How can you fail 10 times but still win big after figuring out one specific marketing strategy that most startup founders forget about?

Background

Meet Tibo, an ex-software engineer from France. Now a well-known indie hacker who exited his startup in an 8-figure deal, who's running a portfolio of SaaS products doing over $10M per year.

But just a few years ago, he had no money, no audience, and a family he had to provide for, so he had to figure something out, fast.

He started working with Tom, his old friend, and they split their roles:

• Tibo was responsible for the technical part
• Tom was responsible for marketing

They shipped 10 apps very quickly, spending less than 2 weeks on each one. All of them failed.

But then the 11th one worked!

Let's break down the exact strategy that helped him get his first users and scale his business.

Marketing Breakdown

Step 1: Get early feedback

After shipping a lot and documenting their journey on Twitter, Tom and Tibo noticed that some of the users of their apps were coming from Twitter. So they came up with the idea of building a tool that would help Twitter creators grow faster.

To get some early feedback and understand if this tool would be useful, Tibo offered it for free to a small group of people to get feedback as early as possible.

Tweet:
https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/1393222424251011075

This tweet didn't go viral, but it got him a few beta testers.

On top of making his own tweet, he engaged with other Twitter creators and sent them DMs, offering to try out his tool for free.

After collecting early feedback and improving the tool, the initial version of TweetHunter was ready. Initially, it was a simple application that showed a collection of high-performing tweets that you could repurpose to increase your chances of going viral on Twitter.

At this point, they proved that getting early validation and sales, you don't need a complex product. As long as you solve a painful problem, and you do it well, it will work.

Step 2: Right distribution channel

Tibo wasn't getting a lot of views. Some of his build-in-public posts were getting only 8 likes:

Tweet:
https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/1394335917599537155

But he absolutely nailed the distribution channel.

He was promoting on Twitter, a tool that helps you grow your Twitter account, to people who were on Twitter. That's what you'd call "the META play".

Because he used the right channel, even with 8 likes, he was getting leads.

If he were to promote this tool on Instagram, even with thousands of views, most likely the results wouldn't have been that good.

Step 3: Get people to engage + send DMs

After getting early feedback and the first beta testers, he started selling.

For that, he used one simple, powerful strategy.

He figured out his ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) and got them to engage with the post. This tweet performed very well and got ~500 people to leave a comment.

Tweet:
https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/1393249092546056192

After that, he DMed those people and offered them TweetHunter.

On top of that, he reached out to dozens of Twitter creators with over 1,000 followers.

Here is what this DM looked like:

>Hey [Name], saw you're posting consistently about [topic] and clearly taking Twitter growth seriously. Tom and I are building Tweet Hunter, a tool to help people find tweet inspiration, understand what works, and stay consistent. Still early, but a few people are already paying for it. Want me to send you access? I'd love feedback from someone actually using Twitter seriously.

After 2 weeks, they reached 288 users, 28 active subscriptions, and $560 MRR:

Tweet:
https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/1399714123412291588

Step 4: No audience? Borrow it!

After 4 months of working on Tweet Hunter and promoting it on Twitter, they reached ~$3K MRR. It was a successful product, but their own audience wasn't big enough, so they didn't have the leverage to grow the tool any further.

So Tibo reached out to a big Twitter creator, JK Molina, and offered him equity and revenue share to start promoting Tweet Hunter to his big audience.

Signing the deal was a complex, slow process, but after a month, JK came up with the launch plan, which helped them get to $18K MRR in just 3 weeks.

The lesson Tibo took from that was simple: for viral, easy-to-adopt products, a great maker plus a great distributor can beat a founder trying to own 100% of a tiny pie.

Remember: 100% of $1,000 is less than 70% of $10,000. And Tibo figured that out perfectly.

People worry too much about giving up an equity percentage and not enough about whether the partnership can take the product to a whole new level.

After that, they started working on SEO, running giveaways, mini-challenges, and launching free tools. They gave equity to other Twitter creators, and after 6-7 months, when they reached $30K MRR, they even ran an equity giveaway:

Tweet:
https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/1479450376243924998

After about six months of working on Tweet Hunter, they launched Taplio, a similar tool, but for LinkedIn.

Two years later, they grew both products to almost $3M ARR.

And in January 2023, they sold both products to Lemlist for 8 figures. That part of the story deserves its own breakdown.

But the lesson from Tibo’s early journey is simple: You don’t need a huge audience, a big team, or a massive budget to get your product off the ground.

You need to understand where your customers are, create something they clearly want, and put it in front of them again and again.

