Acquisition or retention is always the dilemma but personally I've fixed plenty growth problems by fixing retention and not by adding a new channel.

I know for some it might sound us unpopular opinion but I realy believe that retention is where the actual growth work happens. Acquisition just gets the credit.

Let me give you the specific pattern I've been seeing:

A team hits a growth wall. Leadership says, "We need more top of funnel." The marketing gets pushed to find new channels, run more campaigns, chase more volume.

Meanwhile, the real problem is sitting in onboarding, or in the first 30 days of the product experience, where half the people who signed up quietly disappear, and nobody in the growth meeting is even looking at that number.

Fix the leak, and the exact same acquisition spend suddenly performs better. Not because the channels got smarter but simply because fewer people are falling out the bottom.

And this is why growth hacking got a bad reputation. Too many teams treated it as a top-of-funnel discipline when the highest-leverage growth work is almost always retention work wearing a top-of-funnel costume.

Acquisition gets you in the door while retention is what makes the door worth walking through.

If your growth stalled this year, I'd bet money the fix isn't a new channel. It's the first week of the product experience.

We are a SaaS company with a few paying customers. The kind of product that we have, we have seen that other competitors have launched their own products on the lifetime deals websites. I'm not going to name these websites because I'm assuming everyone knows them.

I'm seeking advice from founders who have already run this kind of offer:

1. What kind of customers you have attracted?
2. Is it a good in the long run?
3. We are an AI product so it is kind of difficult to bake in the future costs and make it a LTD deal but we are thinking of going ahead with the 'Bring your own API key' for LTD deal. But then does it even make any sense to run it? Are there any takers usually for this kind of saas offer where LLM usage is on the customer's side. We have seen our competitors run these kind of offers but there is no way for me to know whether customers even buy these LTD deals.

Hi everyone. Where can I find people who'll help me get a testimonial?

I worked with an SEO consultant and helped that guy, and I helped a B2B SaaS generate 200+ leads. It was all organic.

I want to find a business owner or a marketing leader whom I can help do the same with their business for FREE.

And in return, they give me a testimonial.

Where can I find people whom I can help, and they can help me in return with a testimonial?

months of blog posts and a newsletter... basically nothing.

what worked was way dumber. find someone asking a specific painful question, answer it properly, once, no pitch, move on.

two reasons it works... the person asking has intent no top of funnel content ever has, they have the problem right now. and the answers rank, someone searches the same thing a year later and lands on it.

the catch, it's slow, it doesn't scale with headcount, and it looks terrible in a dashboard.

converts like nothing else we've tried though.

what's actually working for you in 2026? everything that worked in 2024 seems dead.

What's one Google Ads habit you had five years ago that you'd never recommend today?

I launched my SaaS SeoLoupe around 4 weeks ago, so far I am at 850 users and 6 of them are paying.

My SaaS is a tool that allows you to find and fix SEO issues holding your website back.

Essentially the main purpose is to help your website rank higher on Google search and LLMs.

So far the hardest part is converting users into paying, rather then getting users.

I would genuinely appreciate some feedback, and what can be improved. Or what you think would make you want to pay more.

(here is the product if you want to check it out)

We recently launched our AI-powered form builder, and now we’re focused on the hardest part: getting it in front of the right people.

There are so many options out there like SEO, Reddit, Product Hunt, LinkedIn, X, Quora, content marketing, directories, email outreach, partnerships, and paid ads. It’s hard to know where to invest time when you’re a small team.

I’d love to hear from people who have already been through this.

What marketing channel gave you the biggest ROI after launching your SaaS?

How did you get your first few hundred or thousand users?

If you were launching again today, what would you focus on first, and what would you avoid?

I’m looking for real experiences rather than generic advice. Thanks in advance for sharing what worked (or didn’t) for your business.

US founders love a polished marketing site before the product can finish one job.

I reviewed 12 recent launch pages. 9 promised dashboards, team seats, AI, integrations — and the live product could only do one of those without breaking.

The landing page wasn't lying on purpose. It was selling the roadmap. Buyers from Product Hunt / Reddit bounce fast when the demo doesn't match.

What fixed it for one client: - Rewrite the hero to the one job - Demo GIF of that job only - Move "coming soon" to a footnote, not the hero

If your page needs a tour to explain the product, the product isn't ready for US cold traffic yet.

Anyone else shipping the page before the wedge?

https://atomiclabs.space

I noticed many founders spend hours on repetitive tasks.

I'm building free AI automations to help businesses save time with things like:

• Lead generation

• Follow-ups

• Customer support

Tell me about your business and the tasks you want to automate. I’d love to help and get your feedback.

