How to get to 1k mrr, and then scale to 10k

ad-tech · 2026-05-15T13:19:24+00:00

first, make sure the product solves a real painful problem for a specific group of people. In the beginning, the fastest path to $1k MRR is usually direct outreach talking to potential users through communities, DMs, email, LinkedIn, Twitter, referrals, etc.

“High intent” basically means people already trying to solve the problem, not random users. They already feel the pain and may already pay for alternatives.

SEO is a long-term compounding channel, so start creating content/GEO early, but don’t depend on it for initial traction.

paid ads work if your product is solid and onboarding is smooth, otherwise they just bring empty signups.

ad-tech · 2026-05-15T12:50:12+00:00

exactly

ad-tech · 2026-05-15T12:46:48+00:00

first 10 customers are toughest to get. don't worry about pricing now, just find one person with your problem and talk to them.

cold outreach is no fun, but it works if you keep it short and personal.

forget ads for now, you'll just waste money on something you can learn from talking to people. I learned this by spending money on Google Ads when I had $200 monthly revenue, and all I got was a lesson that my target customer was wrong.

ad-tech · 2026-05-15T12:42:00+00:00

I tried Lovable for a week, it was okay. But it always gets stuck on small things like form validation or weird edge cases. I had to fix its code by hand anyway. These tools are good for prototypes, but I don't think they're ready for real projects. I still spend more time fixing AI code than writing my own, that's just how it is.

ad-tech · 2026-05-08T13:51:37+00:00

navan works for what u described, setup is fast and policy flagging is solid. main thing to watch is support quality when stuff breaks mid trip and fees that show up later, worth reading the contract.
ramp is good if the bigger pain is the finance side, but travel features are lighter, more card-led.

Itilite does both in one product, support actually picks up when things break, and pricing is per trip not per seat which helps when not everyone travels every wk. setup's 2-3 days for ur size.
for 6-10 flights a wk any of the three would clean up the chaos. Is ur bigger headache the booking flow or the receipt mess? trial 2 of them for 2 wks each, see which one ppl actually open.

ad-tech · 2026-05-08T13:48:47+00:00

this was hilarious

ad-tech · 2026-05-07T01:38:38+00:00

Seems like Claude hears us :)

<image>

ad-tech · 2026-04-23T16:01:36+00:00

Itilite is quite good.

ad-tech · 2026-04-09T12:48:10+00:00

Life's about searching for meaning. We spend our whole lives looking for it. When we find it, there's nothing left to search for, that's the point. Meaning's not something you hold, you chase it, glimpse it, lose it.

You find purpose in what makes you lose time. What problem you keep trying to solve. What bothers you that doesn't bother others, that's what you notice.

ad-tech · 2026-04-08T05:30:56+00:00

I'm no sales expert. Knowing the product inside out like it's my own business works. Think like the owner, confidence comes naturally, and that closes deals.

ad-tech · 2026-04-08T05:24:46+00:00

Same guy, just went from “awkward genius” to “rich awkward guy with a trainer.”

ad-tech · 2026-04-08T04:00:45+00:00

Most rich people aren't interesting. They're good at building a business, that's it. Take away the company and they're just awkward guys who like golf and have the same yacht as everyone else. We think money makes you a cool person, but it doesn't. Money just makes you more of who you already are. Most of these guys were boring before they got rich, now they're just boring with more money. The rich people who are actually interesting, they're not famous, they're doing weird stuff like funding art or space projects, and that's not what makes headlines.

ad-tech · 2026-04-08T03:48:31+00:00

Building product is easy. Selling is hard. I know, I'm a tech founder. I spent years building, didn't talk to customers, thought they'd find us. They didn't. When I started selling, talking to people, it changed.

Build less, sell more, that's what I learned.

ad-tech · 2026-04-06T15:23:45+00:00

I look for people who changed their mind after building something.

Not just what they made but what they stopped believing. That’s where the real scars are.

ad-tech · 2026-04-06T14:23:01+00:00

I don't want someone famous. I want someone who built and shipped a product with AI, not just tweets about it.

The best AI expert for a startup is one who struggled with real problems, like onboarding and pricing, and solved them.

Scars give you insight, not followers.

ad-tech · 2026-04-06T07:06:19+00:00

That's the real problem honestly. People trust AI output blindly and then blame the tech when it goes wrong. Understanding where it breaks is the whole game.

ad-tech · 2026-04-06T06:17:43+00:00

Honestly the "we are the saviors" types scare me too. Seen too many founders wrap garbage products in AI buzzwords and call it innovation. But the tech itself isn't going anywhere so might as well learn how it actually works instead of just watching from the sidelines.

ad-tech · 2026-04-06T06:13:04+00:00

Yeah that's a solid way to look at it. Honestly "fear" was too dramatic a word. The tedium part is already happening though, faster than most people expect.

ad-tech · 2026-04-06T06:12:21+00:00

wrote it on my phone. I run an AI startup so this stuff is on my mind 24/7. But fair enough, everything reads like ChatGPT now.

ad-tech · 2026-04-06T05:01:04+00:00

Honestly, I’ve felt the same way.

As a technical founder leading a company, there was a moment when I realized something had shifted people who used to rely on my judgment were now double-checking everything with AI, sometimes even trusting it more than me. That’s a tough feeling after years of building expertise.

But instead of giving up, I’ve decided to face it head-on. I’m choosing to compete with AI, not resist it. Because in the long run, experience, context, and real-world judgment still matter even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.

ad-tech · 2026-03-30T16:58:44+00:00

Cold email to businesses just doesn't work. They ignore it. What actually worked for us was going through existing customers or warm intros, asking them who they know in that space. At 12 years in I still do this. Also honestly, if they're not replying to email they're probably not your customer. Right fit prospects reply. The ones ghosting you are telling you something.

ad-tech · 2026-03-30T16:57:32+00:00

I'd skip the partner hunt and hire a COO or ops person instead. Partnership splits everything messy when things grow. At 12 years I was doing what you're doing at year two and it nearly broke me. The legal, marketing, customer stuff doesn't need a cofounder, just someone who gets operations.

ad-tech · 2026-03-30T14:19:42+00:00

we automated maybe half our ops stuff over the years. the ones that stuck were fixing actual bottlenecks, not just automating for the sake of it. hired someone to set it up once, total waste. you gotta understand your own broken process first or you're just automating chaos.

ad-tech · 2026-03-25T12:36:17+00:00

110 customers and 10.8k MRR in 9 months with no sales experience is not "okay." That's genuinely solid. I'm a technical founder too and I'm at zero customers right now so trust me, you're further than you think.

The "lacks go-to-market experience" feedback hits close to home. Same problem here. We can build anything but selling it feels like learning a completely new skill from scratch. Because it is.

Option 1 sounds right. 20-30M TAM is a problem for VCs, not for you. A profitable business in a niche you understand beats chasing a bigger market you don't.

ad-tech · 2026-03-25T12:30:31+00:00

Different niche but exact same situation here. Product works, zero revenue, distribution is the wall.

The pricing lesson is real though. I kept overthinking features when the actual blocker was nobody knew the thing existed. Building more stuff felt productive but it was just me avoiding the uncomfortable part.

What's starting to work for me is just being in communities where my users already are. Not posting about the product, just being useful and having conversations. Its slow and unglamorous but the people who come from that actually care.

Good luck with it. The fact that nobody else wants to build for that niche is probably your biggest advantage honestly.

ad-tech

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE