u/Downtown_Pudding9728

Ok so, I can’t retire just yet 😅 but getting a business off the ground and attracting customers is the hardest part in my opinion.

There’s still a long way to go but considering it’s only been 3 months since launching the LinkedIn automation tool, I’m pretty happy with the results so far.

I get asked a lot about how I get customers, so thought I’d give more info on how I do distribution, in case you might find it useful.

1. Make sure your website is set up for success

Before sending people to your site, make sure you’re confident it has good CRO potential. Your mission statement and objective needs to be very clear, along with clear incentives for people to try the product out.

2. Offer free trials, but only behind a payment info gate

Now this is just my personal opinion, and I know a lot of people disagree, but the proof is in the numbers. I get fewer free trial signups, but significantly higher conversion rates into paying users from people who provide payment info at the start.

Yes, a few of them are people who simply forget to cancel, but mostly I get people who are more engaged in the free trial and actually using the product.

I actually did an AB experiment where I did offer completely free trials to people (no payment info needed), but the overwhelming result was that people barely even tried out the product and were mostly tire kickers that never came back. I did convert some but not a meaningful number.

3. Create a waitlist before launching

Try to generate interest in your product before it launches - build in public and try to ensure that you’re not scrambling to get customers through the door on day 1 when you launch.

I had 3 customers on day 1 from this, who took higher paid tiers as well.

4. Post and comment everywhere

Social media is free, so there’s no excuse not to leverage it. Post about your product and what you’re building on Reddit, LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Facebook etc.

I posted a simple screenshot on LinkedIn recently, of someone using a low quality LinkedIn automation tool message to contact me, and me offering my own much better tool in response, and that post generated 90,000 views and led to several signups and demo calls.

I’ve also had some posts on Reddit go into hundreds of thousands of views, mostly just posting about what/why/how I built ZenMode.

5. If you have competitors, make “alternative to” inner pages

If done in the right way, this type of inner page can be useful for SEO. It won’t be picked up automatically but usually if you work in a competitive industry, this will sometimes attract customers who had a bad experience elsewhere.

6. I actually use my own LinkedIn automation tool (dogfooding) to do LinkedIn outreach

So it’s always important to practice what you preach - I use my LinkedIn automation tool to actually promote the tool.

It’s a great way to get buy-in for booking demos, as when someone replies, I simply tell them I used my tool to get a response from them, so it works.

Obviously I’m biased but if you are looking for a way to automate lead generation on LinkedIn, you might find my automation tool useful.

Anyway hope you enjoyed reading the above, and good luck on your journey if you’re building anything, or growing your business 🙌

I used to work in outbound sales for an IT outsourcing business, so reaching out to people on LinkedIn to promote that service was something I did regularly.

Trying to send 200+ manual connection requests a week was time consuming though, and so I decided to use a tool to automate this process.

After about a week, I got a warning that my account might get banned if I continued doing this.

So, I stopped using that automation tool, as it didn’t seem worth it.

I did some research into why/how accounts get flagged for automation by LinkedIn, and it seemed like none of the existing tools really took all of these safety factors into account.

So, I built my own instead, for my own use case and to satisfy my paranoia about being banned on LinkedIn.

From the very beginning my intention was to make the automation as human-like as possible, so I deliberately scoped the architecture to have certain features;

- Browser based automation (no plugins/cloud usage)
- Daily rate limits on connection requests
- Randomised timing delays between actions
- On screen typing
- Human-like mouse clicks on LinkedIn pages

It certainly wasn’t easy putting this all together from scratch, and without any technical knowledge.

After a few weeks of building with AI tools
though, I had a working prototype.

I started using it in my sales job, and it was really helpful for me to book more meetings with engineering managers at the time, so I decided earlier this year to make the tool public as well.

Since launching in April, the tool has had over 450 people sign up to free trials, and has roughly 50 active users on average per day.

I also use it myself daily for my own outreach, and so far none of the users have had account bans.

