u/Live-List8000

i know this might not be a big achievement, but yk, it is still something that me (22) and my friend (19) made in the back of our rooms (though his room is FAR better than mine; mine is just a mess haha)

we have made some revenue and have not paid for it from our pockets either, so that's nice. (positive revenue since day 4)

and now we are just between selling and keeping, though i know for sure we'll abandon it if we did keep because this new year will be my final year as a energy engineer so i will already be busy as hell, more busy than last year, to support any type of business so the exit is the most logical answer because my friend cannot support it on his own and leaving it for a whole year will just kill it

Okay, i have been working on this platform for a while: me, the marketing co-founder, 22, and a technical co-founder, 19. The platform is a unique and growing asset that makes you want to stay on it, but we are not at a point where we can actually support that anymore, given our young age and educational life (i have my final year in this new educational year, engineering degree) and even financial one (since we both are working on this as a side project)

The platform has potential as an advertising business model, similar to Product Hunt, Reddit, Facebook, etc. But there's something that it does better than any advertising platform: it does not just provide vague clicks or impressions; it provides users/testers. when they advertise, the advertiser will get testers AND feedback. that's already 10x more valuable than any other advertising platform.

We have had 1200 registered users but am not much good at retention, as i suck at that. I am and have always worked at conversions, but retention? that's my weak spot. we have not even tried to email them since we were already busy working on other things. So retention is indeed our main problem, and I wanted to be transparent about it before anyone wastes his and my time DMing.

we have had revenue proving the will of the users to pay even at this early stage.

if you are interested, please do comment or DMAfter

Okay, i have been working on this platform for a while: me, the marketing co-founder, 22, and a technical co-founder, 19. The platform is a unique and growing asset that makes you want to stay on it, but we are not at a point where we can actually support that anymore, given our young age and educational life (i have my final year in this new educational year, engineering degree) and even financial one (since we both are working on this as a side project)

The platform has potential as an advertising business model, similar to Product Hunt, Reddit, Facebook, etc. But there's something that it does better than any advertising platform: it does not just provide vague clicks or impressions; it provides users/testers. when they advertise, the advertiser will get testers AND feedback. that's already 10x more valuable than any other advertising platform.

We have had 1200 registered users but am not much good at retention, as i suck at that. I am and have always worked at conversions, but retention? that's my weak spot. we have not even tried to email them since we were already busy working on other things. So retention is indeed our main problem, and I wanted to be transparent about it before anyone wastes his and my time DMing.

we have had revenue proving the will of the users to pay even at this early stage.

if you are interested, please do comment or DMAfter

Okay, i have been working on this platform for a while: me, the marketing co-founder, 22, and a technical co-founder, 19. The platform is a unique and growing asset that makes you want to stay on it, but we are not at a point where we can actually support that anymore, given our young age and educational life (i have my final year in this new educational year, engineering degree) and even financial one (since we both are working on this as a side project)

The platform has an advertising potential, same as Product Hunt, Reddit, Facebook, etc. But there's something that it does better than any advertising platform: it does not just provide vague clicks or impressions; it provides users/testers. when they advertise, the advertiser will get testers AND feedback. that's already 10x more valuable than any other advertising platform.

We have had 1200 registered users but am not much good at retention, as i suck at that. I am and have always worked at conversions, but retention? that's my weak spot. we have not even tried to email them since we were already busy working on other things. So retention is indeed our main problem, and I wanted to be transparent about it before anyone wastes his and my time DMing.

we have had revenue proving the will of the users to pay even at this early stage.

if you are interested, please do comment or DM

i have been working on this platform, and i think it is time for me to step down.

we have got 1,200 users without spending a dime on marketing in less than 5 months. infra is peanuts, and we haven't spent any money from our pockets for that since it pays for itself. The idea is unique and solves a huge, HUGE growing problem. Testers for founders. (yk how building now is easier than getting anyone to use the tools) with a great potential for the future.

We have gotten some offers here and there, so now we have a clear valuation of the product.

our users do not know us at all, and even if stakes changed, no one would notice because they joined for the platform, not for us.

it is not a subscription model but a one-time deal model and promotional spots.

Some people don't give a shit about your revenue. Whenever i spoke to a buyer or anyone trying to sell this platform, they all asked, "What is the revenue and what is the price?" no one cared about the idea or the potential of the idea; that's when i learned that some people are just commodity-based.

but today? Today I learned that there are others who buy into the idea. first message and said this, "look, we are not the type of people who care about revenue; tell me about the platform."

i told him everything: the idea, the potential, and the vision. i mentioned the users and that they cost us $0 to acquire all those 1200 users, and then he asked for the price, and i gave him the same exact answer i gave the commodity buyers. $XK.

he said this

"Just $XK? i thought it would be at least a 5- or 6-figure deal."

i was like, "Fuck."

and THIS is when i learned that some people do not care if the idea is pre-revenue if it is good and has potential and tangible validation.

