The hottest Startups Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Business Topics

JPM, Stifel, & Lead Bank Join As Speakers at Newcomer Banking Summit

Newcomer • 353 implied HN points • 09 Feb 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. JPM, Stifel, and Lead Bank will be speaking at the Newcomer Banking Summit on March 14 in San Francisco.
  2. The event will feature speakers like Jackie Reses, Melissa Smith, and Matt Trotter.
  3. The summit will delve into the impact of the Silicon Valley Bank crisis, the changing landscape of banking for startups, and the future of financial technology companies and banks.

I Am Building an AI-Powered Reverse Incubator

Let's talk games & AI. • 21 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
💼 Business Startups
  1. Build-to-handoff reverse incubator: systematically create startups to about $500K ARR, then recruit a founding team to raise and scale so building becomes a repeatable factory, not a lottery.
  2. AI and repeatable tools speed solo building: AI plus processes and tooling are used to move fast — release, measure, kill — so one person can validate many ideas quickly.
  3. Transparency and open questions remain: the plan is to publish real numbers and learn in public, while still solving hard problems like kill criteria, finding handoff teams, and whether one playbook fits all business types.

This New Internet Thing, Chapter 29

Life Since the Baby Boom • 1152 implied HN points • 05 Dec 24
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Janet got a job at Netscape and felt nervous about the fast-paced startup culture compared to her old job at 3Com. She was excited but also unsure about how she'd fit in with the younger crowd.
  2. People at Netscape worked really hard, often late into the night, showing their commitment to making their browser successful. They truly believed they could compete with big companies like Microsoft.
  3. Netscape was gaining traction and businesses were interested in licensing the browser for their employees. This surprised Janet because many people assumed the software was only free for individuals.

Contrasting Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Sam Altman

Erik Torenberg's Thoughts • 1197 implied HN points • 20 Nov 24
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Peter Thiel challenges popular beliefs, often promoting ideas that flip conventional wisdom upside down, like seeing monopolies as goals to strive for.
  2. Sam Altman taps into current trends and enthusiasm to fuel new developments, believing in a balance between capitalism and social good, like universal basic income.
  3. Elon Musk focuses on building and scaling projects, taking big risks when he sees potential, emphasizing a survival mindset for humanity's future.

An Exit

Points And Figures • 1012 implied HN points • 10 Jan 25
💼 Business Startups
  1. Investing in entrepreneurs you believe in can be more important than the product itself. Finding a passionate leader can make all the difference.
  2. Solving personal problems often leads to stronger businesses. When entrepreneurs face their own challenges, their passion and commitment to the solution grow.
  3. Being smart with financing is key for business success. Using venture debt wisely can help a company grow without giving up too much ownership.
Get a weekly roundup of the best Substack posts, by hacker news affinity:

User Research Guide For Founders, Part 1: Getting Started

Elizabeth Laraki • 179 implied HN points • 25 Apr 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. Set clear and specific research goals to know exactly what you want to learn from users.
  2. Choose the right research method, like interviews or usability studies, based on whether you need feedback on a concept or an existing product.
  3. Turn your research goals into specific questions that are easy for people to answer, making it easier to gather useful information.

Should journalists view newsroom buyouts as seed funding?

Simon Owens's Media Newsletter • 324 implied HN points • 25 Jul 25
💼 Business Startups
  1. Journalists may see newsroom buyouts as a chance to start their own media projects. Instead of just looking for another job, they could use the buyout money to fund something new.
  2. Newsweek is struggling with its subscription plan due to poor content choices and heavy ads. It's a good example of what not to do if you want to build a successful paywall.
  3. Local newspapers owned by Advance Local are thriving online by separating their digital and print brands. They focus on smart choices about which print papers to keep operating.

The Sequence Radar #787: Rubin, Raises, and Returns: 2026 Starts Fast

TheSequence • 42 implied HN points • 11 Jan 26
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. AI hardware is moving to rack-scale "AI factories," with companies like NVIDIA and AMD designing integrated systems where chips and CPUs work as a single supercomputing unit. This shifts the unit of compute from individual GPUs to whole racks optimized for large-scale inference and training.
  2. Massive capital rounds are reshaping who can compete in frontier models, as multibillion-dollar raises make training and infrastructure effectively affordable only to hyper-scalers and well-funded entities. That level of spending is turning top labs into utility-like, enterprise infrastructure players.
  3. China’s AI firms proved public markets can reward consumer-facing model strategies, with IPOs like MiniMax and z.AI showing rapid monetization and liquidity. This underscores a growing bifurcation: the West doubling down on heavy infrastructure for AGI, while the East pushes fast consumer exits and application-led growth.

