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.
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