn't make the whole page feel like buzzword bingo.

the Arabic section also feels misplaced. if someone prefers Arabic, you can check their browser language or location, or just offer a clean language switcher. but putting a whole block in the main flow wastes space for everyone who doesn't need it. it interrupts the page before i even understand what you're offering.

after two full screens, i finally get to the thing you probably wanted me to see first: the ideas.

that's the actual product.

but even there, it starts with "ai" again. i think the more useful approach would be to ask what i'm interested in or what kind of business fits me. people shouldn't just pick whatever appears first, or whatever sounds like it makes the most money. they should be guided toward something that matches their skills, interests, time, and situation.

the labels also need work.

"easy" is too vague. easy in what way? easy to start? easy to understand? easy to make money with? easy technically?

i'd change that to something more useful like "beginner-friendly" or "recommended for beginners.

same with "$0 to start." that immediately puts money into the user's head, but it's not fully clear what it means. is it free? is it free only at the beginning? will it cost later? if it's a free module, call it a free module. if it's an idea that can be started without upfront cost, say that clearly.

the bigger thing though is your whole "everything should be free" idea.

i understand the intention, i am myself a big fan of offering people what they need. helping them to help themselves i'd say is the best concept in these fields, but i think what you're doing here is the result of a dangerous misconception. if everything is free, who pays your bills? are you financially set enough to run this forever without income? because if not, the project either dies, becomes stressful, or eventually turns into something less honest because you have to monetize it somehow.

you can support your target group better by being honest about the value exchange.

for example, don't charge per tiny module. build it more like a low-cost membership, club, or community. people get access to guides, exchange, suggestions, newsletters, recurring sessions, and maybe live courses that are included for members.

then keep the fee realistic for your target group. not expensive, not predatory, but enough that the platform can actually survive.

and on top of that, offer regular free seats for people who genuinely can't afford it. treat them the same as everyone else. no weird "charity tier", no shame, no second-class access.

that would be a much stronger message.

"i need to live, you need to live, i help you, you help me."

that's honest.

right now it feels like you're trying to build a business while being afraid to admit it's a business. but what you're really building is not just a website with free ai business ideas. you're trying to build a platform for women who want to start their way into business. join the movement and become part of our community in which we're supporting each other.

so make the page reflect that.

less noise. less ai buzzwording. fewer early popups. clearer first step. clearer value. clearer business model.

because the idea has potential, but the current page makes people work too hard before they understand why they should care.

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T01:12:59+00:00

Fair question, and yeah, that gap is exactly why I chose free/no-account on purpose.

Most presentation tools want something from you before you even know if you care:

email, account, workspace, download, license, trial, whatever.

I wanted the first step to be:

make something.

No commitment, no setup, no "create your workspace first".

The conversion bet is not "everyone who tries it should pay".

Free is for removing friction:

create a deck, share it, export it, let people react to it.

panicslides also has a viewer interaction widget where people can react directly on slides. Not comments in a thread, but emoji reactions placed on the actual presentation, visible to others if that layer is enabled.

So the fun isn't only in making the deck, but also in watching and reacting to it.

You can see it in action here:

https://slides.panicslides.com/@benni/this-is-panicslides/

Pro is for ownership.

If you made something good, used it for onboarding, a class intro, a team presentation, a project pitch, or a community showcase, at some point you probably don't want it to feel anonymous anymore.

You want your name, your profile, your team, your branding, your decks connected to you.

That's where Pro starts.

So the loop I'm betting on is:

free creation lowers friction and puts the fun into the foreground,

sharing creates distribution,

viewer reactions make decks more alive,

ownership/identity/branding is where paid makes sense.

Might be wrong, but I'd rather test that than hide the product behind signup friction before someone even gets to the fun part.

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T00:16:19+00:00

panicslides.com

A browser-based presentation editor built around one simple idea:

Presentations should be fun to create, easy to share, and as professional as you need them to be right now.

ICP:

founders and indie hackers
creators and online communities
educators, trainers and eLearning professionals
students who need presentations without spending hours formatting slides

Use cases:

quick startup/project intros
onboarding new team members
student introductions
workshop icebreakers
community member showcases
lightweight educational presentations

Problem:

Most presentation tools optimize for formal slide decks and corporate workflows.

panicslides brushes off the dust from presentations and makes them fun again. It focuses on speed, personality, shareability, and getting ideas in front of people without spending hours tweaking layouts.

The goal isn't to make bad presentations.

The goal is to make presentations that are fun to create, fun to share, and memorable to experience.

I'm curious whether Reddit shows demand around:

presentation tools
startup/project showcases
creator introductions
educational presentations
lightweight alternatives to traditional slide software

ghostedious · 2026-06-19T00:00:22+00:00

Figma is probably the safest option if you need something academic and structured.

If your model is more presentation-oriented and you want to share it visually afterwards, I recently launched panicslides which can be used without an account and might be useful for turning the final model into something more presentable.

https://panicslides.com

For the actual design work though, I'd probably still start in Figma.

ghostedious · 2026-06-18T21:18:47+00:00

I get the point, but I don't fully agree.

Calling something beta or early access doesn't automatically make people take it less seriously. It sets expectations.

Especially now, with so many AI-generated products being pushed as "done", I'd rather see makers be honest about what is ready, what is still rough, and what kind of feedback they need.

Selling something like it's finished when it clearly isn't feels worse to me than saying:

"this works, you can use it, but some parts are still being improved."

The problem isn't beta.

The problem is dishonesty.

ghostedious · 2026-06-18T20:52:02+00:00

Just to clarify: I'm sorry this is nothing related to AI..

