Startives

You’re absolutely right! For indie hackers and solo founders, identifying a genuine need that users are willing to pay for is more important than simply building a product.

That’s why I’m building WantForge—it helps indie hackers and solo founders validate whether their ideas address real pain points and needs within minutes, so they can avoid spending months on blind development only to launch a product that no one uses.

This is such an underrated problem.

Feels like a lot of people focus on ‘ideas’ instead of identifying repeatable problems they already understand deeply.

Curious how you’re approaching that distinction?

stack ranked in order of difficulty:
1. brand positing / messaging
2. marketing (even if u have cash, the above will cruel you if done badly)
3. setting up legals, drop shipping, etc (if not a saas)
4. idea
5. building/manufacturing the thing

To be honest, building is the easiest part. The hard parts are finding a good idea and marketing (getting your first users).

"Coming up with a good idea is way harder than actually building the product", that's the line most people miss until they've built three things nobody needed. You flipped the sequence: problem first, then idea. That's the only order that reduces the guesswork.

It's nice genuinely I saw it

The "no follow-through" problem is so real. I've been building a SaaS solo (AI-powered ad creative tool) and the hardest part isn't the technical work — it's having nobody to pressure-test decisions with. You end up in your own echo chamber where every feature idea sounds reasonable because there's no one to say "that's a distraction, focus on X."

One thing I'd push you to think about: the matching problem for co-founders isn't really about skills. You can find developers and designers anywhere. The hard part is filtering for commitment level and working style. Someone who ships on weeknights is fundamentally incompatible with someone who blocks off full weeks. If Startives could surface that kind of signal — like showing someone's actual build history or shipping cadence rather than just a skills list — that would be the real differentiator over LinkedIn or random Discord servers.

What's your plan for dealing with the inevitable "idea people with no skills" flooding that will come as you grow? That's usually what kills these communities — the signal-to-noise ratio gets destroyed.

The trust point is spot on. I went solo for the same reason — spent too long looking for someone who cared about the problem as much as I did. Eventually just started building myself and shipped faster than any of those co-founder conversations would have led to. Sometimes the best co-founder search is just starting and letting the right people find you through the work.

What's the business model?

Haha, so basically… Startives is like Tinder, but for co-founders! Swiping for equity instead of dates. 😆

Great try, good for that

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if intrested dm to sai rithvik linkedin account

Love it, I actually just built 7secondfuture where founders can pitch their ideas and be found by investors/advisors/business partners. Maybe you pitch your idea there too

The trust problem is the real one — skills you can evaluate in a week but whether someone will still care about the project six months in when it's hard is almost impossible to know upfront. I've been going the solo route for exactly this reason. The asset exchange idea is interesting though, did you get that from seeing a specific pain point or was it something you experienced yourself?

The co-founder search problem feels very real.

From an engineer perspective, I’ve noticed the hardest part isn’t finding people with skills — it’s finding alignment on pace and ownership. A lot of early conversations break not on “can they build”, but on “how much do they actually want to build this”.

The “partnership vs employee mindset” point really resonates.

Good decision

How are you thinking about distribution? The product looks solid but curious what's working for getting it in front of people early on.

This concept of 'Practice Surface Area' explains the 'overnight success' of almost every SaaS I admire.

I’m currently building OmniWatchGuard, and I've reached that 'Sofia Polgar stage' where I no longer just browse the web—I analyze it. Every time I see a price change or a layout shift on a site, my brain automatically runs a mental diff check. It’s no longer 'working on a project'; it’s an involuntary habit of deconstructing DOM structures while I’m waiting for my coffee.

Orwell's 'mental diary' is the perfect analogy for a founder. You aren't just coding for 8 hours; you are solving edge cases in your head while you fall asleep.

The difference between a buggy tool and a high-performance engine isn't just talent—it's the total volume of these 'hidden reps' that happen outside of official office hours. Thanks for the brilliant framing!

LinkedIn Post (Storytelling Style)

Writing

I stopped looking for a Co-Founder on LinkedIn.

After weeks of scrolling, pitching, and waiting… nothing clicked.

So I made a decision:
Instead of waiting for the “perfect partner,” I started building on my own.

No big team.
No fancy setup.
Just clarity, consistency, and a willingness to figure things out.

Fast forward to today—
I’ve built something I’m genuinely proud of.

Here’s what I learned:
• You don’t need a co-founder to start
• You need momentum more than perfection
• The right people show up once you’re already moving

Sometimes, the breakthrough isn’t finding the right people.

It’s becoming the person who starts anyway.

Curious—have you ever waited too long for the “right time” or “right people”?

🔹 Short Punchy Version

Writing

I stopped looking for a co-founder on LinkedIn.

And started building instead.

Best decision I made.

Momentum beats waiting. Every time.

🔹 Bold / Viral Style

Writing

Unpopular opinion:

You don’t need a co-founder.

You need courage to start alone.

I wasted weeks searching on LinkedIn.

Then I stopped.

And built this instead.

That’s when everything changed.

🔹 Founder Story + Soft Sell

Writing

I was actively looking for a co-founder on LinkedIn.

Messaging people. Pitching ideas. Waiting for replies.

It felt productive—but nothing moved forward.

So I stopped.

And decided to build this myself.

That shift changed everything:
• Faster decisions
• Clearer vision
• Real progress

Now, instead of searching for the right people,
I’m attracting them.

If you're stuck waiting—this might be your sign to start.

Nice! StarTives looks great for co-founders + early validation. Customer feedback is definitely my biggest pain too — public boards make it easier.

Have you tried integrating feedback voting into the marketplace?

Most founder matching platforms optimize for connection volume. You're optimizing for signal "complement skills, not just replicate them." That's the distinction that actually builds teams instead of just filling a co-founder slot.

The co-founder problem is very real honestly.

We build apps for founders and lot of them come to us after failing to find right technical co-founder for months. Either person they found had no time, or skills did not match, or equity discussion went wrong.

The validation part I think is even harder than co-founder finding. Most founders I talk to skip it completely and go straight to building. Then spend 6 months building something nobody wanted.

Curious how Startives handles the quality filtering. Co-founder matching platforms usually have this problem where serious builders and tyre kickers are mixed together and it wastes everyones time.

What does your matching look like right now 😄

Finding the right co-founder is honestly harder than building the product itself, so this solves a real problem.

If you can help people validate ideas early (not just connect), this could become really powerful.

This comment was deleted 5 months ago