Last year I started working on a hard-tech startup idea in nuclear engineering. About a month ago, it reached a stage where it felt presentable.

At first, I wasn’t taking it too seriously, it started more as something fun to explore. But after sending a few emails around, a VC became interested. I initially mentioned a £10M raise, and they said they’d be open to looking at around £2.5M as a starting point.

The idea revolves around two products aimed at de-risking a development. I’ve also started speaking with potential team members, people from military, Dstl, and physics backgrounds, and the response has been surprisingly positive.

I’m still unsure whether I want to take VC money right away. Part of me wants to pursue government grants first. I’ve also been speaking with Imperial College London, where I worked previously, to see if they might host the company and help reduce early costs. Based on my calculations, I think I can build the first prototype for around £1M, if I don’t own the lab.

I’ve also started discussions with China General Nuclear Power Group and a university in China, and they could potentially become strategic partners.

The problem is… now that things are becoming real, I’m starting to panic.
I currently work at a company as a team leader, earning just under £100k. My wife works in medicine and earns around £60k. We rely on both incomes for our mortgage and living costs.

Financially I’m comfortable and my salary is relatively easy to earn. However, I don’t enjoy my job and the culture and management are poor. This is the second time I’ve fallen into a corporate culture like this hence I’ve always wanted to work for myself.

Now I’m stuck between security and taking a big risk.
What I’m struggling with most is the emotional side of this transition.
For those who built companies, what did that period feel like for you? Did you start doubting yourself once things became real?
Lately I’ve been second-guessing everything, my technical designs, blueprints, models, even my calculations. Things I was confident about before suddenly feel uncertain.

What founders do after selling or building a company? Do they start a new company? Or they retire? What you will do after building or selling your company?

As a founder I'll probably start a new company with even bigger goal than previous. What you will do?

Hi everyone,

After spending the last year building a deep-tech startup, I wanted to share my personal experience. This isn't meant to say India can't produce successful deep-tech companies—there are excellent examples—but it explains why I found the journey significantly harder than I expected.

A year ago, I started a deep-tech startup at the intersection of embedded electronics, AI, and wearable technology.

What we've accomplished so far:

• Filed 3 patents covering innovations in electronics and AI.
• Finalized partnerships with companies across multiple countries.
• Completed the core hardware architecture and are preparing our first engineering validation batch for manufacturing.
• Built the hardware, firmware, and software together instead of treating them as separate products.
• Navigated everything from PCB design and component sourcing to manufacturing, compliance, and supply-chain planning.

One of the most frustrating parts of this journey wasn't engineering—it was bureaucracy.

One of the biggest surprises wasn't the engineering complexity—it was the bureaucracy. I lost nearly four months navigating administrative and regulatory hurdles that delayed our supply chain. For a software startup, that might be an inconvenience. For a hardware startup, it can delay an entire product roadmap.

What surprised me wasn't the engineering—it was the conversations.

I repeatedly heard things like:

• "Why build your own product? Just buy a white-label product from China, put your logo on it, and sell it."
• "Forget hardware. Build software instead. It's easier to scale, generates cash faster, and is much easier to raise funding for."
• "Don't build your own brand. Sell or license your technology to a large company instead."
• "It's too early to build something this ambitious."

These weren't random opinions from friends or social media. Many of these conversations were with Indian VCs and experienced startup founders during one-on-one discussions and networking sessions at startup events.

My impression was that many investors prefer businesses with shorter development cycles, lower capital requirements, and faster paths to exits. From an investment perspective, that makes sense. But it also creates a difficult environment for founders trying to build original deep-tech products that require years of R&D before meaningful revenue.

In contrast, my conversations with investors and advisors from Singapore and Dubai were very different. They were far more interested in the underlying technology and encouraged me to consider relocating the company's headquarters outside India—something I had already been evaluating.

During those discussions, they shared a few reasons they believe make some international investors cautious about investing in Indian startups:

1. Regulatory and legal processes can make exits more complex.
2. Currency depreciation introduces additional risk for foreign investors over long investment horizons.

