Day 7 of the 40-day push to 20 paying customers. Here's the build-in-public update.
Posting this here too because I want input from people who've done early-stage B2B distribution before. Original cross-post on r/startups.
Doing this publicly because it forces honesty.
What we're selling: an AI visibility tool for B2B SaaS. Free first scan, then $49/mo for ongoing scans + corrective content generation, or $49 one-time for a single audit report.
Day 7 reality:
Working:
- Cold-email scan-based pitches with real per-company data converted to opens (early — we just enabled open tracking, so this is still TBD)
- Public scan teardowns as blog posts (one post drove ~40% of the week's traffic)
- The product's own free scan is the best demo — people who run it understand the problem within 90 seconds
Not working:
- Cold emails to hello@/info@/contact@ — most bounce. We hardened email discovery and now route those to LinkedIn DM instead
- LinkedIn DMs (the stockpile path) — LinkedIn gates cold DMs to Pro/InMail. Stockpiled ~30 of these before realizing the channel friction
- Just shipping process docs without distribution — every hour spent on internal infrastructure is an hour we don't spend on inbound
What I'd do differently if starting over:
- Build the lead-capture form on the homepage on Day 1, not Day 7
- Submit to HN and post to LinkedIn from Day 1, not Day 7
- Pick a sharper differentiator earlier (we ended up at "AI is recommending your competitors" — should have started there)
Current count: 0/20 paying. 34 days to go.
Curious what other founders here are doing for early-stage distribution that's worked.
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