Yesterday @fmerian recommended Googly Eyes from @Sindre Sorhus, which I immediately downloaded! After enjoying the eyes following my cursor around for the day, that got me thinking - what other fun, goofy apps do you all have for your Mac, Chrome, or other devices that don't necessarily serve a purpose other than to bring joy and break the monotony? @Scroll Buddy is another one that comes to mind that I have saved in a collection.

We see productivity apps, AI-based software, open-source products, etc. all the time, but what about your saved products someone made after their 9-5 or on a weekend just to have fun and test their skills?

I ve hit a few demo nights in SF with some gems and some straight-up misses. I m chasing the high-signal ones where you leave with something you can ship next week.

What s the best demo you ran or attended recently, and what made it great? If there s a series or event worth following, drop it (city or online both welcome).

My journey in startups began 10 years ago, and I've launched 18 startups, most of which failed. Briefly on why they failed:
1. Contract Online my first startup in 2015, which was supposed to be an online service for remote signing of contracts for any transactions between individuals. A kind of analogue of a secure transaction. For this startup, I even managed to attract a business angel who invested $16,500.

Reason for failure: I had two lawyers on my team who discovered in the process that the legal framework at the time could not provide reliable grounds for protecting our users in remote transactions. The contracts would not have been considered legally signed.
2. Natural Products In 2015-2018, I became very passionate about healthy eating, but in the process, I discovered that products in all chain stores are full of chemicals, and stores with truly natural products are inaccessible to the majority. Hence, the idea emerged to create my own online platform where you could order natural products directly from farmers at affordable prices.

Reason for failure: For several years, I tried to launch this project, even trained as a baker of natural bread and tried to create my own farm, but in the process, I found that few people are willing to pay for truly natural products, even if these products were only 20-30% more expensive than market prices, and not 2-3 times more, as in premium stores. Hence, the market was so small that all my attempts were doomed.

Anytime we want to see technological advancements, we either keep an eye on Product Hunt, Techcrunch or the military. And that's today's case.

In the morning, I read this announcement:

Meta is partnering with defense tech company Anduril to develop AR/VR headsets for the U.S. military, starting with a new device called EagleEye. The new headset will include night vision, thermal sensing, and augmented reality features.
The partnership has raised eyebrows due to Meta s role in data and AI, and the ethical implications of a social media giant entering the military tech space.

Found about MCP servers earlier this year, but only the last few weeks im getting my hands dirty with them. Im doing things with Typescript and Im struggling with integrating custom clients with mcp servers. Is anyone going through the same path?

PS: Im not asking about building an MCP server or connecting it to Claude Desktop, Cursor or something like that. That is easy, and Youtube is packed with videos about it. Im talking about custom frontends/clients and how to easily integrate them with MCP servers.

The last few months have blown me away not for the announcements but for the actual use tools like Cursor, Windsurf and the even recent ones like Bolt or Lovable.
As someone who has no knowledge of coding, I have been up during nights materialising the product in my head into an web/app that I can run on my device - all through conversational english. With such pace and removal of barriers, what do you think the next phase of software development would be and what will be the differentiator that defines your(could be your product) success?

Venture capital can be rocket fuel.

But sometimes it feels more like strapping yourself to a rocket you don t fully control.

If I had never raised a dollar, how would my product look different?

I'm talking to founders who struggle with trial-to-paid conversion. Most of the ones I've chatted with say the same thing:

"We get signups, but users go quiet after a few days. We have no idea what went wrong until they're already gone."