So far at least, I can say that I achieved my goal of making a LinkedIn automation tool that I can trust with my account!

I used to work in outbound sales for an IT outsourcing business, so reaching out to people on LinkedIn to promote that service was something I did regularly.

Trying to send 200+ manual connection requests a week was time consuming though, and so I decided to use a tool to automate this process.

After about a week, I got a warning that my account might get banned if I continued doing this.

So, I stopped using that automation tool, as it didn’t seem worth it.

I did some research into why/how accounts get flagged for automation by LinkedIn, and it seemed like none of the existing tools really took all of these safety factors into account.

So, I built my own instead, for my own use case and to satisfy my paranoia about being banned on LinkedIn.

I called it ZenMode, inspired by the wu wei concept of effortless action, and achieving more while doing less.

From the very beginning my intention was to make the automation as human-like as possible, so I deliberately scoped the architecture to have certain features;

- Browser based automation (no plugins/cloud usage)
- Daily rate limits on connection requests
- Randomised timing delays between actions
- On screen typing
- Human-like mouse clicks on LinkedIn pages

It certainly wasn’t easy putting this all together from scratch, and without any technical knowledge.

After a few weeks of building with AI tools
though, I had a working prototype.

I started using it in my sales job, and it was really helpful for me to book more meetings with engineering managers at the time, so I decided earlier this year to make the tool public as well.

Since launching in April, ZenMode has had over 400 people sign up to free trials, and has roughly 50 active users on average per day.

I also use it myself daily for my own outreach, and so far none of the ZenMode users have had account bans.

So far at least, I can say that I achieved my goal of making a LinkedIn automation tool that I can trust with my account!

Hi everyone,

Earlier this year, I vibe coded a LinkedIn Automation tool from scratch, with zero engineering background, simply using Claude, Claude code and vercel.

I won’t go into details as to how/why I created it as I’ve already shared this before many times, but one of the questions I get asked the most is about distribution, and how I attract customers, so I thought it might be useful to share this info.

Before you even build something though, take the below into account;

1. You don’t need to re-invent the wheel

People often think they need to come up with the next Facebook or create the next billion dollar idea - usually the most successful apps are often the most simple, or very similar to what’s out there already.

The best apps simply improve on what already exists, or solve a problem most tools in the space don’t.

2. Make sure there’s actually demand for your niche

I see loads of SaaS tools which are just not something most people would pay for - usually something someone could create in a weekend. If it’s easy to create, it’s easy to replicate and unlikely to really be valuable/unique. It’s important to know your audience from day 1, not just build and hope.

3. Be willing to fail, and work hard

Everything comes with risk, but if you really put the work in then you’ll have a much better chance of making it. I wanted to give up several times but so far have always kept going.

And here’s what I actually did to market the tool;

1. Create a waitlist

I created a waitlist on the site, and talked very publicly about what I was building on every platform I could - Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, X etc.

In the end I had 33 people on the waitlist after a couple of months.

2. Launch at MVP, even if it’s not yet perfect

You don’t need to wait until your project has every single possible feature - it might take over a year of building before you get to a point where you’re actually satisfied with the product, and people are more than willing to use yours at MVP anyway.

Also, early users are essentially gold dust for learning edge cases, bugs, and usually give great feedback as to what can be improved.

It also will take time to build up your customer base, so you should start as early as possible and continue iterating.

3. Offer lifetime deals at the beginning

Very few people will subscribe to something that they have never heard of and has no reputation - how do they know it works or is worth paying money for?

Getting lifetime deals helps a) fund your project early on, and b) gets users through the door, who will most likely continue to use your tool and be your biggest fans long term. User data, especially in the beginning is key to building something that works well too.

I offered lifetime deals for the first month and generated about $1,800 in revenue from that, before switching to monthly subscriptions.

4. Post on Reddit frequently (don’t use AI though)

Whatever your product is, there’s probably multiple relevant subs here with many thousands of regular visitors where your ICP hangs out.

