u/Elo_azert

Hi, I’ve realised that the vast majority of people who create SaaS platforms or side projects struggle to promote their projects and end up stuck with just a few users, unable to grow their user base. (It’s happened to me too...)

And I realised that people who’ve built amazing communities, like Marclou for example, could easily sell their products to people in their community, so I’ve decided that my new priority is to build a community, and I think I’m going to do it mainly on YouTube Shorts. Well, I know it’s going to take time and that it’s really competitive, but I’m going to give it a go! What do you think? Is it a good idea in your opinion?

Hi, basically I was rubbish. I hadn’t been using Reddit for very long, so I wrote some posts using AI—not to get more karma, but more to make myself known. Anyway, it wasn’t right. I got banned by BotBouncer, and that’s where I’d really appreciate your help

I’d already sent a few messages at the start because I didn’t know why I’d been banned, and then I asked them if they could unban me. Basically, they’ve banned me from posting for 7 days – I can’t send them any more messages – but generally speaking, told myself I could send them a message later, say in a month’s time, asking them to unban me again, but I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do or what I should actually say in the message, because I just know I messed up and I shouldn’t have sent those messages using the AI, so apart from my word that I won’t do it again, there’s really any guarantee that I won’t do it again. Anyway, I’d appreciate your opinions.

Please, no hate. I’ll never send messages using AI again, I promise :)

(By the way, I should point out that I wrote this message in French and translated it using DeepL.)

The day before yesterday, I gave my first pitch to real prospects in person, rather than via messages, and it was the most stressful moment of my life. The main thing I took away from it is that I forgot everything, and that instead of giving a long pitch, I should have just stuck to the essentials of what I wanted to say, without any unnecessary details. What do you think?

Hi to the entrepreneurs here who've gone to pitch prospects in person, how did you handle it the first time you went to talk to a prospect? I went yesterday for the first time, I've never been so stressed in my entire life and I completely stumbled and got totally lost in what I was trying to say. Do you have any advice for when I go back out to talk to more people???

Today I went out and talked to potential customers face to face for the first time. Up until now everything I'd done was through DMs or messages where you have time to think, edit, and rewrite before hitting send. In person there's no edit button.

It was probably one of the most stressful moments I've had since starting this. My heart was beating in my throat the entire time. I had a clear pitch prepared, I'd rehearsed it, I knew exactly what I wanted to say. The second I opened my mouth in front of a real human all of that vanished. I went completely off script. I didn't even cover half of the things I wanted to mention. I rambled. I forgot the actual problem my product solves at one point. Like genuinely forgot. I had to come back to it after 30 seconds of nervous nonsense.

It was a catastrophe.

But I'm trying to remind myself of something Alex Hormozi says, you're bad until you're good. There's no shortcut. Nobody walks up to a stranger and pitches perfectly the first time. The only way through it is reps. Lots of reps. Bad ones, awkward ones, embarrassing ones, until your nervous system finally calms down and you can actually think while you talk.

I also realized something important. Even with my catastrophic delivery the prospects gave me feedback that I would have never gotten from behind a screen. The way they reacted, the parts they didn't understand, the questions they asked, the moments their eyes glazed over. All of that is signal you can't get from analytics or a survey form.

So yeah, it sucked. But I'd rather suck in person and learn fast than stay safe behind my keyboard and learn nothing.

Curious if anyone else here remembers their first in-person pitch. How long did it take before you stopped wanting to throw up beforehand?

I've noticed something and honestly I used to operate the exact same way before. Most people who build a SaaS think the hard part is building the product. They spend weeks or months coding, they polish the UI, they add features, they ship, and then they wait. And nothing happens.

The truth is the building phase is the easy part now. Especially with AI you can ship a working product in a few weeks. The genuinely hard part starts the day after launch when you realize nobody is coming.

Getting your first users is what separates the projects that survive from the ones that quietly die in a graveyard of half finished side projects. And the only way I've seen it work, both from my own experience and from watching other indie hackers do it, is going out and actually talking to people who could potentially use your product. Not posting on twitter and hoping. Not waiting for SEO. Talking to humans. One by one. Asking them to test it. Asking them what's broken. Asking them what they actually need.

It's slow. It's awkward at first. You feel like you're bothering people. But every single conversation gives you more signal than a week of staring at analytics with zero visitors.

I built my first SaaS solo, was super proud of it, launched it, and got 70 visitors in several months. Zero customers. The wake up call was brutal but it taught me that the code was never the bottleneck. The distance between me and real users was.

Curious if others here had the same realization. What's the moment that made you switch from "build mode" to "talk to users mode"?

Salut,

Je poste pour un pote à moi qui est plombier à son compte depuis 3 ans. Il a pas Reddit donc je tente ici pour lui.

En gros il est en train de péter un câble avec la gestion de ses échanges clients. Typiquement un client le contacte par mail pour un devis, puis lui envoie un WhatsApp avec la photo du truc à changer, puis un SMS pour confirmer un horaire, puis le rappelle pour ajouter un détail, puis re-mail 3 semaines plus tard en pensant qu'il se souvient de tout.

Il m'a raconté qu'il passe un temps de dingue à chercher l'info quand un client lui demande un truc, parce qu'il sait plus sur quel canal elle lui a été donnée. Genre il scrolle 10 min dans WhatsApp, puis dans ses SMS, puis dans ses mails. La dernière fois il a même rappelé une cliente pour lui redemander un truc qu'elle lui avait envoyé par mail la semaine d'avant.

Il a 12-15 chantiers en parallèle et il en peut plus. Il m'a demandé si je connaissais un outil qui regroupe tout au même endroit par client, genre une conversation par personne peu importe le canal. J'ai cherché, j'ai trouvé des trucs pour grosses boîtes (CRM style Hubspot) mais rien pour un mec tout seul.

Du coup ma question à ceux qui sont dans le même cas :

• Vous faites comment vous pour pas vous perdre ?
• Vous utilisez un outil ? Un système maison ?
• Ou vous galérez comme lui ?

Je prends toutes les idées, je lui ferai passer. Merci d'avance 🙏