The app is called brainrot, it's a screen time app that visualizes your brain "rotting" the more time you spend on your phone.

BACKSTORY:

The story of how I got here actually started many years ago with many failed projects and businesses, and ~400 days ago I started documenting my journey through daily videos on social media.

My thesis was: i'm constantly starting and failing all these projects and then restarting from square 0. Maybe it would be benefit me if people saw MY STORY. The entrepreneur hustling and persevering behind the scenes. And maybe those people could help me make my projects successful.

Inspired largely by Pieter Levels, @ levelsio on Twitter/X

I managed to build up a following of about 200k people across platforms (insane) and eventually launched brainrot to my audience. I am @ yoniman.mp4 on IG/TT, @ yonismolyar on Twitter/X.

MOST OF THE REVENUE IS NOT FROM MY PERSONAL BRAND, KEEP READING :)

WHY BRAINROT:

I was solving a real problem in my life.

Through content creation, I became deeply addicted to my phone and social media.

The dopamine of likes/comments/followers is super strong and sucked me deep into 10+ hour screen time days.

I wanted a screen time app / app blocker to fix this so I decided to make one myself.

THE TECH:

iPhone app only, no Android support at this time. Wrote it in Swift, heavily leveraging Cursor / Claude / now Claude Code. Never made a mobile app before. Superwall for the paywall, I highly recommend it.

The app is 90+% "vibe coded", despite me being a Staff Software Engineer at a big tech company. AI code generation is amazing and a massive unlock.

Took me about 2.5 months from start to App Store release. I scrapped and rewrote the app twice, and got rejected by the App Store 6 times before approval.

THE LAUNCH:

For the 2.5 months that I was building, I kept the substance / identity of the app a secret. I shared that I had an app idea, I was building it, showed timelapses of me coding for hours, and shared all of App Store rejections.

But I kept the idea a secret because I didn't want someone to steal it and launch it before me.

Being afraid of copycats is infantile, I know, but I just wanted to be the first to launch a screen time app called brainrot.

I finally shared the launch to my followers and generated a few thousand downloads in the first day. That turned into like $3000? Insane.

But that's not where the majority of the revenue came from.

THE PRODUCT HUNT LAUNCH:

This was HUGE for me.

I scheduled the launch the night before. Made a quick little launch page and sort of forgot about it.

The next morning, I see a DM from a follower and I'm already #4 on Product Hunt. I look at Superwall and omg like 5000 downloads already today by 7am.

I promote the launch to my followers, pls vote for me, and throughout the day sure enough, #3, #2, #1. Locked in #1 on Product Hunt on my first ever launch.

This generated for me over 10,000 downloads in one day. About $5000 in revenue. In one day.

How did I get #1? How was I #4 by 7am?

I was wondering these questions. I found the answer the very next day.

Product Hunt sends out a daily newsletter highlighting a few interesting products launching that day.

The morning of my launch, they sent out an email with Subject: "Cure your brainrot"

The first section of the email was all about brainrot! This primed all Product Hunt enthusiasts to go check out my app. This is the primary reason it performed so well!

Their emails include the following line, worth pursuing if you're considering a launch:

P.S. Got a launch that deserves the spotlight? Pitch us at [[email protected]]() 🫶

POST LAUNCH:

After the launch, the huge spike in sales fell to a more consistent baseline of about ~300 downloads per day, about ~$200/day in proceeds after Apple takes their cut.

These 300 downloads are mostly App Store Search (people search "brainrot" or other keywords in the App Store), many of whom I assume come from my Instagram videos where I talk about the app.

I'm now working on distribution strategies and having varying degrees of success. Trying UGC creators, meme pages, TikToks, etc. Struggling, honestly.

CONCLUSION:

It's been a grind and a blast, this success is sitting atop about half a decade of failures. Remains to be seen the future of brainrot. I'm cautiously optimistic.

My personal brand has been immensely valuable in this. I highly recommend to any builders reading this, if you relate to my story of constantly starting and failing and restarting from square 0, consider making daily videos about your progress and efforts. It may take many months for the videos to pick up traction, they may never pick up traction, but having an audience is tremendously valuable and I recommend it to any aspiring entrepreneurs.

TL;DR: Posted 400+ daily videos in a row on social media, gained 200k+ followers, launched an app, launched on Product Hunt, now working on finding durable and sustainable distribution for the app.

As a freelancer who builds SaaS products and AI agents for clients, I've had a front-row seat to watching founders succeed (and fail) over the past few years. The ones who actually make it rarely follow the advice you see plastered all over startup space.