The challenge is finding one where you are less likely to get banned, and also you need to post in a less promotional way.

Usually the best posts are where you talk about challenges/accomplishments with building your product, rather than directly selling it or “build in public” posts.

Some people will indirectly become interested in whatever it is you’re building, if enough people read your post.

I have often posted about early revenue success from solo vibe coding a SaaS tool from scratch, and probably about 60-70% of the signups came from doing this many times on Reddit.

One caveat is that you should always write out your posts. It sometimes takes 15-20 mins or longer, but it’s worth it (and costs nothing).

5. Dogfood your own product

I have been using the automation tool since day 1 to test my account. Not only do I use it for testing, I actually do LinkedIn outreach with the tool itself.

It works for generating at least 3-5 demo calls a week for me, so I know first hand that it works well from a user perspective.

Because I’m always using it, I also spot things as a user that I feel could be improved - I’m building for myself as much as I am for others.

6. Build for organic / LLM visibility from the beginning

When building your site, make sure it’s built with organic/LLM visibility in mind from the beginning. At first it won’t have much impact, but it will compound over time. Make sure you have a blog with frequent, high quality posts, with relevant keywords in your niche.

The harder / more valuable part is offsite signals - aim to get mentioned on other blogs, and try to build reviews from TrustPilot, G2 and Capterra - more reviews equals more trust and more signals.

Getting mentioned in listicles like “best x in 2026” is extremely powerful if you’re able to do that.

Personally I have already got 7 5* reviews on TrustPilot since launching it recently, and will aim to get more moving forward.

7. Make a YouTube channel

YouTube is another free lever you can use to post content on, and posting regular build in public/demo content will help find a new audience. Again it’s most likely a slow burn, but as with everything, consistency is key.

Full disclosure - I myself need to do better at this 🤦‍♂️

8. Paid Ads

I’ve started doing this recently with Google ads, but so far it hasn’t yielded great results - still optimising the strategy and aiming for long tail traffic. Potentially worth doing depending on your niche and if you have the budget.

9. Demo calls & relationship building

Try to schedule demo calls and communicate as much as possible with your customers - don’t just hand them off to AI, as the human touch is key to keeping users engaged.

And that’s pretty much it. I did do a Product Hunt launch but it did not really lead to anything - if you really have a great network of people who are PH users and will vote for you then it can be great, but if you don’t have the network then it’s not that valuable.

Personally I also need to improve on conversion of free trial users (many of them are tire kickers who take a look for 30 seconds and never log in again), but retention of paid users lately has been very strong, and the tool is growing quickly.

Hope the above is useful! 🙏

Hi everyone,

Earlier this year, I vibe coded a LinkedIn Automation tool from scratch, with zero engineering background, simply using Claude, Claude code and vercel.

I won’t go into details as to how/why I created it as I’ve already shared this before many times, but one of the questions I get asked the most is about distribution, and how I attract customers, so I thought it might be useful to share this info.

Before you even build something though, take the below into account;

**1. You don’t need to re-invent the wheel**

People often think they need to come up with the next Facebook or create the next billion dollar idea - usually the most successful apps are often the most simple, or very similar to what’s out there already.

The best apps simply improve on what already exists, or solve a problem most tools in the space don’t.

**2. Make sure there’s actually demand for your niche**

I see loads of SaaS tools which are just not something most people would pay for - usually something someone could create in a weekend. If it’s easy to create, it’s easy to replicate and unlikely to really be valuable/unique. It’s important to know your audience from day 1, not just build and hope.

**3. Be willing to fail, and work hard**

Everything comes with risk, but if you really put the work in then you’ll have a much better chance of making it. I wanted to give up several times but so far have always kept going.

And here’s what I actually did to market the tool;

**1. Create a waitlist**

I created a waitlist on the site, and talked very publicly about what I was building on every platform I could - Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, X etc.

In the end I had 33 people on the waitlist after a couple of months.

