The hottest Startups Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Business Topics

Brainstorming Solutions for Aerospace Sector Challenges

Space Ambition • 259 implied HN points • 02 Aug 24
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. An online brainstorming session is being organized to find solutions for challenges in the aerospace industry. Everyone is welcome to join, regardless of their experience level.
  2. The discussions will be moderated by someone with a strong background in aerospace and venture capital. This helps ensure the session is productive and insightful.
  3. There are two scheduled sessions on August 10 to accommodate different time zones, making it easier for people around the world to participate.

Yes, Blowing Things Up Is How We Build Things

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 547 implied HN points • 07 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Deliberately testing hardware to destruction is a normal, necessary way to find weaknesses and build stronger weapons, and it’s better to fail on the range than on the battlefield.
  2. Calling routine destructive tests mere 'failures' misframes and can unfairly damage companies doing risky but essential national-defense work.
  3. There was a time when the press accepted and even supported testing-to-failure because it sped weapon development, and recent negative coverage represents a shift from that practical mindset.

There’s Now a New Way to Grow Your Substack

Kristina God's Online Writing Club • 2877 implied HN points • 19 Jan 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. There's a new 'Spreadsheet Directory of Publications' to help writers find collaboration partners. It makes networking easy and fun.
  2. Many creators are looking for ways to work together to grow their subscriber base. Networking can lead to more followers and success.
  3. Creators can also use the new Creator Network by ConvertKit to find others with similar audiences. This can help them reach and engage more subscribers.

Seven Predictions for Tech in 2025

Big Technology • 7380 implied HN points • 20 Dec 24
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Some companies might decide that generative AI isn't right for them, leading to at least one big name publicly quitting it in 2025. It's important for businesses to find what works for them.
  2. Social media may start feeling less relevant as platforms focus less on real news and engage more with content they think will grab our attention. This shift could make important global events seem distant.
  3. Brain-computer interface technology could gain more attention in 2025 as it continues to develop, possibly helping people with disabilities. This could spark new conversations around its potential benefits.

Is this the end of SaaS?🤔, Venture debt investments swell in Europe💰, Navigating Corporate Venture Capital💡

The VC Corner • 439 implied HN points • 07 Jul 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. There are concerns about the future of Software as a Service (SaaS) and whether it might be declining. It's important to think about how technology changes can impact business models.
  2. Venture debt investments are increasing in Europe, showing that companies are looking for alternative ways to raise money. This means more options are available for businesses instead of just traditional equity financing.
  3. Understanding corporate venture capital is crucial for startups. It helps to know how big companies invest in smaller businesses to drive innovation and growth.
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Why I've Joined Pattern Ventures as the Firm's Newest GP!

patternventures • 119 implied HN points • 17 Sep 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. The venture capital world is changing, with smaller emerging managers expected to yield better returns than larger, established firms. Smaller funds need less total value to achieve strong returns, making them more appealing.
  2. Finding the right emerging managers is really tough. Not all of them will succeed, so it's important to pick those with unique skills and a track record of success.
  3. Emerging VC firms now have a lot of opportunities, especially with many new operators starting their own funds. The early-stage landscape is hot right now, and there's excitement about investing in it.

The CTO’s Consulting Rate Calculator

The CTO Substack • 499 implied HN points • 29 Jun 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. Determine your consulting rate based on client revenue and C-Suite salaries. This helps set a fair price for your services.
  2. Consider the complexity of the company and its engineering team size. A larger or more complicated organization may require a higher fee due to increased work.
  3. Always get paid before starting the work. This ensures that clients respect your time and commitment right from the beginning.

We need SpaceTech founders for customer interviews

Space Ambition • 299 implied HN points • 24 Jul 24
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Space Ambition is looking for founders in the SpaceTech field to join in customer interviews. This is a chance for them to share their challenges and needs.
  2. The interviews will last about 20-30 minutes and will help Space Ambition create new services tailored to these founders.
  3. Founders are encouraged to fill out a form to participate and to share this opportunity with other SpaceTech founders.

✨ Two cheers for the 'San Francisco Consensus' on AI

Faster, Please! • 456 implied HN points • 17 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. The "San Francisco Consensus" is Silicon Valley’s maximalist, upbeat story that AI will produce huge progress and abundance.
  2. The author urges a dual approach: hope AI breaks history while planning as if it won’t, meaning be optimistic about big gains but still prepare for limited change.
  3. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt named this narrative, and it’s become a common view among pro-growth "Up Wingers" in the U.S. and around the world.

