Mateo Giron Lopez

Hey StartupBase 👋

I'm Mateo, the maker behind Netswap. Quick story on why I built this.

Why I made it

I spent the last few months doing discovery calls with ~20 founders. I went in expecting to hear vague stuff about "wanting to grow their network." What I got instead was the opposite — every single founder had razor-specific things they needed:

• "A senior backend dev who's shipped a Stripe Connect integration."
• "A warm intro to the head of partnerships at three specific companies."
• "A marketer who actually understands B2B SaaS, not just 'growth.'"

Twenty founders. Twenty laser-precise asks. And none of them had a good place to just say it out loud.

The problem

Every platform out there is built for the opposite of this. LinkedIn rewards you for posting about what you offer, not asking for what you need. Events are lottery. Cold DMs convert at ~2%.

So founders end up scrolling for 45 minutes a day, posting "thought leadership," and still going back to the search bar when they actually need something specific. The network they've spent years building doesn't translate into the client, the hire, or the intro.

The real bottleneck isn't the size of their network — it's the format. Asking clearly feels exposing, so nobody does it, so nobody matches.

The idea behind Netswap

Two fields per profile: 'what you offer' and 'what you need right now'. A search engine that matches founders whose offer fits your ask (and vice versa). You send a short message. They respond. You close an exchange.

No feed. No likes. No follower counts. No performative content.

You open it, search, find the founder who fits, close the tab. Three minutes. One outcome.

Why I think this works

Three reasons:

1. Specificity wins. The founders in my discovery calls who stated their offer concretely closed exchanges 'in the same conversation'. The ones who stayed vague left with intent and no next step. Forcing specificity in the format is the whole unlock.

2. The friction around asking is cultural, not rational. Founders know asking is efficient. Almost none of them do it without apologizing, because the platforms they use punish directness. Netswap flips the norm — asking directly is the 'point', not an exception.

3. Tools beat feeds. When a tool resolves a real need in three minutes, people use it and leave. That's a feature, not a problem. Retention-obsessed feeds burn hours of your week; a utility gives them back.

I'm shipping this solo and opening it up to the first batch of founders now. Would love your feedback — especially on the hero copy of the landing page (I've rewritten it 7 times and I'm too close to it).

Happy to answer anything below 🙏

— Mateo