Ask HN: Startups should brag less and ship more (guilty as charged)
Every founder I know (including me) spends too much time on decks and demos instead of shipping. We justify it as “raising awareness” or “community building.” But I’ve never seen a pitch deck go viral-only real products.
Anyone else feel this trap? Opposite problem here - all building, no marketing. Now struggling with GTM because nobody knows we exist. The real trap is thinking it's either/or. You need both engines running. My first question when screening small companies: Please show me the product, I don’t mind if it’s half baked. If they can’t show me something, that’s the end of the engagement. Absolutely. A tangible product, even if rough, shows execution and commitment. Ideas are easy -prototypes prove there’s real traction. I completely agree! If they can’t show anything, it makes it hard to believe in their ability to execute and complete the rest. You haven’t seen all of the funded YC “AI” companies with nothing but non technical founders, a pitch deck and trying to hire a “founding engineer” for peanuts with the promise of worthless “equity”. Exactly. Early execution speaks volumes - even a rough prototype shows they’re serious and capable of turning ideas into reality. How long until LLMs learn not to use em-dashes? Literally 100% of the comments on this account have an em-dash in them. It's not bragging. It's marketing. All marketers ~~are liars~~ tell stories.