Toolmaker (not a dev) built an API monitoring tool. Product is ready, but nobody visits. What am I missing?

I'm a trained toolmaker (Werkzeugmechaniker) who taught himself to code and built an API monitoring SaaS in 2 weeks. The product works, design is solid, Stripe payments live — but after 2 weeks of active outreach I have 0 organic traffic and 0 paid users. Looking for honest advice.

Quick intro: I'm 25, no CS degree, no bootcamp. I taught myself programming after work — first Python, then FastAPI, then HTML/CSS/JS. Last month I quit my job to go all-in on a product.

What I built is called PingMon — an uptime monitoring tool for APIs and websites. You enter a URL, PingMon pings it on a schedule, and if something goes down you get a notification via Telegram, Slack, or Email. I built it because BetterUptime starts at $29/month, Checkly is even more expensive, and self-hosting (Uptime Kuma) is cool until you have to maintain it. So I built my own in 2 weeks.

Current features: HTTP/S monitoring with response time tracking, SSL expiry monitoring, domain expiry monitoring, heartbeat monitoring for cron jobs, public status page (no login needed), alerts via Telegram/Slack/Email, premium README badge, maintenance windows, and recovery notifications. Tech stack: Python FastAPI, SQLite, vanilla HTML/CSS/JS, Telegram Bot API, Stripe, Docker on a Hetzner VPS. Pricing starts free and goes up to $49/month.

Here's the problem. The product is ready. I went through three design iterations. The landing page actually looks good now. Stripe payments work. Everything is live. But nobody visits.

Here's what I've tried in the past two weeks:

LinkedIn — one post and five personalized InMails. Got one reply, a polite pass. Cold outreach had a 20% response rate, but zero signups.

Reddit — posted helpful comments in r/devops and r/selfhosted. Instant shadowban. My account was 7 days old with zero karma and everything got flagged.

X/Twitter — account got banned before I could even start.

Dev.to — published one technical article. 13 views, zero clicks.

Indie Hackers — just got approved. This is my first post.

Direct outreach — personalized emails to developers I thought might need monitoring. Best response rate at about 20%, but again no signups.

I'm spending every evening researching where my target audience hangs out, writing thoughtful content, reaching out personally. Every message is tailored. Nothing gets traction.

The hardest lesson: building the product was the easy part. Getting people to see it is ten times harder. I completely underestimated marketing. I thought "build it and they will come" was a joke people told. Turns out it's real and I fell for it.

What I've learned so far. Great design helps retention, not acquisition. I spent days polishing the UI and it helped zero people find the site. Cold outreach works better than social media posts. My InMail response rate is about 20%, while my social posts get zero engagement. And Reddit hates new accounts — I should have started building karma months ago.

My question to you. How did you get your first five paying users? Not the growth hacks for later stages. The very first ones. The phase where your product exists but nobody knows about it.

Was it blogging? I'm trying but 13 views on Dev.to isn't encouraging. Direct outreach feels most promising so far. Product Hunt I'm saving for later when I have some traction. Or was it something completely unexpected?

I'm at the point where I don't know if I should keep polishing the product or completely rethink my acquisition strategy. Any honest advice would mean a lot.

If anyone wants to check it out: pingmon.ai. Free tier is completely free, no credit card needed. I'd genuinely appreciate feedback on both the product and the landing page.

Thanks for reading.

Dario Former toolmaker, currently learning how to SaaS