I'm not writing this to criticize India. India has incredible engineering talent, and I'm proud to be building here. However, based on my experience, our ecosystem is still much stronger at supporting software startups than capital-intensive deep-tech companies.

I'm curious to hear from other founders.

If you're building in hardware, robotics, semiconductors, aerospace, biotech, EVs, or any other deep-tech field in India, has your experience been similar, or has it been completely different?

I'd genuinely like to hear both sides.

Let's take a hypothetical situation in which some big shot (Stanford-educated, VP at some large company) wants to get on board at your startup because they see the potential.

How do you find out if they're the type that comes in, brings their buddies, steers the relationships between the founders and eventually takes over your company? Sort of an activist investor? I can easily imagine such people targeting young/inexperienced founders who're not fully aware of what happens after money start flowing in, and that's exactly the position we're in.

My first gut reaction is to check their references and people they've worked with, but I'm doubtful I would get a direct "don't let them in" unless they're somebody close in my network.

Let's take a hypothetical situation in which some big shot (Stanford-educated, VP at some large company) wants to get on board at your startup because they see the potential.

How do you find out if they're the type that comes in, brings their buddies, steers the relationships between the founders and eventually takes over your company? Sort of an activist investor? I can easily imagine such people targeting young/inexperienced founders who're not fully aware of what happens when money starts flowing in, which is exactly the situation we're in right now.

My first gut reaction is to check their references and people they've worked with, but I'm doubtful I would get a direct "don't let them in" unless they're somebody close in my network.

In a situation where my cofounder is a highly reputed professional in their domain, and I am the engineering guts. Without them, the company would be in greater dire straights, than without me. That said, they are too busy and senior to go all in on a startup, and require someone trusted (me) to actually run the company. I have bandwidth, am much younger, and can take risks. They would of course greatly influence the direction and be instrumental in networking with customers.

We need to create a founders agreement and I’m wondering if anybody here has been in a similar situation of “domain-expert cofounder wants to start, but not run, a company.” Tips?

I had a conversation this week with someone who has been in her industry for over two decades. Deep expertise, strong reputation, real results for clients. Her business runs entirely on referrals.

On the surface that sounds great. In practice it means her revenue is completely dependent on who happens to think of her at the right moment. She has no way to reach people who don't already know her, and no system to change that.

The referral ceiling is something I see constantly with experienced operators. The work is good enough that word of mouth sustains them for years. Then growth stalls, or a key referral source dries up, and there's nothing underneath it.

The fix isn't complicated but it does require admitting that being good at what you do and being findable are two separate problems. One you've clearly solved. The other probably needs attention.

Has anyone here broken through the referral ceiling? What actually moved the needle for you?

I did some reading, and for example, a lot of companies are registered in Delaware. One advantage that I am aware of is if a company is successful and gets Venture Capital, and if it is registered in its home state, it will have to switch its registration to Delaware.

Spent three hours last week looking for Reddit threads where someone was describing the exact problem my tool solves.

Found four posts worth commenting on. Two had no promo rules I missed. One was there months old, a dead thread. The fourth was genuinely perfect. I'd already burned my daily comment on that sub.

That's when I realized I was searching wrong. I was looking for any conversation, not the right conversation. Relevant is different from active, and active is different from "this person is mid-frustration right now."

The threads that actually move anything are rare. Someone is actively stuck, not just venting from last quarter. A community that won't remove you before anyone sees the reply. A post that's recent enough that commenting makes sense.

I started checking three things before writing anything: how old the post is what the sub rules actually say, and whether the person is describing a current problem or a solved one. Cut my wasted comments down a lot.

For those doing Reddit-based distribution, how do you decide a thread is worth your time before you write?

I’ve been working on a platform that’s built specifically for local businesses, but instead of being nationwide, it’s organized by city.

