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2025 → Present

Turned SEC filings into funding news anyone can read

What looks like the trend is usually unverified, and it always arrives late.

FlareSight product screen
ProblemLists of newly funded startups are a commodity, and the press only reports some of the rounds.
What I didReframed the product around SEC filings, then designed and built it solo with AI tools.
ResultA live product tracking 125,000+ companies, with real subscribers on zero ad spend. Still testing the new direction.
RoleSolo founder
Timeline2025 to now
ScopeResearch, design, build
Result125,000+ companies tracked

01The brief

The product I started with was another lead list

FlareSight began as a way to sell lists of newly funded startups to salespeople, at $49 a month. It worked, but it was a commodity. The world already had enough contact lists, and I'd built one more.

02The reframe

The edge isn't more contacts, it's timing

Every company that raises money has to file it with the SEC, publicly, often before the press writes it up. That filing is the signal. The value was never a bigger list of names, it was knowing a round happened as soon as it became real, backed by a source nobody can dispute.

“The value was never a bigger list of names.”

03How it works

Three things a user actually does

FlareSight reads SEC Form D filings as they post to EDGAR, enriches them, and makes them searchable before they reach TechCrunch or Crunchbase. V3 shapes that into three things a user actually does:

  • Discover: a free visual map of where startup money is moving.
  • Research: a plain sector brief on any slice of the market.
  • Monitor: alerts, change-over-time, and watchlists for the people who need to act on a round early.
FlareSight company page built from an SEC Form D filing, with amount raised, filing date and plain notes on what the filing means
A company page built from its SEC filing, with plain notes on what the filing means.
FlareSight watchlist builder filtering newly funded companies by sector, with AI and ML selected
A watchlist: set the filters once, and new companies that match are added as they file.

04What I shipped

A real product, built solo

I have no engineering background, so I built it solo with AI tools: a real database, backend, and Google sign-in. It has real subscribers, all found without spending on ads.

FlareSight leads dashboard listing newly funded companies with round size, stage and a find contact button
The live app today: newly funded companies as leads, each with a way to reach the founder.

05Keeping design and build in sync

A design system the build has to obey

FlareSight has its own design system: every color, type size and space is a named token. An automated check runs before anything ships and blocks any screen that uses a value outside the system, so what ships matches the design.

Working alone, that check is the teammate who catches what I miss. It's the same habit I brought to teams: at Uncommon I built a new design system, and at Upwork I worked with the design system team and added a component the system was missing.

06Where it stands

The direction, still being tested

V3 is the direction I'm testing now. The live app still runs the lead-list model while I find out whether the reframe holds, and I'm still changing the product as I learn.

The principle

Being early is the whole product. A funding round everyone has already seen is just a press release.

Van Wang logo Van Wang
Solo founder and designer, FlareSight
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