**2. Launch at MVP, even if it’s not yet perfect**

You don’t need to wait until your project has every single possible feature - it might take over a year of building before you get to a point where you’re actually satisfied with the product, and people are more than willing to use yours at MVP anyway.

Also, early users are essentially gold dust for learning edge cases, bugs, and usually give great feedback as to what can be improved.

It also will take time to build up your customer base, so you should start as early as possible and continue iterating.

**3. Offer lifetime deals at the beginning**

Very few people will subscribe to something that they have never heard of and has no reputation - how do they know it works or is worth paying money for?

Getting lifetime deals helps a) fund your project early on, and b) gets users through the door, who will most likely continue to use your tool and be your biggest fans long term. User data, especially in the beginning is key to building something that works well too.

I offered lifetime deals for the first month and generated about $1,800 in revenue from that, before switching to monthly subscriptions.

**4. Post on Reddit frequently (don’t use AI though)**

Whatever your product is, there’s probably multiple relevant subs here with many thousands of regular visitors where your ICP hangs out.

The challenge is finding one where you are less likely to get banned, and also you need to post in a less promotional way.

Usually the best posts are where you talk about challenges/accomplishments with building your product, rather than directly selling it or “build in public” posts.

Some people will indirectly become interested in whatever it is you’re building, if enough people read your post.

I have often posted about early revenue success from solo vibe coding a SaaS tool from scratch, and probably about 60-70% of the signups came from doing this many times on Reddit.

One caveat is that you should always write out your posts. It sometimes takes 15-20 mins or longer, but it’s worth it (and costs nothing).

**5. Dogfood your own product**

I have been using the automation tool since day 1 to test my account. Not only do I use it for testing, I actually do LinkedIn outreach with the tool itself.

It works for generating at least 3-5 demo calls a week for me, so I know first hand that it works well from a user perspective.

Because I’m always using it, I also spot things as a user that I feel could be improved - I’m building for myself as much as I am for others.

**6. Build for organic / LLM visibility from the beginning**

When building your site, make sure it’s built with organic/LLM visibility in mind from the beginning. At first it won’t have much impact, but it will compound over time. Make sure you have a blog with frequent, high quality posts, with relevant keywords in your niche.

The harder / more valuable part is offsite signals - aim to get mentioned on other blogs, and try to build reviews from TrustPilot, G2 and Capterra - more reviews equals more trust and more signals.

Getting mentioned in listicles like “best x in 2026” is extremely powerful if you’re able to do that.

Personally I have already got 7 5* reviews on TrustPilot since launching it recently, and will aim to get more moving forward.

**7. Make a YouTube channel**

YouTube is another free lever you can use to post content on, and posting regular build in public/demo content will help find a new audience. Again it’s most likely a slow burn, but as with everything, consistency is key.

Full disclosure - I myself need to do better at this 🤦‍♂️

**8. Paid Ads**

I’ve started doing this recently with Google ads, but so far it hasn’t yielded great results - still optimising the strategy and aiming for long tail traffic. Potentially worth doing depending on your niche and if you have the budget.

**9. Demo calls & relationship building**

Try to schedule demo calls and communicate as much as possible with your customers - don’t just hand them off to AI, as the human touch is key to keeping users engaged.

And that’s pretty much it. I did do a Product Hunt launch but it did not really lead to anything - if you really have a great network of people who are PH users and will vote for you then it can be great, but if you don’t have the network then it’s not that valuable.

Personally I also need to improve on conversion of free trial users (many of them are tire kickers who take a look for 30 seconds and never log in again), but retention of paid users lately has been very strong, and the tool is growing quickly.

Hope the above is useful! 🙏

I vibe coded a LinkedIn automation tool from scratch, with zero engineering background, simply using Claude, Claude code and vercel.

I won’t go into details as to how/why I created it as I’ve already shared this before elsewhere, but one of the questions I get asked the most is about distribution, and how I attract customers, so I thought it might be useful to share this info.