Action Plan

If you want to adapt Tibo’s success framework, here is the step-by-step plan you can use today.

Step 1: Find where your customers are

Start with the audience you can access most easily. Tibo was building a tool for people who wanted to grow on Twitter, so he promoted it on Twitter. That sounds obvious, but most founders get this wrong.

If you are building a tool for X creators, be active on X. If you are building a tool for e-commerce owners, find Facebook groups, Discord servers, Skool communities, subReddits, newsletters, or podcasts where e-commerce owners already spend time.

Your goal is simple: Find 50-100 people who match your target customer.

Before building more features, make sure you know where your potential users are, how you can reach them, and that the features are solving their actual problems, not the ones you think they have.

Step 2: Build one simple, useful thing

The first version of Tweet Hunter wasn't a huge all-in-one platform. It was a simple tool that showed high-performing tweets that people could use as inspiration. That was enough to get early users and first sales.

You don't need a complex application to get your first MRR. Just focus on solving one specific problem really well and ship it early.

Step 3: Offer it for free to get early feedback

Once you have the simple version, go back to the people from Step 1. DM them one by one and offer them free access in exchange for honest feedback. Don’t pitch your product straight away. Talk like a founder who is trying to learn.

You can say:

>“Hey [Name], I’m building a small tool that helps [target audience] with [specific problem]. I noticed you [personalized observation]. Would you be open to trying it for free and giving me honest feedback?”

Your goal is to answer:

• Do people understand it?
• Do they use it?
• Do they come back?
• Do they say it solves a real problem?
• Do they ask for improvements?

If people don’t care, fix the product or positioning. If enough people like it, move to the next step.

Step 4: Repeat until you reach consistent MRR

After getting early feedback and improving the product, you can put a paywall and start collecting payments.

You can get quite far just by sending a lot of cold DMs, but if you want to speed up the process, you can create content that calls out your ideal customers.

That’s exactly what Tibo did with this tweet, which got over 500 comments from people he later DMed.

Tweet:
https://x.com/tibo_maker/status/1393249092546056192

Step 5: Borrow an audience once you have proof

If you don’t have a huge audience, you can partner with someone who does. But don’t do it too early. Influencers and content creators get cold DMs all the time, so you have to stand out.

It’s much easier to convince them when you can say:

• “We already have users.”
• “We already have revenue.”
• “People are asking for this.”
• “This is going well, but we need more distribution.”

That’s what Tibo did with JK Molina. Tweet Hunter was already making around $1-2K MRR when Tibo reached out to him. Then JK got equity and revenue share, promoted the product to his audience, and helped them grow much faster.

Don’t ask someone to make your product work. Make the product show signs of working first, then use their audience to scale it.

---

Originally published on The Marketing OS. Thought the growth strategy breakdown was worth sharing here as well.

I came across an interesting breakdown of how Tibo, the founder behind Tweet Hunter, went from no audience and multiple failed projects to building a SaaS that reached $30k MRR.

The core lesson: he didn’t win because he had a huge audience. He won because he found the right customers, reached them where they already were, and borrowed distribution once the product showed traction.

The backstory

Tibo and his cofounder Tom shipped around 10 apps quickly. None of them worked.

Then they noticed something: some users were coming from Twitter.

So they built a simple tool for Twitter creators. The first version of Tweet Hunter was not a huge platform. It was basically a way to find high-performing tweets that creators could use for inspiration.

1. Get early feedback before building too much

Tibo first offered the product for free to a small group of Twitter users.

Tweet: Looking for FIVE heavy Twitter users to beta-test my latest product

The tweet didn’t go viral, but it got him a few beta testers.

He also engaged with Twitter creators and sent DMs offering free access in exchange for feedback.

The lesson: you don’t need a polished product to start. You need something simple that solves a painful problem.

2. Pick the right distribution channel

Tweet Hunter helped people grow on Twitter.

So Tibo promoted it on Twitter.

That sounds obvious, but it was the key. Even posts with low engagement could get leads because the audience was perfectly matched.

If he had promoted the same product on Instagram, the results probably would have been much worse.

3. Get your ideal customers to raise their hand

One smart move was posting something that attracted exactly the type of people who might need the product.

Tweet: If you have less than 1,000 followers and building stuff, introduce yourself to Twitter

That post got hundreds of replies.

Then Tibo DMed those people and introduced Tweet Hunter.

He also reached out to creators with 1,000+ followers.

