I’ve been thinking about how many freelancers, consultants, solo founders, and tiny agencies technically need a CRM but absolutely hate using one.

Most CRMs seem to grow into the same thing:

• 40 different fields
• Sales pipelines
• Automations
• Lead scoring
• Reports
• Integrations
• A dashboard that looks like you're running Salesforce for a Fortune 500 company

But a lot of small operators really just need to remember:

Who is this person?
When did I last talk to them?
What did we talk about?
What am I supposed to do next?

So the idea is an intentionally tiny CRM.

Add a person/company, write notes, set a next action, and move on.

The app would automatically build a timeline of your relationship with them:

• First contact
• Emails/meeting notes
• Quotes or proposals sent
• Follow-ups
• Important context
• Next action

The main screen wouldn't be a giant sales dashboard.

It would basically say:

These are the 7 people you should probably talk to today.

Maybe AI could summarize long histories or suggest follow-ups, but I'd specifically avoid turning "AI CRM" into the selling point.

The entire pitch would be:

>

My concern is obvious: there are already approximately 9 billion CRMs.

So roast it.

Is simplicity actually enough differentiation here, or is this just another stripped-down CRM that eventually adds features until it becomes the thing it was supposed to replace?

And if you currently don't use a CRM even though you probably should, why not?

Every single day on Reddit I see something like, "I built X, but have no idea how to get users." "How do you get users to your app?" "What is working for you to get users?" Every. Single. Day. It's exhausting. I wrote this as a comment on one such post, and I am turning it into a top level post in the hopes that I prevent even one, "What is the best way to get users for my app?" post. If I prevent just one, I'll consider this post a win.

Every single app is different in what works. The key is to tap into every stream, figure out what works, then go all in on that stream.

Every app I build I do the exact same things to market:

1. App Specific Social media account creation and posting (Insta, Youtube, Tiktok, Reddit, etc). Make posts about the product itself on these accounts. These accounts should have your app name, photo, and bio. Nothing about you personally.
2. Social media 2: Point number one is an account with the app name. This is using your personal accounts talking about the building process. Build in public gets a bad wrap, but I haven't found a reason to skip this step yet.
3. Affiliates. Always create an affiliate program. Give them free access, commission, etc and give them a code to bring users. Use a service like Affonso or build out a form and see if there is interest. On my apps step one is a separate page with a short questionnaire that sends me emails if its filled out. If I get just 3 of these, I set up an actual affiliate program
4. Newsletter/Email list. Anyone who signs up to the app is added to an email list and I use Tags to update their status. If you are not doing this, start. Even if you don't have a newsletter yet, collecting emails in a list is a massive potential revenue stream you are missing. Personally I use Beehiiv but there are a lot of solutions. Everyone who signs up is Tagged as "free" and this is updated programmatically if they sign up for Pro/Subscription. Every once in a while I send emails to all users tagged "free" with the benefits of the pro/upgraded features of the app. Ex. Run a campaign asking for users to fill out a feedback form for a free month of premium, give them the free month, and see how many convert to paid after the full month.
5. Freemium. Not all subscribe to this type of app, but I don't think I can find an argument for anything other than freemium when building B2C applications. Free trials are cool and a maybe, but if it's a free trial with a credit card required, I immediately pass unless you have a name I know and trust. If you have a name I know and can trust, you probably aren't reading this post. Make your app Freemium or stop requiring credit cards on trials.
6. Ads. When first starting, you do not need to go crazy. Let's say $15 dollar boosted post on insta and tiktok. $15 ad on reddit and X. See if any results come from this. Less than $100 USD. I know many builders have a budget of $0, and it is what it is, but I highly highly recommend scraping some cash together to at least try some extremely localized boosted posts in the areas where you get most engagement. If you have enough money to boost just ONE post, pick the account that is performing the best from steps 1 and 2.
7. Outreach. After all of the above, there will still be people who qualify for your app, but do not see it. Go and find them and send them a DM, call them, knock on their door, idc whatever you prefer. Every social app has improved their search mechanism so heavily you can easily targeted search nowadays without a paid tool. Don't fall into the trap of a service that finds Reddit Leads for you for $50 a month when you can search yourself. (Sorry if that's what you're building).
8. SEO AEO. I put this at the bottom because it is the slowest burn. Optimize the best you can, wait 30 days, then check and adjust if needed, rinse and repeat. If you're not on Google Search Console, set that up, takes two minutes. Lots of free resources to read on optimizing this channel. I don't really consider this marketing, but it's worth writing down.
9. Honorable mentions: Discord Server and Custom Subreddit for your app. I don't do this every time, but it may work for your app. I have a Discord server for one app and a subreddit for the other.

I will give you two different examples from two apps I have built:

The first is Micro Coach, a mobile app that automatically builds your workout split and a bunch of other stuff.

I did all of the above, and found that Affiliates and My App Social Media Accounts performed the best by far in the first few weeks. So I slowed down (I did not STOP any step, just slowed down) and poured the rest of my energy into these two. Taking the time to make better content for the social media accounts, daily engagement, etc. Making the affiliate program as attractive as possible. This ended up working so well, I bought products in bulk and now offer a free hat, shirt, and shaker bottle to all affiliates I onboard and approve. This is by far our best revenue stream.

