My exact distribution strategy I used to go from $0 to $600 MRR
I see a lot of founders struggling with moving past the $100 MRR milestone, so I’m sharing the exact sequence I used to go from $0 to $600 without an audience or paid ads.
1) Getting the first customers
I didn’t create content or try to build an audience first. This is too slow.
I didn’t even launch on Product Hunt (in fact I still haven’t launched there).
Instead, I reached out directly to people who were clearly my target audience and offered them to try out my tool for free.
Those conversations did two things at once:
I got people to try out my tool even tho I didn’t have any social proof
I got to understand exactly what kind of solution are they looking for
Once their free trial would end, I’d see if they convert. If not, I’d reach out again and ask why.
All this feedback made me understand in which direction to take the product, how to position, and how to price.
Whenever I’d get an insight, I’d implement it, and continue with reaching out to people. And eventually, I got my first couple of paying customers.
2) Getting to $100 MRR
The approach above is how I got to $100 MRR and my first testimonials I could put on my landing page.
But once I hit the $100 mark, I noticed something important: users were churning.
So instead of doing more outreach, I paused and switched focus to talking to people who canceled to understand why.
Based on what they’d tell me, I’d implement changes, then go back to doing outreach to see if those changes actually made a difference.
This loop of feedback + reiteration lasted 3 months.
By the end of it, I had:
better offer
better landing page
better activation
higher signups
lower churn
At this point, my funnel finally felt healthy, so it made sense to go all-in on marketing again.
3) Growing to $600 MRR
Once the funnel felt healthy and users were actually sticking around, I went back to doing cold outreach and that alone got me to around $200 MRR.
At this point, I had a solid product, a working outreach system and had learned valuable strategies and insights I could share with my target audience.
That’s when creating content started to make sense.
I took real lessons and wins and started sharing them on X and Reddit.
Since these lessons were based on my real experience, they were actually valuable and resonated with my audience.
Those posts brought in more traffic and customers, which would give me new lessons and insights, which I could use to create new content.
And this loop helped add $100 MRR every week.
The takeaway
Focus on conversations instead of content
Fix retention before scaling acquisition
Stack channels only after your funnel works
If you want to see proof and the actual timeline of my growth, you can see it here.
Happy to answer any questions or go deeper so you can apply this to your SaaS!
Nice article. Also, I might try your product in the near future! :)
Thanks man, hope the article was valuable!
I've done many outreach campaigns, even before creating products, to discover client pain points. It's quite hard, but it can save time on developing things that never take off.
In case of customer discovery interviews, I'd expect the conversion rate from outreach messages to calls attended to be around 2%, meaning you need to message 200 people to have a call with 2-3 people: 20-25% to accepting network request in LinkedIn, then 35% in initial responding, when many just "not interested" resulting in 30% again in kind of opennes to have a chat firstly, and finelly 40-50% you will be apple to pull out to the call.
What about the expected conversion rate into downloads and following feedback?
Getting someone on a call with you for customer discovery is wayyy more difficult than getting someone who's actively seeking for a solution that your tool provides to sign up and try it out for free.
dude! This is actually smart, really smart it solved a lot of problems related to reaching product fit and at the same time solves the cold start problem. I always learn something new each time I read your post. I am definately bookmarking this. Thanks a bunch.
Thanks man, really happy to hear the post is valuable!
good breakdown. that outreach -> retention fix -> scale loop is exactly what most people skip. they try stacking channels before messaging and onboarding are ready.
@Filip that's a really good point about never stopping outreach even after content kicks in. 5 mins a day is nothing but it compounds. I've been doing something similar - short daily distribution work across a few channels. The signal-to-noise ratio improves over time because you learn which channels actually convert vs which just feel productive.
4 months to fix the funnel is actually fast. Most people either give up at month 2 or never fix it at all. Respect.
Thanks man. Yeah at this point it's figuring out which channels actually convert and building a system so you can keep doing them consistently while stacking and exploring other channels. Seems like you're crushing it!
ha crushing it is generous tbh. but yeah the stacking thing is real - right now testing IH + twitter + reddit with different content angles and you can start to see which ones move the needle. still early tho. curious if you noticed different customer quality from different channels? like reddit vs X for you
Reddit has a mix of good and bad quality, but it's brought way more signups in total so results might be slightly skewed because of that
makes sense. volume can hide quality issues for a while. i've noticed similar patterns - the channels that feel like they're working because numbers go up aren't always the ones with the best retention downstream. would be interesting to see if the reddit signups that stick around longer came from specific types of posts or subreddits
Yeah that would be sick to know, unfortunately I don't have such detailed data :D
The "3 months fixing churn before scaling" part is the hardest pill to swallow — and probably why most solo SaaS founders get stuck between $100 and $500 MRR. It's the unsexy work nobody tweets about.
