I'm building a startup with two partners and would really appreciate some practical advice from people who've been through this.

Lris — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:28:07 +0000

We're based in Hangzhou, China. All three of us are heavy users of AI agents — Claude Code, Codex, DeepSeek, Kimi, Hermes, you name it. Back in May, Jensen Huang's talk in Taiwan opened my eyes to what looks like a massive global opportunity. An idea clicked: build a token and API aggregation platform.

So we started executing. Registered the company, built the website, set up overseas servers, and began reaching out to upstream model providers. My thinking was clear from the start: we're not building our own models, and we're not burning cash on inference infrastructure. Our value is integration — bringing together high-quality, cost-effective APIs and delivering them through a single, reliable endpoint. It hasn't been easy, but we've taken the first real steps.

Now we're stuck on customer acquisition. We're targeting the global market, but we're based in China and our potential customers are on the other side of the ocean. Social media is our only channel right now, and it feels like searching for a needle in a haystack — plus it's way too easy to accidentally break some community rule and get shut down. Are there any cross-border founders here who've been at a similar stage? I'd be incredibly grateful for any direction or advice.

Happy to discuss in the comments — I'll read every suggestion and piece of feedback carefully. Thank you.

DEV Community: Lris

I'm building a startup with two partners and would really appreciate some practical advice from people who've been through this.