Calendar of events: Spring of 2026

Respectful Leadership • 163 implied HN points • 18 Jan 26
💼 Business Startups
  1. Events focus on three industries driving change: health care, green sustainability, and AI.
  2. The schedule features panels and founders sharing real-world work across health‑tech, green‑tech, and AI — including AI and law — and health‑care sessions repeat by popular demand.
  3. The series also includes practical startup workshops on pitching, selling, team management, and delegation to help founders grow.

Flow State #4 - Mastering the Meta and Your Own Personal Tutor

Superfluid • 92 implied HN points • 02 Feb 26
💼 Business Startups
  1. Playing the right game matters more than playing well. Instead of just mastering the current playbook, look for ways to change the rules and zig when everyone else zags because the meta shifts fast.
  2. Massive early fundraising and soaring pay are changing incentives and making loyalty weaker. Big rounds can buy credibility and talent but also make companies fragile and leave little room for error.
  3. Turn curiosity into lasting knowledge by building a personal learning assistant tailored to your style. Tweak it over time so learning stays fun and what you read actually sticks.

welcome to not boring world

Not Boring by Packy McCormick • 235 implied HN points • 06 Jan 26
💼 Business Startups
  1. Not Boring World is a paid section that gathers smart founders, researchers, and creators and helps them co-write longform essays so their best, frontier ideas actually get published.
  2. This is a bet on the written word over podcasts and video: deep, canonical ideas are meant to be written, and the project aims to surface fresh inputs you won't find in LLMs.
  3. They'll build editorial infrastructure and a contributor network to curate those inputs into a coherent 'means and meaning' worldview, funded by subscribers, with community features like chats, debates, and more frequent co-written pieces.

"Automate the entire company"

next big thing • 48 implied HN points • 16 Feb 26
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Automating an entire company now feels realistic because modern agentic AI can run end-to-end workflows across functions without constant human involvement.
  2. Teams are already embedding AI agents to write and deploy code, run experiments, monitor training, handle sales outreach, and keep finance operations running, producing rapid productivity gains.
  3. As AI handles more grunt work, humans will shift to directing agents and making high-level judgments, so taste and decision-making become more valuable than ever.

The Impact of Founder Personalities on Company Success

The VC Corner • 779 implied HN points • 25 May 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. Founders' personalities really affect how they make decisions. For example, some might be more open to new ideas, helping them find creative solutions, while others may prefer detailed plans to avoid mistakes.
  2. Different types of founders work best together. Having a mix of personalities, like a 'Hipster, Hacker, and Hustler' trio, can boost a startup's chances of success.
  3. A diverse founding team is important. Each member brings unique strengths, which can help the company adapt and grow in challenging situations.

Americans are ten times more likely to be fired than Germans

The Works in Progress Newsletter • 61 implied HN points • 18 Feb 26
💼 Business Startups
  1. Europe’s strict job protections, high severance costs, and long collective dismissal procedures make firing expensive, so companies avoid risky experiments that could require later layoffs.
  2. That incentive steers firms toward safe, incremental improvements, keeps startups small or drives them to relocate, and reduces ambitious acquisitions and radical innovation in Europe.
  3. Models like Danish flexicurity, Austria’s portable severance fund, and Switzerland’s looser rules show you can protect workers while lowering the cost of failure, meaning targeted reform could boost big, risky innovators without abandoning social safety nets.

AI Links, 12/31/2025

In My Tribe • 243 implied HN points • 31 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Robots are rapidly approaching human-level ability for many physical tasks; they could cook in ordinary kitchens within a few years and handle most physical labor by the 2030s.
  2. AI-powered services are being built to curate real-world social experiences and match compatible strangers for in-person events, offering a cheaper, friendship-first alternative to swipe-based dating apps.
  3. Programming is being reshaped by AI agents and new tooling, so developers must learn agent-based workflows, prompts, and integrations or risk falling behind.

