I'm a 40-year-old marketing consultant building my first SaaS in my spare time. Here's what the early days actually look like.
For years I used physical planners and journals to stay on track with my goals. The Ink+Volt planner, the Five Minute Journal, that kind of thing. They worked, sort of. But I always wanted something that could actually hold me accountable, adapt to my patterns, and not depend on me remembering to open a notebook every morning.
So I built it.
I'm Anders, 40, based in Norway. I work full-time as a digital marketing and strategy consultant. AI Growth Coach (growthcoach4u.com) is my first real product -- an AI-powered personal growth platform with coaching, goal tracking, and automated accountability notifications.
I built it on Riff.ai (no-code) because I'm not a developer, and I didn't want to spend 18 months writing code before finding out if anyone cared. The whole thing went from idea to working product faster than I expected.
Here's where things stand right now:
What's working:
- 16 free testers using the app and giving feedback
- My first LinkedIn post about the project hit 6,000 impressions -- way more than I expected for a personal account
- The "I built what I wished existed" narrative resonates with people. Every time I tell the story, someone says "I need that"
- Payment is live and ready to accept customers
What's not working (yet):
- Converting interest into actual sign-ups is harder than generating interest. People love the idea. Getting them to try it is a different game.
- I have a $0 marketing budget, so everything is organic. That means every channel takes real time and effort to build.
- Building in public takes more discipline than I expected. Working full-time plus family means I'm building this in evenings and weekends, and some weeks the "public" part falls off.
What I've learned so far:
- Talking to testers directly is worth 10x any feature I could build right now. The feedback loop is everything.
- The positioning challenge is real. "AI personal growth coach" sounds either too vague or too self-helpy depending on who you ask. Finding the right language for the right audience is an ongoing experiment.
- No-code gets you to market fast, but you trade speed for flexibility. There are things I want to build that Riff makes hard. That's a trade-off I'm willing to accept at this stage.
My goal for 2026 is to hit 1M NOK in revenue (roughly $95K USD). That's ambitious for a solo founder with no budget and no dev team, but the product works, the early testers are engaged, and the market for personal accountability tools is growing.
Right now I'm focused on one thing: landing the first paying customers.
If you're also building a side project while working full-time, I'd love to hear how you manage your time. That's been my biggest constraint by far.
Check it out at growthcoach4u.com -- happy to give founding member pricing to fellow indie hackers who want to try it.
The marketing consultant background is actually a huge advantage for building SaaS. Most technical founders have no idea how to position or sell their product. You already know the distribution side — the product/tech side is the learnable part.
One thing I'd suggest from my own experience building tools: ship the smallest possible version and get it in front of real users ASAP. I built a macOS menu bar app (TokenBar — tracks AI usage limits across providers, https://www.tokenbar.site/) and the first version was embarrassingly simple. But real user feedback from that simple version was worth more than 3 months of building features in isolation.
What's your distribution strategy for v1? With your marketing background you probably have some channels in mind already.
love the TokenBar story, and you're totally right about real feedback beating building in isolation. for distribution right now it's a mix of linkedin (personal profile has been surprisingly effective), indie hackers, X/twitter, and starting to build an email list. no paid channels yet since the budget is zero. the marketing background helps with knowing which levers to pull but honestly the hardest part is still the same as for any solo founder: finding the time to pull them consistently. biggest lesson so far is that one good linkedin post can do more for awareness than a week of scattered efforts across five channels.
Oh man I can resonate with you. I am 40 as well but sort of on the opposite end. I am a software engineer with no marketing skills. Anti social in many ways. Congrats on getting something out. I actually used ai to accelerate development on my on SaaS product it was like a 10x multiplier in my output. Anyway, just looking out for you. If you finally get some clients maybe have dev take a look at your codebase. When I was building with ai, I noticed it missed a lot of security things likes server/client side validation, verification on end points for roles and whatnot. Also I went with a serverless db it tried to write queries that did full table scans. Which when you are small isn't a big deal but if you grow to a medium/large size things will slow down and get pricey. Anyway, best of luck!
