Building ProposeAI: 3/100 signups and learning fast

Hey IH community 👋

I started building ProposeAI about 2 weeks ago, and I'm at 3 signups out of 100. Yeah, that's really the number. But honestly, I'm learning more now than I would have if it was 30.

The problem we're solving:

Freelancers and consultants spend 5-10 hours writing proposals for clients. Most of them write from scratch every time, duplicating effort, forgetting to mention past wins, or just freezing because they don't know where to start.

ProposeAI is an AI co-pilot that turns their scattered context (project brief, past work, company info) into a polished proposal in minutes. No fluff, no generic templates — just smart suggestions based on what actually worked for them before.

The current state (100% transparency):

Signups: 3 (targeting 100 by March 25)
Traffic: ~150 visits to proposeai.app in 2 weeks
Conversion: 2% signup rate (I'll take it for day 1-14)
Source: Twitter, IH comments, a few organic searches
Users: 1 actual freelancer who tried the waitlist. She didn't use it yet but hasn't churned either.

What I learned so far:

The messaging was wrong at first. I was talking about "AI-powered efficiency" and people's eyes glazed over. After a few conversations, I realized they care about: "avoid forgetting something important in your proposal" and "stop rewriting the same thing over and over."
Freelancers are cautious about new tools. They're not looking for the latest shiny thing — they're looking for something they can trust with a document that literally pays their bills. Building trust is step 1.
The landing page doesn't match the real product. My current landing page talks about features I haven't built yet. I'm testing with a simple form → email → personal outreach. That's working better.
Distribution > Product. I spent 80% of my time building the landing page and 20% getting people to see it. That's backwards. The 3 signups came from manual outreach and commenting on IH, not organic traffic.

Next steps (March):

Post on 2-3 communities where freelancers hang out (IH, r/freelance, freelancer Slack groups)
Do 10 user interviews with the signups I have (if they're open to it)
Rewrite landing page based on feedback (one problem at a time)
Keep the form super simple: name + email + "What's your biggest pain point writing proposals?"
Ship a lightweight demo (not the full product — just a proof of concept)
Track: signups, conversion %, problem statements from interviews

The ask:

I'm learning by building in public here. If you're a freelancer or know one:

Do you write proposals? What's the hardest part?
Would you use something to help? What would make you actually use it (not just bookmark)?
Where do freelancers gather online? (besides IH) — I want to find them where they already are.

Also very open to feedback on the idea itself. It could be completely wrong, and I'd rather know now.

You can try the landing page at proposeai.app — literally just put in your email if you want updates.

Thanks for reading. Off to write more cold emails to freelancers now.