A letter to myself at 22

Kathy PM • 23 implied HN points • 06 Mar 26
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Don’t stress about finding a single perfect passion — start by getting good at something practical, and passion often grows out of skill and momentum.
  2. Take risks early: try different roles, join startups, and be willing to fail because those experiments create big career leaps and help you figure out what you want.
  3. Trust your curiosity and grit; staying determined and adaptable will let you turn uncertainty or setbacks into defining opportunities.

What comes next, if Claude Code is as good as people say.

The Future, Now and Then • 198 implied HN points • 15 Jan 26
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Powerful AI agents can autonomously build and launch products and startups, letting individuals generate quick, small incomes with very little effort.
  2. Because the tools are widely available, those early gains will be copied and flooded across the internet, creating lots of low-quality, indistinguishable offerings and collapsing the initial market advantage.
  3. In science and academia, AI will boost individual productivity but steer research toward easy, AI-friendly topics, making evaluation more about taste than discovery and risking long-term harm unless institutions consciously adapt.

What's a Forward Deployed Engineer?

Technically • 26 implied HN points • 05 Mar 26
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. A Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) is a highly technical, customer-facing engineer who embeds with customers to build custom solutions and then generalizes those learnings into the core product.
  2. The FDE model is exploding because deploying AI and other complex systems is uncertain and rapidly changing, so companies want real experts to clear the fog and make things work in production.
  3. Enterprise sales are slow and messy—security, procurement, legacy systems, and institutional inertia mean white‑glove support is often needed, so FDEs can help win big deals but they’re costly and not right for every startup.

Tokens: The New Oil

Software Design: Tidy First? • 2010 implied HN points • 18 Jul 25
💼 Business Startups
  1. When demand for your product grows rapidly, you need to shift your focus from exploration to expansion. It's all about managing resources to keep up with demand.
  2. Survival in this phase means making tough choices, like cutting features or limiting users, to ensure you have enough capacity. Don't worry about being perfect; just keep your product alive.
  3. Investors may be excited to fund you now, but your real challenge is managing resources effectively. Focus on quick, practical solutions to keep things running and adapt as you grow.

Codex Built My Startup In A Weekend

Sudo Apps • 32 implied HN points • 27 Feb 26
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Writing code is no longer the main bottleneck — modern coding models can build working products and CLIs in days, making implementation much cheaper.
  2. Different models have different strengths: Codex follows explicit direction and executes quickly, while models like Opus infer missing details and act more like a senior engineer.
  3. The human role shifts to architecture and judgment — engineers must plan systems end-to-end, define clear acceptance criteria, manage failure modes, and focus on product tradeoffs.

Model-Market Fit

Nicolas Bustamante • 179 implied HN points • 19 Jan 26
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. A model must be capable of doing the core job before product-market fit can happen; if the underlying AI can’t reliably deliver the task, great UX or marketing won’t make customers adopt it.
  2. When a model crosses a capability threshold, a whole vertical can grow fast, and the winners are usually teams that had already built domain-specific data, workflows, and trust to take advantage of that moment.
  3. If Model-Market Fit is missing, human-in-the-loop becomes a crutch and you must decide to wait for model improvements or invest now in long-term assets; a simple MMF test is whether the model, given the same inputs as a human, produces production-quality output without significant correction.

Brex’s exit isn’t a failure

Alex's Personal Blog • 164 implied HN points • 23 Jan 26
💼 Business Startups
  1. Brex's sale to Capital One for about $5.15 billion should be seen as a success, not a failure. Despite earlier frothy valuations, the company turned more than a billion of investor capital into a multi‑billion dollar exit.
  2. OpenAI is growing rapidly and is financially healthy; it added over $1 billion in ARR in a month and still has large cash reserves and access to new funding. That makes the 'running out of money' narrative unlikely in the near term.
  3. The tech landscape is mixed: regulators are signaling tougher scrutiny of big-company acquisitions and layoffs continue at major firms, even as self‑driving services expand into new cities. Growth and dealmaking will therefore occur under greater pressure and oversight.

Sam Altman Is the Christopher Columbus of Our Time

The Algorithmic Bridge • 615 implied HN points • 17 Nov 25
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Sam Altman and Christopher Columbus are both seen as frontier explorers in their times, pushing into new territories, whether that’s AI or undiscovered lands. Both men have taken bold risks that few others dared to take.
  2. Each of them has a strong belief in their vision that allows them to rally support, funding, and followers, even when their ideas seemed far-fetched at first. They both demonstrated an ability to convince others to invest in their dreams.
  3. While their ambitions drive them, they also face challenges and revolts from those around them. Columbus faced rebellion from his crew, while Altman has experienced similar tensions within his company, showing that leadership can be as tumultuous as it is visionary.