Appreciate the security and DB-scan callout — those are exactly the kinds of things that don't bite you until you have real users, which is precisely when you have the least bandwidth to fix them.
I'm on Riff.ai (no-code) so the DB layer is somewhat abstracted from me, but the validation point lands either way: when you're prompting an LLM to ship features, it cheerfully builds UX without thinking about who's actually allowed to do what.
Funny how the reverse vector hits in the same place. My "10x with AI" moment was when I realized I could finally ship product without waiting on a developer — but the gap I keep closing now is taste, not output. AI happily writes twice as much code as I need, and the discipline is in pruning, not producing.
If your SaaS is something a non-technical founder might use, drop the link — happy to take a look.
Well done! Let me know if you want help thinking about launching a premium tier, or offering some free content to signed-in customers (so you get emails), then nurturing them.
Thanks — really appreciate that.
Right now I'm in the "watch how the 16 testers actually behave" phase, which feels more useful than designing the premium tier in advance. Once I see which use cases actually keep people coming back, I'll have a much better idea of what premium should unlock.
Definitely interested in the email-nurturing angle though. The current onboarding hands people the app and hopes they remember to open it — which is exactly the wrong shape for an accountability product. What's the first email you'd send to a free signup who didn't return on day 2?
Relevant to your journey: as you convert those 16 testers to paid, the first failed payment will arrive before you have time to set up dunning reactively. tryrecoverkit.com/connect — one-click Stripe connection, Day1/Day3/Day7 recovery emails fire automatically.
The "interest-to-signup gap" you're describing is usually a friction problem, not a desire problem. When someone says "I need that," they're expressing empathy for the problem — that's not the same as a commitment to act right now. The conversion happens when the cost of trying feels lower than the pain they're carrying.
Two things that tend to close this gap for personal productivity tools: (1) make the first value moment happen in the first session, not the second or third. If the AI says something specific to their situation in the first 3 minutes, they're hooked. If the first session feels generic, they close the tab. (2) The "I built what I wished existed" narrative works for awareness, but try adding one very specific outcome in your CTA — not "get personalized coaching" but something like "know exactly what you should be working on tomorrow morning."
The $0 budget + evenings/weekends constraint is actually an asset at this stage. It forces you to validate with the most motivated people who find you organically. Their behavior is data you can't buy with ad spend.
On the 16 testers: have you watched any of them use the app live? The interest-to-activation gap almost always becomes obvious in the first 5 minutes of watching a cold user go through your product for the first time. Screenshare with one of them this week — it'll be more useful than the next 20 feature decisions.
this is one of the most actionable comments i've gotten on this post -- thank you.
the friction vs desire framing really clicks. you're right that people express empathy for the problem without committing to the solution. i've been thinking about it as a messaging issue but it's actually a product experience issue. if the first session doesn't feel specific to them within minutes, they bounce.
the CTA point is sharp too. "know exactly what you should be working on tomorrow morning" is so much more concrete than what i've been using. that's the kind of specificity that turns interest into action.
and the screenshare suggestion -- that's going on the to-do list this week. i've been collecting feedback through messages but watching someone actually use it cold would probably reveal things i can't see anymore because i'm too close to it.
the reframing on the $0 budget being an asset is something i needed to hear. it's easy to feel behind when you see others running ads, but you're right -- organic users who find you on their own are the most honest signal you can get. really appreciate you taking the time on this.
6k impressions on a first linkedin post is a really strong signal, that tells you the messaging already resonates before you spend a dollar. the gap between interest and sign-ups is super common though, especially for tools where people think yeah i need that but then forget to actually try it. one thing that works well is using that organic content to build a retargeting audience, even a tiny one, so when you do eventually test a small paid budget you already know who to reach. with your marketing background you probably already think this way but it could be worth testing even $5-10/day on linkedin or meta just to see what your cost per sign-up actually looks like. have you thought about running any small paid experiments alongside the organic stuff?
really appreciate this perspective. the retargeting angle is smart and honestly something i should have started building from day one. right now the budget is literally $0 so i'm going all in on organic first, but you're right that even $5-10/day would give me real data on cost per sign-up vs just guessing. i think the play is to nail the positioning and get the organic messaging tight first, then use a small paid test to validate the conversion math. that way i'm not just throwing money at an unclear message. definitely on the roadmap once i have a few more data points from organic.
