My content loop that adds $100 MRR every week
For the first 6 months of my SaaS, creating content didn't work for me.
I'd post things I thought were valuable. They'd get a few likes. Maybe a comment. Almost no signups.
Now creating content helped me add $100 MRR every week like clockwork.
Here’s what changed:
1) Content didn't work early because I had nothing real to share
When I started, I was writing content based on what I thought my audience wanted to hear.
Generic advice. Recycled takes. Things I'd read from other founders repackaged in my own words.
Nobody cared. Because it wasn't real. I hadn't earned the insights yet.
The content that finally worked? It came after months of cold outreach, talking to users 1:1, fixing churn, and iterating on my product.
Only after I'd been through the hard part did I have stories, numbers, and lessons worth sharing.
2) Real experience is what makes content convert
At ~$300 MRR, I had something most founders skip: actual experience to draw from.
I knew exactly who my best customers were. I knew which problems triggered them to pay. I knew what objections showed up right before someone converted.
So instead of guessing topics, I turned:
Repeated questions from DMs into posts
Proven explanations I'd given 1:1 into threads
Real buyer language into copy
Because these lessons were based on my real experience, they resonated with my audience. They weren't theory, they were tested.
3) Why most founders get the order wrong
The default move is: build product → create content → hope for customers.
The order that actually worked for me:
Start with conversations (cold outreach, DMs, 1:1 replies)
Improve your offer based on what you learn
Fix churn and onboarding
NOW start creating content based on everything you learned
Content wasn't my discovery channel. It was a distribution layer on top of validated demand.
If you try to create content before you've had hundreds of real conversations with your ICP, you won't have anything real to say. And your audience can tell.
If content isn't working for you yet, it's probably not because your writing is bad or your distribution is weak.
It's because you haven't done the hard work first, the conversations, the iterations, the rejections that give you real stories worth telling.
Do that first. The content writes itself after.
If you want to see proof and the actual timeline of my growth, you can see it here.
Happy to answer questions or go deeper on any part.
Good advice
This is the exact order I keep getting wrong — trying to create content before earning the insights. Your framework of "conversations first, content later" just crystallized something for me.
I'm launching a Mac app that pre-drafts email replies using AI, and for the first few days I went straight to writing articles and forum posts. They were technically fine but generic. Nobody cared.
What actually started working was engaging in real conversations — replying to threads about email overwhelm, AI trust, founder productivity. Those conversations taught me which angles resonate (turns out "it never auto-sends" hits way harder than "AI-powered email assistant") and which objections come up ("what about privacy?" — so I made it run 100% locally).
Now the content writes itself because I'm just packaging what I learned from those conversations. Your point about "real experience makes content convert" is exactly right — the difference between theory and lived experience is obvious to readers.
Curious about your 30-minute daily habit — do you batch the "find threads" and "reply to threads" separately, or do you do both in the same 30-minute block?
I'm using my tool which automates finding them and drafting replies, so I just review and send
This really resonates, especially the part about earning the insights before trying to teach them. A lot of founders jump straight into content without first having those real conversations with users. Your point about turning DMs, objections, and actual customer language into posts is super practical. It makes sense that content started working once it was grounded in real experience instead of theory. Thanks for sharing such an honest breakdown of the process—it’s a helpful reminder that the hard work comes first.
Hope it was useful
Point #3 is the one that hits hardest. I'm building an AI accountability app as a solo founder and I fell into exactly this trap early on — writing content about goal-setting and productivity because I thought that's what my audience wanted. Generic advice, zero traction.
What actually started working was sharing the real, messy, behind-the-scenes stuff. The fact that I'm a 40-year-old marketing consultant who spent 6 years buying the same physical planner before finally building the digital version. The conversations with early testers who told me what actually kept them coming back (hint: it wasn't the AI coaching, it was the daily "did you do it?" notification).
The order you describe — conversations first, then content — is something I wish I'd internalized earlier. The content that converts isn't the content that sounds smart. It's the content that makes someone think "this person actually knows what I'm going through."
Saving this post. Really solid breakdown.
Hope it was useful man
definitely was — the "conversations first, content later" framework is exactly what I needed to hear. already changing how I approach things. appreciate you sharing the whole process so openly.
top of validated demand rather than a discovery channel is exactly backwards from how most founders think about it.
The "nothing real to share" problem in the first 6 months resonates hard. Generic recycled takes get ignored because audiences can feel the difference between someone who has lived through something and someone who read about it.
Currently in the conversations phase myself with klovio — 13 days of community outreach, Reddit comments, and user interviews before writing any product code. Saving the content for when I have real stories worth telling. This post is good timing honestly.
Keep doing what you're doing!
😊
My product, GPTPromptMaker, went live 10 days ago. I’m currently focused on cold outreach and social media. It’s a bit of a 'chicken and egg' problem—you don't have success stories in the early days, but without posting, you can’t showcase the product. The hardest part right now is balancing posting, reaching out, and gathering feedback all at once.
Great experience! How did you acquire your first batch of loyal users?
Cold DMs
Point #1 is something I wish more people talked about. There's this pressure to start creating content from day one, but if you haven't shipped anything yet, haven't talked to users, haven't failed at something real, what are you actually going to write about? Recycled advice from other founders, which is exactly what the algorithm ignores.
I ran into this with my own apps. Early on I tried writing about the building process and it felt forced because nothing interesting had happened yet. The posts that actually got traction came later, after I had real numbers, real user feedback, and real mistakes to share. One post about a specific distribution failure got more engagement than weeks of "here's what I'm building" updates.
The order you laid out (conversations first, content later) is counterintuitive because everyone sees the successful founders posting daily threads and assumes that's step one. But those threads work because they're backed by months of actual experience. The content is the output, not the input.
Exactly man
thanks for sharing.
Hope it was useful
This is one of the most honest takes on content I've read, Filip. The line that hit me: "I hadn't earned the insights yet." That's the thing nobody tells you , you can't skip the messy middle.
I built FontPreview.online the same way. For the first few weeks, I tried writing "helpful" font guides. Generic stuff. Nobody cared.
Then I started spending time in Reddit threads where people were actually asking font questions. Not posting content , just replying. Helping. Listening.
After months of those conversations, I had real stories. Real objections. Real language. When I finally wrote about font licensing mistakes (the $10k close call), it worked because I'd actually lived it.
Your point about "content was a distribution layer on top of validated demand" , that's going on my wall.
Quick question: when you started seeing traction, did you find certain topics performed better than others? Or was it more about the depth of the insight?
Depth and quality is a must. Some topics do work better than others, just try everything, remix what works
"Try everything, remix what works" , that's going on my wall. Such a simple way to think about it, but it's easy to get stuck doing the same thing and hoping for different results.
For FontPreview, I've found that some topics (like licensing horror stories) consistently outperform others (like generic "how to pair fonts" posts). The remix part is the key, take what worked and do it again, but with a new angle.
Thanks for sharing this - genuinely helpful framework.
nice work.
Have you ever felt like your company is doing well but people still don’t take you seriously yet?
I’m starting to think perception plays a much bigger role in founder success than we admit.”
Keep growing your business, start sharing value, and you'll earn your perception
I always download productivity apps and then never use them.
So I tried building something different.
Instead of one big app, I made a collection of tiny tools.
Things like:
• a 30 minute focus sprint timer
• a tiny task generator
• a dopamine reward picker
• random study and workout tasks
• meal and movie pickers
• writing prompts
Everything runs directly in the browser with no login or installs.
I bundled them together as Tiny Productivity Tools on itch if anyone wants to check it out.