Q: Why are we building this?
A: To design better, safer pesticides. The therapeutics industry has seen huge improvements by integrating machine learning models into its drug discovery pipelines; on the other hand, the agrochemical pesticide discovery space has seen almost no improvement, despite the high degree of similarity between the two processes. This is because the agrochemical industry is largely stagnant; fewer than 40 new pesticide ingredients have been developed in the last decade, with most "new" pesticides being just tweaks of existing ones. To solve this, we're using our SOTA machine learning models to find radically better pesticides.
Because this is a search problem, speed is key. This is why we've spent so much time optimizing our models to be as fast as possible, which also allows us to make them freely available without the long queue times or rate limits alternatives like AlphaFold 3 or Chai have.
Q: Who are we?
A: We\u2019re Navvye Anand (Caltech) and Tyler Rose (Wolfram Research), a scrappy duo of engineers who met at the Wolfram Summer Research Program in June 2023. We\u2019re Indo-Chinese founders who both grew up visiting farmlands in our countries. United by our passion for tackling hard problems, we dropped out of college and started Bindwell to transform the archaic agrochemical industry.
We\u2019re joined by Max, a prodigious hacker and open source contributor who dropped out of a math degree at Reed College. Max is relentlessly curious about everything from robotics to philosophy, and like us, his passion for solving challenging problems made him a perfect fit for the team.
We'd love to hear from you, whether it's feedback about our app, questions about our mission, or anything else you think is interesting. You can reach us by commenting on this post, or by emailing us at founders@bindwell.ai."},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Show HN: Interactive Drug Screening in Your Browser"},"url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://app.bindwell.ai/"}},"_tags":["story","author_niederman","story_43177281","show_hn"],"author":"niederman","children":[43179945],"created_at":"2025-02-25T20:55:28Z","created_at_i":1740516928,"num_comments":2,"objectID":"43177281","points":3,"story_id":43177281,"story_text":"Today, the team at Bindwell (YC W25) is launching a free, unified platform for finding candidate drugs (or pesticides, or herbicides, or anything else that needs to bind to a protein), and visualizing their structure. Unlike AlphaFold 3 and others, we've worked hard to make the experience as interactive as possible by designing and training our own accelerated models, significantly speeding up the candidate screening workflow.
Q: Why are we building this?
A: To design better, safer pesticides. The therapeutics industry has seen huge improvements by integrating machine learning models into its drug discovery pipelines; on the other hand, the agrochemical pesticide discovery space has seen almost no improvement, despite the high degree of similarity between the two processes. This is because the agrochemical industry is largely stagnant; fewer than 40 new pesticide ingredients have been developed in the last decade, with most "new" pesticides being just tweaks of existing ones. To solve this, we're using our SOTA machine learning models to find radically better pesticides.
Because this is a search problem, speed is key. This is why we've spent so much time optimizing our models to be as fast as possible, which also allows us to make them freely available without the long queue times or rate limits alternatives like AlphaFold 3 or Chai have.
Q: Who are we?
A: We\u2019re Navvye Anand (Caltech) and Tyler Rose (Wolfram Research), a scrappy duo of engineers who met at the Wolfram Summer Research Program in June 2023. We\u2019re Indo-Chinese founders who both grew up visiting farmlands in our countries. United by our passion for tackling hard problems, we dropped out of college and started Bindwell to transform the archaic agrochemical industry.
We\u2019re joined by Max, a prodigious hacker and open source contributor who dropped out of a math degree at Reed College. Max is relentlessly curious about everything from robotics to philosophy, and like us, his passion for solving challenging problems made him a perfect fit for the team.
We'd love to hear from you, whether it's feedback about our app, questions about our mission, or anything else you think is interesting. You can reach us by commenting on this post, or by emailing us at founders@bindwell.ai.","title":"Show HN: Interactive Drug Screening in Your Browser","updated_at":"2025-02-26T03:26:51Z","url":"https://app.bindwell.ai/"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Nek_12"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["chai","discovery"],"value":"I built a habit tracking app for 3 years. I have users who say "I'd cry the entire evening" if it disappeared. One is Level 177 with 197 completions/week. Another hit Level 420 (42,000 XP or 10000+ habits completed).
None of them pay. Most won't respond to emails.
Here's the data and what I'm missing.
THE NUMBERS
Revenue: 35,238 installs over 3 years, $86 MRR from 20 subscribers, $4,091 lifetime revenue, 0.8% free-to-paid conversion, $905/mo burn (day job subsidized).
