full image - Repost: I peaked at 14 with 50k daily active users, moved to the US to chase VCs, and realized I forgot how to actually build. Roast my new approach? (from Reddit.com, I peaked at 14 with 50k daily active users, moved to the US to chase VCs, and realized I forgot how to actually build. Roast my new approach?)
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Hey entrepreneurs,I’ve been a developer for a while, but looking back, my "peak" was when I was 14. I built a messaging app that hit 50,000 Daily Active Users.Full disclosure: It wasn't some ground-breaking tech. It was essentially a wrapper around Telegram with some UI uplifts that rode a wave of controversy the main app was having at the time. But it worked. I didn't overthink the stack, I didn't have a pitch deck, I just shipped what people wanted.The "Silicon Valley" Trap Riding that high, I moved to the US for college with one goal: get closer to investors and the "real" startup ecosystem.But a weird thing happened. The closer I got to the "professional" startup world, the slower I got. I fell into the trap of the "3-month MVP cycle." I stopped hacking things together and started "engineering" them. I’d get an idea, spend weeks setting up Next.js, configuring Auth, designing perfect schemas, and worrying about how it would look to a VC. By the time I launched, the market had moved on, or I realized nobody wanted it.I realized I was building for investors I didn't have, rather than users I could get.The Shift: Fighting Subscription Fatigue I wanted to get back to the energy I had at 14 building for the joy of it and shipping fast. But I also noticed a new problem: The Tool Tax.To build an MVP today, you are forced to stitch together a dozen tools. You need Gamma for the deck ($20/mo), Lovable or V0 for the UI ($20-50/mo), and Perplexity for the research ($20/mo).Before you even write a line of code or get one user, you’re burning $100/mo in recurring subscriptions. If you stop paying, your access disappears. I hate this model. Why am I paying rent on my own ideas?What I Built Instead I decided to build an engine that automates the "boring" start, but with a different economic model. Instead of paying for three different tools, this engine generates the functional web app code (with auth/database hooks), creates the AI-powered presentation slides, and runs the market competition analysis all in one workflow.The Controversy (Roast Me Here) Here is where I might be shooting myself in the foot, but I’m betting on Subscription Fatigue. Unlike the other AI tools that lock users into a monthly "Pro" plan just to export code, I’m trying a Pay-Per-Project model. You pay for exactly what you need to launch. No monthly tether.I am sharing this here because I want to know if other technical founders feel this same paralysis.For the immigrant founders: Did moving to the US accelerate you, or did the pressure to "make it big" actually slow down your shipping speed?For the Devs: Am I crazy for skipping the subscription model? Everyone says "SaaS is king," but I feel like devs are tired of bleeding $20/mo for tools they use twice.I’m beta-testing this now. I’m not looking for funding; I’m looking for builders. If you want to try it and tell me if the code quality holds up against the subscription giants, I’d appreciate the feedback.
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