Still not closed, but let's hope for the best.

okay, i just had an epiphany the last few days that answers the question my teacher asked me back in kindergarten: "what do you want to be when you grow up?"

and now i'm 22 years old, and i think i finally found the answer

a flipper

make something, get some users and revenue, and then sell it and do it again. i discovered that i'm not fit to own or run a huge company or even scale; i'm the early-stage startup guy, working with low to no budgets, no audience, no nothing, just you and code. and that's what i did for this platform for the past 5 months, now sitting at 1,200 users and an average of 100 daily users.

So, last time i was talking to some buyers, and i have been gathering what i learned from that experience because if I am a flipper, i will have to learn how to sell businesses.

i'm not going to talk about how to evaluate a business with no revenue, as i honestly have no idea since we have revenue even if small, but as a rule of thumb, if you have MRR, project the ARR for 4 years; if you have revenue, project your latest monthly revenue for 4 years. or 3 or 1, depends on how good of an idea you have

do not reach out to the buyers; let them reach out to you. doing cold outreach will already give you a disadvantage in the sale; there are subs like r/saasforsale, r/SaaSAcquire or simply post in saas or entrepreneurial subs that allow these kinds of posts. the point is, post.

what are you going to post about? your best metrics. let's face it, every new saas has that fucked-up metric that might make the buyers run away. Don't show it in the post, but show it in private. you want as many people to dm you as possible. for us, it was that we got 1,200 users in less than 5 months with a $0 marketing budget and our only expense being about $10/mo, and that it was paying for itself since day one. that we have a landing page converting at 12% CVR, less than 48% bounce rate, about 69% scroll depth on the good days, and 40% of our traffic visited the pricing page.

show the metrics that make people say, "okay, interesting."

When do they ask you about the price as a first question? that's usually a bad sign; they are looking for something cheap to buy and are not interested in the business. if they ask you about the business first, that's a good sign. know where to invest your attention

The fewer questions they ask the less likely they are to buy; keep this in mind. encourage them to ask questions and to know more so they can get the bigger idea

get a good story to tell. if the buyers know what they are doing, they'll for sure ask why you're selling because they want to know if it is part of the plan, you're running from something, or you simply want to just stop working on that one. get your story ready for why you want to sell

gather the offers; every potential buyer is a way for you to judge the value of your tool, once they say "good "luck"—and you'll hear this a lot of times—ask what they'll be willing to pay and then say bye. do this many times and get an estimate of what people are willing to pay (this is your best move if you don't have revenue), so next time when you pitch, you say, "we had a few offers around $4K and we're asking $5K" or something of that sort.

ask for more. this was so weird to be honest; at first, we asked for an imaginary number just to see what would happen, and then we got offers giving us half of that price, but then we lowered the price to that price for the next ones, and they gave us even lower offers than that one. that's when i learned that no matter the price point, they'll bring it down, so ask for more and negotiate around where you want to sell.

okay, this is getting long and i think not many will read this but spare me the "AI slop" thing. i used quillbot to fix the grammar so that's where the em dashes came from. 👍

i have been working on this platform, and i think it is time for me to step down.

we have got 1,200 users without spending a dime on marketing in less than 5 months. infra is peanuts, and we haven't spent any money from our pockets for that since it pays for itself. The idea is unique and solves a huge, HUGE growing problem. Testers for founders. (yk how building now is easier than getting anyone to use the tools) with a great potential for the future.

We have gotten some offers here and there, so now we have a clear valuation of the product.

our users do not know us at all, and even if stakes changed, no one would notice because they joined for the platform, not for us.

it is not a subscription model but a one-time deal model and promotional spots.

honestly? the reason i want to sell is because i just want to work on myself at this point. I am 22, still lacking experience in the corporate world and life in general. i just discovered that i'm not good enough to be an entrepreneur yet, and i need to grow myself before a business. so this is why i want to step down and find some remote marketing job or something for the next 10 years (i will be 32; i wonder if i will still look good at that time)

i have been working on this platform, and i think it is time for me to step down.

we have got 1,200 users without spending a dime on marketing in less than 5 months. infra is peanuts, and we haven't spent any money from our pockets for that since it pays for itself. The idea is unique and solves a huge, HUGE growing problem. Testers for founders. (yk how building now is easier than getting anyone to use the tools) with a great potential for the future.