Retention: D1 4.2% (industry 40%+), D7 1.1% (industry 25%+), D30 0.9% (industry 15%+), 130% monthly churn.
The Paradox: 9 users reached Level 100+ (10,000+ XP). 6 still active, using it daily. 1 interviewed (PhD + PM): "I'd cry" if app disappeared. Payment status: 0 paying, 4 on expired promos, 1 can't pay (SWIFT blocked).
POWER USER ANALYSIS
Analyzed usage patterns for 3,000+ users by calculating coefficient of variation (CV = std dev / mean of daily completions).
Success archetype (User A):
- CV 0.33 (very consistent daily pattern) \n- 580 completions/month \n- 465 days active \n- Regular professional schedule \n- High cognitive load (PhD + PM) \n- Job-to-be-done: "Eliminate decision fatigue"
Failure archetype (User B):
- CV 0.86 (boom-bust cycles) \n- Still paying subscription \n- Stopped using 7 months ago \n- Quote: "Life is too irregular, alarms ring at wrong time"
WHAT I TRIED
Retention fixes (none moved D1 from 4.2%):
- Rebuilt onboarding 4 times (current: v4, takes users through creating first ritual + habit + completing it once) \n- Added AI coaching (GPT-5, personalized habit advice, agentic tool calls) \n- Added gamification (quests, XP, levels, streaks) \n- Built WearOS app (rituals on your wrist) (more for myself as it was half a day of work, but still) \n- Added analytics dashboard \n- Daily notifications \n- Early wins in first session (complete habit in onboarding), streaks
Features built that didn't help:
- AI chat (11.54% conversion when discovered, but only 2.4% of users find it despite being literally in the bottom navigation bar) \n- Journaling \n- Habit timers with on-screen overlays \n- Streak widget with goals and focus on small wins/future progress
Interview attempts:
- Emailed all 9 power users for 15-20 min interviews \n- Offered 6-12 months free Pro \n- Got 2 responses after multiple attempts \n- User C (Level 177, active daily): no response \n- User D (Level 148): no response \n- User E (Level 236, ADHD coach, agreed to call): ghosted \n- 3 others: no response after 2 weeks
Paying customer analysis:
- Queried DB: only 15% of paying customers match "power user archetype" (CV <0.5 or Level 100+) \n- 4 of 5 known power users DON'T pay, the other pays but doesn't use the app. \n- Pattern: random trial conversions, not established users\n- 30% of subscribers have 0 activity (forgot to cancel)
Cancellation reasons (analyzed all churned subscribers):
- 43% "don't use it enough" (avg 63 days before cancel) \n- 30% cost concerns (avg 33 days before cancel) \n- 12% found better app (avg 19 days before cancel)
WHAT I THINK I KNOW
1. Product works for people with regular schedules + high cognitive load \n2. Fixed-time alarms break when life gets irregular \n3. Power users love it but won't pay or engage \n4. Random people pay briefly then churn \n5. Feature additions don't fix retention (D1 stayed at 4.2% through AI, quests, WearOS, etc.) \n6. No monetizable pattern after 3 years
THE QUESTION
Not asking what to do. Asking: What am I blind to?
I have extreme PMF for 9 people who won't monetize. Is this:
- A pricing problem? (tested $1-6/mo PPP) \n- A positioning problem? (marketed as general habit tracker, should niche down?) \n- A feature problem? (wrong features locked behind paywall?)\n- Unfixable? (category too hard to monetize - results take weeks, requires discipline users lack)
Happy to share queries, GA4 exports, whatever helps."},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"My users say they'd cry if my app disappeared. None of them pay"}},"_tags":["story","author_Nek_12","story_45733935","ask_hn"],"author":"Nek_12","children":[45733961,45734077,45734103,45734368,45734918,45735472],"created_at":"2025-10-28T15:14:45Z","created_at_i":1761664485,"num_comments":26,"objectID":"45733935","points":13,"story_id":45733935,"story_text":"I built a habit tracking app for 3 years. I have users who say "I'd cry the entire evening" if it disappeared. One is Level 177 with 197 completions/week. Another hit Level 420 (42,000 XP or 10000+ habits completed).
None of them pay. Most won't respond to emails.
Here's the data and what I'm missing.
THE NUMBERS
Revenue: 35,238 installs over 3 years, $86 MRR from 20 subscribers, $4,091 lifetime revenue, 0.8% free-to-paid conversion, $905/mo burn (day job subsidized).
Retention: D1 4.2% (industry 40%+), D7 1.1% (industry 25%+), D30 0.9% (industry 15%+), 130% monthly churn.
