DEV Community: Enio Aguiar

I Can't Afford Ads for My SaaS, So I'm Trying This Instead.

Enio Aguiar — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 02:05:18 +0000

I did the thing every developer dreams of: I built and launched my own SaaS product, PostPulsar (https://post-pulsar.com). It’s a tool I'm genuinely proud of—it uses AI to help content creators like me save hours by repurposing blog posts into social media content.

Then came the hard part. The part they don't always talk about in the success stories.

Marketing. As a developer, my first instinct is to solve problems with code, not with marketing campaigns. And my second problem is a bit more specific: I'm based in Brazil.
The Two Walls of Marketing for an Indie Hacker

I quickly ran into two massive walls.

Wall #1: The Time Sink

Like many of you, I'd rather spend my time improving my product than trying to keep up with five different social media platforms. I actually built PostPulsar to solve my own problem of not having enough time for social media. But getting the word out requires a different kind of effort.

Wall #2: The "Currency Wall"

This is the killer. A modest ad budget of, say, $200/month might sound reasonable if you're earning in USD. But when you convert that to Brazilian Real (BRL), the cost becomes astronomical. It’s like trying to compete in a race where your fuel costs 5x more than everyone else's. Paid advertising, the default growth engine for so
many, was simply not a sustainable option for me.

So, what do you do when you can't afford to pay Google or Meta to find your customers?

The Pivot: From "Buying" Customers to "Partnering" with Creators

I had a realization. Instead of paying giant ad platforms, why not pay the actual people who believe in the product and bring in customers?

Instead of spending money I don't have on ads that might not even convert, I decided to invest directly in a community. A performance-based model where everyone wins.

So, that's what I did. I created an affiliate program.

It’s my plan B. My growth experiment. It costs me nothing upfront, and it rewards people for genuinely helping the product grow.

This is an Invitation

I’m sharing this story on Dev.to because this is a community of builders, creators, and marketers who understand the grind. If you have an audience of developers,
writers, marketers, or entrepreneurs who could benefit from saving hours on content creation, I’d love to partner with you.

I’ve set up a simple affiliate program with PromoteKit.

You get a 30% recurring commission on every single customer you refer.
It's a win-win. You earn revenue by recommending a tool you believe in, and my SaaS grows in a way I can actually afford.

You can sign up to become an affiliate here:
https://postpulsar.promotekit.com

It's an experiment in community-powered growth. Let's see what we can build together.

I Built a SaaS Without Looking at a Single Competitor. Here’s What I Learned

Enio Aguiar — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 18:59:13 +0000

The story of PostPulsar, a solo-developed AI tool born from personal frustration, a stubborn rule, and an unexpected AI pair programmer.

It all starts with a feeling every content creator knows: you’ve just finished writing an amazing blog post. You feel accomplished. But the work is far from over.

Now, you have to slice, dice, and re-write that single piece of content for a half-dozen different platforms. It needs to become a professional post for LinkedIn, a punchy thread for X (Twitter), a visually-driven caption for Instagram, and maybe even an announcement for Discord.

This is the “content repurposing hell.” It’s a soul-crushing, creativity-draining process. And it was in the middle of this frustration that I had an idea: What if an AI could do it all for me? What if one link could be transformed into a dozen perfectly optimized social media posts in seconds?

That idea became PostPulsar.

The Rule: Build From a Blank Slate

From the very first day, I set a stubborn rule for myself:

I would not research or analyze any competitors.

I wanted PostPulsar to be a solution born from my pain, shaped by my vision of how the problem should be solved. I didn’t want to be influenced by existing features, UI patterns, or pricing models. I wanted to build something pure, focused solely on solving the core problem in the most intuitive way I could imagine.

This decision forced me to think from first principles. Every feature, from the user authentication flow to the way content is generated and displayed, was designed in a vacuum. It was harder, but it resulted in a tool that feels uniquely authentic to its purpose.

The Rollercoaster: Battling APIs and Documentation

Building a product like this alone is a true rollercoaster. My Plano de Ação.md (Action Plan) file became a testament to the journey, with dozens of tasks checked off, each representing a hard-won battle.

Integrating with each social network’s API was an adventure in itself. It was a constant struggle against contradictory documentation, byzantine authentication flows, and cryptic error messages. I learned a few key lessons along the way.

Lesson 1: Documentation Isn't Reality

The Instagram API was a masterclass in this. The official docs clearly stated that video carousels required a specific media_type. After days of failures, I tried the exact opposite of what was documented, and it worked. The lesson? Trust, but verify—with your own code.

