Update 2: Hi Problem, meet Idea!
FounderStack, the problem, the idea, what to do differently and using BuildPad.io as a startup co-pilot.
👋 Hello! I’m Jon, founder and builder. I share my journey of building a company with AI—helping you learn about the latest tools & workflows to use in your life.
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Hi there!
Second post, but I promise you they won’t be as often as I start actually building.
Update 2 - 17 jan, 2025
🤔 How am I feeling?
From now on, I’m including a little check-in on my current mood, as requested by reader Cris! Great way to see the ups and downs of this journey, as well as a good moment for me too pause and reflect.
Today 5/5, as indicated by the 5 Jons above 😅
Energised and hyped from starting something new, and all the positive reactions I got from people on LinkedIn and irl. Especially those recommending me people to connect with or tools to check out. If you got anything to say, simply reply to this or drop a comment on substack!
I do feel I’m jumping the gun a bit, already talking solution in this post, while I still need to validate the need and most importantly TALK to my audience!
So I will circle back a bit next week, to also involve you in how I got here!
So, without further ado..
🛠️ What are we building?
A platform where you can find the actual (AI) tools, agents and workflows actual founders (& other experts) use! No BS, just real recommendations you can trust.
❌ The problem
Choosing the right tools, platforms, or AI agents for a project is overwhelming. There are thousands of options out there.
Picking the right tool is hard. They are expensive and it’s a hassle to switch requiring. It requires hours of Googling, asking your friends. Subreddits are flooded with questions like "What's the best tool for X?"
🔎 Comparison sites suck
There are tool comparison sites, such as G2 and ProductHunt. But they are mostly based on marketing, hype and paid placements. I don’t trust any of them, and many users don’t.
Maybe you’re not familiar with Product Hunt, but it’s a big deal among SaaS builders, Indiehackers and sidehustlers. People launch their new tools there. The gripe I have with is this: top spot is based on amount of upvotes, which means it comes (in part) down to who can market their new tool the best.
There are entire strategy documents written on how to best launch on ProductHunt, which day of the week, how to do pre-marketing, how to offer incentives for people to upvote your tool.
All so you can end up with “Product of the Day”, or week, or month. A stamp which you can then put on your landing page. This doesn’t tell us users much about if we can trust this tool or what the benefits of using it are.
What we’d do different
There are plenty of other AI comparison sites and directories, too. This further validates the need. I have a (very incomplete) Notion document on the competitors that you can check out here. If you find more, let me know! I’ll add them.
The idea would be that on FounderStack, you can literally find the ‘stacks’ of other founders. You can see the exact tools, workflows, and AI agents top founders and productivity experts use. It offers tailored tool stacks for specific industries, goals, and company sizes—eliminating guesswork.
You could still search for software directly like on the other platforms, but the unique thing I think is to search by founder and also include workflows, like how do people use tools together (because it’s hardly ever in isolation).
Why would founders give away their recommendations? Well, if you’ve spent a lot of time finding nice tools and workflows to use, wouldn’t it be nice to make some passive income on that hard work. Think affiliate links or even paid access down the line, while helping others find the best solutions.
kit.co is a website where influencers can share their kit (e.g. which cameras, lenses, tripods, etc). If people then buy these products from Amazon, the influencers gets some affiliate money. Big names like Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) are on it.
FounderStack would be a combination of sites like G2, kit.co with some new (AI) featured functionalities baked in. Think recommendations based on you, your project, similar founders/projects, based on your existing tech stack, etc.
The best tool (for you) would win, not the largest marketing budget.
What do you think? Drop detailed feedback in the comments/reply. This only works with your input! 🙏
How this will go
So far, I’ve only shared with you what I am intending to do. No tools or anything yet, so let’s get those involved.
I will start with using a website that’s called BuildPad.io. It’s a tiny tool I’ve seen on Reddit, with a couple thousand users.
It’s basically ChatGPT that stays on topic, having persistent memory of your company and guiding you through 8 steps in creating a company:
From identifying a need, to validating it, ideating on a solution, targeting an audience, validating the market and then building the MVP and launching.
First, you chat with their chatbot, driven by ChatGPT as far as I can tell. It helps you through the phase with questions.
After completing the phase, you get a nice overview like you see below, and you can also see your chat history.
In the next email, I will dive into the first 3 phases, as well as the marketing strategy from the start: this, building in public!
I’ll probably also make a public Notion or Airtable with all the tools used so far, if you guys are interested?
💡Tip of the day
I got sent this website by Daniil Filatov, who’s actually sharing his “stack”. As he says:
“I’ve put together this list of my favorite AI tools that I use every day. These tools make everything fast.”
Not only are they great recommendations, but I had a quick look at the links and he’s actually using affiliate links in some of them. Sounds like FounderStack, maybe? ;-)
Thanks for the recommendations, Thomas!
Thanks for reading!
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I’m a founder, undercover nerd & padel-addict - writing about building FounderStack.ai in public. I’ve launched multiple start-ups since 18, and bootstrapped CORE Global to high six figures. I share my favourite tools, my founder journey and other curated research here, on AI Builds a Business.
Thanks for reading! With love from Barcelona,
Jon ☀️