Years of hard work, struggle and pain. 20 failed projects 😭

Built it in a few days using Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, Digital Ocean, OpenAI, Kamal, etc...

Lessons:

• Solve real problems (e.g, save them time and effort, make them more money). Focus on the pain points of your target customers. Solve 1 problem and do it really well.
• Prefer to use the tools that you already know. Don’t spend too much time thinking about what are the best tool to use. The best tool for you is the one you already know. Your customers won't care about the tools you used, what they care about is you're solving the problem that they have.
• Start with the MVP. Don't get caught up in adding every feature you can think of. Start with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that solves the core problem, then iterate based on user feedback.
• Know your customer. Deeply understand who your customer is and what they need. Tailor your messaging, product features, and support to meet those needs specifically.
• Fail fast. Validate immediately to see if people will pay for it then move on if not. Don't over-engineer. It doesn't need to be scalable initially.
• Be ready to pivot. If your initial idea isn't working, don't be afraid to pivot. Sometimes the market needs something different than what you originally envisioned.
• Data-driven decisions. Use data to guide your decisions. Whether it's user behavior, market trends, or feedback, rely on data to inform your next steps.
• Iterate quickly. Speed is your friend. The faster you can iterate on feedback and improve your product, the better you can stay ahead of the competition.
• Do lots of marketing. This is a must! Build it and they will come rarely succeeds.
• Keep on shipping 🚀 Many small bets instead of 1 big bet.

Playbook that what worked for me (will most likely work for you too)

The great thing about this playbook is it will work even if you don't have an audience (e.g, close to 0 followers, no newsletter subscribers etc...).

1. Problem

Can be any of these:

• Scratch your own itch.
• Find problems worth solving. Read negative reviews + hang out on X, Reddit and Facebook groups.

2. MVP

Set an appetite (e.g, 1 day or 1 week to build your MVP).

This will force you to only build the core and really necessary features. Focus on things that will really benefit your users.

3. Validation

• Share your MVP on X, Reddit and Facebook groups.
• Reply on posts complaining about your competitors, asking alternatives or recommendations.
• Reply on posts where the author is encountering a problem that your product directly solves.
• Do cold and warm DMs.

One of the best validation is when users pay for your MVP.

When your product is free, when users subscribe using their email addresses and/or they keep on coming back to use it.

4. SEO

ROI will take a while and this requires a lot of time and effort but this is still one of the most sustainable source of customers. 2 out of 3 of my projects are already benefiting from SEO. I'll start to do SEO on my latest project too.

That's it! Simple but not easy since it still requires a lot of effort but that's the reality when building a startup especially when you have no audience yet.

Leave a comment if you have a question, I'll be happy to answer it.

P.S. The SaaS that I built is a tool that automates finding customers from social media. Basically saves companies time and effort since it works 24/7 for them. Built it to scratch my own itch and surprisingly companies started paying for it when I launched the MVP and it now grew to hundreds of customers from different countries, most are startups.

I’m the founder of a SaaS company, which I built solo, bootstrapped, no investors. It scrapes fresh B2B leads from social platforms and Google Maps, no logins or cookies needed. Simple tool, solves a real problem and makes money from day one.

And honestly, the more I build, the more I believe micro SaaS > venture-backed startups. I’ve seen too many stories like “raised $700K pre-seed → burned through it → now stressed out trying to raise again.” Meanwhile, I just fix bugs, ship small features, talk to customers and grow at my own pace.

With micro SaaS, you can get to $5K–$20K MRR with high margins, no pressure and total control over your time. You don’t need a team of 20 or a slide deck for every decision. Just a useful product, a few customers who pay and a feedback loop that actually works.

Would love to hear from others building solo or small- how’s it going for you? And if you’re still debating startup vs micro SaaS, happy to share more behind the scenes if helpful.

Yeah, I’m a SaaS developer.
Yeah, all my coding is done by Lovable or Bolt.
Yeah, I’ve started 50 projects—none are completed.
Yeah, all my business ideas were generated by ChatGPT.
Yeah, my landing page is 90% Tailwind templates.
Yeah, my Stripe integration was copy-pasted from YouTube.
Yeah, I have no idea what a CRON job actually does.
Yeah, I post "why did my startup fail?" and pivot daily.

No, I don’t understand serverless, but I pretend I do.
No, I haven’t written a single line of backend code myself.
No, I don’t know why my Supabase query isn’t working.
No, I don’t check my own error logs—I just redeploy and pray.

But yeah, I charge $9.99/month for this. 💰🚀

Just shipped my first micro-SaaS last month and wanted to share the brutal truth about bootstrapping costs in 2025. My burn rate is laughably low:

Cursor (IDE on steroids): $20/mo Vercel (zero DevOps headaches): $20/mo Firebase (DB that actually scales): $10/mo Stripe (payments that don't suck): $0 upfront Total MRR burn: $50/mo

With a $29/mo pricing tier, I hit ramen profitability after just TWO paying users. Bootstrapped the whole thing on nights/weekends in 3 weeks.

