I built a productivity that adapts to you. Marketing partner needed.
Every productivity tool I've used demands I adapt to it. Learn its categories. Fill its forms. Maintain its state. Remember to open it. The maintenance burden eventually exceeds the value and I abandon it. I'd bet the same has happened to you.
Tenshen (tenshen.app) inverts that. The AI initiates. It captures from email / voice / photo / meeting transcripts. It infers state. It surfaces what matters in a morning briefing and a welcome-back flow that reads like reconnecting with an EA, not catching up on chores. The user decides, but doesn't have to maintain.
I've been building it solo. Deployed, used by me daily. Architected for multi-user SaaS, ready to onboard the moment there's a reason to. My own usage runs around $3/month in AI API costs, which is a useful signal for what per-user unit economics look like at any scale. The product works. The technical de-risking is behind me.
What I need is a marketing partner. My background: a decade of B2B product management, most recently leading offering management at a Big 4 consulting practice (35% YoY revenue growth, designed a pricing methodology that became the practice's default). I'm comfortable with the build, with positioning, with talking to customers. What I can't do alone, fast enough, is build the brand and pull a paying user base in.
Structure I'm offering: milestone-based equity tied to paying users acquired. No baseline grant. 4-yr vest, 1-yr cliff on any earned slice. I want someone who'd punch up — underestimated where they sit today, hungry to be the one who built a brand instead of managing someone else's. If you want a 50/50 split for showing up, this isn't that conversation.
Two CTAs, both honest:
- If you've felt that productivity-tool maintenance fatigue and want to try Tenshen — drop a comment or DM, I'll send an invite. I'd rather have ten people use it deeply than a thousand bounce.
- If you're a marketer who reads "milestone-based equity, no baseline" and leans in instead of out — same channel.
The part that stood out to me is "the AI initiates."
Most productivity tools fail because they require users to maintain the system. The more data entry, tagging, updating, and organization required, the more likely people are to abandon it.
I've seen the same thing when building CRM and automation systems. The highest adoption rates come from workflows that reduce friction and automate context gathering rather than asking users to manage another dashboard.
Your "reconnect me to what matters" approach feels closer to having an executive assistant than a traditional productivity app.
Out of curiosity, have you identified which audience is responding most strongly so far? Founders, consultants, sales professionals, and agency owners all experience productivity fatigue differently, and that could have a big impact on positioning and customer acquisition.
Interesting concept. I'd be interested in checking it out.
The strongest part here is the “AI initiates” angle. Most productivity tools still depend on the user doing upkeep: tagging, updating, sorting, reopening, and remembering the system exists. Tenshen’s better frame is not just adaptive productivity, but low-maintenance executive assistance for people whose work state is scattered across email, voice, meetings, photos, and context.
That positioning feels sharper than “productivity tool,” because productivity is crowded and vague. The real promise is continuity: the product notices, reconnects, and briefs you without making you rebuild your own context every morning.
One thing I’d watch is the Tenshen name. It is distinctive, but if this becomes a broader AI workflow or personal-ops platform, Xevoa .com would carry the product in a cleaner, more scalable SaaS direction.
I read this and smiled because you've done the hard part — building something useful. The marketing side is where most technical founders get stuck. You're not alone.
Here's what I'd suggest before looking for a long-term marketing partner: test the waters with a small distribution run first. See what messaging works, who responds, and what feedback you get.
I help indie hackers do exactly this.
My process:
✅ I take your product and distribute it to 20-50 active communities (WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook groups) where early adopters and productivity nerds hang out
✅ You get real eyes on your tool within 24 hours
✅ I send screenshot proof of every single post
✅ You pay ONLY after you see the proof
Packages:
📍 20 communities — $30*
*📍 50 communities — $60
Why this works for you right now:
I can also add beta tester recruitment if you want detailed feedback ($40 for 10 testers with reports).
If this sounds useful, my WhatsApp is in my display name. Happy to share screenshots from distributions I did this week.
Rooting for this. The "adapts to you" angle is interesting — that's a differentiator worth testing.
Launched a Chrome extension that blocks distracting websites during deep work. 500 downloads in the first week, zero marketing. Just posted on Hacker News about how I built it in a weekend with vanilla JS. If you're tired of productivity tools that overcomplicate things, keep it simple.
i'm a marketer and i'll love to see how i can help
The “AI initiates” angle is genuinely refreshing. Most productivity tools die because users have to maintain them.Solid concept. Positioning it around continuity rather than productivity feels like the right direction.
Interesting product and honest breakdown of the maintenance challenge. Have you already tested SEO/content-led acquisition for this niche? We've worked on SaaS growth, content strategy, and organic acquisition for software products. Curious to know which channels you've tried so far and where you're seeing the biggest bottleneck.
The "AI initiates" flip is the right bet, every tool I drop dies from maintenance burden, not missing features. The hard part I keep hitting is making the morning briefing feel like a person and not a digest nobody opens. How are you deciding what gets surfaced and what gets dropped?
That is amazing. I can help you with premium motion graphic content i.e. launch videos, explainer videos, logo animations etc.
Hey, sounds really interesting — especially the idea of reducing productivity-tool maintenance fatigue through AI-driven context and workflows.
We may actually be a good fit for what you’re looking for.
My team works on:
Alongside that, we also have:
So we can support both marketing growth and product execution if needed.
Your milestone-based partnership approach makes sense, and I’d be interested in learning more about your current traction, target audience, and acquisition goals.
Open to discussing further if you think there’s alignment.
You’ve already done the hard part: building something people might actually want. A strong marketing partner can help with positioning, distribution, growth loops, partnerships, and turning users into momentum.
Product sounds thought through but milestone equity with no baseline is a tough sell unless people already see traction. I’d push harder on users and retention than philosophy. Nobody markets vibes for long.
Hello there! I'm an AI Marketer and can help you with your marketing. I can deliver better results in less time than an average person(thx to AI) and help you test various marketing ideas in a single day. Would love to connect and work with you.
Wonderful... If you are looking for contacts to help boost your sales and marketing... I have lists of high networth persons and could tailor customers that could either invest or boost customer sales. We have also helped founders get featured on Forbes, Bloomberg and many more. shoot me a message on telegram @caseyimafidon
The “AI initiates” angle is the part that actually matters. Most productivity tools make you keep the system going, which is why they die once the novelty wears off. The useful version is something that reconnects you to context without making you do admin first. DictaFlow solves the same problem on the capture side, get the thought out fast and sort it later.
I’ll be blunt: the concept is interesting, but the market is crowded and noisy. In the last week alone, I’ve come across a few products that feel quite similar. When you said “deployed,” I understood that as the app being live somewhere, but not necessarily publicly launched and validated with a real customer base.
I also understand wanting to protect equity, but asking a marketer to commit for a year at this stage, with milestones that are still a bit vague, and the product still not validated, can make the offer hard to take seriously for many people.
In my view, milestone success depends heavily on three things:
I’d be open to making a better offer.
What I’d propose is this: we build the full marketing framework together, covering acquisition, retention, monetization, and data-driven scaling. For the first 2–3 months, we focus on pre-launch preparation and GTM. After that, we spend another 4 months building the marketing engine and execution structure.
If we do a 6-month collaboration, I’d suggest the first 2 months be treated as setup and strategy at no cost, and then we define monthly milestones going forward. If a milestone is not achieved, that month’s marketing fee would not apply.
If you’re open to it, we can discuss this further over a VC call.
Tenshen surely looks to have a great value proposition. As per you, what is your initial target audience?