They didn't launch fast, they didn't "fail forward," they didn't grind 100-hour weeks or chase VC money just because it's what you're "supposed" to do.

Here's what I've actually seen work:

• One client built a SaaS for small dental practices. Took her 8 months perfecting it while I helped iterate on the MVP, only launched when three dentists started asking when they could pay for it. Never did a public launch, just kept growing by referrals. Still bootstrapped, making $40k/month, zero hype.

• Another guy ignored all the "build in public" advice. Didn't tweet once, just called 10 restaurant owners every week and fixed their scheduling problems. I built him a simple automation tool that handled the backend work. No launch day, no press, just steady $5k monthly growth for two years straight.

• One founder never wrote code himself. Paid me and other freelancers to build his inventory management tool, tested it with paying hardware stores, and only learned basic coding after he had 50 customers. The "learn to code first" advice would've killed his momentum.

• I know a founder who never cared about "scaling" or "hockey stick growth." He just wanted a business that paid him $8k/month and let him work 4 days a week. Now he's got a tiny project management SaaS, 200 loyal customers, and takes Fridays off. Sometimes the simple AI agents I build for these smaller operations work better than the complex systems bigger companies use.

The rules are nice for blog posts, but the people actually winning? They're making their own playbook, ignoring the noise, and building businesses that work for them, not for Twitter.

Half my clients have never even heard of "product-market fit" as a term, but they've got it better than most funded startups.

This is the first time I’ve felt like a builder.

A few weeks back, I launched a tool called Text Behind Object — it lets you place text behind any object in a photo, like those crazy POV thumbnails on YouTube.
No Photoshop. Just upload → generate → download.

I posted it on Reddit yesterday just to see if anyone cared.

Today:

• 26,000 people saw it
• 316 visited the site
• 11 signed up
• 2 paid
• Now 3 paying users total
• $4.50 earned in total

Not life-changing money. But it is proof.
Proof that strangers will pay for something I made. That I can build. That it’s real.

It’s been hard watching others go viral with similar tools while I stayed invisible. But today, I got a little taste of traction.

To anyone who’s building something and feeling stuck: keep posting. Keep iterating. One small wave can change everything.

This was mine.

To give background I was following a bunch of builders on X during the start of the AI wave (cursor, bolt.new, etc). I followed one particular guy, we'll call him Bob. Bob had about 8k followers on X and was super into the AI building scene. He was also into content automation, so he decided to build a content automation platform for founders to market their SaaS. Like selling shovels to the gold miners I figured this was a great way for me to get involved. I had dabbled in content automation, I know social media well, and know how to code (9-5 SWE here).

I saw what he had built and saw the success we was getting. Almost 50K MRR in 2 months. I also saw the value in his product. I had previous SaaS projects that I could have used his platform to help with marketing.

So as any cheap developer would do, I built it myself. I documented the whole thing on IG/Tiktok and tried to gain a following while I built this thing in public. I spent a good 30 days grinding on this. I'm talking 10-20 hours outside my 9-5 to get this out. I went deep into the ffmpeg rabbit hole since I had to process videos and pictures (a pain imo but it felt like a moat).

I felt really good about it. I still saw his success and I had a platform that was literally identical but cheaper.

Then I launched it (my first actual launch). I did product hunt, I promoted a tweet on twitter, and posted about it on my growing IG and Tiktok pages. I had people sign up but nobody ever bought a plan. I know google ads so I ran some of those too. Nobody ever converted. I figured I'd just keep posting about it and people would come. That was 100% the wrong mentality to have.

The main reason this is a hard platform to sell is it requires time and understanding of how to run an automated account (because no account is truly 100% automated). Warming up social accounts, manually posting the content, and more to make sure the account is setup even before worrying about the actual content. So to I reached out to people to essentially hand hold them and offer my advice.

A couple took it but their motivation to use the platform died quick after they were manually posting videos that didn't get views. I did this a couple more times before feeling defeated.

I learned two things here:

1. Distribution is everything. He had 8k followers on X of people who he knew could use his product. I had difficulty paying for traffic to get it in front of the right people (content automation keywords are over saturated)

2. When you solve a problem you have to be ultra motivated by that problem. Especially something like content automation where the rules are constantly changing. I got burnt out trying to learn all the little things to make it work, when after a week of learning, the rules would change.

3. I wish I had created a basic landing page and asked people if they would use it before building out the video processing. Ffmpeg was a pain to use and took a ton of my time and that could have been avoid until I 100% knew people would use it.