The second is The Idea Lab, a web app that validates your ideas, generates ideas, and a whole list of other stuff.

For this one I found that targeted outreach, surprisingly, worked the best. Honorable mention is Ad's have worked well, and so has the Newsletter. These three channels worked to convert users the best for me on this app.

Let me know what you guys think.

If you perform a marketing step that I missed, drop it in the comments and I will update the post.

I've been playing League of Legends for many years. Since before "Seasons" and "Esports" were even a thing.

At peak, I was ranked Grandmaster, and now float around Diamond 1-2.

There are a lot of tools out there for League now from game mechanics, to on screen widgets, and more.

There is one wedge where I think I can provide a lot of value: The first 5 minutes of the game.

I have an idea for an app I'd call something like "The First Mistake Lab". Where the desktop app automatically records the first five minutes of your game every single game and points out the first mistake you made, what to change, and how to fix it. It will also provide analysis on it, what if scenarios if you did something different, and a practice tool set up to try the change in practice.

Not every game is decided by a your first mistake, but regardless of your rank, every single game you play you will make a mistake. 90% of them happen in the first five minutes which can decide your entire lane and the rest of that match.

Unsure how I would price this or anything like distribution. Just an idea I had while playing the other day.

Would love feedback on if I should do more research on this or scrap the idea.

Hey, my name is Corey and I am a software engineer. I have been in the industry for around 8 years. I have built and exited one product successfully (about 2134848 unsuccessfully), and I am running two apps right now. One established and doing well, and one in progress.

I am looking for a cofounder on the app that I am currently building solo. I am unsure if I am able to add links or speak about the app specifically here so I won't, I'll keep it surface level.

Right now, we just hit 100 authenticated/signed up users, 1.5k unique visitors over the last 14 days (it's only been up 11 so far), and 4 sales. Let me know and I am happy to provide more analytics.

What I am looking for:

Anything non-technical. I am not asking for crazy experience, but I am asking for consistency. I plan to create a Reddit, Instagram, YouTube, and Tiktok account for the app in future. Right now, I am doing all marketing and outreach by hand and have thrown a few bucks at ads. Also ideally I would like to begin building an affiliate program out and bringing in affiliates to the app. I have set up the code and UI for that but haven't taken much time to promote that aspect yet.

Bullet point list of what I am looking for in an ideal world (open for discussion on any or all of this):

1. Affiliate outreach and management
2. Social media creation and management
3. Outreach via targeted search on all socials, reddit, etc

Post-setup on a good day, I imagine all of the above being less than an hour a day.

- 1 post across all socials (I will pay for a membership to buffer/post-bridge to do one post on all socials simultaneously)

- Targeted outreach and a few comments on posts across socials (I can show how I've been doing this, I spend about 30 minutes on it per day)

- A few minutes on affiliate outreach and management

As for me, I plan to:

1. Development, DevOps, etc
2. Anything related to ads, creatives, campaigns
3. Continuing targeted outreach via reddit
4. Feedback acquisition and iteration on that feedback
5. Analytics management, measurement, and, maneuvering based on that
6. Customer service of any kind (feedback submissions on the app, bug reports, etc)
7. Weekly newsletter management (I am building up our subscribers from authenticated users and have a weekly newsletter that goes out that I write, can speak to more detail on this later)
8. Update emails - new features, updates, etc. I have no issues writing and sending those.

I am open to discussion on all of the above.

I have two options:

1. If you do not want to invest any of your own capital, I am offering a minority share as a cofounder. You will be a founder, but I will have the final say. I will also pay the cost of anything (i.e. ads, subscriptions like Buffer, affiliates tools like Affonso, etc, I will cover the cost of all of it).
2. If you are willing to invest some of your own money, then I am offering true 50/50 on all decisions.

The last thing I will say if you made it this far is I am ideally looking for a cofounder based in the US simply for lining up our timezones for meetings, chats, hangouts, etc. If you are not US based but have no problem meeting/talking with me in US timezones, then we are good.

I am genuinely curious. Devs/Solo Builders/Etc seem to have such a mix on X and Reddit. Prefer building solo, can't find a cofounder, bad experience with a cofounder.

I've also seen plenty of success stories solo and on a small team or duo.

I am curious what everyone thinks. Are you solo because you choose to be, can't find a cofounder/team, both? Or something else?

I have two applications that are live in production right now. One is completely solo, the other is myself and two others. I truly enjoy both dynamics and I don't think I would change anything.

Would love to hear what everyone else has to say about this.

I’m thinking about an all-in-one study tool built around one simple idea:

Your AI should only know the material you give it.

You create separate study profiles/subjects, then upload everything related to that subject:

• PDFs
• Documents
• Slides
• Handwritten notes via photos
• Dozens of files at once

Each subject would have its own isolated knowledge base, so your Biology material never bleeds into your Language Learning material.