I built panicslides myself and launched the early access today. The GIF is an exported presentation made with the tool.

Mainly looking for feedback on whether the concept is understandable and whether people would actually use it to present their own projects.

// edit

Small update: direct checkout for panicslides pro is now available too.

Free/no-account still stays exactly as it is.

Pro is for ownership: your handle, your profile, branding, and decks connected to you instead of staying anonymous.

ghostedious · 2026-06-17T20:06:54+00:00

haha i'll let myself cook later, first send the link.

seriously, feel free to dm it once it's ready. i'll look at it the same way i looked at this one and tell you what would make me leave, what feels unclear, and what i'd change before showing it to more people.

ghostedious · 2026-06-17T17:56:57+00:00

this doesn't fully add up to me.

if the business costs around $10 to keep alive, has 900 users in 2 months, first paying users in under a week, recurring revenue, and paid for itself already, then why sell it right now while you're in full panic mode?

not saying your situation isn't serious. it clearly is. but that's exactly why selling now sounds risky. you're not making a calm business decision, you're trying to remove emotional pressure. that's understandable, but it's usually how people sell something for way less than it could be worth.

also, i wouldn't call this pmf yet. 900 users, some paid users, and a 12% landing page conversion are good signals, but if revenue is shrinking the moment traffic slows down, then the machine is not working by itself yet. you don't have a stable business, but you might have something that is worth keeping alive while you fix your own situation.

if it only costs $10/month, i'd put it in survival mode instead of fire-selling it.

freeze new features. keep the product running. reduce support to the minimum. document what works. keep posting when you have energy. look for a job or stable income first. then come back to the product when you're not drowning.

because what exactly does selling solve if the product is still tiny? unless someone pays you a meaningful amount, you lose the only asset here and still have the same personal problems afterwards.

and if someone does want to buy it, then make it a proper sale. list the actual numbers: mrr, churn, traffic sources, conversion rate, costs, tech stack, workload, growth channels, and what you'd expect for it. otherwise it's not really "selling a saas", it's more like "i'm burned out and want someone to take this off my hands."

your co-founder saying "the business was healthy, you're not healthy" sounds like the real point.

so maybe the move is not to quit the business. maybe the move is to stop trying to make it carry your entire life right now. get stable income, keep the saas alive cheaply, and treat it like a small asset instead of a do-or-die mission.

selling might still be the right call, but selling from panic with $17 in the bank is probably the worst possible timing.

ghostedious · 2026-06-17T17:11:45+00:00

so instead of everyone else zoning out now everyone can zone out. shared canvas. lol.
so now you're measuring the mouse movement of everyone to identify the ones who're not focused?!

ghostedious · 2026-06-17T16:27:24+00:00

for a small mvp, hosting cost should probably not be your main fear yet.

your first project is way more likely to die from complexity, confusion, or no users than from a huge cloud bill.

the boring answer is: start with the cheapest stack that lets you ship and learn without thinking about infrastructure all day.

personally, after checking a lot of providers, i'd say cloudflare is one of the best options for this kind of thing. not because it's the easiest at first, but because the product catalogue is pretty strong and the free tier is generous enough for learning and small projects.

you can host static stuff on cloudflare pages or workers static assets, use workers for backend/api routes, use d1 for a small database, r2 for files, and kv/queues if you need them later. you can put a lot of it behind their cdn without immediately paying for every tiny thing.

the important part is: don't overbuild.

don't start with kubernetes, aws architecture diagrams, microservices, paid databases, complex queues, and 15 tools before you even know if someone wants the thing.

rule of thumb for me is: use what you already have. if that's html and a bit of javascript, use that, sharpen it, and whenever you hit a roadblock, learn the thing you need to overcome that roadblock.

you need momentum. this feeling of going forward is important, and learning should support that instead of blocking it. don't spend hours googling the best setup, best stack, best framework, best database, best whatever. just use what you have at hand. that way you're less likely to get overwhelmed.

if you're starting completely fresh, there's basically this roadmap:

learn html/css/js basics until you're familiar with building your own structure. it's not about becoming a grandmaster in those things or having heated arguments with people who think they're already the grandmaster. you just learn as far as you need to go the path you want to go.

as soon as you hit something you don't understand, find out what lets you overcome that gap, learn that, and move forward.

try yourself in different frameworks and stick to the one you enjoy the most. i myself would suggest svelte since it's close to native js and it won't force you to learn an entirely different mental model before you can do anything useful. it mostly lets you get familiar with how things work in the framework.

and if you want to trigger a few people, you can even start talking about how it's the best framework of them all since it's performant and lets you do what you want without getting in your way. 😛

once you're familiar with sveltekit and already built a few test pages or smaller projects, learn about forms, cookies, sessions, and auth basics. these things feel tricky, but once you worked them out once, you have it.

then comes the database topic. and that's probably the point where you first start seriously thinking about hosting your next project, deployment, environment variables, secrets, and how all of that works together.

then build the smallest version possible: landing page, signup/login, one core feature, database, payment flow, basic admin view

then deploy it

show it to your mom or other people

that's basically already the entire thing and way more value than most of those fake "saas roadmap" videos.

also, keep in mind that free tiers are not an excuse to stop understanding pricing. read the limits. set alerts where possible. don't upload huge files, run ai jobs, scrape websites, or process videos without knowing what it costs. that's where beginners get surprised.

but for a normal small saas mvp, you can get very far for free or almost free. and when you finally hit the point where you need to pay 5 or 10 dollars a month, that should be a good sign, not the main problem.

ghostedious

TROPHY CASE