As a solo founder building a utility in my spare time too, I totally relate to this! The 'early days' are all about balancing features vs. simplicity. I just launched my first tool today (a private word counter) and the hardest part was deciding when to stop tweaking the UI and just hit 'publish'. Good luck with the SaaS
congrats on launching the word counter! you nailed it with the "stop tweaking and just hit publish" thing. that's the hardest part for sure. i kept going back and forth on small UI details for weeks before i finally forced myself to ship. the features vs simplicity balance never really goes away but at least once it's live you get real feedback instead of guessing. good luck with the build!
Love the honesty. The "building in spare time" part resonates — I'm doing the same thing right now. Curious how you decide what to work on when you only have 1-2 hours a day. Do you plan weekly or just tackle whatever feels most urgent?
great question. i do a loose weekly plan on sundays where i pick 2-3 things that will actually move the needle that week. then each evening i just pick the highest impact one from that short list. the trick for me is being ruthless about saying no to stuff that feels productive but isn't. like i could spend 3 hours tweaking the onboarding flow or i could spend 1 hour writing a post that gets the product in front of new people. with limited time you have to constantly ask "is this the thing that gets me closer to paying customers?" and if the answer is no, it goes to the backlog. some weeks i still end up firefighting whatever feels urgent, but the weekly list at least gives me something to snap back to.
The Sunday weekly plan + "is this getting me closer to paying customers?" filter is solid. Stealing that. I keep falling into the onboarding-tweaking trap when I should be writing posts instead.
ha, the onboarding-tweaking trap is so real. it feels productive because you're "improving the product" but it's really just avoiding the scarier work of putting yourself out there. i have to catch myself doing the same thing constantly. steal away, hope the filter helps!
100%. Tweaking pixels feels safe, putting yourself out there doesn't. Thanks for the honesty — nice to know I'm not the only one fighting that instinct.
you're definitely not alone in that. i think most solo founders fight that instinct daily. the stuff that actually moves the needle almost always feels uncomfortable. glad this thread resonated -- keep building and feel free to share what you're working on, would love to follow along.
Will do — appreciate the encouragement. Following you back too, always good to have someone in the same boat to compare notes with.
Likewise! Always easier when you can swap notes with someone who gets the solo founder grind. Looking forward to seeing how Autorely evolves.
Love the idea and congrats on the launch - big milestone. Would agree on similar takes of getting this into the hands of as many people as possible to get feedback to I’mprove your product as quick as possible. Feels like the bones are there and the additional features / benefits will come from pure user base feedback
thanks! totally agree on the feedback point. that's exactly the phase i'm in right now. got about 16 testers using it and every conversation with them teaches me something i wouldn't have figured out on my own. the bones are definitely there but the real product-market fit comes from watching how people actually use it vs how i imagined they would. appreciate the encouragement!
This resonates a lot.
I’m also building a SaaS while working full-time, and the biggest surprise for me wasn’t building — it was converting interest into action.
People say “this sounds great” very easily.
Getting them to sign up is a completely different psychological hurdle.
Your point about positioning hit hard. I’ve realized that sometimes it’s not about explaining what the product does — it’s about making the user instantly recognize themselves in the problem.
Curious — are your testers using it consistently, or do you see drop-offs after the first few days?
