3 months in, $9 MRR, 1 paying customer — here's what's actually working
Building RenderPix in public. It's an HTML-to-image API — you send raw HTML, get back a PNG/JPEG/WebP. No templates, no lock-in.
Where I am right now:
$9 MRR (1 Starter customer)
~15 registered users
2 active free users with real usage patterns
n8n community node live on npm
~20 blog posts + use-case pages indexed on Google
What's actually working:
Reddit is the only channel driving signups right now. Specifically r/n8n — posting real workflow examples (not "check out my tool" posts) gets people to click. One post about Instagram carousel automation in n8n brought 3 signups in a week.
The n8n community node was the right move. Automation users don't want to write API calls — they want a node they can drag in. Usage went up after publish.
What's not working:
SEO is slow. 35+ pages indexed, impressions growing, clicks basically zero. I know this takes time but it's hard to watch.
Cold outreach to active free users — sent 2 emails, one reply, no conversion. Not giving up but response rate is rough.
What I learned this month:
Distribution before features. I spent the first 3 months building things nobody asked for. The month I stopped building and started posting on Reddit, I got my first paying customer.
Also: find the niche your bigger competitors ignore. Rendex (main competitor) is going all-in on AI agents and enterprise. Nobody is talking to the Make.com/n8n/Zapier crowd. That's where I'm focusing.
What's next:
Weekly Reddit posts targeting automation communities
Make.com integration (blueprint ready, needs testing)
Get to 3 paying customers before considering new features
If you're building something similar or using HTML-to-image in your automations, happy to chat.