The Sequence Radar #783: Softbank, DeepSeek, MiniMax and The Sequence 2026

TheSequence • 49 implied HN points • 04 Jan 26
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. SoftBank is using massive capital to buy both leading AI model stakes and the physical data center and edge infrastructure that runs them. This vertical integration is blurring the line between model providers and infrastructure owners.
  2. DeepSeek’s new model and the GRPO technique match top-tier reasoning performance while needing far fewer GPU hours. This shows smarter algorithms can close the gap against big-budget competitors.
  3. MiniMax’s planned Hong Kong IPO (~$539M) signals public-market interest in application-layer AI and gives the company capital to compete amid hardware export controls and intense domestic rivalry.

The Great Sobriety for Venture Investing, Where To Start with AI, & Undeniable Data

Implications, by Scott Belsky • 707 implied HN points • 19 Sep 23
💼 Business Startups
  1. The venture capital world is facing harsh realities and there are lessons to be learned about creating great products from failed ventures.
  2. Adopting AI requires a '4 P's' framework: Play, Pilot, Protect, Provoke.
  3. Financing for startups should prioritize product-led growth, focus, and discipline over raising large amounts of capital.

The VC Corner 📰 #13

The VC Corner • 319 implied HN points • 18 Feb 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. Y Combinator wants startups to focus on finding the right product metrics. This will help them measure success and make better decisions.
  2. Understanding the SaaS IPO landscape is important for startups. It gives insights into how to get ready for going public and attract investors.
  3. Raising capital can be easier with the right tools like Fundingstack.com. They help connect startups with a large network of investors.

Are You Working On A 'Tarpit Idea?' | VC Jobs

Venture Curator • 219 implied HN points • 02 Apr 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. Tarpit ideas can be deceivingly appealing at first but end up draining time and resources.
  2. Consumer ideas are common tarpit ideas due to the high bar set by successful consumer products and the crucial factor of timing.
  3. Recognizing and avoiding tarpit ideas, such as those with survivor bias or difficulty in scaling, is vital for a startup's success and founders should pivot strategically based on supply and demand dynamics.

Godspeed, OpenAI's Compute Flywheel

Alex's Personal Blog • 65 implied HN points • 18 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. OpenAI is chasing enormous amounts of funding to buy more compute because limited GPUs are constraining both research and product growth, and that compute race is driving huge investment into chip makers and related firms.
  2. China says it has an operational EUV prototype, and if it turns that into production it could break ASML’s chokehold on high-end lithography and shift chipmaking power away from Taiwan and its partners.
  3. Political and corporate money are merging in odd ways, exemplified by a Trump-linked media company pairing with a fusion firm backed by big tech, showing that access to capital and government influence is reshaping deal logic beyond pure business sense.

Delusion

Venture Prose • 698 implied HN points • 30 Jul 23
💼 Business Startups
  1. Self-awareness is crucial to avoid delusion. Recognize your failures, flaws, and biases to make better decisions.
  2. Surround yourself with the right people who can provide constructive criticism. Be open to inner and outer conflicts to improve.
  3. Ask for clear feedback and address concerns about your business. Work towards understanding and extracting value from others' perspectives.

Should I buy a company after visiting Victoria, BC?

Olshansky's Newsletter • 45 implied HN points • 31 Dec 25
💼 Business Startups
  1. Buy an existing, revenue-generating business instead of building from scratch to create steady cash flow and buy time and freedom to pursue bigger missions.
  2. Make plans without expectations and show up; building relationships and staying open to serendipity often creates better opportunities than rigid goals.
  3. Prioritize independence and real value creation over constant fundraising, and then fix operational inefficiencies — cut waste, move costly cloud workloads to cheaper infrastructure, automate with AI, and keep teams lean to extract reliable cash flow.

❄️ 🍅 Une Française va diriger une boîte du Nasdaq

Snowball • 668 implied HN points • 10 Sep 23
💼 Business Startups
  1. A French woman will lead a company on the Nasdaq, reflecting increasing diversity in leadership roles.
  2. The potential impacts of a $100 per barrel oil price include considerations on the US strategic oil reserve.
  3. The microlearning market aims to revamp traditional education models, offering opportunities for individuals to benefit and innovate.