From there, you could:

• Generate quizzes
• Choose multiple choice, open-ended, fill-in-the-blank, or a mix
• Create study guides and summaries
• Ask questions about the material
• Have an AI tutor that answers only from the files uploaded to that specific subject

For example:

You have a Polish Learning profile with 30 PDFs from your tutor or online, worksheets, vocabulary lists, and photos of handwritten notes.

You could say:

>Make me a 20-question quiz using everything I’ve learned so far. Use 5 multiple choice, 5 fill-in-the-blank, and 10 open-ended questions.

Or:

>Explain the grammar mistakes I keep making based only on these materials.

The problem I’m trying to solve is that a lot of existing study/AI tools technically let you upload documents, but the experience often breaks down when you have a lot of material. File limits are restrictive, the generated quizzes are mediocre, or the AI starts pulling from general knowledge instead of staying grounded in what you actually uploaded.

The pitch would basically be:

One place for all of your study material, separated by subject, with quizzes and tutoring grounded entirely in your own content.

What I’m trying to validate:

Would you actually use this instead of ChatGPT, Quizlet, NotebookLM, etc.?

And if not, what would it need to do significantly better than those tools to make you switch?

My biggest concern is that this sounds useful, but maybe not useful enough to justify being a standalone product rather than just another feature inside an existing AI tool.

Build or kill?

Pretend this showed up in your inbox from a founder raising a small seed round.

The company:
B2B SaaS that automates compliance paperwork for small healthcare clinics.

Traction:

• $18,000 MRR
• Started charging 9 months ago
• 61 paying customers
• ~12% average monthly revenue growth over the last 6 months
• 4.5% monthly customer churn
• Gross margins around 85%
• Founder has done almost all sales personally

Sounds pretty solid so far.

But there are some problems.

Their largest customer is a regional clinic group paying $7,200/month, meaning one customer represents 40% of total revenue.

Without them, MRR drops to $10,800.

That customer also negotiated a one-year contract with pricing well below what the company now charges similar customers.

The founder believes the product can eventually sell to much larger healthcare groups, but they haven't proven an enterprise sales motion yet.

There's also no major technical bridge. The advantage today is mostly:

• Deep knowledge of the compliance workflow
• Integrations that took time to build
• Existing customer relationships
• A product customers apparently like

They're raising $500k at a $4M pre-money valuation to hire two engineers and their first dedicated salesperson.

The founder owns essentially the entire company.

So:

INVEST, MAYBE, or PASS?

For me, the customer concentration would be the giant red flag.

On the other hand, $18k MRR after nine months with founder-led sales suggests there may actually be something here. And at this stage, I'm not sure I'd expect some enormous defensible moat yet.

I'd probably land on MAYBE, heavily dependent on why that one customer became so large and whether smaller customers are continuing to come in consistently.

What would you choose?

And more importantly: what single metric or answer would you want from the founder before making the decision?

I had an idea I thought was really cool. Working title was Career Trial. The idea was to build out a platform for a specific niche: late 20's to 30's professionals who felt stuck in their job, but didn't know what to do to switch careers.

This problem was very obvious because two people very close to me both are living this right now. They have been in their career 5+ years and hate it, but have no idea how to change, or where to even begin.

The idea was loose at first while I validated and iterated: Take a quiz, or tell the app about yourself, maybe use some AI to suggest X number of career options. Maybe some more options here but the end result is a user picks a career to trial.

The trial itself is two weeks. It starts with a "lightning certification" in the field. Basically a crash course with (maybe?) a quiz at the end.

After this, you'd complete 1-3 real projects that career would do in their day to day. For a Project Manager, perhaps you'd design a kanban board, draft a few emails, analyze Product Development Notes, SOPs, and an SOW.

Finally, the app would help shape your resume with the new career in mind, and it would help you in your transfer to the new career. This last part is the loosest, I didn't quite get this far in the idea, but I personally know several recruiters in various fields that I think could help me design this last bit.

Then I brought this to the two people who inspired the idea. Both of them gave me a hard no.

"I already hate my job. You want me to do a second job AND pay for it?"

"I don't want more homework, I am not in high school anymore."

"I don't think a website and a couple of assignments will prepare me enough for a new job in a new field, even if I did all of the work."

All fair points, and all reasonable feedback.

Welp, I guess that's that lol. Idea Killed.

Have you ever killed an idea? Why? Was your process similar to mine?

After watching posthog session replays for the last several days, I found that my biggest bounce rate came from Homepage ->Action Button -> Auth. 50%!

The change:

Homepage -> Action Button -> Actually do the action -> Sign up to see the results.

This alone changed my bounce rate on Auth from 50% at /signup to 22%.

There is no paywall, there never was, but it just seems like people do not want to take the 10 seconds it takes to sign up before getting any value whatsoever out of the app. Asking for sign up after they complete the action and do all of the steps seems to show value. Either that or they feel if they don't sign up they wasted 5 minutes filling out the form.

I have always found this method to be slightly predatory when there is a paywall at the end. However, I am justifying this change because there is no paywall afterwards, it's free and there is no credit card, free trial, etc.