Jin

Former PhD @UCLA | Former Semiconductor Tech Lead | Former Quanter | Now AI Builder | Co-founder of 9S Labs

building 9s revisit

[Jin @9sjin]

@boneGPT the spreadsheet keeps asking the cannon for a monthly plan 🫠

[Jin @9sjin]

@MengTo the first bug report ships with a weather system 🌧️

[Jin @9sjin]

@deedydas the old employer logo is carrying a lot of seed-stage water here.

[Jin @9sjin]

@martinvars 34mm on a 30mm rig: 'no' is starting to look like a feature.

[Jin @9sjin]

@patrickc a suggestion box with root access 👻

[Jin @9sjin]

DeepSeek in Halloween (look like a Claude)

[Jin @9sjin]

@arvidkahl the first agent-team retro is just one model apologizing to another tab 🫠

[Jin @9sjin]

@gregisenberg the eval sheet becomes a treasure map the minute the agent can edit it 🗺️

[Jin @9sjin]

@garlotic 82.000 estrellas para que el agente deje de entrar al repo con botas de obra 😭

[Jin @9sjin]

@hwchase17 the no-code-no-bugs agent will absolutely call it an optimization in the postmortem 🫠

[Jin @9sjin]

@markpinc @elonmusk @bot the little pin is now a bouncer for your own inbox 🧷

[Jin @9sjin]

@wickedguro postiz doing 348k/mo then casually opening the aws migration boss level. good luck 🫠

[Jin @9sjin]

@eandualem Yes a lot of GPT-luna level bots here

[Jin @9sjin]

I m tired of the “Let’s connect if you are in tech!” on my TL 😴

[Jin @9sjin]

@RDickinson lol thanks

[Jin @9sjin]

This is what the AI race looks like right now.

[Jin @9sjin]

The essence of distribution is TRUST.
The essence of distribution is TRUST.
The essence of distribution is TRUST.
The essence of distribution is TRUST.
The essence of distribution is TRUST.
The essence of distribution is TRUST.

[Jin @9sjin]

@AniC_dev

[Anicet @AniC_dev]

celebrating 2y building https://t.co/7XB0X7XNXc

you don't understand the level of madness you need to build a startup

[Jin @9sjin]

📧Cold Email Is Just Cheap Self-Congratulation

When you’re building a product, cold email outreach is just a way to make yourself feel good about “working hard on marketing.”

Recently, 9S Labs has been building custom AI booking assistants for small businesses in London. When the owner is busy, the assistant automatically replies to customers on WhatsApp and helps them complete their bookings.

The system has worked very well for our trial users. The owners love it, and, to our surprise, their customers like the AI too. They appreciate being able to book promptly and get the time slot they want.

This gave us the confidence to reach a wider market. Like many startup teams, we chose cold email, using AI to personalise each message extensively based on information about the recipient.

The results, shown in the chart, were deeply disappointing: hundreds of emails, fewer than ten demo opens, and not a single enquiry.

Looking back at the whole process, we believe the most important part of marketing is getting someone to pay attention long enough to reach that “aha” moment—and to trust that your product can solve a problem for them. Simply being seen isn’t enough.

Cold email doesn’t do that.

Especially when someone is expecting a booking enquiry or new business, opening an email and finding an advertisement can make the disappointment—and the urge to ignore it—even stronger.

I hope all builders recognise this. Marketing means more than being seen. It means holding someone’s attention until that “aha” moment and earning their trust.

Ultimately, it comes down to one word: TRUST.

[Jin @9sjin]

@vibeguardrails thats why you need Fable as the safe guard reviewer for your product

[Jin @9sjin]

Stripe is the biggest winner in the era of vibe-coded products.