TIL: there is a fun project called "Honest Hacker News" which cuts through the BS and updates the post titles with what they actually are. Link in the comments.
@martinrue Itβs always great fun talking with Martin except this time there was a twist - we recorded it. It was great fun and I hope to do it again, and get better at it.
I agree. And the outcome a VC is looking for is almost always an outsized return for their LPs. Unless the fund is a mission-driven one.
The "fast" part is not quite true. Because they want you to hit targets that would guarantee your next big funding round until you go public or get acquired, the timeline here is 5-10 years. If you fail to hit targets then you are a concern and will be replaced and the company's fate is a dice toss.
Except they can! If you are built on a platform, there is a risk that the platform will block you or make you obsolete. Or a vendor doesn't like your business and blocks you.
I am a fan of building stuff. How? It doesn't matter!
Taking VC money is not bad, if you are aligned with the outcomes you are both looking for and what it might mean for the business in case of failure to achieve them.
Bootstrapping just means you are always in control of how you react to events and are always heavily resource-constrained.
@tibo_maker Prompting the community to build you a tool π. Maybe offer to be their first customer and spend time to explain your pain, current workflow, etc. Or hire a dev and build this internally, if this is going to save you a lot of time sounds like a good investment.
@leojrr Don't take it personally. When you put out credentials in public they will be compromised no question about it. A lot of bots scan the web for these things.
I would suggest including a rule in cursor to be security conscious.
1. erase "vibe coding" from your brain
2. download claude code
3. ask your employer to cover costs
3a. use bedrock to add to aws bill
4. start claude code, then /init
4a. (in every package dir if monorepo)
5. add "fetch" mcp server
5a. and "puppeteer" if building for web
6. start working on a feature/fix (by hand)
7. as soon as you have that feeling of dread, like, "i hate this step", ask claude to do it, add as much detail as possible
8. stage/commit changes before claude takes over (until they add an undo feature)
9. once you have some reps in with claude and you're gaining comfort, use git worktree to create a branch you can work on in parallel and start with a prompt this time
10. keep doing this until you figure out which parts you should do, and which parts you'd rather defer to ai
11. never do another programming task you don't enjoy, that's what the AI is for
i can't tell you what's after this, this is as far as i've gotten, but maybe after more reps (or with new tools+models) we can parallelize more work, that's the hope
No, need to buy a domain for every little thing you work on. Incubate them under your brand with a subdomain. If something proves itself, then find it a home in a domain of its own. This work is from a branding perspective and SEO.
People LOVE to procrastinate on random things like Logos, domains, and etc.
Prompt AI as product manager/designer, and work on a PRD. I'm oversimplifying it but that is my approach whenever I do not have access to a designer.
The problem is not so much the actual design with AI around it's hard to produce something truly visually displeasing. It's actually the UX, a difficult product will break the promise of delivering value to the user and the first chance they get they will churn.