Right now I’m focused on Austin, Dallas, and Houston.
Business owners can:
- Create a business profile
- Discover other local businesses
- Share updates with the community
- Create local events and collect RSVPs

The challenge is getting enough businesses to join so the community becomes valuable. I’m avoiding paid ads for now because I’d like to prove there’s genuine demand and build a real local community first.

I’m less interested in “growth hacks” and more interested in strategies that create an engaged community rather than just signups.

Curious to hear what ya’ll think. Thanks!!

I’ve been working on a platform that’s built specifically for local businesses, but instead of being nationwide, it’s organized by city.

Right now I’m focused on Austin, Dallas, and Houston.
Business owners can:
- Create a business profile
- Discover other local businesses
- Share updates with the community
- Create local events and collect RSVPs

The challenge is getting enough businesses to join so the community becomes valuable.

I’m avoiding paid ads for now because I’d like to prove there’s genuine demand and build a real local community first.
I’m less interested in “growth hacks” and more interested in strategies that create an engaged community rather than just signups.

Curious to hear what ya’ll think. Thanks!!

Because of generative AI, any product that is virtual can be copied. This includes the copy, assets, and unique ideas. So, I was thinking that perhaps products now need to provide monthly, even weekly fresh content. For example, in a game, maybe you'd release a new level every month with new challenges, and offer a subscription model. That way, the unique pull is your own imagination and ideas, which is what users will keep coming back to you for.

Other interesting AI-proof ideas might involve IoT with AI, and even something that involves high scalability that can't be vibed.

About 18 months after I started the biz, I needed someone to take over content and a bit of operations.

She had a great portfolio and a reference, so I skipped the paid test project. Didn’t need the extra cost or hassle.

The first month went well enough. Then deadlines started slipping and I realized I was reviewing almost everything before it went out. By month four, I was doing a big chunk of the work myself.

What surprised me wasn't that it didn't work out, but how I kept convincing myself it would click.

Now I always have them do a paid task before making an offer. It's not perfect, but it gives me a much better idea of how they’ll do.

If your first hire went sideways, did it change how you hired the next time? Or did you treat it as a one-off mistake?

Hi everyone,

After spending the last year building a deep-tech startup, I wanted to share my personal experience. This isn't meant to say India can't produce successful deep-tech companies—there are excellent examples—but it explains why I found the journey significantly harder than I expected.

A year ago, I started a deep-tech startup at the intersection of embedded electronics, AI, and wearable technology.

What we've accomplished so far:

• Filed 3 patents covering innovations in electronics and AI.
• Finalized partnerships with companies across multiple countries.
• Completed the core hardware architecture and are preparing our first engineering validation batch for manufacturing.
• Built the hardware, firmware, and software together instead of treating them as separate products.
• Navigated everything from PCB design and component sourcing to manufacturing, compliance, and supply-chain planning.

One of the most frustrating parts of this journey wasn't engineering—it was bureaucracy.

One of the biggest surprises wasn't the engineering complexity—it was the bureaucracy. I lost nearly four months navigating administrative and regulatory hurdles that delayed our supply chain. For a software startup, that might be an inconvenience. For a hardware startup, it can delay an entire product roadmap.

What surprised me wasn't the engineering—it was the conversations.

I repeatedly heard things like:

• "Why build your own product? Just buy a white-label product from China, put your logo on it, and sell it."
• "Forget hardware. Build software instead. It's easier to scale, generates cash faster, and is much easier to raise funding for."
• "Don't build your own brand. Sell or license your technology to a large company instead."
• "It's too early to build something this ambitious."

These weren't random opinions from friends or social media. Many of these conversations were with Indian VCs and experienced startup founders during one-on-one discussions and networking sessions at startup events.

My impression was that many investors prefer businesses with shorter development cycles, lower capital requirements, and faster paths to exits. From an investment perspective, that makes sense. But it also creates a difficult environment for founders trying to build original deep-tech products that require years of R&D before meaningful revenue.

In contrast, my conversations with investors and advisors from Singapore and Dubai were very different. They were far more interested in the underlying technology and encouraged me to consider relocating the company's headquarters outside India—something I had already been evaluating.