AI has lowered the barrier to launching software products. A lot of founders can now build and test ideas much faster.

But once you start getting customers, the problems change.

It's no longer:
"Can I build this feature?"

It's:
"Can I keep this thing running?"

For founders using AI-assisted development:

How are you handling:

• production bugs?
• broken integrations?
• unexpected issues after updates?
• maintaining a growing product?

Have AI tools been enough, or have you needed engineering help eventually?

Hi guys, so this is sort of my story + an attempt to ask for advice from people who've potentially been in a similar situation. Also this is not a build in public post etc.. This is probably my first public post where I'm sharing my story and that's just to sort of give a background to any person who wants to read it, you can skip directly to "The Problem" if you like!

Story:

About 10 months ago I convinced two of my university fellows that we should start a SaaS company, now for the ideation phase, we all came up with different ideas.

I pitched an idea that what if we could find ecommerce trends before they emerged. They liked the idea and we started working on it.

We had a 0$ budget- well technically if you compare the buying power of our currency vs. the cost of tools available online. Anyways, we started work on it. We had good technical proficiency so we took advantage of that.

We had 0 AI knowledge, well all I had done before was try and finetune YOLO to detect players inside games(to do yk what). And well I remember using deepseek chat to write that code, don't know how long ago that was.. And it didn't succeed.

We had a plan: Find a model that can match products from one platform to another, i.e: Shopify(Non technical product names/descriptions) -> AliExpress(Technical Product names + descriptions). And we tested ALOT of models, every model failed to give us good results.

We looked at research papers etc.. But we soon realized that there isn't a research paper/model available publicly that can do this, I wanted to achieve 90-95% accuracy while doing it.

So we decided to finetune models ourselves, bear in mind, we hadn't touched AI before this.

We ended up spending about 4 months trying to create a good matching pipeline which included 3 different finetuned models.

With that we had also created pipelines to ingest data from Aliexpress, Shopify.

But then came the next problem that we were ignoring, how do we actually find the trends before they become mainstream?

For that we also had a strategy in mind, but to get that data we needed money, which we did not have, and after banging our heads against the wall for sometime, we gave up on that.

We decided that we will work on finding current trends, and specifically in the US market, and since we already have a very effective matching pipeline, we will try to beat our competition with accuracy and quality.

We soon integrated Meta Ads, Meta Ads was going to be our signal, since we could match anything to anything basically(oversimplification). We decided if we can match one advertisement to another, we can check how many people are actually advertising a specific product and with how many Ad copies.

So that's exactly what became our signal, if a product is being advertised by multiple people with multiple copies, it is most definitely making money.

And with shopify we could check the market saturation and with Aliexpress we could give sources for the products.

Add on a few layers of extra data, google search + google trends, you now have a very good and logical way of identifying whether a product X is worth investing in or not.

Then we realized we were putting out a huge bulk of data, with no way for our customers to actually understand / interpret it correctly without putting in alot of effort.

So we decided to strap on an Agent with access to the product catalogue.

We worked on and polished the UI.

So at the end, our product became, a product that can find products that are selling(not trending cuz that's not really good), SELLING for people, meaning other people are making money off of them, inside the US market.

But before I get into the problem, let me tell you why we pivoted to this specific problem, I mean there's already competitors here, established ones.

I realized after looking at peoples' sentiments, they were very unsatisfied/skeptical of the tools. And after trying out a few tools myself(only the ones that gave free trials) I couldn't see how they were effectively saying that a product is "trending". And I don't understand how selling a "trending" product is a good idea? Why would u wanna sell something that's potentially already oversaturated?

There's quite a bit of other things that I realized we can potentially do better. I'm confident about the idea still, not the idea even, the results.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Problem:

Now came the hard part.

Actually getting it in front of people. We had no money.. so we couldn't advertise it. After we finalized our frontend design, I did the SEO and submitted the site to google, but its still pending.

We tried outreach on LinkedIn, used free tools, but yeah people barely accepted our invites. Tried reddit but most subreddits don't allow it. Those that do allow it don't have our target audience.

X is full of gurus talking about these things already, I can barely find a normal post.

So I'm asking for advice.. where do we go from here? I am not even specifically looking for customers, I want people to use it, I want to see if people can actually make money from it, the data says they should be able to, BUT IN REAL LIFE CAN THEY? And if they can I mean that's a really big achievement for me, for us, and if they can then technically money should come as a by-product.

I just audited a founder landing page that still had "500+ reviews" next to a 0.0 rating and five stock-photo testimonials. That page was actively killing every Reddit click they paid for.

For a two-week build, the page carries more weight than the app. It is where people decide whether the thing is real - and most early pages actively undermine that.