The Paradox: 9 users reached Level 100+ (10,000+ XP). 6 still active, using it daily. 1 interviewed (PhD + PM): "I'd cry" if app disappeared. Payment status: 0 paying, 4 on expired promos, 1 can't pay (SWIFT blocked).
POWER USER ANALYSIS
Analyzed usage patterns for 3,000+ users by calculating coefficient of variation (CV = std dev / mean of daily completions).
Success archetype (User A):
- CV 0.33 (very consistent daily pattern) \n- 580 completions/month \n- 465 days active \n- Regular professional schedule \n- High cognitive load (PhD + PM) \n- Job-to-be-done: "Eliminate decision fatigue"
Failure archetype (User B):
- CV 0.86 (boom-bust cycles) \n- Still paying subscription \n- Stopped using 7 months ago \n- Quote: "Life is too irregular, alarms ring at wrong time"
WHAT I TRIED
Retention fixes (none moved D1 from 4.2%):
- Rebuilt onboarding 4 times (current: v4, takes users through creating first ritual + habit + completing it once) \n- Added AI coaching (GPT-5, personalized habit advice, agentic tool calls) \n- Added gamification (quests, XP, levels, streaks) \n- Built WearOS app (rituals on your wrist) (more for myself as it was half a day of work, but still) \n- Added analytics dashboard \n- Daily notifications \n- Early wins in first session (complete habit in onboarding), streaks
Features built that didn't help:
- AI chat (11.54% conversion when discovered, but only 2.4% of users find it despite being literally in the bottom navigation bar) \n- Journaling \n- Habit timers with on-screen overlays \n- Streak widget with goals and focus on small wins/future progress
Interview attempts:
- Emailed all 9 power users for 15-20 min interviews \n- Offered 6-12 months free Pro \n- Got 2 responses after multiple attempts \n- User C (Level 177, active daily): no response \n- User D (Level 148): no response \n- User E (Level 236, ADHD coach, agreed to call): ghosted \n- 3 others: no response after 2 weeks
Paying customer analysis:
- Queried DB: only 15% of paying customers match "power user archetype" (CV <0.5 or Level 100+) \n- 4 of 5 known power users DON'T pay, the other pays but doesn't use the app. \n- Pattern: random trial conversions, not established users\n- 30% of subscribers have 0 activity (forgot to cancel)
Cancellation reasons (analyzed all churned subscribers):
- 43% "don't use it enough" (avg 63 days before cancel) \n- 30% cost concerns (avg 33 days before cancel) \n- 12% found better app (avg 19 days before cancel)
WHAT I THINK I KNOW
1. Product works for people with regular schedules + high cognitive load \n2. Fixed-time alarms break when life gets irregular \n3. Power users love it but won't pay or engage \n4. Random people pay briefly then churn \n5. Feature additions don't fix retention (D1 stayed at 4.2% through AI, quests, WearOS, etc.) \n6. No monetizable pattern after 3 years
THE QUESTION
Not asking what to do. Asking: What am I blind to?
I have extreme PMF for 9 people who won't monetize. Is this:
- A pricing problem? (tested $1-6/mo PPP) \n- A positioning problem? (marketed as general habit tracker, should niche down?) \n- A feature problem? (wrong features locked behind paywall?)\n- Unfixable? (category too hard to monetize - results take weeks, requires discipline users lack)
Happy to share queries, GA4 exports, whatever helps.","title":"My users say they'd cry if my app disappeared. None of them pay","updated_at":"2026-09-14T00:50:49Z"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"sorbalda"},"story_text":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"full","matchedWords":["chai","discovery"],"value":"Vibeworld is a persistent cyberpunk shared world that runs in your terminal, where you can meet other developers and scientists to have company at 2 AM while screaming at your LLM :) you can connect with other scientist, chat, and includes also use vocal chat if you want to use it.
There is a world and a moon, and they are completely 3D rendered and animated. In the moon there is the "complaint crater": a place where you can scream an insult against your claude or codex session and everybody from the space can see it. You can create your pixel avatar!
There is also the "stargazing ledge": a place where you can see the stars and whatever happens in the sky. You can chat in the meantime if someone else is there too, or just watch our Earth. Sometimes you can see galactic wars, and there is a plant that grows but dies if nobody waters it. \nYou can leave it on the second monitor while working (it does not use a lot of RAM): watch the sky when you want, and sometimes you may chat with some other scientist in your same situation.