And here’s what I actually did to market the tool;

**1. Create a waitlist**

I created a waitlist on the site, and talked very publicly about what I was building on every platform I could - Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, X etc.

In the end I had 33 people on the waitlist after a couple of months.

**2. Launch at MVP, even if it’s not yet perfect**

You don’t need to wait until your project has every single possible feature - it might take over a year of building before you get to a point where you’re actually satisfied with the product, and people are more than willing to use yours at MVP anyway.

Also, early users are essentially gold dust for learning edge cases, bugs, and usually give great feedback as to what can be improved.

It also will take time to build up your customer base, so you should start as early as possible and continue iterating.

**3. Offer lifetime deals at the beginning**

Very few people will subscribe to something that they have never heard of and has no reputation - how do they know it works or is worth paying money for?

Getting lifetime deals helps a) fund your project early on, and b) gets users through the door, who will most likely continue to use your tool and be your biggest fans long term. User data, especially in the beginning is key to building something that works well too.

I offered lifetime deals for the first month and generated about $1,800 in revenue from that, before switching to monthly subscriptions.

**4. Post on Reddit frequently (don’t use AI though)**

Whatever your product is, there’s probably multiple relevant subs here with many thousands of regular visitors where your ICP hangs out.

The challenge is finding one where you are less likely to get banned, and also you need to post in a less promotional way.

Usually the best posts are where you talk about challenges/accomplishments with building your product, rather than directly selling it or “build in public” posts.

Some people will indirectly become interested in whatever it is you’re building, if enough people read your post.

I have often posted about early revenue success from solo vibe coding a SaaS tool from scratch, and probably about 60-70% of the signups came from doing this many times on Reddit.

One caveat is that you should always write out your posts. It sometimes takes 15-20 mins or longer, but it’s worth it (and costs nothing).

**5. Dogfood your own product**

I have been using the LinkedIn automation tool I created since day 1 to test my account. Not only do I use it for testing, I actually do LinkedIn outreach with the tool itself.

It works for generating at least 3-5 demo calls a week for me, so I know first hand that it works well from a user perspective.

Because I’m always using it, I also spot things as a user that I feel could be improved - I’m building for myself as much as I am for others.

**6. Build for SEO and GEO from the beginning**

When building your site, make sure it’s built with SEO and GEO in mind from the beginning. At first it won’t have much impact, but it will compound over time. Make sure you have a blog with frequent, high quality posts, with relevant keywords in your niche.

The harder / more valuable part is offsite SEO - aim to get mentioned on other blogs, and try to build reviews from TrustPilot, G2 and Capterra - more reviews equals more trust and more signals.

Getting mentioned in listicles like “best x in 2026” is extremely powerful if you’re able to do that.

Personally I have already got 7 5\\\* reviews on TrustPilot since launching it recently, and will aim to get more moving forward.

**7. Make a YouTube channel**

YouTube is another free lever you can use to post content on, and posting regular build in public/demo content will help find a new audience. Again it’s most likely a slow burn, but as with everything, consistency is key.

Full disclosure I myself need to do better at this 🤦‍♂️

**8. Paid Ads**

I’ve started doing this recently with Google ads, but so far it hasn’t yielded great results - still optimising the strategy and aiming for long tail traffic. Potentially worth doing depending on your niche and if you have the budget.

**9. Demo calls & relationship building**

Try to schedule demo calls and communicate as much as possible with your customers - don’t just hand them off to AI, as the human touch is key to keeping users engaged.

And that’s pretty much it. I did do a Product Hunt launch but it did not really lead to anything - if you really have a great network of people who are PH users and will vote for you then it can be great, but if you don’t have the network then it’s not that valuable.

Personally I also need to improve on conversion of free trial users (many of them are tire kickers who take a look for 30 seconds and never log in again), but retention of paid users lately has been very strong, and the tool is growing quickly.

