Tools to Reach Your Ideal Customers (Without Spamming Anyone)
I’m Leon, founder of Dingus - an AI-powered debugging assistant for dev teams using Kubernetes, Loki, and Prometheus. We help teams squash production bugs by automatically analysing logs and suggesting fixes before things go sideways.
But as any indie dev knows, building is only half the battle.
🔍 Finding Your ICP Is Slow (and Kinda Painful)
Everyone says, “talk to users” - but which users? And where are they?
Figuring out our ideal customer profile has been one of the slowest parts of this journey. We’re targeting SREs, lead engineers, and devs managing production infra - people who are already feeling the pain of bad observability. But getting in front of them has required more than just posting into the void.
🛠️ Bespoke > Blast: Using Apollo to Search, Not Spam
I started using Apollo.io, not to run outbound sequences, but to manually explore the right kinds of companies and roles. I’m skipping the automation entirely.
Instead, I dig into:
Who’s likely running K8s + Loki/Prometheus?
Which companies are mid-stage and don’t have full SRE teams?
Where might a tool like Dingus actually save real engineering time?
I treat every message like a mini pitch tailored to their situation. It takes longer, but it feels way more human - and people love it.
💬 What’s Worked for You?
If you’re building a product for a niche user base, I’d love to know:
Where do you go to find real, high-intent users?
What outreach channels feel authentic and not spammy?
Have you had any success with dev-focused platforms like GitHub, Reddit, or Stack Overflow?
Always keen to swap ideas, tools, and war stories on early traction.
— Leon
🐞 www.dingusai.dev