A simple DM looked like this:

>Hey [Name], saw you're posting consistently about [topic] and clearly taking Twitter growth seriously. Tom and I are building Tweet Hunter, a tool to help people find tweet inspiration, understand what works, and stay consistent. Still early, but a few people are already paying for it. Want me to send you access? I'd love feedback from someone actually using Twitter seriously.

After about 2 weeks, they had:

• 288 signups
• 28 active subscriptions
• $560 MRR

Tweet: Tweet Hunter beta launched - 288 signups, 28 active subscriptions

4. Borrow an audience once you have proof

After a few months, Tweet Hunter reached around $3k MRR.

At that point, they had proof that the product worked, but they didn’t have enough distribution to scale fast.

So Tibo partnered with JK Molina, a big Twitter creator. JK got equity and revenue share in exchange for promoting the product.

That partnership helped Tweet Hunter grow to around $18k MRR in 3 weeks.

The lesson:

>100% of a small pie is often worse than 70% of a much bigger pie.

Once the product had traction, giving up equity for distribution made sense.

5. Keep stacking growth channels

After the creator partnership, they added more channels:

• SEO
• giveaways
• mini-challenges
• free tools
• more creator partnerships

Tweet: Twitter growth giveaway / challenge

Eventually, Tweet Hunter reached around $30k MRR.

Later, they launched Taplio for LinkedIn, grew both products to almost $3M ARR, and sold them to Lemlist in an 8-figure deal.

Actionable framework

Here’s the playbook in simple terms:

1. Find where your ideal users already spend time.
2. Build one simple thing that solves a real problem.
3. Give it away for free to get feedback.
4. Turn interested users into paying customers.
5. Use content and DMs to reach more of the same people.
6. Once you have proof, partner with someone who already has distribution.
7. Add scalable channels after the manual work starts working.

My takeaway

The biggest lesson for me is that “no audience” is not an excuse.

You can still get early users by:

• going where your customers already are
• making them raise their hand
• sending personal DMs
• validating before overbuilding
• partnering for distribution after you have traction

Most founders want scalable growth too early.

Tibo did the opposite: manual first, scalable later.

P.S. Read this case study on The Marketing OS and thought the growth strategy was worth sharing here.

Built a tool that reverse-engineers viral creators, so I ran @ personalbrandlaunch through it: 1,423 reels, 3 years worth of content, 170M total views.

A few things that surprised me:

• She's posted 1,423 reels. Her actual distinct idea count? Roughly 150. Around 85% of her output is the same ideas re-angled. That's not laziness, it's her explicit strategy.
• 87% of her content is pure top-of-funnel, zero mention of her $3,500/month agency. The service sells itself through trust, not pitching.
• Comment CTAs average 33x higher comment rate than follow CTAs. Different tools for different jobs.
• Tutorial format is her worst performer (72K avg views). Comparison format is her best (152K avg).

I put the full breakdown - hooks, formats, emotional drivers, posting cadence, her exact client acquisition funnel, and the 6 viral formulas she runs on repeat. Let me know if you want it.

When it comes to creating more content on Instagram, what is your biggest blocker and why?

I just finished a self-imposed challenge: post 100 Instagram Reels in 30 days.

Final numbers:

• Views: 1,081,419
• Likes: 30,127
• Comments: 313
• New followers: 205

That follower number looks like a typo. It's not.

How it started

The first few days were rough. My first video took over an hour to make. I was self-conscious, slow, and had no system.

By day 3, something shifted. I stopped caring what people thought and started actually enjoying it. Ideas were coming from everywhere.

Then came the emotional rollercoaster I wasn't prepared for. A video hit 4k views → dopamine spike. The next day, video tanked → started to doubt again. Sometimes I was up at 3 am stressed about content.

The mental game of content creation is not talked about enough.

The insight that changed everything

Around day 12 I noticed a pattern: the videos that went viral were copies of existing viral formats: motivational b-roll, meme content, inspirational stories.

Shortly after I had my first 100k video and this video ended up with over 1m views! WizzAir even DMed me asking to use one of my videos for their marketing campaign. It was insane!

On the other hand, my talking-head videos, where I shared business lessons, documented my app launch, showed my actual journey, got a fraction of the views but a higher follower rate.

Lesson: Views and followers are not the same metric. They require completely different content strategies.

What's next

I'm now focusing on posting 1 video a day. Less quantity, more quality. Business updates, lessons, the journey.

I'm also turning this into a proper 30-day video challenge and opening it up to anyone who wants to try it (lmk if you do). If you've been putting off posting, or you want to build an audience around something you're working on, come do it alongside me. I'll be documenting the whole thing.