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Question 1 of 7
I’m a product designer and design engineer with about 15 years of experience building everything from native consumer apps to complex enterprise automation platforms. I like problems where the technology is powerful but the product still makes people work too hard. I’m happiest talking to users, untangling the system, designing the details, and then working in code with engineering until it ships.
Question 2 of 7
Most of my time is going into three products I'm designing and building with my wife Claire. LaunchChair (https://www.launchchair.io/) helps founders research an idea, define the right product, and give coding agents enough context to build it properly. FreeScan (https://www.freescan.app/) gives anyone a free, practical audit of their website, while BuildHop helps independent products get discovered without requiring founders to already have an audience.
Question 3 of 7
Mostly frustration. AI made it much easier for me to ship software, but research, product decisions, QA, and distribution were still fragmented across a pile of tools. LaunchChair came from needing a better way to manage the build itself, FreeScan came from repeatedly auditing my own sites, and BuildHop came from seeing useful products disappear because their founders had no reliable way to reach people.
Question 4 of 7
I used to think faster development would be the biggest advantage. Now I think code is becoming the cheapest part of building a product. Knowing what to build, keeping the product coherent, earning trust, and getting it in front of the right people matter much more than generating another feature quickly.
Question 5 of 7
LaunchChair passed that test when users started using it to drive entire builds instead of treating it as a prompt generator. More than 100 early users have tried it, roughly ten products have been completed through the workflow, and several are now earning MRR. That showed me the living context, build cards, agent loop, and QA process were solving a real problem.
Question 6 of 7
Distribution, honestly. I can build and improve products very quickly now, but earning sustained attention without turning into a full-time content machine is still difficult. BuildHop is partly my attempt to solve that problem for myself and other independent builders while keeping discovery useful rather than turning it into another spam-filled directory.
Question 7 of 7
Build something useful for one specific person before worrying about turning it into a large SaaS business. Put it in front of people early, watch what they actually do, and instrument enough of the product to tell whether it helped. Shipping quickly is valuable, but only when each release teaches you something.
The easiest way to validate your product idea! https://www.launchchair.io/features/startup-validation-workflow
Why use an agentic product development tool like LaunchChair to build MVP’s versus just vibe coding with an agent? https://www.launchchair.io/compare/launchchair-vs-vibe-coding
A little more context and information about LaunchChairs auto-generated prompts. https://www.launchchair.io/features/spec-aware-prompts
Hey guys! We just released founders feed V2, this update should make it a lot easier to use the feed, you can now actually reply to replies. We condensed the launch post spam, and we fixed a few things. Let me know what you think!
Loving it!! Btw, is there a way to change my profile avatar? It's defaulting to my other project's (trial) launch when I write replies and in the leaderboard on the right 😅
You want to change your avatar for your Launch? Go to the settings. We don't do personal avatars as the focus is on your launch so your avatar will always be your product logo even in the Founder Feed.
If you have multiple launches you can switch which launch you're posting from in the top right or by clicking the avatar in the feed composer at the bottom. We'll also be adding a default so you can select which Launch is your default.
Yeah I think the default might be the solution I'm looking for here, thanks! I wish I could change the avatar per comment/reply as well though, that would be extra awesome!!
We wanted to avoid storing a ton of avatars, but maybe we should consider a founder avatar.
For the few people leaving themselves up-vote feedback on their own product, only you see this feedback… Fake votes are automatically removed, quit cheating!
LETS ACTUALLY GO!! 🔥🔥🔥 https://x.com/jacobcounsell/status/2055775513755394368?s=46
20 free daily leads are coming to BuildHop! You’ll get 20 free and targeted leads every 24 hours from Reddit, StackExchange, dev .to, and HackerNews. Leads from people expressing a pain your product solves.
A little context for everyone on fake DR! https://x.com/JacobCounsell/status/2055265853889732631?s=20
Remember, feedback is always anonymous for launches! If you're logged in the founder either sees a "BuildHop User" or a "Anonymous Hopper" tag on their feedback. So don't be shy about helping other launches out with feedback!
You can post tweets here and they'll display. You can also post links to other launch sites your product is on if you need some support from the builders here! https://x.com/JacobCounsell/status/2055054022243999866?s=20
Hey guys! this is a test post. You can post and promote your tweets, updates, ask for votes on product launch sites your product is currently on! Shill away, and make sure you follow each other on X...
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