Letters to a Young Investor: Kirsten Green

The Generalist • 820 implied HN points • 06 Feb 25
💼 Business Startups
  1. Kirsten Green's journey to becoming a successful investor wasn't straightforward. It took her ten years of learning and failing before founding her own firm.
  2. She developed a unique way of looking at business opportunities by focusing on how a business model can enhance the customer's experience.
  3. Failures in her early investments taught Kirsten valuable lessons and shaped her approach to investing, helping her identify when to trust her instincts.

How Bolt.new hit $40M ARR in 5 months

Kyle Poyar’s Growth Unhinged • 362 implied HN points • 09 Jul 25
💼 Business Startups
  1. Bolt.new succeeded because it had the right technology at the right time, quickly building on improvements in AI. This allowed them to grow rapidly after initially struggling for years.
  2. They made their user experience simple and easy for anyone to use, which helped people feel excited about creating and sharing their projects. This lack of barriers led to more users trying their product.
  3. Their growth strategy revolves around users sharing their creations, which naturally attracts new users. They also focus on quickly releasing updates and new features, keeping excitement high among users.

Revisiting 2025 Predictions

next big thing • 46 implied HN points • 24 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Small, capital-efficient teams built AI-native products that scaled extremely quickly, creating many new businesses that reached tens of millions in revenue.
  2. AI shifted from being an assistant to a collaborator: code generation and app-building tools lowered the barrier to making software, but fully autonomous end-to-end AI workers still fell short of expectations.
  3. Markets and infrastructure tightened around AI — liquidity returned with major M&A and stronger exits, big tech earnings accelerated, and huge investments flowed into data centers and energy/cooling to support AI demand.

The Best of MRR Unlocked 2025

Startup Business Tips 🚀 • 43 implied HN points • 28 Dec 25
💼 Business Startups
  1. Build a strong GTM foundation before you scale: be clear on one primary ICP, your positioning, and your dominant go-to-market motion so growth is repeatable, not random.
  2. Continuously analyze and refine your ICP and messaging as your product and market evolve, and keep that messaging consistent across website, content, outbound, and demos.
  3. Use founder-led channels like LinkedIn intentionally so content compounds, and focus on one or two high-impact growth channels plus a simple, documented sales process to drive wins, retention, and expansion.

LFG (for semiconductors)

State of the Future • 47 implied HN points • 19 Dec 25
💼 Business Startups
  1. Semiconductors are the best area to invest right now because system-level innovations like chiplets, advanced packaging, and heterogeneous computing are creating new opportunities beyond Moore’s Law. These shifts make startup-driven hardware innovation more valuable than before.
  2. With the right funding and momentum, Europe could produce many semiconductor giants; the region has the talent and existing industrial strengths to support about 20 potential unicorns in the next 3–4 years. Keeping founders and capital in Europe is key to building that pipeline.
  3. Cloudberry VC is a dedicated European semiconductor fund offering early capital, industry partnerships, and hands-on support to help hardware founders focus on building instead of chasing grants or ill-suited investors. The fund connects startups to manufacturing and photonics partners to speed prototype-to-volume paths.

Introducing the Newcomer Banking Summit

Newcomer • 334 implied HN points • 31 Jan 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. Newcomer Banking Summit is an invite-only event on March 14 in San Francisco.
  2. The summit discusses the impact of Silicon Valley Bank crisis on startups and venture capital firms.
  3. Speakers at the event include industry leaders like the president of Silicon Valley Bank and the founder & CEO of Mercury.

"Great features, not products," leveraging found productivity, and the era where we can no longer believe our eyes.

Implications, by Scott Belsky • 648 implied HN points • 06 Mar 23
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Focus on creating great features, not just products, in the startup ecosystem.
  2. Consider how excess productivity from AI can be used in entertainment, philosophy, and creative projects.
  3. The rise of AI will shift jobs to industries less impacted by AI, emphasizing qualitative skills and the importance of imagination and creativity.

DuoLingo's monetization machine and Google banishes blue links

Department of Product • 648 implied HN points • 18 May 23
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Google is changing its search results page to prioritize AI-generated information over blue links, presenting a strategic dilemma for tech companies.
  2. DuoLingo saw impressive revenue growth thanks to their new monetization machine, DuoLingo Max, leveraging proprietary machine learning models and GPT-4.
  3. A new startup, Async, aims to streamline asynchronous voice communication for corporate environments, offering a potential solution for message management overload.

💡Help people tell stories!

First 1000 • 648 implied HN points • 29 Jun 23
💼 Business Startups
  1. Good stories are unique and offer a fresh perspective.
  2. Surprising stories disrupt expectations and contain unexpected twists.
  3. Truthful stories, whether fact or fiction, resonate well with audiences.

