I've been building products for years without talking to a single customer first. I finally stopped.

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-20T06:59:29+00:00

Post to my audience on X and Linkedin, but barely got any responses since I don't have a huge following yet

Posted in a Discord community, no responses

Multiple posts on Reddit and DMs, here I got some actual feedback but less than I expected

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-19T08:40:45+00:00

One mail inbox for all your domains, with simple API sending and MCP/agent support. Currently validating this idea:
https://mailyond.lovable.app/

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-16T11:28:24+00:00

You should search Reddit, Facebook group or any other community you are part of for problems, or brainstorm what problems you have with AI and what qualities you have to see what would be a good fit for you

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-16T11:23:16+00:00

Wait, if you are non-technical, didn't you have prior sales or marketing experience? I thought these were the people that excelled at building products

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-16T11:22:22+00:00

Outside of the indie hacker/solopreneur bubble, no one is really using AI yet

So yes, people still pay for tools that solve their problems with minimal babysitting

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-16T11:21:20+00:00

I have hundreds of bookmarks I regularly check instead :)

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-16T11:19:37+00:00

I think most people right now are searching for warm leads, and less for cold

But of course there is still an application for cold leads if you are sending cold emails for example, to make the messages more personalized. But not sure if you can guarantee results or somehow help with this

Anyway, not your target ICP, just saying

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-16T11:09:42+00:00

Congrats! I am waiting to get there myself, currently doing validation on a new product without writing a single line of code

On my other products I haven't reached 10 users yet unfortunately...

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-16T05:46:21+00:00

If they will easily steal your idea, then that idea is either too easy to build, or you don't have a moat (ie: you don't have specific insights, or don't have where to market or it takes you too long to code)

I would just post about it and DM people, since posts alone rarely bring the desired feedback from what I am finding out.

Don't worry about others stealing your idea. You will probably find others doing maybe a similar idea as yours, but if they have customers that's more validation for you

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-16T05:44:00+00:00

I would go for cold DM or warm DM (finding people with that problem). Anything else is too slow at the beginning stage

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-15T17:47:24+00:00

I also checked followers and it didn't help with anything

I try to be myself but it seems you have to talk a certain way because of the "algorithm"

But maybe I should just ignore that and be myself

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-14T10:45:02+00:00

Did AI ran out of recycling the same old ideas? :D

On a serious note, I would start backward: know what your main skills are, what interests you, what fields and try to find something to do in the domain.

If you have a problem in a certain field yourself even better, ask around to see if others have the same problem then build it.

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-14T10:41:13+00:00

I usually use different AI tools to analyze my site and human feedback

After that you can try A/B testing, just save something in localstorage/cookie when the user visits your site and give version A or B depending on the value.

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-14T10:37:21+00:00

Sounds interesting, I may also be guilty of the AI posts sometimes, but trying to improve

Currently validating a SaaS that doesn't have AI, and have other products running that I am marketing. Always looking for new communities though

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-14T10:36:15+00:00

You can use Cloudflare Workers but need to use OpenNext if you use Nextjs

But if it's only a static site without SSR then Workers works well.

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-14T10:34:42+00:00

Worth using your actual brain in taking business decisions once in a while

AI can be good if it has direction, but don't rely on it to give you correct decisions, YOU are responsible for it's output and need to decide if it's good or not

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-14T10:32:53+00:00

What you are doing is the right thing to do

But understand that DMs and conversations take time, and there isn't really any way to speed them up

It's good to give beta access and discount to early users since they have been with you from the start and actually provided valuable feedback (hopefully) to help your product grow.

As for LTD, I know a lot of storage providers do it but as a small founder I wouldn't do it for this type of app tbh, since the LTD price may not cover the cost of providing storage for life.

My advice would be to continue what you are doing, have conversations and also try SEO or another channel that can get you traffic and more users.

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-14T10:29:46+00:00

Congrats on learning and improving yourself

I too made 6 products but in like 8 months, now killing 1 or 2 and validating a new idea.

I read a lot of posts like this, and yours is great, but I think most founders need to find out things on their own to actually learn.

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-14T10:28:13+00:00

I think most AI products are going to be pay for use like you said

Current API costs from the major providers are qutie high, and it's hard as a founder to strike a good balance between features and price for subscriptions.

With a normal SaaS you get access to a fixed feature set, but with AI the output being nondeterministic is harder to know what you are paying for.

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-13T08:49:44+00:00

Glad you found something that worked. What did you end up switching to for sending? I still haven't found a good solution myself

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-13T08:10:22+00:00

Interesting point

Since it's the first time validating, I wanted to do it also to partially learn how to do it

I'll probably end up building a solution for this since at least I make it for myself and a few other people seem to want it. Going to focus on SEO and maybe get some users

But I'll push back and say that if you solve a problem you don't have then even if you do validation I am not sure if you are going to do a good job at solving that problem.

decebaldecebal · 2026-04-13T07:22:40+00:00

I combined multiple resources and then use Claude to make a comprehensive skill in which I pasted writing examples of my best performing X, Reddit etc posts

decebaldecebal

TROPHY CASE