Look, I'm not here selling some course or mastermind BS. This is just raw data for the indie hackers grinding it out. The CAC

math is insane when your overhead is this low. My GTM was just posting in a couple niche subreddits where my ICP hangs out. Zero ad spend.

If you're stuck in analysis paralysis waiting to build your MVP, just ship the damn thing. Your infrastructure costs less than your Spotify + Netflix. Time to market > feature completeness.

The early adopters don't care about your tech stack or fancy UI. They care if you solve their pain point better than the bloated enterprise solutions charging 10x more.

The meta has completely changed. This is either the end of the "raise a seed round" playbook or the beginning of a golden age for solo founders.

$50/mo. That's the cost of entry. What's stopping you from launching v1 next weekend?

If interested in following; https://shipitweekly.beehiiv.com/subscribe

I started this as an internal tool at the company I worked for. We were selling to retail brands, and I built a ChatGPT-powered bot that monitored executives' conversations and public statements about expansion strategies. Whenever a C-level exec in retail mentioned opening new locations, partnerships, or growth plans, the bot would trigger real-time alerts in Slack and HubSpot.

This worked so well that we started closing more deals with the right timing. I realized the same concept could apply to other industries—helping sales teams act at the perfect moment. So I spun it out into a standalone product.

Now, I have 40 paying customers, all using a simple API integration. My system pulls data from any source, filters it, and pushes it into any system (Slack, HubSpot, etc.). No UI, no full SaaS—just pure intent data delivered in real time.

I’m at $30K MRR after four months. Happy to share more details if anyone’s interested!

I used to jump on sales calls and would barely able to talk straight, and when lead on the other end ask me to speak up or say things again, that'd destroy me completely.

Then as I watch and learned from the best founders/sales people, I learned what do before EVERY important call. Now that I'm nearly 10K+ sales calls/pitchs into my career.

1. Research everything about the company.

Their tech stack and recent funding news, even where the person went to school. Small details create real connections. Drop in these nuggets at the beginning of the call, build rapport and then try to bring up knowledge before they mention it themselves.

TIPS: Search for their personal email and find them on Social media, look at their club memberships - did they take a golf trip? Disney world with the family? Pays to know these things.

1. SHORT, DIRECT OUTREACH ONLY

• OLD: Explaining features and how robust and scalable your system is.
• New template: <100 words, straight to the pain point, "how will it benefit you", pack it with social proof.
• Example that CRUSHED IT: "Hi [Name], saw you're struggling with [specific problem]. We helped [similar company] reduce this by 43% in 6 weeks. Got 15 mins to see if we can do the same for you?"

I know how proud you are of the code you wrote but trust me no one cares. KEEP IT SHORT.

1. The best conversations flow naturally.

Sure I kept important points in mind but the magic happens when you let the other person guide you. It's all about listening not selling. Nobody wants to hear about features right away, talk about their problems first and if you don't know, make an educated guess. Show them you understand what keeps them up at night, the solution will come naturally after that.

Ask the cliche question: if you had a magic wand which problems would you wish away?

Smart founders know exactly what worries prospects have. Pick one to tackle on the call: budget, timing, internal red tape. We think about answers before they even bring it up, and every conversation needs a clear goal.

1. STOP LYING ON SALES CALLS.

Just say, that feature is NOT on our road map. Takes guts but you'll be much better off because of it..

Don't make the mistake of answering every "Can it do X?" with "Of course! It's on our roadmap."

You're not learning.. all you're doing is blurring what exactly that you offer and just become another hundreds of other similar companies all vaguely offering the same things.

STAND OUT AND SAY NO.

1. Getting that next meeting.

Setting up a demo, meeting the final decision maker. Know what you want before you dial.

Never end without agreeing on next steps. Send docs schedule followup confirm the demo. Lock it down before saying goodbye. This approach transformed my close rate. Its not rocket science but most people skip the basics.

It all comes down to preparation before hand and building connections. Don't sell, do listen and try to get on the "same side of the table" as your lead.

1. FOLLOWED UP CREATIVELY

• Stopped giving up after 1-2 emails - this is where rookie founders make the mistake.
• Started following up 5+ times with prospects using different channels.. if you really want that customer you have to be consistent.
• Game-changer: personalized 45-second Loom videos addressing a specific problem I spotted on their website/LinkedIn

If you do everything above and still can't land your first 100 customers.. you come find me.

I’m Kalo Yankulov, and together with Slav u/slavivanov, we co-founded Encharge – a marketing automation platform built for SaaS.

After university, I used to think I’d end up at some fancy design/marketing agency in London, but after a short stint, I realized I hated it, so I threw myself into building my own startups. Encharge is my latest product.

Some interesting facts:

1. We reached $400k in ARR before the exit.
2. We launched an AppSumo campaign that ranked in the top 5 all-time most successful launches. Generating $990k in revenue in 1 month. I slept a total of 5 hours in the 1st week of the launch, doing support.
3. We sold recently for 6 figures.
4. The whole product was built by just one person — my amazing co-founder Slav.
5. We pre-sold lifetime deals to validate the idea.
6. Our only growth channel is organic. We reached 73 DR, outranking goliaths like HubSpot and Mailchimp for many relevant keywords. We did it by writing deep, valuable content (e.g., onboarding emails) and building links.

What’s next for me and Slav:

• I used the momentum of my previous (smaller) exit to build pre-launch traction for Encharge. I plan to use the same playbook as I start working on my next SaaS idea, using the momentum of the current exit. In the meantime, I’d love to help early and mid-stage startups grow; you can check how we can work together here.
• Slav is taking a sabbatical to spend time with his 3 kids before moving onto the next venture. You can read his blog and connect with him here.

Here to share all the knowledge we have. Ask us anything about:

• SaaS
• Bootstrapping
• Email industry
• Growth marketing/content/SEO
• Acquisitions
• Anything else really…?

We have worked with the SaaS community for the last 5+ years, and we love it.

Just what the title says! March was definitely the best month of my life!

Here is how:
💰 $2K revenue for picyard (my product)
🫂100+ users for picyard
💼 I got a job (thats the biggest takeaway! )

On 1st march I changed the pricing of my product to lifetime deal instead of a $29/year subscription. I did not expect much but was hopeful.

So I did these things
- Sent a newsletter to existing users who were on free plan.
- Posted on twitter, bluesky, peerlist, etc.
- Posted on reddit

And the rest is history (atleast for me)

Users started signing up, few users bought the whitelabel boilerplate.

One of the users reached out to me about customizing the boilerplate according to their needs. I did it for them and later asked them if they were hiring frontend developers.
We did some discussion for a week and voila! I got a remote job ! Coming from a third world country this means a lot to me.

I am happy beyond words :)

I am more happy as people are loving the product that I made. It helps you make beautiful mockups.

I hope this brings smiles to all reading this post :) and inspires a few of you.

PS - Here is the link to the product , the next goal for me is to focus on my day job and work on my side project on nights and weekends and cross 250 user mark.

Hey,

Just wanted to share a quick milestone and some behind-the-scenes numbers from my bootstrapped SaaS journey.

This month, my product hit:

• $6,030 in gross revenue
• $5,140 in net volume from sales (after fees/refunds)
• $987 in MRR
• 650 total users

All of this has happened in the span of about 30 days, with $0 spent on ads. Just pure organic marketing.

Now i am not here to talk about what the product does or anything because honestly no one in this sub-reddit could care less but if anyone is curious it's in the automotive industry.

Some problems I am facing:

1. I am not a tech guy, i am fully into marketing and sales and had hired devs overseas to create the product. I am on my third developer since launch and he's currently still fixing the mistakes of the first developer. I need to find a solid trust-worthy developer or some sort of solution.
2. SEO , now I do have quite a bit of SEO knowledge BUT again no tech knowledge so I can't make on-site related SEO changes; so need to find someone to come on and do that or at-least make the required changes.

What I plan on doing differently this next month

1. Enabling 3DS via stripe - The main product being sold is a one time 7 dollar purchase; with options for bundles and options for enterprise subscriptions -- I've lucked out in terms of 4/5 Enterprise subscribers are okay with paying with P2P transfers like zelle (they can't charge back) but getting hit with a $15 stripe dispute fee for "unauth transaction" on a $7 product sucks, 3DS will combat this
2. Landing page changes + Tracking to help and track conversion - the current design is okay but I have designed a few improvements which I think will 100% boost conversion rates. According to google analytics we've had 2k users visit the past 30 days so there's a lot of room to improve the sign up rate and such. I also would like to have something added to the site which will track user clicks and such (if anyone has suggestions i'd appreciate it)
3. Implementing an AI feature that goes in hand with the main product - I have got someone working on this, honestly just a GPT wrapper with a nice prompt but it'll for-sure help a lot of users out. I plan on going with the freemium route and making it a low cost subscription to boost MMR.
4. Content Marketing - This is something I overlooked the first month, have been way too busy with other things to start doing it but I am actively looking for someone to handle this; specifically social media marketing.

If you’ve scaled a SaaS past this point, I’d really appreciate any insights on:

• How you approached pricing experiments without tanking conversion
• What metrics you focused on most at this stage
• When to start thinking about hiring vs. doing it all solo
• Anything you wish you did differently around the $1K MRR mark

Open to brutal feedback, strategic advice, or just gut-checks. I’m still figuring this all out and want to keep leveling up fast.

Happy to connect with new people and answer any questions or share more specifics!

“Build something people want” is such a useless advice. It’s like saying if you want to win the race then run fast.

I read the above on X and I understand the frustration because the advice is pretty vague, but here is a practical approach:

First of all, I have built 6 projects in the past 10 years. Sold 3 and currently running a SaaS since last one year which is doing $85,000 ARR and has 25,000 registered users in a highly competitive market.

I found the idea to build my current SaaS while working on my previous one when I saw a market gap. This finding a “gap” approach works like a charm.

If I were to start again, here is how I will do it:

• Go to X and Reddit and search for the keywords like "alternative to", "alternative for".

• Pick a product which you feel excited about.

