Got my first paying customer while eating pizza on my couch
Two weeks ago I launched my SaaS. Yesterday I was sitting on my couch eating pizza when my phone buzzed.
Someone I'd never talked to, never DMed, never seen in any community I'm active in - just bought my product.
I still don't know exactly how he found me. And honestly, that's the most interesting part of this whole thing.
The backstory
Before this, I spent 3 months building an AI app that went nowhere. Zero revenue. Couldn't get payment processors to work with me, the niche was brutally competitive, and I was burning out trying to make something happen.
So I changed my approach. Instead of spending months perfecting something, I built this new product in 2 days and launched it half-polished. Figured I'd learn more from real users than from tweaking features nobody asked for.
What I did for marketing
No ads. No budget. Just content.
I started posting build-in-public updates on X. Shared screenshots, small wins, even the boring stuff. Maybe 10-15 posts over two weeks.
I wrote a few Reddit posts in founder communities. Nothing viral, just sharing what I was learning.
And I went hard on SEO. My blog has about 25 articles now, all targeting low-competition keywords. 2,000 impressions in Google Search Console so far. No idea if that's where this customer came from, but it's possible.
What I learned from this one sale
The honest answer is: I don't know what worked. Could have been a Reddit post. Could have been SEO. Could have been someone seeing a tweet and checking it out days later.
But here's what I do know - I spent 3 months on something with zero feedback from the market. This time I spent 2 days building, 2 weeks marketing, and someone I've never met decided it was worth paying for.
That tells me I was doing it backwards before. Build fast, get it out there, let the market tell you if you're onto something.
What's next
Trying to figure out where this customer actually came from so I can do more of it. Going to keep pushing on SEO and content. Will report back when I hit 10 customers - or when I learn what's actually driving signups.
Anyone else had that experience where your first sale came from somewhere unexpected? Curious how you figured out what was actually working.
The "I don't know what worked" part is so real. At this stage, attribution is basically impossible - someone sees your tweet, forgets about it, Googles something related two weeks later, finds your blog post, and then checks out the product. The trail goes cold.
What I've seen work: just keep doing all of it until something shows clear signal. Once you hit 10-20 customers you'll start seeing patterns (same referrer, similar job titles, same problem they mention). That's when you can double down.
Also the 2 days building vs 3 months building lesson is one a lot of us learn the hard way. Congrats on the sale - the first one always feels different.