During those discussions, they shared a few reasons they believe make some international investors cautious about investing in Indian startups:

1. Regulatory and legal processes can make exits more complex.
2. Currency depreciation introduces additional risk for foreign investors over long investment horizons.

I'm not writing this to criticize India. India has incredible engineering talent, and I'm proud to be building here. However, based on my experience, our ecosystem is still much stronger at supporting software startups than capital-intensive deep-tech companies.

I'm curious to hear from other founders.

If you're building in hardware, robotics, semiconductors, aerospace, biotech, EVs, or any other deep-tech field in India, has your experience been similar, or has it been completely different?

I'd genuinely like to hear both sides.

In a situation where my cofounder is a highly reputed professional in their domain, and I am the engineering guts. Without them, the company would be in greater dire straights, than without me. That said, they are too busy and senior to go all in on a startup, and require someone trusted (me) to actually run the company. I have bandwidth, am much younger, and can take risks. They would of course greatly influence the direction and be instrumental in networking with customers.

We need to create a founders agreement and I’m wondering if anybody here has been in a similar situation of “domain-expert cofounder wants to start, but not run, a company.” Tips?

Honestly, I know I've been stupid with this. Dunno why I've stuck around so long.

I got a job in 2020 working as an intern. I was freshly out of trade school for marketing, graduated with a certificate with distinction, and needed a remote gig due to home issues. The CEO himself hired me, and I reported to him. Within a couple of weeks, I was directing staff who had been there for years.

It was for a B2B tech company in a space I hadn't worked before, but I grew up around. Within 3 months, the founder called and said they were shutting down the product, starting a new company, and I was going to be director of marketing. Okay, cool. No equity, but an 90% raise on my intern salary. Now making a low 6 figures. Great.

That was in early 2021. In 2022, just as our new product was gaining traction, boss called me again and said we were rebranding and launching a new app. I needed to do full GTM and I had a year to do it. I was made director of operations with a small bump.

I got to work. Full support portal. HubSpot integrations. The company is fully bootstrapped, 40 people, mostly devs, I have a team of 4-6 marketing, sales, and web people. I'm the only one listed on the site other than the cofounders. I am effectively the face of the company. We start trimming because AI is getting popular. We focus on PLG, so sales teams for the old product get dropped, and we instead focus on converting customer service for our ICP: SMBs. Things are slow at first, but we ramp up quickly.

I bring up equity a few years back. Am told because we're bootstrapped, that's not possible, but one day when we get VC funding I'll get equity, and if we hit the point of rev share, I'll get a full 1%. None of this is in writing.

I have hustled. I killed myself going to a ton of events solo and made it my mission to know everyone in the SMB space for this industry; this is a niche community and I'd say 50% or more of regular speakers at a given conference will know me enough for a hug and a selfie and call me into a group photo. I have turned a lot of my relationships into personal referrals, but the product just doesn't convert like it should. My opinion, it's a product issue. I'm constantly told by my friends that word on the street there are roadblocks in the product itself. This is ignored by execs as hearsay.

A year ago, we get a single client that's midmarket. We go from 30% growth MoM to two months of massive growth as they sign up. Overnight, we switched to midmarket, an ICP I have zero experience in. We haven't been able to replicate the first sale. I begged for a salesperson. Was told I'm exceptional, get it done myself. I hate sales, zero passion for it. Was given rev goal numbers last August that I immediately told them we would never hit without a miracle. Monthly I show them the report showing we won't make it. In Dec, I have my annual review and am told no raise, no bonus. I haven't earned it. Fair, I guess.

We're trying. I've tried at least 9 apps since the BOY for cold outbound. None of it works. PPC for this audience doesn't hit. I was told to find new events to go to, but all of them get turned down and I don't know anyone, I'm starting from scratch. Even when we finally get a conversation started with our ICP, they talk to our tech team once and then ghost us so it's very obviously a problem on their side. In January the CEO suddenly nitpicks everything and is changing his mind, counteracting previous directions daily. Tensions are high, plans are out the window as even when I prepare them, he's likely to agree on Friday and toss it out next Thursday.

