I built a SaaS landing page in a week to validate my idea — here's what I shipped and learned

Sipapas Jaitaskul — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 07:16:40 +0000

The Problem with Building First

I'm a developer. I love building things.

But I've watched too many indie founders (myself included) spend
3-6 months building products that nobody wanted. The pattern is
always the same:

Have idea
Get excited
Build product
Launch to crickets
Wonder what went wrong

This time I tried something different: validate before building.

What I Built (in 7 days)

A landing page for cos — an AI agent that handles the
non-coding work for solo technical founders. Research, marketing,
outreach, launch ops. The kind of stuff that eats my week when
I'd rather be coding.

The angle that makes it different: it connects to your GitHub
and reads your commits. So when it drafts a launch post about
your new feature, it actually knows what you shipped. No
re-explaining your product to every new tool you try.

Live link: cos-landingpage.vercel.app

The Pricing Decision

I almost charged $29/mo. Then I remembered: solo founders are
already paying for Cursor ($20), ChatGPT Plus ($20), Linear
($8), and 5 other tools. Adding $29 for an unproven product is
asking too much.

Final pricing:

Solo: $19/mo (500 credits)
Founder: $49/mo (2,000 credits)
Team: $129/mo (6,000 credits)

Waitlist gets 50% off first 3 months. After that, full price.

Why credit-based instead of unlimited? Because LLM APIs cost
money, and "unlimited" pricing always ends in tears. Power
users get a BYOK option — connect your own Anthropic key,
unlimited usage.

Margin math: ~85% gross margin at 50 users using multi-model
routing (cheap models for filtering, premium models only for
final output).

The First 24 Hours

Posted to 3 subreddits last night before bed. Woke up to:

8 unique visitors
24 page views (3 pages per visitor — they're scrolling)
1 signup (12.5% conversion rate)
1 detailed feedback comment from a 3-year solo founder

That feedback was worth more than 100 upvotes. They confirmed
the problem is real, validated the GitHub-context angle, and
flagged real concerns about pricing and Discord friction.

What I'm Doing Next

Today: Post to more communities (DEV.to obviously, HN tonight)
This week: DM 10 founders directly for deeper feedback
Day 14: Decide based on data:

30+ signups + meaningful feedback → build it
10-30 signups → iterate positioning
<10 signups → kill it or pivot

I'll post a follow-up either way. Transparency is the only
honest way to do this.

Why I'm Sharing This

If you're a solo founder sitting on an idea, scared to build
because you might waste 6 months — this is the cheaper path.

Build a landing page. Ship it. Share it. See if anyone cares.
Decide based on data, not vibes.

Worst case: you waste a week instead of 6 months.
Best case: you find your first 30 customers before writing
a single line of product code.

If this resonates, I'd love your honest feedback on the
landing page itself: cos-landingpage.vercel.app

Roast it, point out positioning gaps, tell me if the pain
point is real for you. Every comment helps me decide what to
do next.

Thanks for reading.