Man over Machine: Why AI Firms Are Hiring Writers

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 361 implied HN points • 16 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. AI and tech companies are hiring more in-house writers right now instead of relying only on automated text.
  2. Storytelling has become one of the most valuable business skills, with human-written narratives prized for branding and communication.
  3. Even though AI might eventually automate writing, companies currently prefer human writers for voice, nuance, and higher-quality content.

Claude Cowork nukes every startup playbook

Enterprise AI Trends • 189 implied HN points • 13 Jan 26
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Vibe coding lets well-resourced incumbents build and ship complex apps extremely quickly, eroding the startup advantage of speed.
  2. Fast build plus large distribution amplifies incumbents' power, making it harder for single startups to capture and grow a market share.
  3. Startups need to rethink their playbooks now—velocity alone won’t protect them, so they should pursue alternative defensibilities like unique data, deep integrations, or niche specialization.

𝗔𝗜 𝗚𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗲! My conversation with China’s Victor Gao plus a hot take on new essay by Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei

Marcus on AI • 4979 implied HN points • 29 Jan 25
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. In the race for AI, China is catching up to the U.S. despite export controls. This shows that innovation can thrive under pressure.
  2. DeepSeek suggests we can achieve AI advancements with fewer resources than previously thought. Efficient ideas might trump just having lots of technology.
  3. Instead of just funding big companies, we need to support smaller, innovative startups. Better ideas can lead to more successful technology than just having more money.

The AI churn wave?

Kyle Poyar’s Growth Unhinged • 441 implied HN points • 10 Dec 25
💼 Business Startups
  1. AI-native apps have much lower retention than traditional B2B SaaS because many users are experimental and leave after trying the product.
  2. Pricing and distribution matter a lot: cheap, self-serve AI tools (under $50/mo) see massive churn while products above about $250/mo show retention similar to B2B SaaS.
  3. Sustained growth depends on durable retention. To reduce churn, focus on real-budget workflows, offer services or forward-deployed engineers, avoid overselling, accelerate adoption, and favor annual plans.

Clouded Judgement 3.13.26 - In Defense of Model Lab Profitability

Clouded Judgement • 12 implied HN points • 13 Mar 26
💼 Business Startups
  1. Model labs can reach high, sustainable gross margins as they scale because serving and architecture improvements, better GPU utilization, and product optimizations drive down inference cost per token.
  2. Training costs are likely paybackable within reasonable timeframes similar to CAC payback, and even though retraining is recurring, marginal gross profit after payback can make labs profitable.
  3. Platform lock-in and enterprise needs (fine-tuning, SLAs, tooling, context storage) raise switching costs, so open-source models won’t fully commoditize large customers and retention should stay high.

Issuing Equity: A Guide for Startups

The VC Corner • 439 implied HN points • 22 Jun 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. Issuing equity means giving part of your startup away in exchange for money or investment. This can change who makes decisions in your company.
  2. It's important to understand the terms of what you're agreeing to when you issue equity. Knowing the details can help you make smarter choices.
  3. Different types of agreements and shares can impact your startup's future. Make sure to learn about these options before moving forward.

Problems at Serve Robotics (SERV)

The Bear Cave • 279 implied HN points • 18 Dec 25
💼 Business Startups
  1. Serve Robotics is losing a lot of money while bringing in very little revenue, which makes its business economics look unsustainable and risky.
  2. Sidewalk delivery robots face vandalism, theft, and social friction, plus awkward navigation that raises maintenance costs and slows deliveries.
  3. Even with big partnerships, intense competition and practical limitations mean autonomous cars or drones may be more viable long-term solutions for last-mile delivery.

Being a New Grad Here is a Service to Yourself

Creating Value from Nothing • 318 implied HN points • 10 Dec 25
🎭️ Culture Startups
  1. Do the case and do it well — it’s a near 1:1 preview of the actual job and the best way to know if the daily work truly fits you.
  2. New grads at this type of startup get real responsibility fast, handling customer calls, data, reports, and even leading vendor decisions or automation projects within months.
  3. What excites you matters — if you show genuine interest, management will make room for you to run experiments and own projects, which speeds up learning and impact.