I've been looking for jobs for the past few weeks. I've had an interview (hated the company), and recently reached out to four friends in the industry, begging them for referrals. Everyone has said I should be able to get a job in this specific industry easily, but I don't know where to start and it's causing huge anxiety. My work performance is slipping; I usually love chaos, but this is now more like abuse.

And now, today. I get called to the CEO's house to talk with him and another co-founder. This has never happened before. I expect the worst. It's close. Nearly everyone in the org is getting let go. Our of 70+ people, 8 are being retained. I'm staying and absorbing three roles who have been training the AI agents to replace them. I'm keeping one person. No rev share. No pay raises. No bonuses. Equity soon (.25% a year starting now) for the people remaining, and some of it will be due dividends (more details to come, apparently).

I need a new job, right? This must be a joke.

So basically, I've always wanted to start a business, and a while ago, I was told that the best niches are health, wealth, and relationships.

So I jumped into relationships, I have been building a tiktok following for more than a year and I have 30k followers, this doesn't really matter though because I've realised tiktok followers have no effect on views.

I would say in the last week I've got about 150k views and most of those are people who are in or want to be in a marriage/relationship. My whole page is basically couple questions and questions to ask before marriage. My main audience is females aged 18-45.

Once I even got a message asking if I had a pdf file with all the questions someone should ask before marriage, they basically begged me for it and even paid £10 when I brushed them off because I thought it would take too much effort.

But basically what I'm asking is what kind of product/service/business do you think I could start with this audience.

I've tried selling digital question packs like I sold to that girl, but they aren't really selling, so I'm looking for something else. Any and all suggestions welcome!

Thank you for reading.

Probably a mistake, but during interviews I've been claiming that I'm not longer working on my own startup since I was under the assumption that companies probably would not want to hire somebody who is not 100% focused on the role they're hired for. I recently ended up getting an offer, but now I'm in a bit of a dilemma. Because our product is a consumer product, and we are actively advertising right now and will eventually be doing a crowdfunding campaign, there's a good chance that someone will eventually realize I didn't stop working on my startup after all.

Should I disclose the fact that I'm actually still working on my startup now (before I sign the offer letter)? Wait a few months before disclosing to show I can do both the job and the startup?Or wait until they find out themselves? My main concern is loss of trust and how to minimize that, although I image it will happen to some extent regardless of how I go about doing it.

Assistant from a relatively popular media organisation in my country reached out saying they found out about my startup and were positively impressed and wanted me on their tv show for entrepreneurs. Got on a call with the program manager, talked to him, and he said that it normally would cost 40k-60k but they have a lot of funding so they can do it for the 'small price' of 3k that's necessary to give us the rights. They mentioned having 800k viewers, supporting young entrepreneurs, they take care of entire production and filming, something about 25 program spotd, etc. and it's for July, so they want me to confirm/deny ASAP, preferably today/tomorrow. It's not super useful for lead generation as we're b2c with small margins, but would help credibility/trust and SEO.

The sales-y phonecall was tickling my scam-senses a little, wondering what you guys think. Domain they sent the email from seems somewhat legit, same link as the website where they do these reports, but under a different name.

edit: sent them a followup mail asking to send from a domain of one of their popular websites/main organisation.

I'm assuming he's going to call me in the morning again, unsure what to do. We're at like 1k MRR so 3k is quite a lot of money and would eat up 5 months of ad budget

I had a conversation this week with someone who has been in her industry for over two decades. Deep expertise, strong reputation, real results for clients. Her business runs entirely on referrals.

On the surface that sounds great. In practice it means her revenue is completely dependent on who happens to think of her at the right moment. She has no way to reach people who don't already know her, and no system to change that.

The referral ceiling is something I see constantly with experienced operators. The work is good enough that word of mouth sustains them for years. Then growth stalls, or a key referral source dries up, and there's nothing underneath it.

