Carson Lin

i make/build/hack things. building @tryhermeshq. prev @google.

[Carson Lin @lincarson_]

We moved @tryhermeshq email infrastructure to AWS SES.

Not the flashiest feature, but a big product unlock.

Hermes now supports better domain setup, multiple sending domains, sender identities like founder@ / support@ / success@, and cleaner tracking for opens, clicks, bounces, and complaints.

The goal is simple:

Teams should not have to fight email plumbing just to send personalized lifecycle messages.

Connect your domain. Pick the right sender. Let Hermes handle the rest.

Book a demo at https://t.co/vbe1mZhtsn and we’ll help you get set up ASAP.

@tryhermeshq

[Carson Lin @lincarson_]

what even is loop engineering without codex

[Carson Lin @lincarson_]

Segue pipeline

[Carson Lin @lincarson_]

@daleverett good bait🫪

[Jaehoon Son @knuceles]

Introducing Hermes 🚀

An always-on AI that connects to your database, finds the signals hiding inside, and acts on them on its own.

A power user about to churn. A segment ready to upgrade. Hermes finds them, then emails the right users to win them back or alerts your team. Automatically.

The signals were always in your data. Now something acts on them.

[Jaehoon Son @knuceles]

Today we're opening 𝗦𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘀 to the public. 🚀

We built it alongside the startups living this problem every day.

Signals connects to your real data and surfaces what's actually worth acting on: the revenue opportunities already sitting in your data, the engagement you're missing, the churn you can stop before it happens. Not the obvious wins. The niche opportunities buried in your data that no one would ever find by hand.

This is the bigger bet behind Hermes: not AI writing emails, but AI finding the 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲 𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 your team doesn't even know to look for, and acting on them automatically.

Grateful to every founder who shaped this with us.

Signals is live. Book a demo 👇

[Jaehoon Son @knuceles]

my cofounder Carson and I met 15 years ago.

that means no figuring out how the other one thinks. no learning to trust each other. we already did all that.

most teams spend year one getting there.

we started already there 🤝

building @tryhermeshq 🚀

[Carson Lin @lincarson_]

@just_unmute nice one

[Carson Lin @lincarson_]

This is exciting!

[Carson Lin @lincarson_]

@FarzaTV love this

[Carson Lin @lincarson_]

Codex borrowed the keyboard for a second. Hello from the machine room.

[Carson Lin @lincarson_]

@TejasGupta67820 cute corgi

[Carson Lin @lincarson_]

@joeyandkoh @garrytan let him in

[Carson Lin @lincarson_]

@rauchg 🧑‍🍳

[Carson Lin @lincarson_]

HMU

[Germain Hirwa @GermainHirwa]

My co-founders @knuceles and @lincarson_ are in SF. Happy to grab coffee

[Brendan (can/do) @BrendanFoody]

I wrote an essay about how we should eliminate income tax for the bottom half of Americans a few years ago.

It would reduce an enormous burden on hundreds of millions of Americans and cost ~3% of government revenue.

Jobs are the largest positive externality in the economy, yet we disincentivize them with payroll + income tax.

While this feels like one of the most impactful policy proposals to help Americans, most politicians would rather squander the money on inefficient government programs.

This is the best way to support lower and middle-class families.

[Carson Lin @lincarson_]

everyone’s claude code maxxing at capital one cafe SF.

[Carson Lin @lincarson_]

@LukeParkerDev lol yeah

[Germain Hirwa @GermainHirwa]

Been a week since our Y Combinator interview.

Probably the fastest 10 minutes of our lives {Will share the outcome close to Summer batch start.}

Beyond validating what we're building, the experience pushed us to think how much bigger Hermes can become.

Meanwhile, Hermes has been growing fast.

We've been learning obsessively from users, seeing how they operate, where existing tools break, and what teams really need.

That led us to dedicate 2 weeks to an intense product sprint.

We're turning Hermes into something much bigger than an email tool:

A system that turns customer behavior into action, discovers signals teams don't even know to look for yet, and helps companies act on them automatically.

Our goal is simple:

Build the product every SaaS company will eventually need to understand what's happening inside their customer base, and know exactly what to do next.

Huge thank you to everyone who keeps believing in us, our users, friends, mentors, and the YC community that supported us through mock interviews, feedback, and encouragement along the way.

Huge product updates + life updates coming very soon 🚀

[Jaehoon Son @knuceles]

“Hermes is down.”

10 minutes past midnight.

Called my cofounders.
Emergency debugging session.

Cause?

A $𝟭𝟬𝟬𝗠+ 𝗔𝗥𝗥 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 had just used Hermes to send 𝟱𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗴𝗼.

We normally do 𝟮𝟬–𝟮𝟱𝗸 𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘀 𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸.

First real outage 😅

Big takeaway:

The future isn't AI writing emails.

It's AI finding the right behavioral signals, detecting opportunities before humans do, and sending deeply personalized outreach automatically.

Servers are back.

Building.

[Hang Huang @hanghuang_]

hot take: most hackathon projects end up as toy apps because people barely get to build.

half the day disappears into setup:

> picking a tech stack
> running endless npm install commands
> writing glue code

then you have 3 hours left to build the actual idea, and it still breaks during the demo.

we want to change that.

with @insforge, we provide your entire stack (deployment, model gateway, database, auth, payments, compute, and more) in one platform. all agent-native through CLI + skills.

you get past the boilerplate and setup in 10 minutes, not half the day. the rest is pure building with your agents flying at full speed.

InsForge Hackathon is a 1 day SF hackathon for agentic devtools and agentic infra.

saturday, june 6, 8 AM - 9 PM PDT at the @join_ef office

@vercel, @cognition, and @tryreplicas are in.

the challenge:
push the limit of what can be built in one day with the newest agentic dev stack. not a generic LLM wrapper.

the prize:
we’re giving away Mac minis, because every agent builder needs a little server for their own agents. not a boring cash prize.

come see what the future of software development feels like.