I launched 3 AI tools and got zero sales — here's what actually worked

Last year, I built and launched three different AI tools over the span of 7 months. Total sales after all three launches: $0. Not a single paying customer.

Each time, I thought the next one would be different. Better landing page. Better pricing. Better product. But the result was always the same — crickets.

Here's the thing I was missing: I was building products nobody knew existed.

The turning point came when I stopped obsessing over the product and started obsessing over distribution. Specifically, I started building in public on X/Twitter.

I committed to posting daily about what I was building — the ugly parts, the failed experiments, the small wins. Not promotional junk, just honest updates. After 60 days of consistent posting:

• Grew from 200 to 3,400 followers
• First 10 beta users found me through a single thread about a failed launch
• Started getting inbound DMs from people asking to pay for what I was building

The product hadn't changed. The only thing that changed was that people could see the work happening.

But here's the honest truth nobody tells you: posting consistently every single day is exhausting. Between building, shipping, and replying to users, finding time to craft quality threads and posts was killing me. I'd skip days. My engagement would dip. It was a vicious cycle.

That frustration is actually what led me to build xbeast.io — an AI tool that helps automate X posting while keeping the voice authentic. I needed it myself before I sold it to anyone else.

Anyway, fast forward to today: I have two products with actual paying users, and the third one is in a drawer where it belongs. Distribution > Product, until you have both.

What's the one thing you've tried for distribution that surprised you with how well it worked?