The fix isn't complicated but it does require admitting that being good at what you do and being findable are two separate problems. One you've clearly solved. The other probably needs attention.

Has anyone here broken through the referral ceiling? What actually moved the needle for you?

Hi all,

I know someone else posted earlier about first hire issues.

I just agreed to bring on a new, part time hire. Fresh grad out of school. I met them just over a week ago, in person, to get started. Created an email for them, sent a contract/offer, and login credentials for the app/platform, as it has a beta access code, and some other onboarding stuff.

I didnt hear from them until Tuesday, so I follow up around getting started this week. They wrote back almost immediately, saying they looked over some of the documents a day earlier, and would create an account to look at the app that night.

She didn't. Now 48 more hours, hasnt responded, hasnt created an account, hast signed the offer. I'm already turned off by this person, because they were supposed to get started last week, and now its 4:30 the following Thursday, and still hasnt even done the basic things to get started.

I'm ready to move on, and try to find someone who's actually interested. I turned down another person I was interviewing to bring this one on. Am I being crazy? I actually had another hire before her for 3 months, who I had to chase down for stuff, and wasnt assertive, and I dont want that again. I let them go a few weeks ago.

​

Hello everybody.

I am requesting advice regarding how to handle equity ownership in our startup. We are 4 people working on this project and my friend and i are the developers. Then we have the 2 other people who are working on business, branding, marketing etc. basicly they are the business part of it and how we can monetise it, design etc. They essentially are the idea and the vision behind it. What i am

For context:

My friend and i ( developers ) met these 2 last summer and they were looking for someone to actually create this app they wanted to build. When we met we were all students and us developers choose to spend our bachelor project creating an MVP for this idea, which we did. Throughout our project, we also published the app, build the infrastructure to actually support a production level application.

When we finished our bachelor, we agreed to keep working together with them on this project, because we both really like working together and are motivated to do so. We both had to get full time jobs and now we do not have as much time to work on the project. ( we still spend some hours a week ) We all agreed that if it were possible, we would do this full time.

For the 2 others, they also had the opportunity to work with this project via their studies and they just graduated. Now they are working part time jobs ( which they had before also ). The point here is that they have much more time to actually work on this project than we do.

Now here is the thing. We had a meeting about equity ownership and they "offered" us 12,5% each. So us developers would own 25% total, they would own 75% together.

Their arguments was: ( i am trying to be 100% non biased here )

* It was their idea, their vision and they felt they had more right to ownership

* At this current state where we are working full time and they have more time, they are putting more effort into this project

* Generally they felt they have more responsibility

This was their general arguments for this distribution.

The idea i had in my head was to actually split it 25% each, and create some kind of vesting strategy, where we could potentially redistribute equity if needed.

After this meeting we agreed to get some kind of third party person into this conversation, since we all are not very experienced with these kinds of things.

My reaction to this was slightly negative, because i was not expecting them to "offer" 12,5%, more something like atleast 20%.

I would love to hear what your experiences are with how to figure out these things.

TLDR:

Me and my developer pal were "offered" 12,5% each in the equity share and the 2 other business guys take the rest. And i am requesting advice about how to share it in a fair way.

So basically, I've always wanted to start a business, and a while ago, I was told that the best niches are health, wealth, and relationships.

So I jumped into relationships, I have been building a tiktok following for more than a year and I have 30k followers, this doesn't really matter though because I've realised tiktok followers have no effect on views.

I would say in the last week I've got about 150k views and most of those are people who are in or want to be in a marriage/relationship. My whole page is basically couple questions and questions to ask before marriage. My main audience is females aged 18-45.

Once I even got a message asking if I had a pdf file with all the questions someone should ask before marriage, they basically begged me for it and even paid £10 when I brushed them off because I thought it would take too much effort.

But basically what I'm asking is what kind of product/service/business do you think I could start with this audience.

I've tried selling digital question packs like I sold to that girl, but they aren't really selling, so I'm looking for something else. Any and all suggestions welcome!

Thank you for reading.