I shut down two startups because I couldn't find customers. So I built the tool I needed.

Two years, two products, two slow deaths. Roamr and Teiden. Both died the same way. I built something, then sat there refreshing analytics waiting for people who never showed up.

The product was never the problem. Distribution was. I had no idea how to find the people who actually needed what I made.

So with the third one I started backwards. Before writing a line of product I asked one question: where do my buyers already say out loud that they have this problem?

Turns out, everywhere. Reddit, X, LinkedIn, YouTube. Every hour founders post "how do I get my first 10 customers" or "anyone know a tool that does X." Real people, raising their hand, in public, for free.

The entire cold outbound industry ignores this. Apollo sells you a list of people who never asked. You blast it, you get 1% replies, and you torch your sender reputation doing it.

I did the opposite. I built something that reads those four platforms, finds the one person describing the exact thing I sell, and replies in my voice at human pace. Not a template. Not "Hey {first_name}." A real reply to the specific thing they said.

That became LeadSynth.

The honest numbers, 90 days in:

• 686 active accounts

• 27,178 conversations

• 20.6% reply rate on Reddit (cold email sits near 1%)

• 0 spam complaints

• built solo, no team, no fake testimonials

It's not a rocket ship. It's one person and one product that works. If a message goes out that someone doesn't love, they talk to me and I fix the prompt.

Here's the part that matters even if you never touch my tool:

You don't need a list. You need to be in the room when someone asks. The signal is free and public. Search your own keywords on Reddit and X right now. The people describing your product in their own words are already there, today. Reply like a human, not a pitch. That single shift is the difference between 1% and 20%.

Anyway, that's the build. My real challenge right now is churn, not acquisition, which is a weird and humbling place to end up after two years of thinking acquisition was the whole game.

What's working for you on distribution? Genuinely asking, always comparing notes.