We have gotten some offers here and there, so now we have a clear valuation of the product.

our users do not know us at all, and even if stakes changed, no one would notice because they joined for the platform, not for us.

it is not a subscription model but a one-time deal model and promotional spots.

honestly? the reason i want to sell is because i just want to work on myself at this point. I am 22, still lacking experience in the corporate world and life in general. i just discovered that i'm not good enough to be an entrepreneur yet, and i need to grow myself before a business. so this is why i want to step down and find some remote marketing job or something for the next 10 years (i will be 32; i wonder if i will still look good at that time)

i don't know if this type of post is allowed here or not, but i have been working on this platform, and i think it is time for me to step down.

we have got 1,200 users without spending a dime on marketing in less than 5 months. infra is peanuts, and we haven't spent any money from our pockets for that since it pays for itself. The idea is unique and solves a huge, HUGE growing problem. Testers for founders. (yk how building now is easier than getting anyone to use the tools) with a great potential for the future.

We have gotten some offers here and there, so now we have a clear valuation of the product.

our users do not know us at all, and even if stakes changed, no one would notice because they joined for the platform, not for us.

it is not a subscription model but a one-time deal model and promotional spots.

honestly? the reason i want to sell is because i just want to work on myself at this point. I am 22, still lacking experience in the corporate world and life in general. i just discovered that i'm not good enough to be an entrepreneur yet, and i need to grow myself before a business. so this is why i want to step down and find some remote marketing job or something for the next 10 years (i will be 32; i wonder if i will still look good at that time)

This has been debated for a long, long, long, loooong time, "should you build what already exists, or should you find a new unicorn idea?"

I did this; i built a unique platform, so let me tell you the perks and cons of that. Well, both got their own perks and their own cons; the unique idea got the privilege of being new, being the first, and showing something people get interested in outside their usual "find high-quality leads on Reddit," but you have to figure out things on your own. you'll have to create systems and think of some things up from the bottom of your butt. you'll face unique problems that you might not be even able to ask others about and have to test on your own and invent solutions

For the repeated ideas, i have also built in the space, and there's ONE question that you'll have to answer for your audience

"why you and not X?"

This was the MOST annoying question because, to them, you are "yet another X," so you have to have a strong reason that they understand for why you are you. Don't say "tech, please" or that you are better in tech. If you say, "we use agents instead, XYZ," your audience might not even know why agents are better. so explain it in a language they understand. You'll lose the uniqueness; even if you add a unique twist, it still stays the same, just a bit upgraded. people will be bored

But there's no right or wrong; this is a personal preference.

Rule of thumb: if you have money to spend on ads? you can invest in validated ideas. otherwise it will hurt

A better question would be if subs even suit your product or not. (also, the answer is to start low and increase prices if the free-to-paid conversion rate is above the average conversion rate of your industry. Keep doing this until you reach a sweet spot. Run this for at least 1000 visits or 100 if you are short on users/visitors.

i have been working on this platform for about 5 months now, we first assumed, like everyone else, "just throw a monthly bill and you'll be fine; what could happen?" well, they worked, we got some subscribers, and we were applying the method above, but they were so not compatible. The platform was and will always be a one-time value for the receivers (the users who'll pay), so even if they paid for the sub, they paid to get the value one-time or twice and churn. We tried to fix the churn, but you cannot fix what is not even a problem. Churn was not our issue; it was a symptom of the issue.

have been working on a platform, and we wanted to exit because we had some personal need for money. We both agreed to sell.

we had a price in mind and we started pitching, some offers here and there and we had our pricing value of what buyers were willing to pay. but we still did not sell, we kept looking. (mistake but a virtue at the same time) we made a price drop, but the offers went even bellow that when we pitched at that price (think of it like this, if you pitch at 20K, they'll want to bring it to 10K, if you pitch at 10, they'll want to bring it to 5. this is what i learned at least)

so we accepted an offer. it was lower than we expected but we needed the money more than ever

3 days and he sends me this:

"Hey guys, my partner has backed out and i will have to sort this out. Need to this on hold for a while"

basically, he just wanted to get the price down and that's it.

but on those days, we had double the sales on the platform because of some recent change we made on the pricing model. Now we decided to just keep working on it as we increase its value even more in the market to not exit at peanut price like we almost did :(

i have been working on this platform, and i think i either made a huge mistake starting this project or my best investment ever.

we worked on it with no hopes of it being anything; we had no budget, no audience, not even a waitlist, just a landing page and a code, most of it written with codex and edited by the developer. almost 5 months and we are at 1200 users and positive revenue, where we did not spend a dime on the platform since day 4 of launch

but here's the issue: the platform is working, users come, but the revenue is still in the early stage, we are still so early that we can't generate enough for it to be sufficient for us, and we can't back off because the platform works and has great potential long-term.

so now we are at the point of no return; stopping means we wasted almost 5 months building for nothing and we'll waste a great potential future if we just stayed patient, and if we did not pull back, especially me as the marketer, i will go broke hahaha

so now I am literally stuck; i can't move forward and can't go back.