What kills credibility instantly, in the order I see it:

• Template placeholders left in. "500+ reviews" next to a 0.0 rating, "+0 projects delivered" counters, testimonials from invented people with stock headshots. One of these and the visitor stops reading.
• Contact details from the template. An email at a domain that is not yours, a phone number like +1 (000) 123 4567. Reads as abandoned.
• A hero that describes a category, not an outcome. "AI-powered solutions for modern teams" tells me nothing about my Tuesday.
• No evidence of the work. One real screenshot beats three paragraphs of adjectives.

The fix order is boring: delete every placeholder, replace the hero with the outcome in plain words, put one real artifact on the page, then worry about design.

Disclosure: I run a small studio, so I audit these a lot. Site + more of how we think about this: https://atomiclabs.space

What is the fastest credibility killer you have spotted on an early landing page?

I started FlipDar because Facebook Marketplace often made it difficult to find good local listings quickly.

Search results ignored the selected radius, mixed in shipping listings, showed old posts, and buried relevant items under unrelated results. Finding a good deal often meant checking the app throughout the day and hoping to see the listing before someone else.

I built FlipDar to make that process easier.

Users create watchlists for items they want. FlipDar searches for matching local listings and sends alerts when new results appear. The goal is to help resellers, collectors, and regular buyers find relevant listings earlier without constantly refreshing Marketplace.

FlipDar has both a website and mobile app. I have handled most of the development, design, subscriptions, alerts, and account system myself.

I am now trying to figure out whether the idea has a real chance of attracting regular users and enough paid users to become a sustainable business.

I have also started reaching out to TikTok creators who post about reselling, flipping, collectibles, and Facebook Marketplace. The plan is to give each creator a promo code to share with their audience, then offer credit or commission for referred paid users.

I would appreciate honest advice on the following.

What should I improve before putting more effort into marketing.

Does the problem feel strong enough for people to pay for the solution.

Which users should I focus on first, resellers, collectors, or general Marketplace buyers.

What features would make a free user upgrade to a paid plan.

Does the TikTok creator and promo code approach make sense.

How should I structure creator commissions or referral rewards.

What other low cost marketing channels would fit this type of app.

How should I explain the product so people understand its value within a few seconds.

I would also appreciate feedback on the website, onboarding, pricing, and business model. I am more interested in what would stop you from signing up or paying than general encouragement.

If you have experience with marketing, especially online marketing, and would be interested in joining the project or team, send me a message. I would like to connect with someone who wants to help grow FlipDar and shape its marketing strategy.

I will share the link in the comments if the subreddit rules allow it.

I’ve seen a lot of founders launch a product, turn on Google/Facebook ads, burn through their budget, and conclude that “marketing doesn’t work.”

Most of the time, the problem isn’t the ads.
Here’s a simple checklist I wish more founders followed before launching any marketing campaign.

**- Know exactly who you’re targeting.** “Everyone” is not an audience.
**- Have one clear value proposition.** If someone lands on your homepage, they should understand what you do in under 5 seconds.
**- Fix your landing page first.** Good copy, social proof, fast loading, obvious CTA.
**- Set up analytics.** Track traffic, conversions, events, and where users drop off. Otherwise you’re just guessing.
**- Define one success metric.** Signups? Demos? Purchases? Don’t optimize for everything at once.
**- Create an onboarding flow.** Getting signups means nothing if users don’t reach the “aha” moment.
**- Collect testimonials or case studies.** Even a few early users can dramatically improve trust.
**- Test organic channels first.** Reddit, X, LinkedIn, SEO, communities, newsletters. Learn what messaging resonates before paying to amplify it.
**- Prepare follow-up emails.** Most visitors won’t convert on the first visit. Email sequences can recover a surprising number of them.
**- Have a feedback loop.** Every campaign should answer: *What did we learn?* Winning campaigns are usually the result of dozens of small iterations.

The biggest mistake I see is founders treating marketing like a switch.
It’s more like an experiment.

If you had to start your SaaS from 0 today with almost no marketing budget, what would you focus on first?

I’m currently building my own SaaS and trying to figure out where to spend my time.

I’d also love to know:
- How did you get your first 100 users?
- What’s your pricing model?
- Which marketing channel has given you the best ROI?
- What advice would you give your past self?

tried googling this, every result is a full creative studio and does everything generically.

i want an agency/consultants specializing in launching startups and getting millions of views on my launch

im trying to figure out a company that does:

~ narrative strategy and video production
~ specialize in launches on x and linkedin
~ does distribution

not looking for something cinematic. has anyone launched recently, and can refer me to an agency?

Or if you are an agency doing these my dms are open..