13 days in: 5 cold DM yeses, 0 actual users, 1 comment that reframed the whole problem
13 days into building Axtra Planner, a calm AI day planner. The numbers I had this week:
9 cold-ish DMs sent to my LinkedIn network
5 yeses, decent acceptance rate
0 of them have actually used the product for more than 5 minutes
I'd been telling myself the gap was first-run UX. Shipped a fix this week (the day-switcher was confusing first users), figured the next round of yeses would convert better.
Then I posted a version of these numbers on r/SaaS asking how to bridge activation. One commenter cut through it in two sentences:
"It sounds like you're asking people on LinkedIn to do you a favor, not looking for users with your same pain points. They were never serious about using a new planner."
That reply made me sit with something uncomfortable: every yes I'd gotten was filtered by relationship, not by problem-fit. The yeses meant my network liked me enough to try the thing. They didn't mean anyone actually had the pain we solve. I'd been celebrating the wrong signal.
The strategic shift this triggered:
Stop optimizing the warm DM template (it works, the cohort is wrong)
Start going where pain-shaped people actually live (subreddits, niche communities, TikTok)
Treat warm DMs as relationship-tending, not user acquisition
That same commenter then handed over a full TikTok playbook for finding the first 10 pain-shaped users in 2 weeks. Launching that next week as my first-priority experiment.
What I'm sitting with: a lot of early-stage builders are probably running this same measurement bug, including the version where you mistake friends and free trial users for product-market signal. The yes is easy to mistake for data when it isn't.
One narrow question for builders 1-2 launches in: what was the moment you knew your early engaged users were actually pain-shaped, not just polite?
I totally get that moment of realization; it's a tough but important one. I happen to know a couple of early-stage founders who've been through exactly that and successfully found their pain-shaped users, so I could ask them some of your questions for you if you'd like.
Merc, taking you up on it, thank you. The mental shift was the easy part. The actual mechanic of finding pain-shaped users is what I'm fumbling on.
If you've got bandwidth to ping your founder friends, three questions I'd love answers to:
Where did they actually find these users? I'm curious about the specific mechanism (a particular subreddit, a Slack/Discord, a LinkedIn role filter, random in-the-wild conversations). The "go find pain-shaped users" advice always skips the where, and that's the part I'm stuck on.
How did they distinguish a pain-shaped user from someone who just sounded interested? What were the specific signals or phrases that told them "this person actually has the problem" vs "this person is engagement-friendly"?
What did the very first conversation look like once they identified one? Did they pitch the product, just listen, or offer to solve something specific? I want to make sure I don't fumble the moment when I do find one.
Happy to share back what I learn from doing this properly, in case it's useful to your friends or you down the line. And if there's anything I can return the favor on, just say.
I know the people you need on "replyz" community. Just post your question, describe the type of person you want answers from, and people with matching backgrounds can respond with detailed insights. To keep it genuinely helpful instead of spammy, you also have to contribute to the community. Happy to help if you need anything getting started.
thanks Merc. hadn't heard of replyz, going to check it out this week.
any pointers on what to contribute first so it doesn't read as drive-by? would rather earn the right to ask before posting anything.