Hope the above is useful! 🙏

Last Christmas I was at my parent’s place, pretty bored just watching TV on the couch, and realised I wasn’t satisfied with my life.

My career wasn’t going anywhere, and I felt like I really had no direction or anything interesting going on in life.

I had spoken with a friend around that time, who had vibe coded his website for his business, and it looked really cool.

So I spoke with ChatGPT to see what i could possibly build that could be interesting, but done in a more innovative way to what already existed.

As I worked in sales already, it suggested that I lean into my own experience, and build something for my own use case.

I’d been using LinkedIn automation tools to help generate leads, but I kept getting warnings from LinkedIn from the tools I was using, so I wasn’t using them regularly.

So, after a lot of back and forth conversation with AI, I realised that there was a big opportunity to create a tool that was safer than anything else out there;

Every tool I’d been using operated either on the cloud or used plugins - there were almost none that simply operated on your desktop, and this would most likely remove my issue of getting warnings and appear natural to LinkedIn.

So, I decided to build something with this architecture for myself primarily, in the sales job that I was in - could I build something that would help me generate more leads, without risking my account as much?

Turns out, I could.

It definitely wasn’t easy, there was a very steep learning curve in terms of learning how to build something with AI, as well as making complex design and architectural decisions. I also made a lot of mistakes at first, especially building new features without testing.

As a result, there were tonnes of errors and bugs initially, but I spent a huge amount of time on hardening the backend, to ensure that it’s now highly unlikely to break, and even if it does, it’s quick/easy to diagnose and implement fixes.

It was a complex build as it’s essentially two code bases - a web dashboard where people can control their campaign settings and messaging sequences, with an inbuilt CRM, unified inbox, analytics etc., along with building the software itself, which automates LinkedIn in a dedicated browser on people’s desktops.

Aside from building it, I had to make sure it actually worked effectively. So I used it on my own account throughout the testing phase, and still use it every day until now for dogfooding ie using the tool to promote the tool - this is how I mainly generate new customers.

I made sure that the tool had strict daily limits on actions, randomised delays between connection requests and follow up messages, along with effective messaging, written by Claude Sonnet via API.

And it worked - in my first campaign in my old job, I got a 40% acceptance rate and a 25% response rate.

What I realised along the way though, was that working on the tool itself was much more enjoyable than my sales job, so, I decided to quit my job and go all in on building and working on the tool.

I made it into a business and took a leap of faith.

Now, the tool has had 300 signups to free trials, many of whom converted into paying customers, and so far hovering around $4k in total revenue since launching in April, completely bootstrapped.

Not a life changing sum yet but the first few months have been very promising, and there’s clearly a demand for a tool that’s safe for LinkedIn accounts and effective at booking meetings.

Anyway, I hope this story inspires people to follow your passions and keep going!

Last Christmas I was at my parent’s place, pretty bored just watching TV on the couch, and realised I wasn’t really satisfied with my life.

My job wasn’t going anywhere, and I felt like I really had no direction in life.

I had spoken with a friend around that time, who had vibe coded his website for his business, and it looked really cool.

So I spoke with ChatGPT to see what i could possibly build that could be interesting, but done in an innovative way.

As I worked in sales already, it suggested that I lean into my own experience, and build something for my own use case.

I’d been using LinkedIn automation tools to help generate leads, but I kept getting warnings from LinkedIn from the tools I was using, so I wasn’t using them regularly.

So, after a lot of back and forth conversation with AI, I realised that there was a big opportunity to create a tool that was safer than anything else out there;

Every tool I’d been using operated either on the cloud or used plugins - there were almost none that simply operated on your desktop, and this would most likely remove my issue of getting warnings and appear natural to LinkedIn.

So, I decided to build something for myself primarily, in the sales job that I was in - could I build something for myself that would help me generate more leads without risking my account as much?

Turns out, I could.

It definitely wasn’t easy, there was a very steep learning curve in terms of learning how to build something from scratch, not only learning how to build something and make architectural decisions, but building something in a safe, structured way too.

