I run a dev shop that builds MVPs for founders. For a while my whole pitch was the obvious one: we save you time and money getting your MVP built. It's what everyone in this space says.

Recently I killed that positioning entirely, and I want to know if I'm right or about to shoot myself in the foot.

Here's my thinking. The founders who chase "cheap and fast" are usually the ones with the smallest budgets, the most anxiety about spending, and often the weakest ideas. They're price shopping, so they're gone the moment someone quotes $500 less. I was competing on the one axis where there's always someone cheaper, and attracting exactly the clients I didn't want.

The founders I actually want to work with, people with a genuinely strong idea who are trying to raise money, don't care about saving a few thousand dollars. They care about their product being excellent, because a polished, well built MVP is what gets them taken seriously by investors. For them, "cheap" is actually a red flag, it signals the work will be cheap too.

So I repositioned as a premium dev shop. The promise isn't "save money," it's "come here to get the best possible version of your product built, the one that gets you funded." Higher price, better clients, work I'm actually proud of.

The bet is that in this space, being the affordable option is a race to the bottom, and being the excellent option is where the real, serious clients are.

But I'm second guessing myself. Am I narrowing my market too much? Is "premium" harder to sell when you don't have a big-name portfolio yet? Has anyone here made the jump from competing on price to competing on quality, and did it actually work, or did the pipeline dry up?

Genuinely want the honest take, including if you think I'm wrong.

I had a multi million pound business until COVID wiped it out. I tried to rebuild as web dev, then AI came along.

I built a product for a niche and was going well but, rather naively, we had 2 clients and they pulled the rug. 3 hits in 5 years has been tough and for the first time I'm beginning to feel drained and doubting my ability.

I'm 45 and have had success and failures. Highs and lows.

I'm now running web businesses (Personalised gift platform, niche seasonal travel co) and a b2b project. Non are hitting the spot yet and it's becoming harder and harder to keep going.

I always had a focus to retire when I was 50 and was on track until COVID but since then I've not been able to get things back on track. I've managed to save a little cash in the bank but that is dwindling.....

Rather than put the barriers up to ai, I have embraced it and the b2b project has this at its core. But I do worry with the ease of AI software if indeed this is sustainable. I network regularly and the feedback on this has been very positive but b2b seems to be mega hard to get users to part with cash. And that's where I struggle.

I'm definitely an ideas and build kinda guy...I come up with an idea, research and build. The b2b project is a culmination of 4 different projects in one.

Christmas is around the corner (!) and hopefully the e-commerce might see some life. I honestly don't feel hopeful and worry about what will happen next.

It's just a rant I need to have.

I’m a web dev with 5+ yoe, working on contract right now and have been working with the same client since 1.5years now.

Sometimes I feel scared as to what if I am laid off, based on current condition of tech industry it’s going to be really hard to find next opportunity.

Earlier I used to get many client projects but it’s a ghost town since AI went mainstream.

I tried building my own SaaS projects but couldn’t market them and hence no success there.

So now I’m really anxious as to if I out of my current contract work, what’s next?

Where should I be focusing now? I’m 25 right now so there’s a long road ahead in life but I’m clueless as to what to do.

Please share thoughts or advice/suggestions, thank you so much!

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Hey r/entrepreneur, I am Ambrish, founder and CEO of Rivo.

I have built autonomous systems for most of my life, including at Amazon and Cruise, where I led AI during the launch of commercial robotaxi service in San Francisco.

I left to build something I hadn't seen applied to personal finance: self-driving money.

Rivo was born from a frustrating personal experience. My former wealth manager had left my hard-earned money earning 0% because he needed "explicit instructions" before moving it, while continuing to charge a 0.65% management fee. That experience made me realize there had to be a better way to manage idle cash.

The more I looked into it, the bigger the problem got. U.S. households hold nearly $6 trillion in transaction accounts, much of it earning close to nothing. Not because people don't care, but because they're busy, and the system was designed to profit from that.

So I built Rivo. It securely connects to your existing bank account, monitors your cash flow to identify cash you aren't likely to need, moves it into U.S. Treasury Bills, and brings it back before the bills are due. You keep your bank and never have to manually transfer money.

We've raised $3.1M in total funding, backed by South Park Commons, 645 Ventures, 20VC, Wisdom Ventures, Script Capital, and Jag Duggal (former CPO at Nubank). Our team includes leaders from Personal Capital, Mint, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, and Microsoft.

Happy to go deep on anything:

• Leaving a high-profile AI role to start from scratch
• Fundraising as a first-time founder (what worked, what didn't)
• Building in fintech: compliance, banking partners, regulators
• Applying autonomous systems thinking to personal finance
• What we got wrong early
• How we think about the idle cash problem

If you want to know more, you can check us out at rivofi.com, find me on LinkedIn, or drop by our subreddit r/TryRivo.

I just tested.
The power of 1 launch video > 20 lead magnets!!

I've spent months building lead magnets and content system on LinkedIn for inbound.

500k+ impressions/month, tbh, solid reach..I guess

But last week we launched our first motion launch video,
none of those posts convert like this simple launch video did!!!!!!!!

This one video brought:
→ 50+ users
→ 14 paid clients (~$2k)
→ +33% LinkedIn company followers

Cost to make it: ~$5

The ROI is insane!

p.s. the secret of $5 video is not Fiverrr!! which is another part I feel insane! it's cursor+remotion 👊

(but with the same launch video, my X is silent..
still need to figure out how to X)

So we're going all in on video now.
Trying to ship as many as we can. Let's see how it cooks!

2 years ago I had a job and I got fired without any warnings or meetings. Last year I started investing in stocks and it was going great, until I lost everything.

This year I decided my new motto would be hard work. I started a web design agency making fast, modern websites that make better websites than 90% of agencies out there. 0 clients.

I think I’ve come to conclusion that “trying to make it” is a waste of time because no one ever does apart from
Maybe 0.1% of the whole human population.