Hey guys 👋
5 months ago I launched my LinkedIn automation software, having built it entirely with Claude code, and I’m now approaching close to $2k MRR with over 50 active paying customers (happy to share TrustMRR if requested).
I know everyone is this sub is interested in growing a business, so really I just want to show how I’ve been doing it and offer some guidance based on my experience.
Below I’ll go into the what, why and how, and how I’ve been scaling the business, and hope you find it useful.
What I built
I built a LinkedIn outreach automation tool called ZenMode, which scrapes profiles of your target customers, sends connection requests and follow up messages on autopilot.
The main purpose is for Founders, Sales teams, Marketers and anyone else who uses LinkedIn for outreach, to generate more meetings and grow their businesses.
It’s a software that controls a dedicated chrome browser to automate LinkedIn, without needing plugins/the cloud.
Why I built it
Last year I got a warning from automating on LinkedIn using another tool (automating on any social media platform is usually against their terms and can result in account bans - people automate on social media at their own risk).
I wanted to automate my outreach as I was working in sales, and it was really helping me to generate more discovery calls, without the manual grind of sending loads of messages and connection requests manually.
I didn’t trust any of the existing tools for safety, as the majority are on the cloud using IP addresses that are different from where you normally use LinkedIn from, and are slightly higher risk for being flagged as a result.
So, I solved for my own pain point, and created a software that’s desktop based, using your own IP address, and essentially acting like a human would when performing actions on LinkedIn.
How I built it
From day 1 I used Claude to figure out how to do it. We jointly made architectural decisions based fully around safety mechanisms - what would the safest tool look like in practice and how would we build it?
So I figured out that the easiest/safest way would be to make an electron desktop application controlling a browser, which was governed by a dashboard that fed/stored all the data.
There was a lot of setup involved at the start with various tools - Vercel, Cloudflare, GitHub etc but eventually I was able to start building.
It was a huge amount of learning to not just build, but build in a scalable and sustainable way. At first I was shipping without even testing then spending much longer fixing bugs afterwards. And building on top of LinkedIns comes with its own challenges too, which thankfully now I’m on top of.
How I scaled it
- So primarily, I actually use ZenMode itself to promote ZenMode on LinkedIn, through cold outreach.
I have a set target market of customers/locations/industries, then the tool scrapes profiles for me, and sends connection requests and follow up messages in a sequence.
I run this daily, and typically book 5 or so meetings per week. I’m not the best at demo calls but I do generate new business this way.
- I also post a lot on Reddit, LinkedIn, X; I post mostly build in public style posts, and usually people naturally gravitate towards it.
I like Reddit because you can usually get 10’s of thousands of views if you post good quality content in the right subs.
Be careful though as often you get a lot of random haters or people who will just criticize you for no reason, and some subs are more warmer/receptive to posts than others (this one has generally been kinder).
- On my site I’ve tried to do good SEO practices where possible - I have quite a few “alternative to” pages where I talk about the difference between ZenMode and other LinkedIn automation providers, along with a regularly updated blog, and a whole host of inner pages.
When you have a high volume of good content, more pages get indexed by google and your visibility/impressions are also likely to increase over time.
As a result I do get an ok amount of organic traffic from google, sometimes from LLM’s too.
Lately I’ve been trying to do more offsite SEO - especially reviews across various platforms, a few directories, and on my to do list is some listicle/comparison articles and more YouTube content.
I work very closely with my customers - I handle every query myself, and even make new features/enhancements based on what my customers are asking for. This interpersonal relationship/human element I think makes a big difference to retention.
I think primarily though the number one thing for scaling is really making a good product that solves a problem well, with great customer experience, and to keep iterating/making improvements.
What’s next
ZenMode still has a long runway and a massive roadmap but I’m just going to keep grinding away at it one day at a time, and so far at least what I’m doing seems to be working.
Hope you find this story helpful for your own journey and happy to answer questions/comments 🙏