That early retention signal seems more important than traffic at this stage.
you're asking the right question and honestly it's a mixed bag. some testers are using it daily and those are the ones giving the best feedback. others signed up, tried it once or twice, and went quiet. the pattern i'm seeing is that the ones who set up their first goal and get that first AI coaching nudge tend to stick around. the ones who just browsed around without committing to a goal drop off fast. so the activation moment seems to be "set your first real goal and get your first check-in." that's been a huge insight for me because it tells me exactly where the onboarding needs to push harder. you're spot on that retention signal matters more than traffic right now. no point driving people to something that doesn't stick.
Really respect the honesty here.
The “interest vs. conversion” gap is something I see a lot — especially with tools people like but don’t feel urgency to pay for yet.
Curious: have you reverse-engineered what revenue target per month would require in terms of pricing and conversion rate? Sometimes clarity there changes positioning decisions entirely.
yes, i've done exactly that and it was a wake-up call. at $15/month i need roughly 550-600 active subscribers to hit my first year revenue target. working backwards: if i assume a 3-5% visitor-to-trial conversion and maybe 20-30% trial-to-paid, i need a lot more traffic than i initially thought. that math is what pushed me to focus hard on positioning first, because a 2x improvement in conversion rate cuts the traffic requirement in half. you're right that the clarity changes everything. once you see the actual numbers, "get more traffic" stops being the answer and "convert better" takes priority.
yes to the 40 years olds building - I am one too! more than full time job, evenings, weekends & transparently, openclaw are my options
love it, fellow 40-year-old builder! openclaw sounds interesting. the evenings and weekends grind is real but there's something about building your own thing that makes the late nights worth it. keep going!
The interest-to-signup gap you described is the universal early-stage founder struggle. What's working: your positioning insight about 'AI personal growth coach' being too vague is spot-on. Based on what testers say ('it actually makes me follow through'), consider testing positioning around the specific outcome: 'The accountability system that won't let you off the hook.' Your users' words convert better than category descriptions.
this is genuinely helpful, thank you. the positioning point hit home. i've been describing the category ("AI personal growth coach") instead of the outcome. "the accountability system that won't let you off the hook" is so much closer to what people actually experience. one tester literally said "it's the first time i actually followed through on a goal" and i wasn't using that in my messaging at all. going to rework the landing page copy around those exact words. appreciate you taking the time to break this down.
really relate to this. i'm building something for UK tradespeople in my spare time too, and the gap between people saying "oh that's a great idea" and actually signing up is massive. the thing that helped me most was letting people use the product once for free with no signup wall. once they saw the output, a few converted. still early days but the momentum is real when you just keep showing up. good luck with the 1M NOK target, rooting for you.
the "oh that's a great idea" vs actually signing up gap is painfully real. love the no-signup-wall approach, that's something i've been thinking about too. letting people experience the value before asking for anything makes so much sense. building for UK tradespeople sounds like a really specific and underserved niche, which is exactly where you want to be. thanks for the encouragement on the 1M NOK target, going to need it! keep showing up is solid advice.
The gap between "people love the idea" and "people actually
sign up" — felt this hard. We launched TubeSpark (tubespark.ai)
for YouTube creators and heard "I need that!" constantly during
development. But signups only picked up when we showed real
results before asking for anything.
What's working for us now: a generous free tier (12 ideas/month)
where users get actual value immediately. No trial countdown, no
credit card wall. Once they see a video idea scored 85+ on our
Viral Score and think "I need to make this," the paid upgrade
happens naturally.
Your positioning insight is spot on — "AI personal growth coach"
is a category, not a pain point. Based on what your testers said
("it actually makes me follow through"), I'd test something like:
"The accountability app that won't let you off the hook." Your
users' words are always better positioning than ours.
Fellow solo founder from Brazil here, also built in evenings and
weekends. The only thing that works: ship something small every
single day. Momentum compounds faster than you think. Keep going!
really appreciate the detailed breakdown. the TubeSpark free tier approach is exactly the kind of thing i need to think harder about. showing real results before asking for anything is such a strong conversion mechanism. your Viral Score example is a perfect "aha moment" that makes the upgrade feel natural rather than forced. and yes, the positioning feedback is landing hard from multiple people now. "AI personal growth coach" describes what it is, not what it does for you. working on shifting that. love the "ship something small every single day" mindset. fellow evenings-and-weekends builder here from Norway. let's keep at it!