TLDR: I copied a SaaS platform from someone on X and got burnt out trying to learn the industry (content automation)

Hey Founders,

I spent four years working in-house as an SEO specialist and on the agency side, handling various projects including SaaS, mobile apps, browser extensions, and even traditional B2B companies.

One question clients frequently asked was:

“Where should we list our product for backlinks and visibility?”

To answer that, I started building my own directory and listing database, one entry at a time. This includes startups, SaaS directories, niche forums, free submission platforms, and local citations.

That effort has now resulted in a comprehensive list of over 820 hand-vetted places to list your startup. I've used this list myself and with more than 20 clients, and it consistently:

• Provides early backlinks

• Drives discovery traffic

• Improves brand visibility

• Gets you featured on roundup blogs and “best tools” lists

Most of these listings are free. Some require manual entry, while others allow for API or submission tools.

I’ve also added filters to help you navigate the list:

• SaaS only

• Local (USA/Canada)

• AI Tools

• Chrome Extensions

• App Store/Alt Store listings

• Funding-focused sites

• Backlinks categorized by Domain Rating (DR) and indexing speed

I created this tool to automate directory submissions (so you don’t spend 8 hours filling out the same form). Founders are using it to secure 20–40 live links in just a week!

Finally, I’m sharing the exact SEO checklist I used for my consulting clients, something I charged $1,500+ for, which I’m now giving away for free. No email gate, just good karma.

If you're interested, comment “send,” and I’ll share the full Notion document with you.

Edit - Guyss this post blow up !! I can't send list to everyone in DM.

I am sharing the list here

https://charming-wednesday-936.notion.site/18ac8ab792fa8047ab4bda7b6e3474e4?v=18ac8ab792fa81f08731000ca1518f82&source=copy_link

A few months ago I sold my ecom SaaS after scaling it to $500K ARR in 8 months and after 2 other failed companies.

It was not easy, not AT ALL.

A lot of hours, boring work, tests, failures, missed parties. But I can tell you : it’s worth it.

I’m now building gojiberryAI (we find high intent leads for B2B companies), and there’s a few things I learned along the way, if you want to go from 0 to $10K MRR in a few weeks.

I made all the mistakes a SaaS founder can make:

• built something absolutely NOBODY wanted, during 6 months
• built something « cool » no one wanted to pay for
• created a waiting list of 2000 people and nobody paid for my product

So now, it’s time to give back and share what I learnt, if it can help a few people here, I’d be happy.

Here is the habits I’d put in place right now, EVERYDAY if I had to start again and go from 0 to $10K MRR in a few weeks.

Just do this EVERYDAY.

Stop being lazy. If your mind tells you to stay confortable : push yourself, do it anyway.

Your mind is a terrible master. It will tell you "don't send this message", "it's better if you go outside, it's sunny today", "don't post on reddit, people will tell you that your idea is horrible"

If you listen to your mind, you're just avoiding conflict, but you need conflict to move forward.

You’ll discover later, after pushing a little bit that it was not that difficult, and your future self will thank you for this.

Here are the 5 habits to do EVERYDAY :

1. Send 20-30 connexion requests on LinkedIn to your ideal customer -> 20 minutes/day

do this manually, pick people, connect. That’s it

1. Send 20-30 messages on LinkedIn to these people or to other people in your network that could fit -> 1h/day
   

> dont pitch, just introduce yourself

> ask questions, or ask for feedbacks « hey, I saw you were doing X, do you have Y problem ? we’re trying to solve it with Z, could this help ? »

1. Send 20-100 cold emails (20 if you’re doing it manually, 100+ if it’s a campaign) -> 2h/day if manual
   

> Again, don't pitch, and keep it short.

> Don't forget to follow up, you'll get most of your answers after 2-3 follow-up emails.

1. Comment 10 Reddit threads in your niche -> 1h/day
   

> bring value to people, and then mention your solution if it makes sense

> go to « alternative posts » in your niche, people use reddit to find other solutions, comment these posts, bring value, mention your solution.

1. Post 1 content per day on Linkedin -> 30min
   

> provide value "How to", "5 steps to" etc...

> write about industries statistics "80% of companies in X industry have Y problem, here is how they solve it".

> talk about your customer’s problems "here's how people working in X can solve Y"

> give a lead magnet "I created a guide that help X solve/increase Y, comment to get it"

> adding people on Linkedin + sending messages + creating content will create a loop that can be very powerful (people will see you everywhere)

Yes, at the beginning,

• you’ll have 1 like on your linkedin post.
• you’ll probably have 1 answer every 20 linkedin messages
• nobody will answer to your emails

But if you do this everyday, it’s gonna compound, and in 1 month, you might have 10 customers.

If you continue, get better, improve, optimize, you’ll maybe have 30 customers the next month + get some referrals.

And you’ll get even more the month after.

Don’t underestimate the exponential and the power of doing something everyday for a long period of time.

Again, it’s worth it. You just need to do what you’re avoiding, or to do MORE of it.

Pitch your startup

• Max 7 words
• Link if ready

👀 Seen by 205k people last month 📈 YES, consider this marketing - GO!

Let me start with mine bubbleit this is a tool that let you generate eye-catching flyer within seconds

The website is called instaport.io. It basically solves the problem of dealing with a portfolio, you just put your name( if you are confident you are known enough ) or your CV and select a design and preferences + it gets updated by itself when you update your LinkedIn/github or online traffic is enough

BACKSTORY:

Built it basically for Hal Abelson, the creator of MIT’s app inventor because I thought his portfolio looked a little outdated so I decided to make this

So yeah, I haven’t made a dollar but it was a great journey and project to make while being in first year in college since I use many cool and frameworks

Let me know what you think 🫡

Most indie hackers (me included) chase exciting ideas — AI tools, social apps, flashy dashboards. But every time I look at the people quietly making steady revenue, they’re solving boring problems.

Things like: • Automating invoices for plumbers • Inventory tools for tiny local stores • Scheduling apps for dog groomers

Not sexy, but these niches pay because the problems are painful and no one’s rushing to build for them.

I’m forcing myself to look for “boring but painful” problems now. It’s not as fun to talk about, but it’s way easier to find users who’ll pay.

I already took one great idea and vibe coded it. I'm releasing it next week.

Got any more ideas I can rip off while you're still trying to get visibility?

BTW, I'm not joking. I literally ripped off a resume idea and it's a great idea! I doubt the person even protected the idea.

Pitch your startup

• in 1 line
• link if it’s ready

I run a product launch platform with solid reach and offer backlinks to featured products.

POST IS CLOSED EVERYONE. I'LL DO ANOTHER NEXT WEEK. STAY TUNED!

I do this every week here, so you must already know me.

Please make sure I haven't given you feedback in the past week.

Hello, I'm Ismael

Share your current SaaS products below with:

Short, one sentence, description of your product.

Status: Landing page / MVP / Beta / Launched

Link (if you have one)

I'll go first:

Super Launch - A clean and minimal product launch platform, for boosting traffic and exposure for your product.

Status: Fully Launched

Link: Super Launch

What's everyone else working on? Let's support each other and see some cool ideas! 🚀

Not that it's charity but I want to make a YT video to show people that how it can be done organically!,

So Would there be any chance in hell that you will allow me to get users for your SaaS for a Month at no cost? I will not even take commission

But also there are few things, If you are generous enough to allow me, these are the few things that there will be done:
- You will Need to give me a testimonial (If I get you clients)
- I am going to document this stuff so you should be okay with showing your business on YouTube
- You will allow me some time to research your business like from website or using it's free trial so that I can figure out how to get it sold
- You will have no creative control over me. (It's a Ego thing...)
- If I get you the amount of clients you get Impressed from, you will have to say "Shree is a Handsome man" (It's also a Ego thing....)

I hope you allow me 🤞

Share your current projects below with:

Short description of your project.

Status of the project : Landing page / MVP / Launched

Link (if you have one)

Revenue ( if any )

I'll go first:

Postscheduler - A simple social media scheduler that lets you bulk schedule your posts via folders and CSV files as well .

Link - Postscheduler

Revenue - $1

Let's see what are you building in the comments .

Share your current SaaS products below with:

A short intro about you.

Short, one sentence, description of your product.

Status: Landing page / MVP / Beta / Launched

Link (if you have one)

I'll go first:

I'm an indie hacker building mostly SaaS web apps. Working on my 5th indie project,

Super Launch - A clean and minimal product launch platform, for boosting traffic and exposure for your product.

Status: Fully Launched

Link: Super Launch

What's everyone else working on? Let's support each other and see some cool ideas! 🚀

A month ago Apple finally accepted my vibe coded (EDIT: for ppl asking what I app for distribution. I spent like an hour vibe coding the concept but a few days fixing bugs, adding features, learning about the publishing process, creating app store assets etc.

1 month in:

• 84 downloads
• 15 In-app-purchases (subs)
• ~$4 monthly sub value (depending on country)
• $69.15 MRR

Screenshot link: https://imgur.com/Ut7EBQ4

Should I quit already? I feel I'd need like $4,000 MRR to keep this going but that seems far off.

I see people every day trying to be sneaky hiding their product in long posts or pretending to casually mention their tool as if they’re just a random third person. But let’s be honest, everyone can tell you're the builder behind it.

The point is: no matter what trick you try, people aren’t dumb. They can see through the self promo instantly.

This isn’t a rant, just a suggestion Instead of trying to disguise your product, be upfront. Share what it does, what problem it solves, and add some value for the readers. If your product is actually good and the post helps people, you won’t get shit on. Believe me.

Thanks for reading lol

Yeap, all my code is generated by Lovable.
Yeap, I thought Clerk is HIPAA compliant (they are not).
Yeap, my database is on Supabase because Lovable connected it for me.
Yeap, my prompts described patient symptoms and treatment plans.
Yeah, I saw their SOC 2 badge and thought, "perfect, it's secure."
Yeap, bureaucracy laughed in my face.
Yeap, I still tell investors we have a "state-of-the-art, secure-by-design" platform.

Nop, I don't have a BAA from Lovable.
Nop, I haven't configured Supabase's POT recovery or read the fine print on their $599/mo plan.
Nop, I don’t know if my app's logic is training their public AI models.
Nop, I didn’t write a single security policy myself.. I just trusted the platform.
Nop, I don't check for anything beyond the basic "vulnerability scan."

But yeah.. we still got multipe letter of intent from hospitals this week!!! Time to rip everything apart and refactor.

God help me.

Hey, what are you working on today? Share with us and let's connect.

I'll go first: Productburst: A Free product launching platform supporting startups and creators. You can launch, get feedback, backlink, early users and more visibility for your app for free. Supporting over 700 products and creators.

The website is https://productburst.com

Your turn, what are you working on.

Hey I'm founder of FindYourSaaS

It increase your SaaS outreach and boost sales by promo code.

Time for fun guys!

Genuinely curious of what you're building!

Share your projects with:

1. Short description of your project
2. link ( if you have one )

What's everyone been working on? Let's support and see cool ideas.

I will start with mine.

FundNAcquire - Online Business Business MarketPlace for VC and Private Equity firms

Was just wondering about this.

Seems in the west we have software with very linear specialization as opposed to platforms that do everything.

In China I’m pretty sure WeChat does everything short of their laundry lol

I know the instinctual reaction is to say “because everything apps are master of none and niche apps do better” and so on.

But is that really true?

Seems big companies can hire the best talent and expand their markets to make a better solution even in things outside of their domain of expertise.

Like. Even if they get everything wrong and fail they can just acquire or hire out talent. Most of them are so big they can keep failing and still succeed.

People point to Google and how they are a case study of this. But I just don’t get how.

My friend’s startup has like $60k/mo in operating expenses across a team of 9. They just recently became profitable so salaries will be increasing soon.

But like. To Google, $60k/mo is nothing. They pay some people that to sit around and do nothing. Why can a small team even make a product and gain market share while big companies fail to do so? What am I missing?

Don’t resources & capitalization win in the end?

“Just launched my AI tool, it’s a chatbot for X”
“$60 MRR in 30 days with this AI-powered SaaS”
“Built this using AI and Supabase in 2 hours”

Cool. Now show us the users.

We’re in a phase where everyone is building the same kind of project. Same stack, same AI tools, same surface-level execution. Next.js, Supabase, PostgreSQL, Vercel. Cursor-generated boilerplate. A little prompt engineering sprinkled in.

Most of these projects are pointless. No real users. No pain point. Just another fast build and launch post for karma or claps.

AI made building faster. But it didn’t magically turn everyone into a founder. If you don’t understand the problem deeply or the user you’re building for, your project won’t last longer than a tweet.

If your goal is money, learn how to sell. Not how to scaffold a new app. Talk to real people. Study painful problems. Solve something that actually matters.

The only people making consistent money right now are those selling the dream. Courses, templates, content, hype. Not SaaS founders. Hype founders.

Before spinning up your next idea, ask yourself:

• What problem do I understand better than most people
• Who actually needs this and would pay for it
• What am I really good at that I can build around

We don’t need more AI side projects that exist just to exist.
We need solutions that are rooted in experience and driven by purpose.

short and sweet, i will provide feedback