5 months in, $0 MRR, 65+ BP posts, and launching on Product Hunt Friday — here's where things actually stand

Five months ago I quit my job to build LeaseBase full-time. AI-powered property management for independent landlords who self-manage in California.

The honest numbers:

• $0 MRR (real external paying customers: 0)

• ~700 Google impressions/day (up from ~40 in June)

• 65+ BiggerPockets forum posts (got suspended once for being too promotional — lesson learned)

• 50+ state compliance pages live and indexed

• 18 microservices, mobile app on iOS + Android, AI advisor, compliance engine

• ~12 months of runway remaining

What's worked:

• Free ungated tools (rent cap calculator, compliance checker) as top-of-funnel. People searching "can I increase rent in California" find the tool, use it, and a percentage create accounts.

• Answering real questions in forums as a landlord (I self-manage 40+ units). Not pitching — just being helpful and mentioning LeaseBase when it's genuinely the answer.

• SEO content targeting landlord pain keywords, not product keywords. Nobody searches "AI property management software." They search "how much security deposit can I charge in California."

What hasn't worked:

• Paid ads ($43/day across 5 platforms for a week — 97% bounce rate, zero signups, killed it)

• Cold email campaigns

• Posting milestones on IH/Twitter expecting signups (Max from Flowly nailed this — your BIP audience ≠ your market)

What's next:

• Product Hunt launch August 1 (Friday)

• Screen redesign sprint this week (dashboard, pricing, key flows)

• BPCon in Orlando October 2–4 — that's the checkpoint. If there are paying customers by then, I go all-in. If not, VP Engineering job search starts in November.

Happy to share anything specific about the compliance-as-wedge strategy, forum marketing post-suspension, or building a vertical SaaS as a solo founder.