Hey y’all - Most SaaS founders obsess over dashboards, DAUs, and traffic in Month 1.
But the best founders? They spend those 30 days doing just one thing: making the product so essential that users can’t imagine life without it.

The true moat isn’t patents or capital it’s emotional dependency.

If your tool disappears tomorrow and no one panics, you haven’t built a product. You’ve built a trial.
Today’s curation dives into frameworks, tools, and trends that push you toward “Day 30 Stickiness.” Because in 2025, retention is the real growth hack.

Here’s today at a glance:

PS - Become a member to get access to my founder membership including an engaged community, fundraising support, fireside chats and more.

🔗 Mohit’s Picks

My favourite finds of the week 

• AI Tools for Startups - 45 Best Tools To Help You Grow [2025] [Link]

• Are EV and Cloud Kitchen Franchises the Next Big Gold Rush: Smart Move or Risky Bet? [Link]

• 23 Best AI Tools for Data Analysis With Examples [Link]

• The job of a startup is to find undiscovered talent and distill it into a product. [Link]

• Clearest path to a $10M ARR b2b AI agent startup [Link]

• AI Is Changing Public Relations - Here's How to Stay in Control [Link]

• This made-in-India sneaker brand aims to check all boxes as it fills gap between budget & premium [Link]

💡Opportunity: “Instant Reimbursement Tracker” for Startup Teams

You go on a business trip or order home office gear and then comes the dreaded part:
Chasing finance for refunds.

Right now, most teams rely on WhatsApp photos, forwarded bills via email, and budget approvals over Slack.
Result? Lost receipts, manual follow-ups, and chaotic reimbursements every payroll cycle.

The opportunity:
Build an AI-based Reimbursement Assistant tailored for startup workflows.

Features:

• WhatsApp-first upload: Employees click, snap, and upload receipts instantly.

• OCR auto-categorization: The AI reads each bill, tags it (travel, meals, equipment), and assigns it to projects or teams.

• Reminders via Slack/Email: Nudges users before monthly cut-offs.

• Real-time dashboards: Track how much each team is spending, overspending, or underspending.

🧠 Plug into payroll APIs to auto-adjust salaries post-approval.

Revenue Model?

• Charge per active employee/month (like HRMS tools)

• Or embed it inside HR platforms as a premium plug-in

Think: “Slice + RazorpayX for internal expense management.”
This isn’t just fintech it’s workplace sanity.

🧠 Framework: D.U.C.K. - A Quick Product Stickiness Audit

Want to know if your product is “sticky”?
Run it through the D.U.C.K. Framework a quick mental audit to check for long-term retention.

D: Daily Usage
Does your product have a reason to be opened daily or at least weekly?
Example: Slack, Notion, Google Calendar they’re habits, not just tools.

U: Urgency
Is the problem you're solving urgent or merely nice-to-have?
A user struggling to file taxes or find a vendor needs a solution now.
A prettier dashboard? They can wait.

C: Collaboration
Can users invite teammates and work together?
Collaboration boosts virality, accountability, and retention.
Example: Figma, Canva people stay because their team is on it.

K: Killer Outcome
Does your product create one crystal-clear win?
Something the user can feel like saving 2 hours, finding a bug, or closing a deal.

If your tool lacks Daily use, no Urgency, zero Collaboration, and delivers no Killer Outcome…
Then sorry you’re a decoy, not a DUCK.
Build with this framework in mind. Every sticky product is a DUCK in disguise.

🛠️ Tool: Clarity by Microsoft

Microsoft Clarity is a free heatmap and session recording tool for websites.
Unlike Hotjar, it’s free forever with real-time tracking of how users navigate your product.

Use it to:

• Watch rage clicks and bounce points

• Understand where your onboarding breaks

• Test new feature placements with no guesswork

📈 Trend: “AI Assistants for Internal Teams”

For years, startups chased AI use cases for customers chatbots, content writers, support agents.
But now? The real leverage is coming inside the company.

Welcome to the age of internal AI copilots.

Examples already in play:

• Investor Summarizers: Founders using GPT-powered dashboards to auto-draft investor updates

• HR Assistants: Tools that draft JDs, job descriptions, and onboarding checklists directly in Slack

• Ops Bots: AI that watches for late vendor updates and triggers alerts before delays snowball

Why it matters:

1. These copilots reduce human friction saving time on low-leverage tasks.
2. They quietly replace the need for extra headcount, saving costs.
3. They don’t need a polished UI, just Slack, Email, or Notion access.

Your next unicorn idea might not be consumer-facing.
It might be a bot that saves 3 people’s time every day in finance or ops.
Startups that build for internal friction now will dominate external efficiency later.

💬 Quote: Naval Ravikant

Most founders chase perfection. They worry about bugs, UI polish, or onboarding flows.
But Naval reminds us: If your product is solving a real pain, users will fight the bugs to keep using it.

Think about:

• WhatsApp’s early crashes

• Zoom’s clunky early UX

• Notion’s steep learning curve

They weren’t perfect but they were necessary.

If users leave at the first sign of a hiccup, it’s not about the bug.
It’s about irrelevance.

Stop obsessing over V2 polish until V1 becomes unkillable.
The only thing that matters is will your user come back tomorrow?