What I find interesting is your cold outreach to content pipeline. Most founders try it the other way around (build audience, then launch), which often leads to content that doesn't resonate because there's no real customer signal behind it.
One question: when you started creating content from real experience, did Reddit or X drive more actual signups? With a Reddit-focused product, I'd assume Reddit content converts better since the audience intent is already there.
On X your reach is kind of tied to your audience size. On Reddit you don't have that constraint. Since I don't have a big audience on X, I'm getting way more reach on Reddit hence more signups. My ICP is on both platforms.
The "pause at $100 MRR to fix churn" move is something most founders skip. Everyone wants to grow but nobody wants to debug retention first. Smart call.
I'm running 4 products simultaneously and the hardest part is exactly what you describe - distribution with zero audience. Direct outreach worked for me too, especially when I framed it as "testing" not "selling." People are way more receptive when they feel like early testers rather than prospects.
How long did the direct outreach phase take before you had enough signal to switch to content/SEO?
Since launching MVP it took me 4 months until I fixed my funnel and had enough signal to start creating content. But I never stopped doing outreach, it works as a channel, so I'm still doing it (takes me just 5 mins a day)
This is a really solid breakdown — especially the part about pausing acquisition to fix churn. A lot of founders (myself included at times) try to brute-force growth past $100 MRR instead of asking why people are leaving.
The biggest takeaway for me here is that outreach isn’t just a distribution channel, it’s a discovery channel. Using conversations to shape positioning, pricing, and even the product direction before worrying about content or PH feels very underrated.
Also love the sequencing:
conversations → first revenue
retention → funnel health
content → scale
Feels way more sustainable than the usual “build audience first” advice. Thanks for sharing this so transparently.
Hope it was helpful!
The 3-month iteration loop you mentioned really resonated. I'm building dev tools right now and made the mistake of trying to scale too early before fixing activation issues.
One thing I'm curious about: when you switched from X to Reddit for outreach, did you notice different response rates? I've found Reddit users tend to be more skeptical of DMs but also more engaged when they do respond.
X used to be a great outreach channel, but after they changed how DMs work the reply rate is very low (people don't get notified when you they get a message request). Right now Reddit is a great channel because it's easy to find people who are actively looking for a solution your tool provides, and with a good personalized DM you can get around 30% reply rates.
Quick question - How did you implement 1st step - where did you outreach (I am assuming reddit) and how did you avoid risk of pitch slapping on DMs in initial conversations and finding people genuinely falling into your target segment?
I actually started with X, but now mostly doing outreach on Reddit.
On Reddit it's easy to find people who are actively looking for a solution that your tool provides, so if you send a good personalized DM, you can get around 30% reply rate.
I'm using my tool to this on autopilot.
"Fix retention before scaling acquisition" — this is gold and something most people skip.
I work in product management by day and build side projects on weekends. The temptation to chase new users is real, but I've learned the hard way that a leaky bucket is just expensive marketing.
Question for you: when you paused outreach to fix churn, how did you decide which feedback to act on vs. which to ignore? I imagine not all churned users have the same quality of feedback.
I collect feedback, then draw insights from it myself and implement to see if I made the right choice. At the end of the day you're the one steering the direction of your product.
That’s a killer breakdown! It’s refreshing to see a strategy that prioritizes direct validation over the "Product Hunt or bust" mentality.
Your point about pausing at $100 MRR to fix churn instead of just pouring more water into a leaky bucket is a lesson many founders learn the hard way. Building that feedback loop clearly paid off in the long run. Thanks for sharing the honest timeline and the logic behind when to actually start content marketing!
Thanks, hope it was valuable!
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
I hope it was valuable!
This is solid 👌
Especially like the part where you paused growth to fix churn instead of just doing more outreach — most people skip that and wonder why nothing sticks. Also agree that content works way better after you’ve earned real lessons, not before.
Good reminder that distribution + feedback > fancy launches.
Spot on
I really think it depends on what type of content creator you are reaching out to. Some more niche content creators are usually quite happy their niche section of the internet gets new content.
I really like that you skipped the 'content creator' phase at the start. It's so slow if you dont have a big following already. Direct outreach is exhausting but it gives you the real insights that you cant get from a random tweet. Did you use any specific tool to find these leads or just manual searching?
I was doing it manually on X at first, now I mostly do it on Reddit using my tool Bazzly.
Great breakdown, thanks for sharing real numbers.
I'm at the same stage right now — just launched an AI screening tool and figuring out distribution.
Question: for your cold outreach, where did you find your target audience? LinkedIn DMs? Twitter? Communities?
And how many conversations did it take before your first paying customer?
Currently doing the "talk to users" phase myself, so this is super relevant.
I started with sending DMs on X, now mostly sending DMs on Reddit using my tool.
