news.ycombinator.com• Apr 6, 2026• 1 min read
Startup founder's day swinging between 99% failure with 1% hopeI and my co-founder have been building my startup for past 9 months. Lets be practical, most founders don't have clarity at Day 0. Same goes for us.Initial 4 - 5 months, hearing all those advices on Problem, solution, customer , value blah. We get it. Idea alone is not enough. Perfect junction of Customer, problem, solution, Value and pricing matters a lot. At some time, we realise this and we position our product in this junction.Next stage is the toughest one. "Why would customer choose you over similar existing tools?". Story telling, SEO, landing page blah, blah, still you are not there yet.All the surrounding advices stop here. Because no playbook exists to crack this.Thats why most investor look for traction in your product. Idea + solution + traction ~= investment.Painful days are those in this phase "Idea + solution + traction", is where real thick skin founder persona within you is built.100 Dms, no response10+ feature updates no response50+ demo calls, no real conversion.Stil