Great project! I'm also launching LinksWatcher today to help affiliates track 'Zombie Pages' via AI. It's a tough day at #139 but we're hanging in there! Good luck with your growth.
thanks! LinksWatcher sounds like a smart niche, affiliate marketers definitely need better tooling for dead pages. hang in there at #139, the early grind is real but it compounds. good luck with the launch!
Love this kind of honesty! the early days really do look exactly like this. The part about building fast to find out if anyone cares before investing 18 months really resonates. I'm a software engineer so I built my first version myself, but the same principle applies, I had to rebuild almost everything once I switched from old AI models to generative AI. The product only became something I was proud of after a full rewrite. Keep going, the early chaos is normal!
"the early chaos is normal" is exactly what i needed to hear. the rebuilding story resonates too. i'm not a software engineer (marketing background), but the same principle applies with no-code: you build version 1, learn what actually matters, and then rebuild it properly. the "build fast to find out if anyone cares" mindset saved me from spending a year on something nobody wanted. appreciate the encouragement!
evenings and weekends with a full-time job plus family — the only thing that actually worked for me was one fixed 90-minute block, same time every day. once I treated it like a meeting I couldn't cancel, the 'I'll find time when I can' problem disappeared.
the "treat it like a meeting you can't cancel" reframe is so good. that's exactly the mindset shift that makes the difference. i've been doing something similar but not as consistently as i should. the "i'll find time when i can" trap is real, and it basically means you never find it. going to lock in a fixed block and protect it. thanks for sharing what actually worked.
Love seeing the journey from physical planners to building your own solution! The accountability angle is smart - most productivity tools focus on task management but miss the behavioral aspect. As a fellow builder, curious about your experience using no-code - how long did it take to get the MVP live?
thanks! the behavioral angle is exactly what got me started. i used physical planners like Ink+Volt and the Five Minute Journal for years, and they worked because of the accountability and reflection built into them. most digital tools just give you a task list without the behavioral layer. for the no-code question: i built the MVP on Riff.ai and had a working version within a few weeks of evenings and weekends. the first version was rough but functional enough to get in front of testers. no-code has been a game changer for someone with zero coding background. highly recommend it for validating ideas fast.
Hi, Anders, I've sent a you a linkeding request, want to connect for partner ship on your idea or may be mine. or any new idea we can collab. let me know if you interested.
the whole idea 1 marketing 40 year guy, 1 tech 38 year guy, make micro-saas portfolio together.
hey, appreciate the outreach! right now i'm fully focused on AI Growth Coach and getting it to revenue, so not looking to take on new projects at the moment. but i'll keep an eye out for your linkedin request. good luck with your builds!
The gap between "people love the idea" and "people sign up" is the most common wall early-stage founders hit - interest is cheap, activation takes a clear trigger. One thing that helped us convert curiosity into action was giving something specific and tangible for free upfront, not just a trial, but a real deliverable they could use immediately. The positioning challenge you mentioned is also worth solving before scaling any channel - "AI personal growth coach" is a category, not a problem people wake up with.
Really appreciate this comment. The "category, not a problem" framing hit home. I've been wrestling with exactly that. Nobody wakes up thinking "I need an AI personal growth coach." They wake up thinking "I keep setting goals and not following through."
The free deliverable idea is smart too. Right now I offer a free trial, but a standalone resource that gives immediate value could be a much better activation trigger. Something people can use before they even sign up. Going to think about what that could look like.
What kind of deliverable worked for you? Was it a template, a tool, a report?
Hi Anders. I feel your pain, with my one projects, altough I'm only 38. Converting interest into actual sign-ups sure is harder than generating interest. Ad full time job, kids and no coding background. I'm rooting for you!
we're basically living the same life! full-time job, kids, no coding background, and trying to turn interest into actual signups. that last part is definitely the hardest. what are you building? would love to follow along. thanks for the encouragement, rooting for you too!
