4 months to go. Chrome extension live. Web search integrated. 4 users. $0 revenue. Still here.
I posted here a few weeks ago about building TruthScore with $0 revenue and almost quitting three times. That post got 130+ comments and genuinely kept me going.
So here is the honest update.
What has changed since that post:
I launched a Chrome extension.
It lives inside YouTube. You browse, you see a suspicious thumbnail, you click the icon, you get a TruthScore score without leaving the page. No new tab. No copy-pasting links. Just instant scores where the problem actually happens.
It has 3 users right now.
I know how that sounds. But 3 real humans installed something I built from scratch onto their browser. That is not nothing.
I integrated web search.
TruthScore no longer only analyzes YouTube signals. It now pulls web data to cross-reference what is being claimed in a video against what actually exists online. If a creator claims $50K months but leaves zero digital footprint anywhere, the tool catches that now.
This was the most technically challenging thing I have built so far, and I built it alone.
What has not changed:
Revenue is still $0.
I launched in December. It is now almost September. Eight months of building, iterating, marketing, fixing false positives, surviving a public callout from a creator, discovering my YouTube comments were shadowbanned the entire time, writing a viral Indie Hackers post, launching a Chrome extension, and integrating web search.
$0.
The real situation right now:
The Gemini API key is costing real money every month. Money I do not have. Every scan costs me something, and none of those scans are converting to revenue yet.
I have 27 email subscribers who used the tool and gave me their email. None of them have paid.
YouTube comments stopped working — between the shadowban and the platform treating my account as spam, that channel is effectively dead for now.
I do not have money to run paid ads.
What I have is a working product, a Chrome extension, a genuine problem worth solving, and the stubbornness to still be here after eight months of $0.
Why I am still not quitting:
Because I built this after getting scammed myself by a YouTube "make money online" video. That problem is still real. People are still getting scammed every single day by content that looks legitimate but exists only to funnel them into affiliate products.
TruthScore catches that. The tool works. The distribution is what is broken.
And I have not found the distribution lever that makes this explode yet. But I am still looking.
What I am asking for:
If you have used TruthScore—tell me honestly why you did not pay. Was it the price? The trust? The product not solving your problem clearly enough?
If you have solved the gap between a working free tool and a first paying customer—tell me what actually moved the needle.
If you are building something with the same zero-revenue wall right now—reply below. I want to hear from you.
The Chrome extension is live. The web search is integrated. The tool is better than it has ever been.
Someone needs to be first. Why not today?
truthscore.online
#indiehackers #buildinpublic #saas #zerorevenue #chromeextension #indiemaker #startuplife #distribution #makemoneyonline
The biggest signal here may not be distribution yet—it’s the 27 people who used the product, gave you their email, and still didn’t pay. That creates a much more interesting conversion question than “how do I get more users?” They’ve already crossed the curiosity barrier, but apparently not the value/trust/urgency barrier. I’d be careful about treating the product as proven and distribution as the only broken piece; the free-to-paid gap may be telling you something about how the product’s value is framed or experienced. The key question is: what would have needed to happen during that first scan for paying to feel like the obvious next step?
The 27 emails are probably the highest-leverage signal here. I would not ask them generally why they did not pay. I would ask one very narrow thing: "What would have needed to happen in your first scan for this to be worth paying for today?" That forces the answer toward outcome, trust, and urgency instead of politeness.
The “distribution is broken” conclusion is the part I’d question most. 27 people gave you their email after using it, but none paid — that sounds like a useful signal about perceived value, trust, or willingness to pay before assuming you just need more users. I’d dig into that gap first.
The distribution being broken while the product works is the most honest description of early stage I've read. Same situation here — still looking for that first paying customer. The hardest part is that a working product proves nothing about whether you can reach the people who need it.