I emailed 130 people to promote my SaaS. 0 said yes.

A month ago I looked at PostClaw's numbers and saw the real problem. People who found it were paying. The product was working. But nobody was finding it.

I was doing everything myself. Writing Reddit posts, DMing people on X, running content across LinkedIn, IndieHackers, Threads. Every single customer came from my own effort. €255 MRR after months of this. And honestly, most of my day was going to marketing instead of building.

So I had this idea: what if I paid other people to sell it for me?

The affiliate bet

Set up a program on Affonso. 40% recurring commission. If someone brings a customer paying €17/month, the affiliate gets about €7/month as long as that customer stays.

40% might seem high. But here’s how I saw it: I was actually thinking about bringing on a cofounder and giving away 40% equity. That’s the same number, but a much worse deal. A cofounder gets 40% forever, even if they don’t deliver. Affiliates only earn when they bring in customers. Plus, I keep full ownership of the company.

Listed the program on Affonso’s marketplace and started doing outreach.

130 emails, 0 partners

My first approach was newsletters. Newsletter owners already have an audience, they need stuff to recommend, and they get a recurring cut. Perfect fit, right?

Found 130 newsletter owners in the social media / marketing / SaaS space. Personalized every email. Explained the product, the commission, the audience fit.

Got 2 replies. Both said no.

130 personalized emails for literally zero results. That one stung.

The X pivot

After the newsletter disaster I switched to X. People already posting about social media tools and SaaS are exactly the kind of people who’d recommend something like PostClaw to their audience.

I found about 500 accounts in my niche and started sending DMs every day. I didn’t just blast out automated messages. Instead, I sent real messages explaining the product and why a 40% recurring commission might interest their audience.

Most people didn’t reply. Some said they’d look into it. A handful actually signed up for the program.

And then… nothing. For weeks I had affiliates registered but zero sales coming through. Checked the dashboard every day. Nothing. Started wondering if I’d wasted a full month on something that just doesn’t work for a €17/mo product.

5 sales before breakfast

Last Wednesday morning. I’m at my kitchen table having breakfast. Phone buzzes. New customer. Then another. Then another. Then two more.

5 paid customers before I finished eating. I hadn’t opened my laptop. Hadn’t posted anything. Hadn’t talked to anyone.

By end of day: 8 sales total. All from affiliates.

MRR jumped from €255 to €350. That’s 37% growth in just one week, and I didn’t close any of those sales myself.

What hit me

I still don’t know exactly which affiliate brought those 8 customers. Don’t know what they posted or what they said about PostClaw. I just woke up to money.

For months I’d been grinding, writing posts, doing outreach, and managing content on five platforms. Every customer felt like a battle I had to win on my own. Then one good affiliate did more in a single morning than I could in weeks.

I’d been doing this all wrong. I kept thinking I had to sell my own product because nobody else would care enough. Turns out if you make it worth someone’s while, they’ll actually do a better job than you.

What’s next

I’m going all in on X for affiliate recruiting, since that’s where my affiliates came from. The newsletter outreach was a total bust. Maybe it works when you’re bigger and more well-known, but at €350 MRR, nobody cares.

Goal: go from 1-2 active affiliates to 10 by end of April. If one person can do 8 sales in a morning, I want to see what 10 can do.