My AI SaaS just got its first 10 users. Here are the 3 (painful) lessons I learned.

Hey IH,

I'm Abhi, and I've officially joined the "building in public" club.

My project is an AI resume builder called Matcha Resume. It's been a tough market to crack, but I just hit a milestone that feels huge: my first 10 paying users.

It's not $10k MRR, but it's 10 real people who believe in the product enough to pay for it. The journey from 0 to 10 has been a grind, and I wanted to share my biggest lessons so far.

1. The "Problem" Isn't Always the Obvious One
   I started building this because I knew job seekers were getting rejected by ATS (Applicant Tracking System) software.

My assumption: People needed better templates. The reality: People needed better content.

My first 5 users gave me brutal (and amazing) feedback. They didn't care about fonts; they were desperate to know what to write. They were stuck on "how do I turn my boring job into measurable achievements?"

The lesson: I stopped adding template features and went all-in on AI-driven content analysis. The tool now scores their bullet points (like Challenge-Action-Result) and suggests how to fix them, not just how to format them.

2. "Intelligent" AI vs. "Useful" AI
   My first build used AI to "just rewrite" a resume. Users hated it. It sounded robotic and often fabricated "achievements" they'd be embarrassed to claim.

The lesson: Users don't want a black box to replace them. They want a tool to assist them.

I pivoted the AI to be a "co-pilot." It doesn't write for you; it identifies specific weaknesses in your existing resume.

"This bullet point is passive voice."

"You're missing 5 critical keywords from the job description."

"This achievement has no measurable result."

This transparency was the unlock. Users finally trusted it because it was enhancing their own work, not making stuff up.

3. "Build in Public" is Scary, But Necessary
   I was terrified to share my idea, thinking someone would steal it. For the first two months, I coded in a vacuum.

The lesson: Getting 0 users is way more likely than getting your idea stolen.

The moment I started posting on Reddit and talking to career changers, I got my first 3 signups. They are now my most valuable source of feedback and have shaped the entire product.

I'm still very much at the beginning, but 10 users feels like validation. My next goal is 100.

I'm still figuring out marketing and how to reach job seekers. If anyone has had success marketing a niche B2C SaaS, I'd love any advice.

Thanks for reading!

P.S. If you're job hunting or just want to see the tech, you can try the tool I built to solve this: matcharesume.com