• Then go to a keyword research tool and find the keyword volume for that product's alternative. For example, search for "Canny alternative" and you will find that it receives more than 150 searches from the U.S alone and 750/mo searches wordlwide.

• if the keyword volume is enough, proceed else go to the step 1.

• Then list all the alternatives that come on the Google's first page for that "alternative" keyword and sign up to them.

• Make a list of all their problems and all the good features that you found. Add it in a Google Sheet.

• Then go to the G2 and Capterra reviews of that original product and sort by low to high. Find all the issues that the current product has and find one or two hero features that everyone is talking about but the current incumbent doesn't address.

• Put all those hero features in a Google sheet and then match them with the alternatives that you've found and find if there is any visible gap where you can stand.

• Even after all this, you are still excited about the idea, then proceed. Otherwise, go back to Step 1.

• If you are now in this step, congrats! You are now slowly going towards the building phase, the one that you like the most. But before building this, pick a punch line for your product. What that could be? Think about it. Marketing gurus call it "messaging". Above steps help you find a "gap" this step will help you find the "messaging", means how you communicate with your ideal users "who you are". For example, you can work on that Canny alternative and say that "It's a Canny alternative without those extra features that cost flat $29/month" and below that have a one-click migration option from Canny. Let your user use it without creating everything from scratch. They are coming from the competitor. They should first be able to use it with the exact data they had there without investing much of their time. I have done the exact same thing in my product. You can start with a one-click converter and see how that will look here before even signing up.

• Now go back to those users whom you found looking for alternatives on Reddit and X, and try to reach them out with that one-liner you created. Ask them if they're interested and if you can send a demo. Remember, you don't have a demo because you don't have a product, but at least try to get some replies. The more replies you get, the more pressing the problem is.

• If you don't get replies or the reply rate is too low, don't worry. Either refine the headline or think that it was the route which was 100% going to fail, so you have saved yourself from building a product. Now try to go back to either step one or refresh your offering - the headline.

• If you get enough replies (at least 4-5), go back to an MVP phase where you'll make a small product in under a week. Don't create the landing page yet. The first landing page I had was with just a button to sign up and nothing else. Reached 200 signups with that. Yes, have you seen what I did here? There is no waitlist; the waitlist doesn't work here. Just build that damn product and let your users be your beta testers.

• You can repeat the above steps as many times as you want and even have a target of finishing this sprint in less than 2-3 weeks.

It might seem like a long, daunting task, but believe me, it is way better than putting all your days and nights into building a product that nobody will ever use.

I've learned that the hard way. Prior to my current SaaS, I had 5-6 failed products where I spent considerable amount of time and energy only to see them rot in my hard disk.

Is this a blueprint to success? Not at all. In fact there is none. If someone is telling you that, they are either lying or trying to sell you a course.

Then what is this? This is an approach to reduce your time spent in making a product that no one want. Or you can say this is an approach to “Fail fast” in the world of SaaS.

A few days back, I received an offer to sell Blogbuster (my SEO blogging tool) for $20,000. At the time, it was tempting. I'd already put in a few months of work, and $20k isn’t nothing.

But I said no.

Last month we hit $2,000 in sales, which is far from life-changing, but it’s the most validating signal I’ve had so far. Most importantly, I have super engaged users providing valuable feedback. I have many ideas and am driven by improving features, talking to users, tightening the experience.

The offer was flattering, but honestly… it felt way too low for something with real potential and growing revenue. I might regret it someday, but right now it feels like the right call.

Let’s see where this goes.

I'll keep building for now!

Hey guys.
This is how I sold my SAAS for 7 figures.

Step 1 : I went on linkedIn and searched for people buying SAAS

Step 2 : I found a guy called Jeremy. His bio was "buying a SAAS biz this year"

Step 3 : I sent him a WhatsApp message (his number was public)

Step 4 : After 2 months of due diligence, my SAAS was sold !

Some infos :

1) My saas was making around 55k/month when I sold it (60% profit)

2) It was a shopify app (WhatsApp for Shopify stores)

3) I dont have anything to sell, so don't dm me please

4) Lead acquisition was done via cold email and content

5) I'm already back to business, building a new SAAS for salespeople, called gojiberry. You can check it out if you want, the website is in my bio.

6) The main things I learned from this experience :
-avoid platform risks
- Target big TAMS
-Always follow up after a sales call
-Fill your CRM, it will safe your business

Cheers !

We built TypeThinkAI.com and launched about 3 weeks ago and here is some notes. TypeThinkAI is a multi-model AI chat system that gives access to 50+ models, can compare output from multiple models, generates images, can web search, generate video (currently building this), chat with documents etc.

https://imgur.com/a/pMQXRGK

Our SEO started picking well and from Day 1 we started looking at SEO even before building the actual product. I will be quick to the point.