There were tonnes of errors and bugs at first, but I spent a huge amount of time on hardening the tool to ensure that it’s highly unlikely to break, and even if it does, it’s quick/easy to diagnose and implement fixes.

It was a complex build as it’s essentially two code bases - a web dashboard where people can control their campaign settings and messaging sequences, with an inbuilt CRM, unified inbox, analytics etc., along with building the software itself, which automates LinkedIn in a browser on people PC’s.

And not only did I have to build it, but I had to make sure it actually worked. So I used it myself throughout the testing phase.

I made sure that the tool had strict daily limits on actions, randomised delays between connection requests and follow up messages, along with effective messaging, written by Claude Sonnet via API.

And it worked - in my first campaign in my old job, I got a 40% acceptance rate and a 25% response rate.

What I realised along the way though, was that working on the tool itself was much more enjoyable than my sales job, so, I decided to quit my job and go all in on building and working on the tool.

I made it into a business and took a leap of faith.

Now, the tool has had 280 signups to free trials, many of whom converted into paying customers, and so far hovering around $3.7k in revenue since launching in April, completely bootstrapped.

Not a life changing sum yet but the first few months have been very promising, and there’s clearly a demand for a tool that’s safe for LinkedIn accounts and effective at booking meetings.

Anyway, I hope this story inspires people to follow your passions and keep going!

Last Christmas I was at my parent’s place, pretty bored just watching TV on the couch, and realised I wasn’t really satisfied with my life.

My job wasn’t going anywhere, and I felt like I really had no direction in life.

I had spoken with a friend around that time, who had vibe coded his website for his business, and it looked really cool.

So I spoke with ChatGPT to see what i could possibly build that could be interesting, but done in an innovative way.

As I worked in sales already, it suggested that I lean into my own experience, and build something for my own use case.

I’d been using LinkedIn automation tools to help generate leads, but I kept getting warnings from LinkedIn from the tools I was using, so I wasn’t using them regularly.

So, after a lot of back and forth conversation with AI, I realised that there was a big opportunity to create a tool that was safer than anything else out there;

Every tool I’d been using operated either on the cloud or used plugins - there were almost none that simply operated on your desktop, and this would most likely remove my issue of getting warnings and appear natural to LinkedIn.

So, I decided to build something for myself primarily, in the sales job that I was in - could I build something for myself that would help me generate more leads without risking my account as much?

Turns out, I could.

It definitely wasn’t easy, there was a very steep learning curve in terms of learning how to build something from scratch, not only learning how to build something and make architectural decisions, but building something in a safe, structured way too.

There were tonnes of errors and bugs at first, but I spent a huge amount of time on hardening the tool to ensure that it’s highly unlikely to break, and even if it does, it’s quick/easy to diagnose and implement fixes.

It was a complex build as it’s essentially two code bases - a web dashboard where people can control their campaign settings and messaging sequences, with an inbuilt CRM, unified inbox, analytics etc., along with building the software itself, which automates LinkedIn in a browser on people PC’s.

And not only did I have to build it, but I had to make sure it actually worked. So I used it myself throughout the testing phase.

I made sure that the tool had strict daily limits on actions, randomised delays between connection requests and follow up messages, along with effective messaging, written by Claude Sonnet via API.

And it worked - in my first campaign in my old job, I got a 40% acceptance rate and a 25% response rate.

What I realised along the way though, was that working on the tool itself was much more enjoyable than my sales job, so, I decided to quit my job and go all in on building and working on the tool.

I made it into a business and took a leap of faith.

Now, the tool has had 280 signups to free trials, many of whom converted into paying customers, and so far hovering around $3.7k in revenue since launching in April, completely bootstrapped.

Not a life changing sum yet but the first few months have been very promising, and there’s clearly a demand for a tool that’s safe for LinkedIn accounts and effective at booking meetings.

Anyway, I hope this story inspires people to follow your passions and keep going!