AI is changing the rules of the game in Go-to-Market 🔄

The VC Corner • 819 implied HN points • 03 May 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. AI tools are changing how businesses go to market, so it's crucial to adapt to these changes. Companies need to actively promote their products rather than hoping they'll go viral.
  2. It's important to focus on attracting early customers who truly understand and care about your product. These customers can provide valuable feedback and help spread the word.
  3. The strategy for getting your first users is different from getting a larger audience later on. Initially, you should go where your target audience already is, instead of spreading your efforts too thin across various platforms.

Your startup idea probably isn’t venture-scale

Lenny's Newsletter • 3537 implied HN points • 16 May 23
💼 Business Startups
  1. Having a venture-scale startup idea involves aiming for $100 million annual revenue and $1 billion+ valuation in 10 years.
  2. Venture-scale investors look for a large market, a scalable business model, high growth potential, the ability to turn capital into growth, and a path to going public.
  3. Not all startup ideas need to be venture-scale; many ideas can still build a great revenue-generating business without the pressure and expectations of venture capital.

Who is Oleksii Sidorov

Oleksii Sidorov • 324 implied HN points • 08 Dec 25
💼 Business Startups
  1. Oleksii Sidorov started his journey in art but shifted to physics and math, eventually excelling academically and discovering a passion for tutoring and entrepreneurship.
  2. He gained diverse experiences through research and various startup ventures, exploring innovative AI solutions in marketing and advertising.
  3. Investing has become a significant part of his financial strategy, where he learned to balance risks with cautious decision-making across different asset classes.

OpenAI: Economic Justice Delayed

Dana Blankenhorn: Facing the Future • 39 implied HN points • 03 Oct 24
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. OpenAI recently received a large investment to avoid bankruptcy, but experts think financial troubles may still be on the way. There's skepticism about how sustainable their business model is.
  2. The promises of AI, like improving productivity and creativity, often don't match up with what users actually experience. Many believe AI tools still have major limitations.
  3. The funding from investors seems more focused on finding a quick profit than on genuinely improving AI technology. There's a worry that this could lead to a crash if expectations aren't met.

A few themes for 2026

Tanay’s Newsletter • 220 implied HN points • 29 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. Big AI products will start finding ways to monetize massive free usage with ad-like or sponsored placements outside of direct answers, because subscriptions alone won’t capture everyone.
  2. AI will get more proactive and agent-like, monitoring signals, surfacing updates, and taking on multi-step tasks without waiting for prompts.
  3. Technical leaps in reliable computer use and continual learning will let agents actually operate apps, fill complex forms, and improve over time so they can complete work instead of just offering suggestions.

❄️💥 Quels risques en 2024 ?

Snowball • 1886 implied HN points • 21 Jan 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) is a major tech company that manufactures chips for various devices.
  2. Experts and global leaders predict risks that could cause crises in 2024 like environmental issues and technology advancements.
  3. The internet's evolution to omnipresence due to smartphones raises questions about implications and opportunities.

How to Value a Startup: Key Methods Every Investor and Founder Should Know

The VC Corner • 539 implied HN points • 01 Jun 24
💼 Business Startups
  1. Valuing a startup is important but tricky since they often lack stable revenue. Founders and investors need to understand different methods to figure out a fair value.
  2. A successful valuation mixes both subjective and objective measures. This means looking at non-financial aspects like the team and market potential, as well as using data-driven methods.
  3. Two common methods for valuing startups are the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) Method and Comparable Analysis. Both have their own steps and challenges, but they help paint a complete picture of the startup's worth.

Weekly Dose of Optimism #176

Not Boring by Packy McCormick • 130 implied HN points • 17 Jan 26
🕹 Technology Startups
  1. New medical AI can now natively read full 3D scans and handle medical speech, making it much easier for developers to build tools that help doctors interpret MRIs and CTs.
  2. Generative AI platforms like Claude are shrinking the gap between idea and product, letting people quickly prototype apps, viewers, and games without deep engineering.
  3. Hard-tech is accelerating: Tesla’s fast, cleaner lithium refinery eases battery supply bottlenecks, robotic IVF systems are automating embryo creation to boost success and scale, and governments and companies are moving forward on lunar power and hospitality projects.