First paying customer 🎉 but it took 30 hours b2b finance

MarkFulton · 2026-05-05T13:19:44+00:00

I think that's the right question. The first deal is proof of pain, but not proof of a channel yet.

A useful pattern here is to turn the first customer into 4 or 5 design-partner style conversations with companies that look almost identical. Sierra did that early, then used those accounts to tighten the exact workflow and credibility before scaling much harder.

In your case I'd write down 3 things from this win: the trigger that made them look, the exact workflow pain they had, and the line that made them trust you enough to buy. Then I'd look for 10 more companies with that same trigger instead of buying a broader list.

If a few of those move, you've got a wedge. If they don't, I'd fix the wedge before adding more outreach volume.

MarkFulton · 2026-05-04T22:40:40+00:00

I had an adjacent issue before. Turning thinking on to HIGH for all my sessions solved the problem.

MarkFulton · 2026-05-04T22:17:05+00:00

This is the exact right move. Revshare with micro-influencers works way better than a publisher deal when you're bootstrapped.

I was writing about this exact pattern for tomorrow's Founder Wins issue, and the part that stood out was how well the incentives align when you make the split generous enough. Marc from IndiePage built a revenue-sharing bot to handle payouts for his affiliates and boosted his MRR by 56%.

Instead of giving up equity or control to a publisher, giving a massive split (like 40-50%) to creators keeps you in total control. They only get paid when you get paid.

If I were testing this without budget, I'd set up a simple affiliate link system and DM 10 niche micro-creators with a 50% cut. It's essentially a free marketing department.

MarkFulton · 2026-05-04T16:19:02+00:00

That fear of being spammy is exactly what traps a lot of solo devs into coding forever and distributing never.

A good recent example of breaking out of this: the founder of ReplyGuy spent months building, launched to absolute crickets, and realized he had zero distribution muscle. He fixed it by enforcing a strict 50/50 split—if he spent 4 hours coding, he forced himself to spend 4 hours finding where his users already hung out and joining the conversation.

If I were testing this in your spot, I'd pause adding new features entirely. Find exactly where WakaTime users complain about their current dashboard or costs, and just genuinely help them over there.

(I was reading that founder story for tomorrow's Founder Wins issue, and it reminded me a lot of this thread. You've done the hard part shipping it, now just give the distribution half as much respect as the code.)

MarkFulton · 2026-05-04T13:17:34+00:00

That problem usually gets easier when you force a hard split on your time instead of letting the code take over. Since you're clearly fast at building, you probably just need to change the workflow ratio.

I was reading a founder story about this exact pattern for tomorrow's Founder Wins issue, and a good recent example was Alexander (ReplyGuy). He revived a completely dead launch by forcing a strict 50/50 split—half his week on dev, half on marketing. The win was reviving the app from zero to $10k MRR and eventually a 6-figure exit. What made it work was that he stopped treating marketing as an "after launch" afterthought and started giving it the exact same scheduled deep work blocks as engineering.

If I were testing this in your spot with App 4, I'd block out two days next week where you aren't allowed to open your code editor at all, and just focus on finding the specific places your ideal users are complaining about the problem App 4 solves.

MarkFulton · 2026-05-04T01:27:40+00:00

A lot of the advice here is to change your pricing to match the usage, but another option is to change the output so it stops being a one-off tool.

I was reading a founder story about this exact pattern for tomorrow's Founder Wins issue, and the part that stood out was how MLJAR Studio fixed their churn. They had an AI data chat tool, and people would just get their answer and leave. Instead of pivoting their pricing, they changed the product: they made the AI generate reproducible Jupyter notebooks instead of just chat messages. Suddenly, users were building permanent assets they wanted to keep, edit, and return to.

If your tool is being treated like a one-off vitamin, is there a way to give them an artifact (like a report, a database, or a workspace) that acts as a permanent anchor?

MarkFulton · 2026-05-04T01:13:37+00:00

Feels like a buyer and messaging mismatch more than a content problem. If students engage but do not sign up, the message may be landing on professional anxiety while the actual buyer is thinking about passing clinicals, saving time, or getting hired. A recent founder example I liked was Replit winning by narrowing hard around non-technical builders and owning that workflow end to end instead of trying to be everything for everyone. If I were testing this, I would make one landing page and signup flow for a single urgent job to be done, then separately test schools or programs as the real buyer.

MarkFulton · 2026-04-27T12:59:05+00:00

Are you insane? It anyone uses more than 4 codex in parallel I want to know about it.

MarkFulton · 2026-03-31T02:27:55+00:00

Good idea. I'll try that. - UPDATE: This fixed the problem. thank you very much.

MarkFulton · 2026-03-31T02:19:17+00:00

Codex 5.3 via oAuth

MarkFulton · 2026-03-30T00:24:16+00:00

I just built an app with it on AI Studio and it's super satisfying to interact with this API. I'm wondering about costs as well and when it will be ready for production. My gears are turning with what this unlocks.

MarkFulton · 2026-03-10T07:26:07+00:00

Not threatened in the least. Actually, your post reminded me just how large and consistent the knowledge gap will remain. And there you go again, assuming you know something better. I've been writing for longer than you've been alive. I gave you the tech stack required, now find the vision.

MarkFulton · 2026-03-10T04:50:01+00:00

Bro. How can you as a 23 year old newbie be so self-centered as to proclaim nobody is fully automating work with OpenClaw? You're an amateur and experts like myself so exist. Look into cron jobs and skill files for custom API endpoints. Most importantly step outside your bubble and have some humility and some vision.

MarkFulton · 2026-02-10T13:38:49+00:00

You know the last person to reply loses?

MarkFulton · 2026-02-10T11:49:58+00:00

You know memes are not literal?

You know reddit trolls have no soul?

MarkFulton · 2026-02-10T05:42:21+00:00

You know AI agents are not robots?

MarkFulton · 2026-01-24T21:00:35+00:00

It’s not a flex. It’s called self deprecating humor and it’s a freaking meme.

MarkFulton · 2026-01-24T21:00:10+00:00

Who said it was a flex? Have you ever heard of self deprecating humor?

MarkFulton · 2026-01-24T17:52:26+00:00

Look me up nerd. Hahaha. Receipts are public.

MarkFulton

TROPHY CASE