This is what we did correct:

• We created a list of 50 keywords even before starting coding.
• Only once we are convinced we have enough meat, we went ahead the product.
• Dev has become easier these days, so instead of wasting time on actual development, we picked an open source module and built a SaaS around that.
• We then went ahead and submitted our product to top 10-20 directories like futuretools etc.
• Added backlinks via Medium, Github, Indiehackers etc that are strong in DR
• Build 7 free tools - some are fun, some are good.
• Free tools not only help with driving traffic but also improve your ranking as people spend more time on the site (less bounce rate, this is very important).
• Test every page/content against Quillbot AI detectors and Plagiarism checkers.
• Now that the product is robust, we are planning to do better SEO o

This is what we need to improve:

• While we concentrated on free tools, we should also have spent on writing blog content. So far we only wrote 4 blogs but now we are all set, we are planning to add 1 blog post every 2 days. We will be of course using our own tool as Claude 3.7 and a few other top models are directly accessible via our product and I can fire my prompt to multiple models at same time and can compare the output real quick.
• Work with Influencers because social media traffic is also valued for SEO.
• Start recording quick screen recording (may be 10-15 seconds.

Now this is some quick notes from me if I have to redo the whole process for a new product

• Research on your competitors well in advance
• Look at your competitors traffic data, keyword volumes - Use UberSuggest LTD plan (I think may be $50, the data is a little out dated but works very well to give you a good picture on keyword/volumes of your competitors)
• To double check the keyword search volume, get a KeywordsEverywhere extension (costs $10/yr, very cheap, a must for every indiehacker)
• Even before you start your product - built a list of keywords based on search volume and competition (find balance between high search volume and low competition)
• Build the list of keywords for blogs and tools separately - because some keywords works really well for tools - some of my examples - "llm leaderboard" has 22K search volume and almost 0.01 competition and we build free tool for LLM Leaderboard , similarly we picked keyword 'glitch text generator' with search volume 100K and competition 0.1 and built Glitch Text Generator, similarly we built Video Prompt Generator, Acronym Generator, AI Image Generator etc.
• Once you have the keywords list and confident about the competition levels, then you can work on the actual product. This is especially very important when you have zero social media presence and zero audience.
• Now once you have your URL, the first thing you need to do is build the landing page with all required keywords, titles, social share etc (this is all even you start building your product)
• Submit your product to all popular directories, top places like Medium, Indiehackers etc as these are high DR pages.
• Now build your MVP and in parallel build your free tools, write blog content, post to socials (build in public).

Hey folks I’ve built and sold a few SaaS products over the last couple of years. My last one was a WhatsApp tool for ecom brands, and after sending over 1M cold emails, hundreds of sales calls, and a decent exit (7 figs), I want to drop a quick insight I wish more founders heard:

👉 Don’t build a SaaS just because it uses AI.

It’s tempting. I’ve done it. Everyone wants to ride the AI hype. But here’s the thing if AI is the product, you’re in trouble. You’ll get users, sure. But mostly out of curiosity. They’ll test it, maybe throw in a credit card... and churn 2 weeks later.

That’s exactly what happened with a recent side project of mine (avatar AI). Thousands of signups. 2,000 users in 24h. Tons of hype. But barely any revenue and even fewer retained users.

Here’s what worked way better:

With Coco (the WhatsApp SaaS I sold), I didn’t start with AI. I started with a boring, painful problem: ecom brands struggling to follow up with customers. Then I layered AI to make the sales convos smoother. That’s it.

And guess what? It worked insanely well. Clients were making more money, and the tool basically paid for itself. We had 3–4% churn, no paid ads, and tons of word of mouth. One popup with “Powered by Coco” and competitors would instantly reach out asking how to get it.

TL;DR:

• Find a real problem (ideally one that costs people money).
• Build something simple that solves it.
• THEN layer AI to boost it, not the other way around.
• Stop looking at YC startup lists. Start looking at what’s annoying people today.

AI is the cherry on top. Not the cake.

Happy to answer questions if you’re building or thinking about launching.

Romàn

I built Chatbase competitor with robust RAG framework, optimized chatbot speeds and good UX. I am doing good in terms of revenue i'm at $2k MRR

I know what I built is also useful for people who already has good distribution channels in B2B and can leverage it well.

So, I am offering 5 White Label copies of my SaaS Chatclient on first come first serve basis.

Your own custom AI chatbot builder SaaS

I will help you setup and deploy your own version of Chatclient on your servers.

You just need to bring your brand name and domain and rest all is supported.

Interested agencies, and entrepreneurs get in touch.

What does whitelabel include and how to buy ?

You can buy chatclient.ai whitelabel and you will get

• Complete platform code
• Setup instruction document
• Support calls (if you face any issues in setup)

You can change the branding, logo, images, content, domain etc. If you're interested to buy please ping me on reddit or email me at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

I was inspired by a tweet of a customer’s of DocuSign saying "I just found out how much we pay for DocuSign and my jaw dropped". So I decided to use AI to create a SaaS with similar functionality to DocuSign in 2 days. Got thousands of users. E-sign tool, compliant with UETA and ESIGN, and best of all? Free.

Here’s how.

