Then there’s my blog. A creative sandbox, no overlap with my day job. No built-in audience. No distribution. Still waiting on subscriber #1 (Mom, seriously—now would be a good time).
Takeaways:
Partner with someone who already has meaningful reach.
Solve a real, hair-on-fire problem.
Offer something free to earn early trust.
Knock on doors, pitch relentlessly, repeat. And hope the gods of luck are listening.
I listened (an underrated superpower), realized I could actually fix the problem, and suggested a meetup. One Zoom meeting later, we had the foundation of a partnership.
Honestly, it could’ve been any event. Just show up, be sincere, and listen more than you pitch.
I’ve always been an introvert—still am—but I’ve learned to be a functional extrovert when it counts- Good luck and don’t give up!
As for networking, I’ve always catered to businesses—and in my experience, most of them face similar challenges regardless of geography. Odds are, the problems a company faces in my neck of the woods are the same ones you’ll find in yours.
This is a bootstrapped, client-first effort—no buzz, no funding, just trying to solve one real problem at a time. It’s also my first time working directly with individual subscribers, unlike my other projects which were built for businesses and their internal teams or clients. I’m still learning as I go and looking forward to sharing more with the HN community.
My llm radar picks it up as well.
A reverse uncanny valley
This is just an LLM. I would be surprised if this guy writes like this.
Why do you think he’s NOT an LLM?
Just use -, that helps a lot.
I'm still waiting to experience a version of this conversation where I'm not informed that the tool they want doesn't exist or all the ones they have are bad because they lack X and Y and include Z, am treated to a description of the tool they want, and then am able to find a half-dozen options for that exact thing on my very first try, all of which seem to be struggling for sales :-/
Mine are always "you're a developer? You should build X, you'd make so much money, I'd buy it!", then me: "really? That's great! Here are several options I just found for X, is this what you meant, and if not, what are they missing?", "Oh yeah, what do you know, that's exactly it!" and the topic is dropped, with them displaying so little interest in the existing solutions I showed them that it's clear they never would have paid for mine, either.
This is true in just about any facet of your life. We've all heard the phrase "right place at the right time" but I don't think a lot of folks take the next step to realize you have to get out there to be in that right place. Dating, friendships, business, nothing beats being in the same place as someone else.
You also have to find the people who have authority to make buying decisions in the first place.
And... many times people saying "tool X sucks"... it might, but that's the only tool that is blessed, or is the only one that has integration with something else they rely on, etc.
Also there's the personality. I've talked with chatgpt enough...
I'm open to the entire account being an agent. That's certainly possible.
There's a new market for astroturfing virality. Create hundreds of agents on various sites and have them engage in pablum and occasionally mention your product.
We're entering a phase where you can't just have a dumb model to filter that out
edit: I know a lot of ESL people use chatgpt now online so maybe thats an explaination
This resonates so strongly, it's like the choir preaching to the pope while god is staring him in the face.
Strange times
Butvthe normal dash is just wrong in most contexts it is used, and I simply cannot stand this.
(Though I used to use the em dash with spaces on either side — like this — and only recently converted to the more common, tighter spacing—like this. I might go back to my old ways since it's different from how AI uses them, like some sort of weird shibboleth.)
Am I the only person who proofreads emails anymore?
It's too bad these folks can't post somewhere in a central place, instead of us going to them and having to drag it out of them.
When you output long blog articles more than daily, it is. Proofreading takes time, and someone who cares enough to proofread will probably care enough to put in more time on other things that an LLM wouldn't care about (like information density, as noted in another comment; or editing after the fact to improve the overall structure; or injecting idiosyncratic wit into headings and subheadings).
I use AI for coding too. It definitely helps with speed and boilerplate, though I’ll admit it sometimes sends me deep down the rabbit hole. Still, the ideas, creativity, and decisions are my own.
For what it’s worth, the structure is AI-assisted, but the wording and ideas are entirely my own. I use whatever AI chat window or tool is open in my browser—Grammarly, Hemingway, Word or others.
I’m here to share and learn, and I hope that still comes through—Thanks again.
Instead of pushing your solution, offer to help with theirs. That might mean helping them improve their current system or even assisting with testing X. Strange as that may sound, it genuinely shows you care and want to help. You’d be surprised how much trust that can build—and how it can open doors to the opportunity you were hoping for. That said, don’t fake it. If you’re not being sincere, it won’t serve either interest. Just sharing what’s worked for me—hope it helps and wishing you the best.
As for the elephant in the room: large corporations are riddled with bureaucracy, inflexible policies, and, frankly, executives who often don’t give a hoot. Not impossible—but definitely more difficult. Speaking from experience (and this may be hard to believe, especially after being accused of being an LLM agent): one of my SaaS web apps I developed last year is currently in use—at no cost—by a top Fortune 500 company. I can't name them, but I maintain the app through a small fee charged to one of their 3rd-party vendors I work with. Now, to be clear: the number of users is barely worth mentioning, but the collective data and its operational value are huge for that corporate department. In short, they love it. Ever since launch, I've been trying to convince them to take on the fees directly and scale the app across all their branches. Even though their internal team, including IT department, has endorsed it and approved internal use, they have too many barriers to jump even before thinking of adopting it as their own tool. Anyway—just sharing. Sorry for the long comment! Amen.
I write a lot (maybe too much, some might say). I actually spent last weekend writing 10k words for self-help book that just popped in my mind - and yes, i trust me i did more than 2 big articles in one day, just haven't published them yet and to be frank, i'm a little worried now.
For full transparency: yes, I used ChatGPT, Grammarly, and Hemingway to assist with the writing structure, grammar and spelling. Not originality and wording. It just helps me move faster and keeps the flow going.
Will my book be a bestseller? Doubt it—it’s my first. Will anyone read it? No clue. Maybe if it’s free. Was it worth my time instead of coding? Absolutely. It cleared my mind and shifted my focus—something I think everyone should try at least once. So yeah, maybe I do write like ChatGPT... but one could also say ChatGPT writes like me. Anyway, like i said, I hope I don’t get banned—I really do like it here.
I guess where I’m coming from is this: why is it assumed that using tools like AI or Grammarly takes away from the creative process? For me, they speed up the mechanical side of things—grammar, flow, even structure—so I can spend more time on ideas, storytelling, informing, or just getting unblocked.
I do get frustrated when ChatGPT changes my wording or shifts the meaning of what I’m trying to say. It can definitely throw a wrench into the overall story. But in those cases, I rephrase my prompt, asking it not to touch the narrative or my word choices, just to act like a word processor on steroids or an expert editor.
I’m not saying these tools replace a good human editor—far from it. If I ever get to the point where I can work with a real editor or proof reader and so on, I’d choose the human every time. But until then, these tools help me keep the momentum going—and I don’t see that as a lack of care.
On the contrary, it often takes me more time to get the output right—because I’m trying to make sure it still reflects exactly what I want to say and express.
Maybe it’s just a different kind of process?
Now you’re just prompting. Just post the prompt, that’d be way more fun to read.