I built a tool to kill job-application spam. now i'm spamming to get users. the irony is painful.
i built pirch — an AI job hunter that does the opposite of every other tool. instead of blasting your résumé at 400 listings, it finds a few real, verified, actually-matched jobs. the entire pitch is quality over volume. anti-spray.
then i went to get my first users and immediately became the villain of my own product. posting in subreddits that remove it in 90 seconds. spraying. the exact behavior i built pirch to end.
the thing nobody tells you: there's a canyon between "i made something good" and "anyone knows it exists," and crossing it seems to require doing the loud, spammy stuff that makes good products feel cheap.
so, genuinely — for those of you who got your first 100 users without buying ads or spraying: what actually worked? cold outreach? content? community? i'd rather do the slow honest thing right than the fast thing badly.
(happy to share the link in the comments if anyone wants to look — not trying to make this an ad.)
The irony you pointed out made me think of something slightly different.
Pirch's core promise is that better outcomes come from better matching, not more volume. If that's true, I'd expect the acquisition strategy to follow the same principle. Instead of trying to reach everyone looking for a job, I'd be curious what happens if you focus on the small groups that are already frustrated with the "apply everywhere" mindset. If your distribution reinforces the product's philosophy, the story becomes much more coherent.
as promised, the link: https://pirchjobs.com
it's free to try, still rough in places, and i'd genuinely rather hear what feels off than get polite nods. if you're job hunting right now (or know the pain), tell me where it breaks for you.