Block’s 40% purge, Karpathy’s agent lab & the vibe coding retention crisis

HackerPulse Dispatch • 2 implied HN points • 13 Mar 26
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Mass layoffs sold as “AI replacements” often look like plain cost-cutting, and the promised savings are mostly theoretical once you include compute, verification, and the work to redesign processes.
  2. Autonomous research agents can run hundreds of experiments overnight and find real, transferable improvements, shifting researchers’ jobs from running experiments to designing objectives, constraints, and evaluation.
  3. AI-driven ‘vibe coding’ makes quick prototypes but breaks in production—edge cases, security, integrations, and rising costs push users away, so experienced engineers are still needed to build reliable products.

How three Morning Brew alums are building their own network of niche media outlets

Simon Owens's Media Newsletter • 374 implied HN points • 19 Jun 25
💼 Business Startups
  1. Three former Morning Brew employees started Smooth Media to build a network of niche media outlets. They're focused on unique topics that cater to specific audiences.
  2. They applied what they learned at Morning Brew, expanding into new media formats like podcasts and online content, showing how versatile and scalable media can be.
  3. Their current projects include collaborations with popular creators and the acquisition of established brands, highlighting their ambitious growth plans.

Market Overview: Spacetech Deals We Liked In 2023

Space Ambition • 379 implied HN points • 12 Jan 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. In 2023, there was a surge in funding for spacetech companies, especially in areas like commercial space stations and robotics. This shows that investors are excited about the future of space exploration and development.
  2. Debris removal and in-orbit servicing are gaining attention as important niches in spacetech. Many startups are exploring these areas, indicating a growing need for sustainable solutions in space.
  3. Despite competition in the space launch sector, several companies still secured significant investments. This suggests that there are still opportunities in launching services, but investors are cautious about long-term viability.

Marketing day

André Casal's Substack • 19 implied HN points • 19 Aug 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. Working hard on marketing doesn't always guarantee great results. Spending 12 hours led to only a few followers and impressions.
  2. Creating original content might attract more attention than just reaching out to people. Focusing on product improvement could be more valuable.
  3. It's important to track the right metrics for success. Being aware of sign-ups can help identify areas that need improvement.

Claire Vo: The CPO who automates herself with AI

CommandBlogue • 19 implied HN points • 19 Aug 24
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. AI is changing how product managers work. It helps them complete tasks much faster, which could mean fewer PMs are needed in the future.
  2. The role of PMs might shift more towards being makers, meaning they will need to have skills in design and engineering to stay relevant.
  3. To break into product management, it's important to show what you can do by building something real for the companies you're interested in, rather than just sending a resume.

✨ DeepSeek drama: The optimistic case for AI spending momentum

Faster, Please! • 822 implied HN points • 28 Jan 25
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. AI efficiency might actually lead to more overall spending, not less. As AI becomes cheaper and more effective, people might find new ways to use it, increasing demand.
  2. DeepSeek shows that powerful AI doesn't have to be built with expensive technology. They managed to create a strong AI model using cheaper chips and smart training methods.
  3. The AI market is still uncertain, and some experts want more information about how DeepSeek claims to cut costs. There’s a lot of interest in how this might change the tech industry.

Engineer to CEO in 3 years: These key lessons got me there

High Growth Engineer • 717 implied HN points • 23 Feb 25
💼 Business Startups
  1. Simplify your communication by sharing only the important details. It's better to answer the main question first and add more info later if needed.
  2. Look for gaps in your team or company where you can help. Taking initiative and proposing solutions can help you grow in your career.
  3. Listen to your team and find out what problems they face. Removing obstacles makes it easier for everyone to work better together.

The Profile: Elon Musk’s brain implant startup & the billionaire learning what money can’t buy

The Profile • 594 implied HN points • 12 Nov 23
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Making positive changes in life often involves going through a phase where things get worse before they get better.
  2. Developing competence is key to overcoming fear and challenges in various aspects of life.
  3. Understanding that temporary setbacks are a natural part of the journey to improvement can help in persevering through hard times.

What to Watch in 2025

The Generalist • 860 implied HN points • 07 Jan 25
💼 Business Startups
  1. In 2025, there will be big chances in defense tech and social services as the government starts using more tech from private companies. This means more jobs and growth in these areas.
  2. Artificial intelligence is set to grow, especially in healthcare and logistics, while crypto is expected to become more mainstream as regulations become clearer and institutional support increases.
  3. Consumer apps might make a comeback as major tech companies face antitrust issues, allowing new startups to find success in areas like entertainment and personal finance.