First, I got started crafting the basic UI with Lovable. Great for prototyping and visualizing what you want. Not so great for one-shotting lots of functionality and making your app production ready. For example, I prompted “Create me an e-sign SaaS tool to upload contracts for signature” and there wasn’t authentication, drag and drop fields, or even a backend! Not Lovable’s fault, I just think AI can’t one-shot a full SaaS specs. I even tried generating full PRDs with AI, didn’t work well.

(You can use Lovable, Bolt.new, or v0, they’re all very similar at this stage)

So I then took the core UI code from Lovable, exported it, and used ChatGPT and Cursor to finish out the features.

I used ChatGPT for complex features and workflows because of o1 - still best that I’ve seen for a model performance.

I used Cursor for smaller features/handling features across multiple files with agent mode (not great performance but definitely a great developer experience).

For example, with o1 I would use for complex logical features like “Help me write code to add functionality to create document templates, where a user can create a template with signature fields and send it out to multiple recipients”. o1 would easily one shot all the specs, fully rewrite the code, and have it all working. The only downsides is o1 was slow and would never refactor code so I started getting huge files with lots of lines of code.

With Cursor, I would use it to update smaller features or fix smaller bugs because it was faster and could touch multiple files with agent mode. For example, I’d ask it “I want to build a new feature where once a user signs a PDF, the original document creator gets notified via email that a recipient has signed the PDF.” and it would look at my server code and all my helpers to complete it. 3.7 sonnet thinking would have the best performance (obviously) but still sometimes needed some follow up prompts.

I got a basic MVP at Spryngtime.com out in about 2 days, got about a thousand free users on the first few days, and it only costs me ~$20/m to run (I’m sure I could get it cheaper if I cared about optimizing).

What would’ve taken me 2-3 weeks as a software engineer I can now knock out in 2 days!

I struggled throughout 2024 with a meager few hundred dollars in revenue.

Things started looking brighter at the beginning of 2025.

I earned over $1K in just the first 3 months, something I couldn't achieve in all of 2024.

I tried to recall that moment.

What made the difference?

And here's what I realized: 👇

1/ Marketing

- I believe marketing was simply saying what you do and doing what you said.

- I talked about my product more, even repeating a benefit over and over.

- Before, I would only mention a benefit once and never repeat it, because I thought it was... boring, or I was afraid that people who already knew would get bored reading it again. But I don't think there are many people who haven't heard of it.

👉 Put your ego aside and start talking about your product shamelessly!

2/ Distribution

Content has given way to the new king: distribution.

Wasting money is obviously stupid, but not spending to make the business healthier is also stupid.

The only reason preventing your product from selling is not being seen enough.

Indie hackers, I know you're like me, with a thin budget and hesitant to spend money. But trust me, it's a mistake, you'll spend years constantly posting to get your product known, and most of us, including me, don't value our time properly.

Forget that “if you build and they will come” BS and remember “time is money”

👉 Instead of not spending money at all costs (bootstrapping), spend money smartly, distribute your product to as many places as possible.

3/ Talking to users

The number of times I talked to my users in the first 3 months of 2025 was 3 times more than in all of 2024 combined!

I understood their insights and desires more, used it to improve the product, and that's also my content marketing.

I used to be very afraid of talking to strangers (still am), especially when having to talk about my product, it's so cringe 🫣

👉 That's why I built the AI ​​agents feature of IndieBoosting.com to do that for me, it really works.

4/ UX > Feature

You don't have all the time, as an indie hacker, that's even more of a luxury. Choose the important things to focus on.

While talking to users, I understood their needs, most of the time I spent fixing bugs and improving UX (rather than shipping new features), which makes users happy.

I rarely ship new features - which I did a lot in 2024. Almost only ship a maximum of 1 feature per month.

👉 And this works: happy customers will pay.

5/ Collaboration

Being an indie hacker/solo founder doesn't mean you have to work alone. It sucks.

👉 Learn to go together, products that compensate each other's value, if combined will bring more value to users, and they will be more willing to spend money.

--

I hope these things help you.

Keep learning and honing, you will make it! ❤️

Building my own SaaS feels like the ultimate escape from the chaos of corporate dev life—no sprints, no endless meetings, no answering to anyone. Just pure, uninterrupted creation. While others are stuck in the loop of deployments, QA rejections, and mind-numbing standups, I’m out here crafting something fun. Revenue? Who cares. This is my game now, and honestly, it’s way more fun than any video game out there.

With vibe coding and the whole doom and gloom of software engineers are going to be extinct. I am beginning to see a lot of senior and mid level engineers quit their jobs to start saas companies.

Am I just in a bubble or that is not the case.

Ever feel like you’re screaming into the void?

I spent a lot time building a bill splitting app, launched it with high hopes…

But crickets. Few users. No traction.

Now I’m stuck wondering:
- Did I build something nobody wants? - Is my marketing just terrible? - How do I even get my first 100 users?

If you’ve been here before—please help me out:
1. What’s the fastest way to get real feedback? (Should I beg friends? Spam Reddit?)
2. Best free/cheap marketing hacks? (TikTok? Cold emails? Growth stunts?)
3. When do you give up vs. pivot?

