We're back babyyyyyyyyyyyy!
Founder's Compass is back in a new format, take a peek inside and see if you vibe with it.
Before that, a quick word from the author:
To all the fresh faces: Hello and welcome to my hi5 page! (if you don’t get that reference, you might be too young to read this, ask for parental consent before proceeding).
This is the place to get weekly, unhinged, sometimes funny (but mostly not) updates from the startup world, peppered with some cool tools, design tips and hot takes to help you reach that sweet-sweet $1M ARR nectar.
I have yet to write enough content to train an AI on my writing style, so for the time being, you get stuff written from what some of my family affectionately call “half-a-brain” of mine.
Basically, to sum it up:
Let’s get it started up-in-here.
The “New” in News:
A study published in Nature in November with a sample of nearly 17,000 people found that we can’t tell apart human-made from AI-generated poems. And, strikingly, we tend to prefer the latter.
The CC signals project instead proposes a different solution: a set of tools that offers a range of legal enforceability and that has an ethical weight to them, similar to the CC licenses that today cover billions of openly licensed creative works online.
Google says the new AI search feature, which appears at the top of the results page, will include multiple videos, along with an AI summary of each. You can tap the video thumbnails to begin playing them right from the carousel. The summary is intended to extract the information most relevant to your search query, so you may not even have to watch the videos.
Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, which led Polymarket’s $45 million series B funding round last year, is leading the newest fundraising event, and the platform is also planning to come back to the US, the report stated.
“Touch grass? I AM the lawn.”
“Delulu is the solulu.”
“Slayed so hard I need a rest day.”
Our return on ad spend jumped from around 30% to 120%.
Tool of the Week: mysite.ai
I mean, you probably have seen this coming from a mile away. We’ve just recently organized an event with mysite.ai and 4 other startups (if you’ve been there, I hope you’re enjoying the bottles of wine you stole ;)
Back to our victim of the week, mysite.ai is lovable for people who have a hard time using lovable.
what?
Yes, some people don’t even know what to prompt the AI to build. Here’s where mysite.ai comes in. Don’t trust me tho (I’m being paid by them so of course I’m going to say nice things). Give it a try, after their Product Hunt launch, 500 people created websites on their platform, so it must be doing smth right.
Startup Idea of the Week: Ground News Reels
In a recent study I just pulled out of thin air, people said they get their news from TikTok. (it’s actually a Pew Research study, but I’m too tired to go out and find the actual source)
Late edit: Here’s the actual source for the study. I’m lazy, but I’m not a monster, I wouldn’t publish random statistics like this unless I know I wouldn’t get caught.
So, here’s the idea: A short-form news-only platform. Early-adopters: journalists. Make it invite-only in the beginning and have your early adopters actually vote whether a news piece is leaning right or left politically (if we’re talking about political news of course). Then open the floodgates and let news-hungry day-traders overdose on this and nuke the stock market out of existence. What could go wrong?
Ok, hear me out. You should try: Word of Sight
You think you want users to talk about your product? That’s adorable. Talking is for suckers. I want my users to be unwilling, walking, flashing billboards.
Your users become your best advocates simply by letting other people see them using your product. At first glance, Shazam’s recording screen looks empty. Think about the context: People use Shazam in crowded, public places like concerts and cafes. When someone holds up their phone to identify a song, that giant, glowing logo becomes a public display.
Here’s an even smarter one:
To save a tweet with Readwise, you don’t click a private "bookmark" button. Instead, you have to publicly tag @readwise in the comments on X.
This turns every single user action into a miniature, public advertisement. Instead of a silent, personal save, they require a visible endorsement.
Ask yourself: Where will my product be seen?
If it’s used in public spaces:
🎨 Use bold colors. Vibrant colors naturally catch the eye from across a room.
💡 Design bright screens. Give users a reason to have their brightness turned up.
🔘 Make your logo the hero. When possible, make your logo large and central to the main action.
If it’s used privately, think about when it becomes visible:
🧑💻 Video calls: Put your logo or brand mark in the top bar where it will appear during a screen share.
🖼️ Screenshots: People love to screenshot dashboards and results. Make sure those areas are clean, well-designed, and clearly branded.
📦 Shared outputs: Encourage sharing that keeps people on your platform. Loom does this perfectly—you share a
loom.comlink, not just a video file.
But the real secret is to build visibility into your core features:
🏷️ Tie functionality to public actions. Like Readwise, find ways for the core function of your product to be a public act.
🔄 Make sharing the natural workflow. Don’t just add a share button as an afterthought. Design your product so that sharing is the main way to get value from it.
📱 Design for "shoulder surfing." When someone uses your product, make it distinct and recognizable to someone glancing over their shoulder.
🎯 Add visible feedback to core actions. Grammarly’s green dot is a perfect example. It pops up as you write, making its presence known in screenshots and screen shares.
What’s going on for us: (thanks for asking!)
Products:
We’re live on the play store with our AI Radio App for “Noi Venim Din Viitor”. Download it right here.
We’ve also got a non-working (for now) prototype of a game-making platform similar to what Lovable does. The advantage? It writes (or should write) GDScript for the Godot Game Engine (3rd most popular game engine in the world). Check it out here. Would love to hear your feedback, especially how we can improve the code generation.
Last but not least, we’re actively working on a hacker house for CEE founders here in SF. That’s all I can reveal right now.
Events:
Our “Stealth Reveal Party” just happened, and thanks for coming out. It was a lot of fun (and hope you enjoyed it just as much as we did). What would you like us to organize next?
Kisses and lots of love from your future tech overlord,
