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jainvivekon Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)

I have been able to revamp my recruitment product with AI. Once the deterministic parts are done, I will add AI capabilities to it. I even made an AI generated interactive demo. https://www.hiretale.com/#interactive-demo

If any HR/Recruiters are in this thread (a long shot), please share feedback in exchange of free trial.

jainvivekon Ask HN: How to find businesses running their operations on spreadsheets?

I meant to ask for businesses where all/major operations are being run on spreadsheets.

jainvivekon Ask HN: How to find businesses running their operations on spreadsheets?

Spreadsheets can also be automated to perform specific functions.

jainvivekon Ask HN: How to find businesses running their operations on spreadsheets?

I should have framed the question better. I meant to ask for businesses where all/major operations are being run on spreadsheets.

"they don't want to change": Do you think they are open to use spreadsheet's extensions or just want to stick to plain spreadsheets?

jainvivekon Ask HN: What are alternative to Upwork for side gig?

Fiverr

jainvivekon Ask HN: How to learn marketing and sales as a solo entrepreneur?

I was looking for the same a while ago on HN. Below is the thread. Not specific to solopreneurs, but a lot of relevant advice, including top comment by a solopreneur with 3 successful businesses.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41862332

jainvivekon Ask HN: What's your most interesting automation?

Interesting to see spreadsheet in some answers.

We used Pabbly automations on our Google Sheets to send WhatsApp messages to candidates, fetch candidates confirmation for scheduled interview in Sheets directly, etc.

jainvivekon [dead]

We used HRflow.ai API to fetch information into spreadhsheet directly through add-on

jainvivekon Small Businesses, Get Bigger

You constitute over 90 percent of all businesses, and you shut down or stay small over 70 percent of the time.

jainvivekon Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2024)

I am adding more features to my Google Sheets add-on as requested by users. I planned to keep it a micro-SaaS but it seems people want it all at one place. They will pay or not is another thing.

https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/hiretale_ats/38...

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

Need to keep annoyance balanced to avoid getting flagged/downvoted though.

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

Target audience?

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

I thought conversion from a newsletter community would be much higher than cold outreach, but that does not seem to be the case.

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

Is there a common theme in their startups, or is it working for all types?

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

> Well-regulated breathing is essential to our health in all respects.

Absolutely. Including mental and spiritual health.

Startup idea to unlock phone/PC by a number of deep breaths as password?

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

It's good to see these success stories, but is also important to account for survivor bias before blindly following their rule book.

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

Sure. Please DM me on X https://x.com/vivek_jain07

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

I am considering Reddit ads. What was your ROI from those? Any tips?

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

Cool stuff!

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

Maybe someone else can advise as I don't have recent experience. Back then Google assisted us through a representative for a month. But it was mostly generic as they dont understand our business deep enough.

Best way is learning through practical experience by starting with small budget, and increasing slowly with refinements.

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

That's helpful. Appreciate it.

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

Answer is already there in this thread.

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

Target audience? And what was conversion ratio?

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

What kind of app?

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

What type of audience?

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

Good that it worked relatively easy for you, but it is more of an exception than norm.

In my industry, there is a clear want for a better product but that isn't sufficient for them to switch due to natural resistance to change. Hence significant marketing is needed through trusted channels to remove that fear-of-unknown from their minds.

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

For that matter, even waitlists are not fully reliable as many of them might drop interest by the time you launch, or suggest whimsical features that they won't use/pay-for later.

Hence the importance of industry knowledge and gut feeling.

Entrepreneurship is not for weak hearts.

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

You are right. I used "inbound" wrongly.

Thanks for detailed explanation. Do you have some ideas on how to determine N?

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

I second that.

Ironically this post was flagged and got invisible within minutes of postings. However mod team was super helpful to restore it.

jainvivekon Ask HN: Founders, what was the major sourcing channel for your first 100 users?

You would need to atleast have a rough idea of your ICP. Starting with blank canvas is too much trial and error, not practical for small startups.

Then you would approach them at their place of hanging out (Reddit, HN, Twitter are most common suggestions in this thread).

And hard to find distributors until you are able to prove PMF to them.