I had people using my product even before I had payments implemented. Once I added payment, got first customer after a day out from ~15 people trying out the product.
Took around a month to go from here to $100 MRR (2 customers at $49 plan, 1 at $19).
Thanks! Quick follow-up: 1. How did you find people to DM on Reddit? Specific subreddits? 2. How many DMs before you got 15 people to try? 3. What was your message — short pitch or longer explanation?
On Reddit I'm finding people and sending DMs using my tool Bazzly.
I don't really remember how many DMs I sent to get those 15 people but I'd say around 50.
Here's the DM template I'm using:
“Hey! Saw that you're {specific problem they mentioned}. I built a tool that {very specific outcome tied to their problem}. Want to try it out?”
$600 MRR is solid! What was your main channel?
I'm at day 7 with my WordPress plugin — 114 downloads but only 1 signup (0.9% conversion). Facebook groups worked best so far. Curious what distribution worked for you early on.
Sending DMs and replies on Reddit has been the best distribution channel for me. X is 3rd. Haven't tried Facebook groups yet.
Facebook groups worked great for me - 44 downloads in one day from WooCommerce/WordPress groups. Definitely worth trying!
Thanks for suggesting it! Will def give it a try
This is the part most people miss:
Been building for 8+ years and watched so many founders (including myself, honestly) chase traffic when the real problem was nobody could articulate why their thing mattered in the first place.
Your 3-month iteration loop is painful but it's where the actual work happens. Most people bounce at month 2 because it feels like nothing is moving, but that's exactly when you're learning whether you have value clarity or just hope marketing.
One thing I'd add: the "why should someone pay you instead of doing nothing" question is brutal but necessary. Not instead of competitors, but instead of doing nothing at all. That's where most positioning falls apart.
Curious though, when you were doing those early conversations, how did you filter between feedback that was genuine vs people just being polite? That's always been my struggle. People say "cool idea" but the signal to noise ratio is rough.
I really only paid attention to feedback from paying customers, the higher their plan, the more attention I pay
This is a very nice insight. Welldone.
Currently building my own startup and I am doing something similar
Hope it was helpful!
"Fix retention before scaling acquisition" — this needs to be tattooed on every founder's arm.
We talk about this a lot on our podcast (Public SaaS Builders) — the temptation to throw more traffic at a leaky funnel is SO strong. But it just accelerates the burn.
The 3-month iteration loop you describe is where most people give up. They think "this isn't working" when actually they're just 2 iterations away from product-market fit.
Question: at what churn rate did you decide "okay, funnel is healthy enough to scale"?
Churn rate went from ~40% to ~17%.
But also all my conversions improved along the whole funnel, e.g. signup to paid went from 2.5% to 14.6%.
Every step in the funnel suddenly had above average conversions for my cohort, so it made sense that now's the time to stop fixing funnel and go all-in on marketing.
this is very interesting analysis without useless hype!
Thanks man, hope it was helpful!
Amazing growth thanks for sharing your strategy! Scaling from $0 to $600 MRR takes focus on distribution and repeatable systems.
At IssyLinks, we help startups and businesses build the digital infrastructure that makes this possible: high-converting websites, web & mobile apps, premium branding, promotional videos, and automation workflows. If anyone wants examples or guidance on setting up systems to grow MRR efficiently, just search “IssyLinks” on your browser.
Looking for a growth / distribution partner to own: GTM, marketing, revenue.
I can build and ship really fast.
Reddit are good place, you can share your product on their subreddit, so engaging people are there, these are some cool subreddits you can postyour product.
r/InternetIsBeautiful (17M)
r/Entrepreneur (4.8M)
r/productivity (4M)
r/business (2.5M)
r/smallbusiness (2.2M)
r/startups (2.0M)
r/passive_income (1.0M)
r/EntrepreneurRideAlong (593K)
r/SideProject (430K)
r/Business_Ideas (359K)
r/SaaS (341K)
r/startup (267K)
r/Startup_Ideas (241K)
r/thesidehustle (184K)
r/juststart (170K)
r/MicroSaas (155K)
r/ycombinator (132K)
r/Entrepreneurs (110K)
r/indiehackers (91K)
r/GrowthHacking (77K)
r/AppIdeas (74K)
r/growmybusiness (63K)
r/buildinpublic (55K)
r/micro_saas (52K)
r/Solopreneur (43K)
r/vibecoding (35K)
r/startup_resources (33K)
r/indiebiz (29K)
r/AlphaandBetaUsers (21K)
r/scaleinpublic (11K)
By the way, i collected over 450 places where you list your startup or products, 100+ self-promotion posts on Reddit without a ban (Database) and social media markerting templates to organize and manage the marketing.
If this is useful you can check it out!!
www.marketingpack.store
thank me after you get an additional 10k+ sign ups.
Bye!!
Reddit is harsh on anything that looks like self promotion.