Or… is this just how it goes at the start? 😅

Honest advice needed. (Roasts welcome.)

Hi all, 3 months ago i launched my SaaS tool, Bulletsocial, my idea was to create a tool that allows you to do cross platform sharing, like on 3-4 socials at the same time.

I received 3k visits in the last 3 months and 280 sign ups-409$ (It gives me a feeling that it's kinda of a failure). Most of my traffic came from short form video marketing across TikTok, ig and YouTube shorts.

I was advised to add something unique because my tool currently lacks a standout feature that would make people buy from me, and i decided to add a new feature, Bulletsocial will analyze all content and generate post based on most successful cases , hope to launch this feature on monday.

My question is, does it make sense ? I mean do my app has any potential(consider my new feature too pls) ? I believe the idea and wouldn't like to give up on it...

Sharing my story because I'm seeing so many people struggling lately. Launching is MUCH harder than those "solopreneurs" with 150k Twitter followers make it look...

The early days (AKA: making all the classic mistakes)

Started with CreativeLookup - built an ads creative library for marketers based on one friend's promise it would blow up. There was definitely a need, but also massive established players already dominating. Put in all that work and... nothing. No real traction because we had no clue how to market it properly. Complete failure.

Then, like literally every aspiring "be my own boss" person, I jumped into dropshipping. Burned through $1k trying to sell 4 different products. Failed spectacularly. Turns out dropshipping is all about marketing skills, not coding (who would have thought lol).

A bit better

Next came an Instagram engagement automation tool while still in college. This one actually worked! Grew it to about $1k MRR in 3-4 months, which felt incredible at the time. Then Instagram changed their algorithm and aggressively started blocking bots. Dead overnight. yikes.

That hurt.

Corporate Life to B2B Startup

Post-college, joined an IT corporation as a presales engineer covering EMEA. Went the extra mile, created several internal web applications that got recognition. Had everything on paper - great salary, solid work-life balance. But it became repetitive and boring. I felt stuck.

While still at my IT job, a friend invited me to build a wealth management platform. Secured funding from an angel investor who became our first client. Spent 2 years building it with great UX and all the features family offices and HNWIs needed. But the sales cycles were painfully long, and internal team conflicts started tearing us apart. After all that work... another failure.

At this point, I was seriously questioning if I was cut out for this entrepreneurship thing. The impostor syndrome was REAL.

Pivot into B2C

Feeling lost, I got invited to join and scale an EdTech startup with decent MRR. Took over product/development/analytics and SEO. Started using this content tool and noticed ENDLESS problems - terrible UX, missing crucial features, obvious improvement opportunities.

So we decided to build our own version.

Then came the realization: "Wait, if WE desperately need this, others probably do too."

So we did it.

We built and launched our SEO tool in 100 days. 50 days later, we're at $2.3k MRR. Not life-changing money yet, but it's growing steadily. After so many painful failures, watching that MRR go up each month feels absolutely incredible.

And this is the reality. Its painfully hard to build something profitable that people are willing to pay for!

---

What I've Learned:

• No one talks about how lonely the journey is
• Everybody can code, distribution is everything!
• Imposter sydrom will be there
• You will fail. Just keep going!
• Your first X ideas will probably suck. Or you wont know how to market them.
• launch early to not lose motivation. Secure some customers first then continue building based on the feedback.
• Listen to your customers & iterate fast!
• Build personal brand (X/ linkedin)!

Anyone else find success only after multiple failures? Would love to hear your stories too.

Just needed to vent about this mess. Spent my entire semester building this local sports event platform for what I thought was my big break. You know, the kind of project you include in your portfolio when applying for real jobs after graduation.

The idea was simple - a platform where local tournament organizers could post their events, create brackets, and people could sign up to participate. Nothing groundbreaking, but definitely useful for our area.

Client seemed super passionate about it. Said he played in local basketball leagues and was tired of everything being managed through 20 different WhatsApp groups. We had weekly meetings where he'd get all excited about features and possibilities. I actually believed him when he said this could turn into a startup.

I coded between classes, skipped parties, even bombed a midterm because I was up until 4am fixing bugs before a demo. My roommates barely saw me for months. Lived on ramen and energy drinks while this guy kept promising how successful we'd be once we launched.

Last week - right before finals week, mind you - he texts me saying he "needs to put the project on pause indefinitely" because he "underestimated the marketing challenges" or some BS. Translation: he's not paying the remaining $3k and everything I built is now sitting on my hard drive collecting virtual dust.

The money hurts (tuition isn't getting any cheaper), but honestly, it's the wasted time that kills me. Could've been focusing on my actual classes or taking that internship my professor recommended.

Anyway, I'm back to square one and need to make up the lost income this summer. If anyone needs a developer who can build web apps/SaaS products and has learned a hard lesson about getting payment milestones in writing, I'm available. Just please actually launch the thing I build for you.

Anyone been through something similar in their side hustles? How do you recover from a project graveyard?

