Who are you and what startup did you build?

Hey, I'm Shri! I'm a software developer by day, but I've always wanted more than just writing code. I could make engineering decisions at work, but I felt left out regarding product decisions. That frustration motivated me to build my products, where I could bring my ideas to life.

Around July 2022, I had a knee injury and had to rest for a couple of weeks. While I was casually scrolling through Twitter, that's when I discovered the 'Build in public' community. Seeing other founders share their journeys openly inspired me to dive in. I started learning from the OGs in the community and decided to start building my products. From then, I knew I was on the right path, and I haven't looked back since.

The first product I sold on Microns was ColdDM. It's a tool that helps with Twitter outreach by finding potential customers and sending personalized DMs. It was targeted at other indie hackers and businesses trying to find customers on Twitter.

How did you come up with the idea?

Before building Colddm.me, I worked on my first product called WrapBox, a giveaway tool. I tried to market it through Twitter, which meant manually finding influencers and DMing them to give it a shot. The process was slow, tiring, and not scalable. After a lot of manual work, I ended up killing the product.

But out of that experience came the idea for ColdDM. I thought, What if there was a tool that could find matching leads for me and DM them automatically? That's precisely what I set out to build. I wanted something that would remove the boring, repetitive parts of outreach while being personal enough to connect with the right people. And that's how Colddm.me was born.

What was the first version of your product?

I built ColdDM myself from the ground up. I used Firebase with Node.js for the backend, which has been my go-to backend solution. Firebase comes up with a lot of great stuff. It covers you with Auth, real-time no-SQL DB (Firestore), File storage, notifications, and analytics. For the front end, I decided to go with Next.js and Tailwind CSS and hosted the app on Vercel. I grabbed a Tailwind UI template for the landing page and customized it to fit exactly what I needed.

At first, I initially built ColdDM as a social network where users voluntarily opt-in to receive cold DMs for their desired topics. It was kinda like a two-sided marketplace, and I’ll be honest, it was a stupid idea. After this realization, I did not hesitate and quickly pivoted the product to what it is today. It turned out to be a wonderful move.

How did you launch your project?

I first launched ColdDM on Twitter with a simple launch tweet. At the time, I only had about 100 followers, so, as you might guess, it didn’t gain any traction. But that’s the thing with building in public – you put stuff out there even when no one’s watching.

Next, I listed the product on Betalist, and things started to pick up. I got over 100 signups, which was a small but exciting win. A few of the early users gave me some helpful feedback, pushing me to make quick improvements.

One user, in particular, stood out. He gave me detailed feedback and became my first paid customer. Having someone believe in the product that early meant a lot to me. His support and input played a massive part in shaping the product in those early days.

After launch, what was the best growth strategy?

I decided to dogfood my product and used ColdDM to find leads and send cold DMs. It was the best move because the recipients saw the tool's value in action through their messages. Nothing sells better than showing people the solution firsthand.

I tried running some ads, but it didn’t work out. I had a tight budget and no experience with advertisements then, so I didn’t get much out of it.

Ultimately, all my customers came in organically, and I only had around 5-6 paid users when I sold the product. It felt like a small but meaningful win, especially since I was still figuring things out as a newbie in the solopreneur world.

How did you monetize your venture?

I went with subscriptions right from the start because I thought that was the best business model for my product. Looking back, I realize I could’ve started with LTDs since the operational costs were low.

Initially, I tried setting up payments through Paddle, but they rejected my application for no reason. That was a challenging moment – I had already spent a month building the product, and it felt like a huge setback. However, after chatting with other makers, I decided to try Stripe, and they made the whole process smooth by explaining to me all the documents required to get the account running.

At the two-month mark, I was sitting at around $70 MRR. That’s when I started thinking about the next steps and decided to list the product on Microns to explore selling it.

How much did you get after exit?

When I decided to sell ColdDM, I started looking for places to list it. That’s when I found Microns through Ilya on Twitter. I saw some amazing products listed there and thought, why not try? As soon as Ilya approved my listing, things moved fast – I sold the product within four days.

On the first day, a buyer reached out, and we had a call. He liked the product and wanted to rebrand it and integrate it into his product. I wasn’t thrilled about that idea since I wished for ColdDM to live on as its brand, but I kept the conversation going. He offered $3K, and I asked for a day to think it over.

The next day, something crazy happened. Andrew from XO Capital emailed me, saying he loved the product and wanted to close the deal immediately. When I mentioned the $3K offer from the other buyer, Andrew upped it to $6K if I closed it that day. I thought, heck, yeah, and accepted the offer. I let the first buyer know, and though he was a bit disappointed, he suddenly countered with $9K. But my gut told me Andrew would grow the product better – and he did. He took ColdDM from $70 MRR to $1.5K MRR in just three months.

Here’s the cool part – the first buyer was super chill about everything. A week later, he pinged me and asked if I could freelance to build a tweet scheduling tool for his product. I ended up earning $12K from that project. So in total, thanks to Microns, the whole experience brought in $18K. Not bad, right?

I used to use my day job's 6 year old laptop to build ColdDM, so the first thing I bought with the money was a brand new Mac M1 Pro.

What do you plan to do next? And what help do you need?

I have been working on Guidejar for the past year, and I think I've finally found it. Guidejar came from a problem I had myself – creating product demos and feature explainers for my earlier products was tedious. I wanted to make that process fun and effortless, so I built Guidejar.

This time, I approached things differently. I listed Guidejar on AppSumo early on, and it was a huge hit, bringing in 1,000+ LTD customers and a lot of traction. I switched to a subscription model in April, and the product is now makingaround $2K MRR.

I hired a freelancer as an influencer marketing manager for the first time, and he's been doing a great job. It feels incredible to see how everything has turned out so far. My main focus is growing Guidejar even further and taking it to the next level.

Would be nice to get some help with the marketing. Open to collaborate with freelance marketers.

One person, one book and one site that affected you the most

‍Person: Pieter Levels has been a huge inspiration for me. Watching him relentlessly build products and openly share his journey gave me the push to dive into indie hacking and believe that I could do it too.

Book: The Secret had a significant impact on my mindset. It taught me the importance of positive thinking and believing in the outcome, which has been really helpful throughout my entrepreneurial journey.

Site: The Build in Public community on Twitter is where I found knowledge, motivation, and even the courage to start my products. Seeing other founders share their ups and downs made me realize that I wasn’t alone, and it’s still one of my go-to places for inspiration.

Wisdom for other startup founders

It’s easy to get overwhelmed thinking about everything that could go right or wrong. But the real magic happens when you stop worrying about the outcome and just focus on taking the next step, then the one after that, and so on. Progress isn’t always flashy, but if you stay consistent, you’ll eventually find your way. There are only so many times you can lose. If you keep going, sooner or later, you’ll win.

The main lesson I’ve learned the hard way is

Don’t wait for the perfect idea to start

Your first iteration will always have flaws, but you’ll learn more from doing than overthinking. Every stumble along the way is just feedback. I’ve had products fail, but those failures gave me the ideas and motivation I needed to build the next thing. If you’re too scared to make a move, you’ll never know what could’ve worked. Start small, listen to feedback, and keep refining as you go.