Thanks again Anders. Well my actual build is a SAAS where you use AI to simplify business modeling into charts i different notations (like TOGAF, Bizbok and BPMN) only by using different work-documents or plain language. My roadmap is to gain experience in agentic AI through an open AI channel where anyone can try an agentic flow with my GPU on my server. I have an interest in sovereignty and small llms like qwen and want to get feedback through a project I call agentfarm.se. Feel free to try it :)
that's a really interesting build -- using AI to simplify business modeling with proper notations like TOGAF and BPMN is a smart niche. most people try to make AI do everything loosely, but anchoring it to established frameworks gives it real credibility.
the open AI channel with your own GPU is a bold move too. love that you're thinking about sovereignty and smaller models.
we're both building AI tools on the side of our day jobs -- would be great to follow each other's progress. i'll check out agentfarm.se!
Yeah for sure. I'd love to give you some feedback based on my psychologist background and what I've learned on procrastination sometime :)
that would be incredibly valuable, honestly. the whole product is built around the psychology of follow-through -- why people set goals and then don't act on them. having a psychologist's perspective on the procrastination side would be a huge input, especially at this stage where the core experience is still being shaped.
i'd genuinely love to hear your take on what makes accountability stick vs what just creates guilt. that's the line i'm always trying to navigate in the product. feel free to DM me here on IH anytime -- or connect on X (@AIGrowthCoach). really appreciate the offer.
I couldn't DM you on X. Try me @albjo840
oh sorry about that, DMs might have been closed on our end. i'll follow you and send you a DM on X right away. really looking forward to chatting more about the psychology side of accountability -- it's the core of what i'm trying to build and your perspective as a psychologist would be super valuable.
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Way better than trying to do the 1040-ES worksheet manually.
The interest-to-signup gap is the hardest part of this journey. You're not alone there. I've found that people love saying "I need that" but actually trying something new requires crossing multiple friction barriers.
Your positioning challenge resonates. "AI personal growth coach" does sound either vague or self-helpy depending on the audience. Have you tried positioning it around the specific outcome rather than the method? Like "accountability that actually works" or "the planner that follows up"?
The no-code trade-off you mentioned is real. I started several apps on no-code platforms before eventually building native. Speed to market vs flexibility is always the dilemma. For validation and first customers, you made the right call.
1M NOK is ambitious but not crazy if you nail the positioning and find your channel. The market is definitely there.
really solid breakdown, thanks. "accountability that actually works" and "the planner that follows up" are both way stronger than what i've been using. you're right that it's a positioning problem more than a product problem right now. and the no-code trade-off is real but for this stage it was absolutely the right call. speed to validation > technical perfection. appreciate the encouragement on the 1M NOK target too. now just need to nail the positioning and find the right channel. working on it!
Converting interest into sign-ups being harder than generating interest — that's the positioning challenge you named. 'AI personal growth coach' being too vague or too self-helpy depending on audience = price positioning parallel. Narrow ICP + specific outcome language converts better than broad appeal. What's the one sentence your best testers use to describe what it does for them? That's usually your real positioning.
Really sharp question, and you're right that the positioning is the core challenge right now.
The most common thing I hear from testers is some version of: "it actually makes me follow through on my goals instead of just writing them down and forgetting." The accountability notifications are what people mention the most. Not the AI coaching, not the goal tracking -- the daily nudge that says "did you do what you said you'd do?"
That's been a useful signal. The value isn't "AI coach" -- it's "the thing that won't let you off the hook." I'm working on tightening the language around that. Appreciate you pushing on it, this is exactly the kind of feedback that helps sharpen the message.
I'm in a very similar situation — building my project during nights and weekends, trying to juggle work, family, and everything else life throws at you.
Using AI at home has really accelerated my production tempo. It’s honestly changed how fast I can move.