In the world, continents are scientific macroareas, and cities are specializations: you can create your corners where you can speak and help others (but for now it is quite empty).
You can install in one command and by just typing "vibeworld" in your terminal, you are inside the world.
There are some games inside and a sort of Doom where enemies says to you "Retracted" or "dedline tomorrow" when shooting you :).
There is also an awkward reason why I am posting the work here.
I have just discovered that another product Vibeworld.build uses the same name and the same concept (shared multiplayer world for developers). \nI don't know how independently it was developed. It is not a TUI, but it is a full, paid application developed by a company after my project was released. To be honest luckly I find my project more funny.
I do care about preserving the chronology, my VibeWorld was released before, and there are verifiable timestamps in the GitHub. I just don't want the original public record to disappear if a much larger implementation of a very similar concept gets more attention later.
I would like to hear what people think about it!\n:))"},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"Show HN: VibeWorld \u2013 a shared terminal world for developers and scientists"},"url":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"https://github.com/SorBalda/vibeworld"}},"_tags":["story","author_sorbalda","story_49688052","show_hn"],"author":"sorbalda","children":[49688574],"created_at":"2026-09-13T20:00:14Z","created_at_i":1789329614,"num_comments":1,"objectID":"49688052","points":5,"story_id":49688052,"story_text":"Vibeworld is a persistent cyberpunk shared world that runs in your terminal, where you can meet other developers and scientists to have company at 2 AM while screaming at your LLM :) you can connect with other scientist, chat, and includes also use vocal chat if you want to use it.
There is a world and a moon, and they are completely 3D rendered and animated. In the moon there is the "complaint crater": a place where you can scream an insult against your claude or codex session and everybody from the space can see it. You can create your pixel avatar!
There is also the "stargazing ledge": a place where you can see the stars and whatever happens in the sky. You can chat in the meantime if someone else is there too, or just watch our Earth. Sometimes you can see galactic wars, and there is a plant that grows but dies if nobody waters it. \nYou can leave it on the second monitor while working (it does not use a lot of RAM): watch the sky when you want, and sometimes you may chat with some other scientist in your same situation.
In the world, continents are scientific macroareas, and cities are specializations: you can create your corners where you can speak and help others (but for now it is quite empty).
You can install in one command and by just typing "vibeworld" in your terminal, you are inside the world.
There are some games inside and a sort of Doom where enemies says to you "Retracted" or "dedline tomorrow" when shooting you :).
There is also an awkward reason why I am posting the work here.
I have just discovered that another product Vibeworld.build uses the same name and the same concept (shared multiplayer world for developers). \nI don't know how independently it was developed. It is not a TUI, but it is a full, paid application developed by a company after my project was released. To be honest luckly I find my project more funny.
I do care about preserving the chronology, my VibeWorld was released before, and there are verifiable timestamps in the GitHub. I just don't want the original public record to disappear if a much larger implementation of a very similar concept gets more attention later.
I would like to hear what people think about it!\n:))","title":"Show HN: VibeWorld \u2013 a shared terminal world for developers and scientists","updated_at":"2026-09-14T01:17:19Z","url":"https://github.com/SorBalda/vibeworld"},{"_highlightResult":{"author":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["chai"],"value":"anie_cha"},"title":{"matchLevel":"none","matchedWords":[],"value":"New Function of Blinking Identified"},"url":{"fullyHighlighted":false,"matchLevel":"partial","matchedWords":["discovery"],"value":"https://www.psypost.org/scientists-have-discovered-a-previously-unknown-function-of-blinking/"}},"_tags":["story","author_anie_cha","story_40774217"],"author":"anie_cha","children":[40774218],"created_at":"2024-06-24T10:14:41Z","created_at_i":1719224081,"num_comments":0,"objectID":"40774217","points":2,"story_id":40774217,"title":"New Function of Blinking Identified","updated_at":"2024-09-20T17:19:20Z","url":"https://www.psypost.org/scientists-have-discovered-a-previously-unknown-function-of-blinking/"}],"hitsPerPage":50,"nbHits":16,"nbPages":1,"page":0,"params":"query=Chai+Discovery&tags=story&hitsPerPage=50&advancedSyntax=true&analyticsTags=backend","processingTimeMS":18,"processingTimingsMS":{"_request":{"roundTrip":15},"afterFetch":{"format":{"highlighting":1,"total":1}},"fetch":{"query":10,"scanning":2,"total":13},"getIdx":{"load":{"dicts":1,"gens":2,"total":3},"total":4},"total":18},"query":"Chai Discovery","serverTimeMS":20}