I mass DMed 200 agency owners. 3 replied. Here's what I learned about distribution the hard way.

A few weeks ago I wrote here about how building in public was harder than I expected. That post got some nice engagement and a few DMs. But the truth is, I was still mostly lost.

I'm building ReviseFlow, a visual feedback tool for web agencies. The idea is simple: your client clicks on a live website, draws on it, leaves a comment, and you get a screenshot with full technical context. No more "the button doesn't work" emails with zero details.

Sounds useful, right? I thought so too. So I built it. Polished the landing page. Added features nobody asked for. Then I sat there refreshing my analytics dashboard hoping someone would show up.

Nobody did.

The "post and pray" phase

For about two months, I did what every indie hacker guide tells you to do. I posted on Twitter. I wrote threads. I shared updates on LinkedIn. I commented on Reddit. I was consistent. I showed up every day.

The result? Maybe 50 total website visits. And most of those were probably me checking if the analytics were working.

I remember this one Saturday. I spent 4 hours writing a detailed Twitter thread about "why client feedback is broken in web agencies." I was proud of it. Good hook, real examples, clear CTA. I hit publish. 2 likes. One was from a bot. The other was my friend who didn't even read it.

That was my lowest point. Not because of the 2 likes. But because I realized I had no idea what I was doing and I had been pretending I did.

The DM experiment

So I tried something different. I went on LinkedIn, found 200 agency owners and freelancers, and sent them a short message. Not a pitch. Just something like "hey, I noticed you run a web agency. I'm curious, how do your clients send you feedback on designs? Do they use any specific tool or is it mostly emails and calls?"

200 messages. 3 replies.

One said "we use Loom." One said "we just get on a call." One said "why are you asking?"

At first I felt defeated. 1.5% response rate. Terrible. But then I actually looked at those 3 conversations and realized something. The two who answered my question gave me more insight in 5 minutes than 2 months of posting ever did.

The Loom guy told me he hates Loom for feedback because clients record 15 minute videos explaining a typo. He said he'd kill for a tool where clients could just click and type. That's literally what I built. But he had never heard of ReviseFlow.

The "we just call" person told me calls eat 30% of their week and they've accepted it as part of agency life. She didn't even know tools like mine existed.

What actually moved the needle

After those conversations, I changed everything about how I spend my time.

I stopped posting content into the void. Instead, I started showing up in places where agency owners already hang out. Web agency Slack groups. Specific subreddits like r/webdev and r/freelance. Facebook groups for Webflow and WordPress agencies. Even a few Discord servers.

But here's the key part. I didn't show up to promote. I showed up to help. Someone asks about managing client revisions? I share what I've learned from building a tool in this space. I don't even mention ReviseFlow half the time. I just talk about the problem.

And something weird happened. People started DMing me. "Hey, you seem to know a lot about this, what tool do you use?" That's when I tell them about what I'm building.

This approach gave me more signups in 2 weeks than 2 months of content posting. I know the numbers are still small. We're talking about maybe 40 signups, not 4000. But the quality is completely different. These people actually have the problem. They actually try the product. They actually give feedback.

The feature trap I almost fell into

While all this was happening, I also realized I'd been hiding behind features.

Every time I felt stuck on distribution, I'd go back to code. "Oh, I should add session recording." "Oh, I should build a React Native SDK." "Oh, what if the tool could use AI to read feedback and automatically fix bugs in code?"

I actually built all of those things. Session recording, mobile SDK, even an AI auto fix pipeline that reads a bug report and opens a draft PR on GitHub. Technically, it's cool. I'm proud of the engineering.

But here's the uncomfortable truth: not a single user asked for any of those features.

I built them because building feels productive. Shipping code gives you that dopamine hit. Sending cold DMs and getting ghosted does not. But the DMs taught me more about my users than any amount of building ever could.

I still think those features will matter eventually. The AI fix thing in particular could be a real differentiator. But I shipped them in the wrong order. I should have gotten to 50 paying users first and then asked them what they need.

Where I am now

Honest numbers: $0 MRR. A handful of active free users. A product that's probably overbuilt for this stage.

But I have something I didn't have 2 months ago: real conversations with real people who have the exact problem I'm solving. Some of them are testing the tool with their actual clients. One agency owner told me last week that her designer used ReviseFlow on a project and the revision cycle went from 23 emails to 4 feedback pins. That was the first time I felt like this might actually work.

What I'd tell myself 3 months ago

Stop optimizing your landing page. Stop writing Twitter threads. Stop adding features.

Go find 10 people who have the problem. Talk to them. Not on Twitter. Not through a form. Actually talk to them. In a Slack group, in a DM, on a call.

You'll learn more in one conversation than in a month of analytics.

The product isn't the hard part. Finding the people who need it is. And you don't find them by shouting. You find them by listening.

If you're in the same boat, I'd love to hear what's working for you. Or not working. The "not working" stories are usually more useful anyway.

And if you happen to run a web agency or do freelance web development, I'd love to chat. Not to sell you anything. Just to understand your world a little better.