Just to give you some context, about 3 years ago, I got a new job at a company in my city. On my first day of work, I was assigned a desk in a room with about 5-6 more colleagues. It had a really beautiful green space outside the huge windows, and being on the ground floor made it more enjoyable.

Only one problem: my desk was facing the wall, and since nobody cared enough to onboard us or at least tell us what I was supposed to do, I ended up just staring at the white wall for 90% of the day, pretty depressing way to start your first day. It turned out the environment was pretty toxic there, so I ended up leaving after only 3 months to… well, to try to freelance, I guess, or to be more precise, to start my software company.

Thus, for the next 8 months or so, I built and released a SaaS. It was an SEO tool for WP plugins; nobody used it, so what could I do? I just got a job and lost interest in that app, eventually closing it.

But this time was different. I got a remote job, and I enjoyed it for the most part. All was good until I got laid off, then hired again a few weeks later, then laid off again a year later, and then 3 months later offered a position again, to which I said no (we are talking about the same company).

This was just not sustainable, so I did the most logical thing anyone would do in this situation. Pay myself minimum wage, which is about $550-$600 a month, from the money I saved in my company’s bank account, try to survive and build something.

So that’s what I did, and about 6 months later, I got the first working prototype of my new app. It took a while, and while it started as a ticket-selling app (which I stopped working on for now), it ended up being a free scheduling tool called https://manyseats.com/, which aims to be the fair app in this space. It offers tons of stuff for free and only charges for advanced use cases. I mean, the app even features free and unlimited teams and members.

Anyway, now I am at about 50 users, and I have about 1-2 years' worth of savings, or less if the economy goes sideways. Not sure I made the right decision but I am sure happy I am not staring at that white wall anymore. Really hope to come back to this subreddit a few years into the future and tell you how I did it.

Hey folks 👋

I wanted to share exactly how I scaled my SaaS from 0 to ~$50K MRR in just a few months using outreach as the main growth channel. No fluff I’ll break down the tools, the playbooks, and how you can copy-paste the same approach.

My app is called Coco. We help e-commerce brands do WhatsApp marketing, it's super effective, and the install numbers + activation rates speak for themselves.

Our revenue is usage-based, with recurring components tied to WhatsApp credits. So the more messages users send, the higher our MRR.

We tried SEO, influencer marketing, inbound they barely moved the needle.

But outreach? That worked.

The app is making around $50k MRR, and it’s still growing month over month.

Let me walk you through the three main outreach channels I use, and how you can execute them for under $400/month.

🔹 1. LinkedIn Outreach ($150/month)

Tools:

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator (Free Trial or ~$99/month)
• Waalaxy (automated DM sequences)

How it works:

1. I search for ecom founders/CMOs using Sales Navigator filters (e.g. Shopify + Brazil).
2. Use Waalaxy to visit their profiles, send invites, then drip DMs.
3. Message sequence goes something like:
   • Invite → Friendly intro
   • Follow-up → Short pitch
   • Final → Demo CTA
4. I average 23% reply rate on these campaigns.
5. Calls booked → Demo → Close (average first-tier plan: $159/month)

Waalaxy gives you 2 weeks free, so you can get started right now for $0.

🔹 2. Cold Email ($150/month)

Tools:

• Apollo (to build lead lists)
• Clay (optional for email enrichment)
• Instantly (for automated cold email sequences)

The workflow:

1. Use Apollo or tools like MyLeadFox to scrape ecom stores (e.g. Shopify Plus in Brazil).
2. Enrich founder emails using Apollo or Clay.
3. Plug them into Instantly and set up:
   • 3–5 email sequences spaced over days
   • Personalized subject lines & body
4. We send ~1,700 emails/day.
5. Positive replies → Demo → Close

We’ve enriched thousands of leads, and cold email alone brought in a big chunk of our revenue.

🔹 3. Twitter DMs ($80/month)

Tool:

• DriPy (DM automation tool)

How I do it:

1. Pick a relevant account in ecom/Shopify space.
2. Scrape their followers using DriPy.
3. DM people with a short, casual message like:“Hey, have you ever used WhatsApp marketing for your store?”
4. Set follow-ups inside DriPy, and run this daily.

Not as powerful as email/LinkedIn, but still converts, especially when warmed up with content.

Funnel Recap:

The only goal of my outreach is to book demo calls.

My funnel is simple:

• Prospect ➝ Message ➝ Demo (use gojiberry.ai ) ➝ Close

If your product can be self-serve, even better people can install and pay directly.

But for us, demos convert better, especially for higher ARPU clients.

Cost Breakdown (Monthly):

Tool	Cost
LinkedIn	~$150
Email stack	~$150
Twitter	~$80
Total	~$380

And this system can bring in $50k+ MRR, if done right.

Final Thoughts:

• I’m not a cold outreach guru.
• I didn’t use fancy scripts.
• I just showed up daily, built lead lists, ran tests, optimized messages, and closed.

It works. It scales. It’s repeatable.

If you're building a SaaS and struggling with growth give this a try. Seriously. You don't need to go viral, raise money, or pray for Product Hunt.

You need leads. This brings them.

Happy to answer questions in the comments 🙌