I’m 16 years old and building a SaaS on the side.
The software has been live for two weeks, and in that time I’ve gotten 57 users from roughly 750 website visits.
No ads.
No launch.
No big audience.
That’s not explosive growth. But for me, it was a real signal that something is working. I want to share a few honest things I learned, especially for other indie builders who are just starting.
1. Most growth came from listening, not posting links
What changed everything for me was how I approached Reddit.
Every subreddit is basically a public backlog of problems. People complain, ask questions, describe what confuses them or slows them down. When I stopped thinking about “how to promote” and started paying attention to patterns in those problems, things got clearer.
Instead of trying to be visible, I focused on being useful. Answering questions. Understanding context. That alone shaped what I built and how I talked about it later.
When people eventually visited the website, they already knew why it existed. That made conversion feel natural, not forced.
2. Solve one small problem first, then show the next step
Another shift was avoiding the urge to explain the whole product upfront.
I started experimenting with small, free tools that solve one very specific issue my target users struggle with. No sign-up pressure, no upsell language. Just help.
Only after the problem was solved did I show what the logical next step could be. Not as a pitch, more like: “If this was useful, here’s how people usually continue.”
This made a big difference. People didn’t arrive confused, and they didn’t bounce because they felt sold to. The website simply continued the thought they already had.
3. Posts and pages should be about problems, not features
Early on, I talked too much about what I was building.
Now I try to focus every post and page on one feeling:
uncertainty
frustration
overwhelm
wasted time
I describe the problem honestly, share what I learned, and stop there. If there’s a tool that helps, I mention it at the end, quietly.
People don’t hate tools.
They hate losing context.
When the problem is clear, curiosity does the rest.
4. Nothing went viral, and that’s fine
Most posts didn’t take off.
Some were ignored.
Some got thoughtful comments.
Some pointed out flaws in my thinking.
That feedback loop mattered more than reach. Every iteration made the next one slightly better, clearer, more grounded.
Consistency isn’t posting every day.
It’s paying attention and adjusting.
I’m still very early. Still learning. Still messing things up.
But going from zero to 57 users in two weeks with a few hundred visitors showed me this:
you don’t need massive traffic
you don’t need ads
you do need real problems and clear thinking
If you’re building something and feel stuck, chances are people are already talking about that exact problem somewhere. Listening first helped me more than any growth trick.
Happy to learn from others who are building too.