I’ve just reached the same stage as you — I’ve launched the product, and now comes the hard part: getting people to actually start using it. That shift from building to traction is a whole different challenge.
I’ll always have a free tier for life. I want it to be accessible for indie builders who just want to try something new without risk.
Huge respect for launching while balancing everything else. That takes real commitment.
Good luck with your project and hope you have successful one.
Thanks for the kind words, and sounds like we're at the exact same stage. The building-to-traction shift is real -- it's a completely different skill set than building the product itself.
AI has been a game-changer for solo building speed, totally agree. What's your product? Would love to check it out and swap notes. Always good to connect with someone going through the same phase at the same time.
And yeah, the free tier approach makes sense for getting initial traction. I'm offering founding member pricing right now to get early adopters in -- different strategy but same goal: reduce friction to get people actually using it.
Would be great to follow each other’s progress and see how our projects evolve.
I’m building Grunna — a calmer, structure-first alternative to traditional project tools. It focuses on finished work over velocity and reducing process overhead for small teams.
One thing I’ve noticed is that payment itself can be a small barrier when people are just exploring something new. Even a short full-access period before limiting features can sometimes lower that friction — though I know a true free tier isn’t always possible depending on the product.
You can find my project at: https://ro.grunna.com
Looking forward to seeing how yours develops as well.
just checked out grunna, really like the "calmer" positioning. the project management space is so crowded with feature-heavy tools that a more intentional, focused approach stands out.
good point on payment friction too. i've been thinking about that a lot. right now i'm doing a free trial period before the paid plan kicks in, but your point about a short full-access window is interesting. it's all about getting people to the "aha moment" before asking them to commit.
would definitely be cool to follow each other's journeys. always good to have someone in the same phase to bounce ideas off of. rooting for grunna!
Thanks, I really appreciate that. The “calmer” approach is exactly what I’m trying to aim for. After many years working with different tools it felt like things just kept getting more complex instead of clearer.
I agree with you on the “aha moment”. Getting people to actually experience the workflow before asking them to pay is probably the hardest part.
I’m sharing some of the progress as I build on Bluesky if you want to follow along:
https://bsky.app/profile/ghostnr1.bsky.social
And if you’re on Bluesky as well I’d be happy to follow your journey there too. Always nice to see how other builders are progressing.
totally agree on that -- complexity creep is a real problem in this space. when everything keeps adding features instead of removing friction, you end up with tools that work against the thing they're supposed to help with.
the "aha moment" piece is something i think about constantly. right now i'm doing a 7-day free trial to let people experience the full product before committing, and the early signal is that accountability notifications are what clicks for people. still figuring out how to get them there faster though.
i'll check out your bluesky -- haven't set up a presence there yet for AI Growth Coach but it's been on my radar. for now i'm mostly active on X (@AIGrowthCoach) and here on IH. would love to keep following each other's progress wherever we overlap. it's rare to find builders working on similar problems at the same stage.
Yeah, complexity creep is real. Adding features is easy, saying “no, this doesn’t belong here” is the hard part. Over time that’s often how tools turn into large systems instead of something that feels carefully designed.
It’s great that you’re already seeing what creates the “aha moment” for people. Getting real users to actually try the product and noticing what makes it click is a huge step.
I’m not really on Twitter/X anymore after all the turbulence around the platform, so I mostly ended up on Bluesky. But it would definitely be fun to keep following each other’s progress. If you ever spin up a Bluesky account, I’m there.
that's a really good way to put it -- "saying no, this doesn't belong here" is genuinely the harder skill. it's so tempting to keep adding things because each feature feels small in isolation, but the compound effect is what kills the experience.
interesting that accountability notifications are what's clicking for your users too. for us it's the same -- the daily check-in question is what people actually respond to, not the goal-setting or tracking features. makes me think the core of these tools is simpler than we assume.
totally understand on the X/bluesky situation. i'll keep it on the radar -- if i do set up a bluesky presence i'll find you there. in the meantime, IH works great for staying in touch. always good to have someone building in the same space who actually gets the challenges.