Most platforms treat founders as data. We're trying something uncomfortably human.
I'm a full-stack developer at SoftRankings.
Our co-founder Ayush Shakya said something this week that I haven't stopped thinking about. He wrote that after a founder lists on SoftRankings, he has almost no relationship with them. He knows their stage. He knows their category. He can see the impressions and the clicks. But they don't actually talk.
That's the gap he's trying to close. And I want to say why it matters from where I sit.
If you want to join the founder community, request an invite here: formsout.app/form/founder-email-collection-for-slack
I can tell you exactly how many pre-seed founders clicked through to a specific analytics tool last Tuesday. I can see which stage cohorts spend the longest time on a listing page. I know the geographic spread of impressions, the click patterns, the drop-off points.
What I can't see: whether any of it actually helped someone make a better decision.
That's the gap that's been sitting with me since we launched.
What the Slack actually is.
Our co-founder Ayush Shakya is opening a small, private Slack for founders listed on SoftRankings. Invited founders only, starting under 50 people. No weekly standups. No content calendar. Just a place where founders at similar stages can ask each other the questions that don't have clean answers yet.
Is this the right CRM at 8 people? When did you actually outgrow Notion? What broke first when you hit 20 customers?
Ayush put it well in his post: the most useful thing SoftRankings could be isn't a better directory. It's the place where early-stage founders help each other figure out their stack. The Slack is that bet made small and honest.
Why I care about this as an engineer.
Every feature I scope for SoftRankings is a guess about what founders need next. A good guess, based on real data, but still a guess.
A direct channel to the founders actually using the platform turns that into a conversation. That's not a small thing. It changes what I build and how I prioritize it.
Most tools are built for users. The feedback loop runs through metrics and support tickets. What we're trying, deliberately small, no promises about what it becomes, is to build alongside the founders on the platform.
That's a different kind of engineering problem. And honestly, a more interesting one.
If you've listed on SoftRankings, request a Slack invite here: formsout.app/form/founder-email-collection-for-slack
Haven't listed yet? Free, 24-hour review, no credit card: softrankings.com/submit
The shift from tracking user behavior to actually talking with users is really interesting. Metrics can show what founders do, but conversations can reveal why they do it.
How do you plan to turn those Slack conversations into product decisions without letting the loudest voices outweigh the broader user data?
Slack gives us the why, but broad data still acts as our reality check. We only act on feedback when we see recurring themes in chat that line up with what the broader metrics are telling us.
This resonates. Metrics can tell you what founders are doing, but not always why they’re doing it or whether the product actually helped them.
I think that direct feedback loop becomes even more important as a product grows. A founder community can turn analytics from “what happened?” into “why did this happen?” — and that can completely change what you build next.
I really like the distinction between measuring founder activity and actually understanding founders. Analytics can tell you where someone clicked or how long they stayed, but it rarely tells you what they were trying to accomplish or what stopped them.
The interesting part of this experiment, for me, is whether the Slack can become a feedback loop rather than just another founder community. If conversations consistently influence what gets built, while founders also get useful connections and answers in return, that creates a pretty strong flywheel.
The “under 50 people” approach also makes sense. It seems much easier to build genuine relationships before trying to scale the community. I’d be especially interested in seeing what recurring problems emerge from those conversations and whether they end up shaping the product roadmap.
Exactly. Numbers don't tell you the story behind the decision. Keeping it small at first helps us focus on real conversations instead of noise, so every piece of feedback actually means something.
bro most platforms don't care after u list. this sounds different. hope it grows into something real.
Appreciate it! That post-listing silence is exactly what we want to fix. Hoping to build something that adds real value long after the initial sign-up.
I like the point about metrics showing what happened but not always why it mattered.
I saw this firsthand with an early product user. Analytics could show me where they moved through the flow, but a direct conversation revealed the real friction was mobile UX and pricing. Acting on that feedback changed the product much faster than staring at dashboards would have.
Small founder communities like this can become really useful if the conversations stay honest instead of turning into another promotion channel.
That mobile UX example is a great reminder of why direct chat wins. And I completely agree on keeping it useful rather than promotional. We are keeping moderation tight so it stays focused on real problem-solving.
Love this mindset. Metrics show you what happened, but conversations tell you why. Best of luck with the Slack launch sounds like a much-needed shift away from standard directory clutter!
Thanks! Really appreciate the support. Excited to see how these initial conversations help us build something genuinely useful for everyone involved.
The shift from “what happened?” in analytics to “why did it happen?” through real founder conversations is really valuable. Especially at the early stage, a few honest conversations can reveal things that dashboards simply can’t. Curious to see how the Slack evolves as more founders join.
The gap between seeing founder activity in analytics and actually talking to those founders is pretty striking. Curious what conversations emerge once the Slack gets going.
we cover major topics:
The founder-to-founder conversations are the part I’d be most interested in seeing play out. What kinds of pain points are founders bringing up so far?
@aryan_sinh it has been 2 days we have started rolling out the invites. I think it should be a collective efforts of all early stage, seed, pre seed founders to join in the SoftRankings Slack Comm.
That makes sense. Two days is probably too early to draw much from the conversations yet. I’ll be interested to see what patterns emerge once more founders are actually in there.