dylan (hiring growth)

Get your product in front of 100,000 active users on Pond for free! On average, every 30 seconds a startup is added to Pond Futures by a community member who likes and advocates for the product. Founders simply need to list their startup or claim ownership of their startup page to unlock exposure to 100K users on Pond. DM me if you’d like to get your startup listed or claim your startup page. Let's get your first 1000 users!

@OfficialMoeZee Noooooo 😭😭😭 We can meet when you are back

@ThinksDylan bro i just left on the 17th will be back by end of month

Who’s the best growth and marketing person I should meet in SF? Meals or coffee are on me!

@JoinPond Time to make some $$$$

Introducing new bounties on Pond: Insta Posts The task: 1. Go to the website 2. Create a few social media carousels using the AI and test the main features 3. Provide feedback on Pond about what you like, bugs and possible improvements. Participate and win the prize now 🔽

Aggressively hiring

I am in the ultimate founder mode. We have one partnership person, one growth person, and one GTM person - but this isn’t three people. It’s one person, and that person has been me for a while while building Pond, figuring out the product, and operating the company on a daily basis. I am in the ultimate founder mode.

Also I have learnt this from @ThePeterMick Who has taught me many things. What stroke me the most is one day he casually mentioned: You are trying to help people right? It had a great impact on me although he just brought up this casually. Are you here to help people by building your business now founders?

I’ve met many anxious founders. They are anxious because they have the wrong mentality and likely this will result in the wrong business model. I learned this from early investors in TSMC, Coinbase, TikTok, Slack, and Anthropic. The core of a successful business is creating value for others - helping them make money and live easier lives. By holding this mindset, you realize you are building your business by benefiting others and contributing to society as a whole. The earlier you realize this, the sooner you liberate yourself and get rid of your mental burden and focus on creating values to others. I started Pond at the start, for myself, by myself. I was anxious for everything. Now my mentality has been changed completely. I want to help others - benefit startups, benefit users, and benefit society as a whole, if I may. If I can. My mentality has shifted. You become stronger. You become calmer. As long as you focus on creating values to others, sooner or later, your revenue will catch up, your profit will catch up. This is what the society rewards you. Don't mix up the order.

@paigeinsf @0xEvieYang @zk_bella @kevinlilili98 @DaiZeshi @0xfishylosopher ♥️💙💜💛💚

@ThinksDylan @0xEvieYang @zk_bella @kevinlilili98 @DaiZeshi @0xfishylosopher 🩵🩵

JE Labs在英伟达大会期间co-host的private event，圆满收官！开心能与新老朋友们相聚。 感谢大家能来，也感谢最夯的团队——Surf AI、Pantera一起筹备！@zk_bella @kevinlilili98 @DaiZeshi @0xfishylosopher 2026, catching waves, riding high🏄

@tomthelucky @JoinPond Well said!

@ThinksDylan @JoinPond organic search really does hit different in a tight niche... building Powerin taught us that showing up consistently beats volume every time. that compounding effect is quiet but it's real.

Truth of making a $10k MRR business with 0 marketing: Find a super niche area. Completely organic growth from Google searches. Speaking for a startup on Pond @JoinPond

@fordhsmith @JoinPond It’s a super cheat code and it’s not for everyone though. I still think the best cheat code is people just keep doing what they like and can do the best

@ThinksDylan @JoinPond Super niche really is the cheat code sometimes, ranking on Google for something specific can bring the most consistent customers over time.

@sebCFO @JoinPond That’s great! Have you tailored your SEO good enough that if people search for certain keywords you’ll be ranked at the top?

@ThinksDylan @JoinPond Niche specificity drives results. sebCFO serves real estate investors who need expertise in cost segregation and 1031 exchanges, not generic bookkeeping. Google rewards that depth.

@lamebrowndev @ThePeterMick @JoinPond I would say the best way is to figure out what you do the best and what you like to do. It takes some luck for sure but you can just keep iterating - definitely no silver bullet except for spinning off your interests!

@ThinksDylan @ThePeterMick @JoinPond The thing is how do you find such niches?

@ThePeterMick @JoinPond The formula of success from Peter!

@ThinksDylan @JoinPond Laser focus + super niche = win

@shiyam_kashfiq Very true!

@ThinksDylan Upfront payment details feel like a dark pattern, trust matters

Sometimes I hope SaaS model dies sooner rather than later because of the user experience. Founders, please don't do this to your users because of your founder ego. I don’t understand why so many SaaS companies have a paywall under the label of a “free trial” for 7–14 days while requiring payment details from the start. If you are confident in your product, offer a real free trial without asking for payment information. If users like it, they will come back. If they don’t, gather feedback and improve. I can never understand this kind of user experience and these psychological tricks. If people forget to cancel after realizing the product isn’t helpful and still get charged, isn’t that basically fraud? I would love to prioritize products that don't ask users to submit their payment details upfront. How this step is designed reflects on the mentality of how the company wants to treat their users to me... I don't think great companies will have this kind of model . If you have confidence in your product you should have people to use first and they will come back. I understand, including myself sometimes I will think that the product is good enough. People should come. You don't pay you don't use because my product is great. Guys... You don't want to treat your users in that way. This is just a founder ego thing. Having users input their payment info for free trial is just so annoying for users.

@malakhovdm Oh man I resonate with you so badly!

@ThinksDylan the credit card upfront thing is pure dark pattern. if your product is good people will come back and pay. i ship all my tools with a real free tier, no card needed. the founders who gate everything behind a paywall are telling you they don't trust their own product

@Charchit_WEB3 Why not running UGC on Pond Bounties 🫣

@ThinksDylan Tiktok + ugc from fiver

@cagansahh Love this mentality. Definitely correct!

Ecom guys after realizing that all that matters is distribution. Not coding

@RohanShips I hope both of us will build successful companies together!

@ThinksDylan Many successful companies started with this thinking. They focused first on helping users succeed, and revenue followed later. Value usually comes before profit.

@alidougru Every Saturday. Do you?

Do you build on Saturdays?