Lesson 2: Technical Debt Can Ambush You

At one point, the entire payment integration ground to a halt. The culprit? An old, pinned version of the Stripe API that didn’t support the features I needed. The only solution was a complete architectural refactor to use Stripe Checkout, a significant detour that taught me the importance of keeping core dependencies current.

Every feature, from processing video uploads to managing multiple Discord webhooks, was its own puzzle.

My Unexpected Copilot

On this journey, I wasn’t entirely alone. I had a fundamental, if unexpected, partner: Gemini.

It acted as a tireless pair programmer. When I was stuck on a complex backend error at 2 AM, it was there. When a UI component had grown into an unmaintainable monolith, it helped me refactor it. When I needed to implement tricky polling logic to handle asynchronous video processing on LinkedIn, it helped write the code.

It was like having a Socratic partner for debugging. It wouldn’t just give me the answer, but help me ask the right questions to find it myself. This collaboration was essential for overcoming major roadblocks that could have stalled the project for days.

The Result: A Tool With a Soul

Today, PostPulsar is live at www.post-pulsar.com. It’s the result of months of focused work, an authentic philosophy, and a fascinating man-machine collaboration.

It does exactly what I set out to build: it transforms long-form content into optimized social media posts, saving creators hours of manual work. There’s still a long road ahead, but the feeling of seeing an idea born from personal frustration become a real, functional tool is incredible.

Building in a vacuum was challenging, but it ensured that PostPulsar has its own soul. It’s not a copy of anything else; it’s simply one developer’s answer to a very annoying problem.

I’d love for you to try it and hear your thoughts. What part of your workflow do you wish you could automate?

I Got Tired of Manually Repurposing My Blog Posts, So I Built an AI Tool to Do It For Me

Enio Aguiar — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 18:52:07 +0000

Hey Dev Community!

If you're like me, you enjoy writing technical articles, but you dread the part that comes after: promoting them. The whole process of copy-pasting snippets, reformatting for Twitter, writing a different version for LinkedIn, and then maybe another for Discord... it's a tedious, soul-crushing loop.

I realized I was spending more time on this manual "content logistics" than on writing new articles or coding. There had to be a better way.

So, I decided to build the solution: PostPulsar.

What is PostPulsar?

PostPulsar is a micro-SaaS that uses AI to do the heavy lifting of content repurposing. You give it one blog post, and it gives you back multiple, ready-to-publish posts tailored for different social media platforms.

How it works is simple:

Paste your article's URL or raw text.
Select your target networks (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Discord, etc.).
Click "Pulsar". The AI generates unique posts for each selected network, respecting their different styles and character limits.

You get an editable dashboard with all the generated content, ready for you to review, tweak, and publish.

The Tech Stack

For those interested in the tech, I built this project with a modern serverless stack:

Frontend: Astro
Backend & Database: Supabase (Postgres, Auth, and Edge Functions for all the server-side logic)
Hosting: Vercel
AI: Gemini

Why I'm Sharing This

I built this tool for myself, but I figured it could be useful for other developers, indie hackers, and tech writers who are building their personal brand or marketing a side project. We should be spending our time creating, not copy-pasting.

I'd love for you to try it out and give me your honest feedback. There's a free plan available so you can see how it works.

You can check it out here: [https://www.post-pulsar.com/]

Thanks for reading, and I'm here to answer any questions you have

Linux Utilities You Didn’t Know You Needed: Automating Tweaks and Fixes

Enio Aguiar — Sun, 24 Aug 2025 00:08:34 +0000

If you've ever spent hours tweaking Linux settings or trying to install software, you know it can be frustrating. LinuxToys, a Brazilian project created by Greg (PsyGreg), aims to make this process much easier by automating optimizations, installations, and common fixes for Linux users.

What is LinuxToys?

LinuxToys is a set of tools designed to help Linux users, whether you're just starting out or have been using it for years. It offers simple menus, pre-configured tweaks, and automation to handle everyday tasks and system improvements.

Key Features

Shader Booster helps reduce stutters in games by increasing the shader cache limit.
Lucid Glyph improves font rendering for clearer and more comfortable text.
Simplified Installations automates the setup of complex software.
Essential Configurations take care of things like swap creation and firewall setup.

Links

You can check out the project on GitHub here: LinuxToys on GitHub

And you can read the full article on my blog here: LinuxToys: The Swiss Army Knife for Linux

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you tried LinuxToys or other Linux utilities? Share