any suggestions on this one? like, how do people usually tackle these kinds of situations?

i have been working on this platform, and i think i either made a huge mistake starting this project or my best investment ever.

we worked on it with no hopes of it being anything; we had no budget, no audience, not even a waitlist, just a landing page and a code, most of it written with codex and edited by the developer. almost 5 months and we are at 1200 users and positive revenue, where we did not spend a dime on the platform since day 4 of launch

but here's the issue: the platform is working, users come, but the revenue is still in the early stage, we are still so early that we can't generate enough for it to be sufficient for us, and we can't back off because the platform works and has great potential long-term.

so now we are at the point of no return; stopping means we wasted almost 5 months building for nothing and we'll waste a great potential future if we just stayed patient, and if we did not pull back, especially me as the marketer, i will go broke hahaha

so now I am literally stuck; i can't move forward and can't go back.

any suggestions on this one? like, how do people usually tackle these kinds of situations?

i have been working on this platform, and i think i either made a huge mistake starting this project or my best investment ever.

we worked on it with no hopes of it being anything; we had no budget, no audience, not even a waitlist, just a landing page and a code, most of it written with codex and edited by the developer. almost 5 months and we are at 1200 users and positive revenue, where we did not spend a dime on the platform since day 4 of launch

but here's the issue: the platform is working, users come, but the revenue is still in the early stage, we are still so early that we can't generate enough for it to be sufficient for us, and we can't back off because the platform works and has great potential long-term.

so now we are at the point of no return; stopping means we wasted almost 5 months building for nothing and we'll waste a great potential future if we just stayed patient, and if we did not pull back, especially me as the marketer, i will go broke hahaha

so now I am literally stuck; i can't move forward and can't go back.

any suggestions on this one? like, how do people usually tackle these kinds of situations?

Deployed FeedbackQueue.dev, a feedback-for-feedback platform for people to get testers and feedback without any outreach, SEO, ads, or doing any marketing bs. you won't even try to find them

WELL, we are reaching 1,200 user mark in less than five months

Oh, and if you want testers but no time to give it, there's always review credit for that

welcome aboard, folks.

We all hear about this "should i build first or should i validate first?"

well, lemme tell you about our case. Late Jan, we worked on a saas, didn't work, so told my friend (who happens to be my co-founder now) abou this platform idea, he said i like it, you think we should build it? i said fuck yeh, let's do it. March the 11th 2026, launched from 0 on everything, $0 budget, 0 audience, 0 waitlist signups (we didn't even make a waitlist) fast forward 4 months and 20 days. we have 1,200 users :)

discussion is over, build first works.

well, technically, that's one side of the story. before i have proposed this idea to my current co-founder, i have already validated when i wanted to launch it the first time back in late July 2025, i was working on it with another friend who then we did not proceed with it. in that phase, i have already interviewed more than 3000 of our target audience and 400 of them joined the waitlist (which then i lost it)

so does this mean build first doesn't work?

not necessarily, both have their perks and downsides, one gives you the speed to test and not waste time, the other gives you some mental reassurance that you're building something of need. So it really depends on the project and the personal preference of the founder.

no size fits all

that's the beauty

We all love the loud wins, the loud cries, the haters, the doubt stories. And we lived through all of em. but non of them were as important as actually showing up every day and doing the exact same thing for 5 months

i have been working on this platform and for 4 months and 20 days there's not a single day when i didn't hear someone saying "Lol, why would people even use your platform? why would they even pay?" Almost 5 months and we have about 1,200 users on our platform and more than $200 in generated revenue with barely $40 expenses since launch. We know we are not the usual "i made $10K MRR in 1 day." type of bullshit, we haven't been making enough from the platform, but we are still working on it.

And i feel proud of what we made

am drained, i can't lie, working on this with no budget for almost 5 months is mentally draining and even gave me a mental breakdown at some point. but i genuinely feel proud of sticking to it. i feel proud that i kept working and showing up, even if i have made mistakes, many mistakes, but i learned from them.

my daydream is coming to a reality bit by bit.

if stripe had 50 users for 2 years and now being valuated at $159 billion so can we make something good

Hey, am the co-founder of this platform, a feedback for feedback platform to get feedback and testers without messaging a single person

we tested multiple things int those 4 months, like pricing models, one time Vs subscription based, the onboarding flow, the review submission flow, a queue Vs a feed Vs hybrid

then we tried to sell, almost got screwed over in a shit deal. NEVER sell when you need money.

and now we are about to reach 1,200 users. hopefully by tomorrow

if you have any questions like marketing, how we found the buyers, what to you gotta do with the buyers, how to pitch the price, what they'll ask etc. feel free to drop a comment and i will respond to as many as i can