I spent months chasing clients who already had a webmaster. So I built something that only finds the ones who don't.
Real talk — for a long time, finding clients felt like cold-calling people who already had what I was selling.
I'd pitch a business, get excited, do my research... and find out they already had a website, already had someone fixing it, already had it covered. I wasn't bringing value. I was just another person in their inbox.
That happened so many times that I started wondering — what if I could know that BEFORE I reached out? What if there was a way to only talk to the businesses that actually need help right now?
So I built that.
The first version was completely different (and it died fast)
Originally I wasn't building this at all. I spent about 3 weeks building a tool that monitored Reddit and Indie Hackers for people complaining about problems — classic "listen for pain points" approach.
Then I watched a much bigger competitor — 140k users — shut down overnight because Reddit locked their API for commercial use.
I didn't sit on that news. I scrapped the whole thing and rebuilt around a different question: not "who's complaining online," but "who actually needs help right now, and how do I prove it to them in the first message?"
That became SignalsHunt.
What it actually does
You paste your website. The AI reads it, figures out exactly who your ideal client is, then goes and finds real local businesses through Google — but here's the part I'm most proud of: it visits each business's website too, and checks things like outdated copyright years, missing features, slow load times.
Then it writes you a personalized first message (+ two follow-ups) that references something specific and real about that business — not "Hey, I help businesses like yours" generic spam, but stuff like "noticed your site still shows 2019 in the footer, and there's no online booking option..."
You get businesses worth contacting, and a message worth sending. No guessing.
Who this is for
Freelancers and small agencies — web designers, SEO folks, copywriters, marketers — basically anyone whose biggest problem isn't doing the work, it's finding who to pitch.
I want 10 honest opinions before I do anything else
If this resonates — drop a comment with what kind of clients you're trying to land right now (genuinely curious what people are working on). Then DM me your signup email and I'll give you a full month of Pro, free. No card, no catch.
All I want back is your honest take — did it find you real prospects? Did the messages feel worth sending? Tear it apart if you need to.
Link's in the first comment. 👇
The first 10 users get 30 days of PRO VERSION!
https://signalshunt.com/login?promo=ih1
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I really like the idea. However, when I pasted my website and recieved 20 leads, most of them were pin pointing on technical issues and not so much issues that I would try to solve with my app.
The insight of "only pitch the ones who don't already have it" is one of those things that sounds obvious in retrospect but almost nobody executes on. Most cold outreach tools optimize for volume; yours optimizes for relevance. Curious — what's the false-positive rate looking like? i.e., how often does the AI flag a site as "needs help" when actually the business already has someone in-house who just hasn't updated the footer?
i think the "who not to contact" filter is one of the biggest levers in outbound. Most campaigns fail because they're optimized for volume instead of relevance. The better your exclusion criteria, the higher the quality of every conversation.
Smart — most outreach dies on targeting, not the pitch. Filtering out the ones who already have the solution is exactly the trigger-signal that turns a cold list warm; the "who NOT to contact" filter is underrated. Curious how you detect the absence at scale — tech-stack detection, or manual checks?
How are you handling false positives on the "needs help" detection?
An outdated footer year or slow load doesnt always mean they're unhappy with their current setup, plenty of businesses know their site is old and just dont care. Curious if you found a signal that actually correlates with them being ready to switch vs just having a rough site
Good
The pivot after watching that 140k user competitor get wiped by an API change is such a good instinct honestly, most people would've kept building on the same shaky ground.
The "outdated copyright year, no booking option" detail in the personalized message is a smart way to actually earn that first reply.
Painful pattern — hunting people who are actually in-market vs everyone who could theoretically buy. Curious which channel surfaced the "already have a webmaster" vs open prospects — cold outbound, communities, or something else?
The shift from “pain signals” to “clear underserved intent” is the real unlock here. That’s also where most tools either get too noisy or too confident.
Curious how you’re validating that a site is actually worth pitching vs just looking outdated.
Strong idea — this solves a real pain: wasted cold outreach. Curious to see how accurate the “needs detection” is in real client scenarios. 👍
Love this idea
smart pivot — building your whole funnel on someone else's API (Reddit) is exactly the trap, good instinct killing it fast. one signal worth adding: businesses actively running Google/Meta ads to a weak site. "no website" can mean they don't want one, but "spending money to send traffic to a slow/broken site" means they already believe in growth AND have an obvious gap — much higher intent than an outdated footer year. that's the buyer who actually replies.
The strongest part here isn't the prospecting logic—it’s the shift from “finding people who have a problem” to “finding people who are demonstrably underserved right now.” That second framing is closer to intent than interest, and I think that's what actually makes outreach feel relevant instead of intrusive.
I completely agree! That’s exactly why, for example, if you’re a web designer, you’ll come across clients who really need a design and a website! We take all of this into account and show it to potential clients! Of course, no one can be 100% sure that a client is the right fit.
Glad it resonated.
Your reply made me think there's one strategic decision sitting underneath that approach which becomes much more important as the product grows, but I don't think I can explain the reasoning properly in a thread without oversimplifying it.
If you're interested, what's the best email to reach you on?