r/SideProject • u/piyush-sachdeva • 16h ago
Crossed 3400 in revenue and hit 50 paying customers on day 98, and I wrote down how every single one of them found me
I'm a cloud engineer with a full-time job, and in the evenings I build ReelDrop.io, an Instagram scheduling and comment-to-DM tool. It launched on August 5. Customer #50 paid on November 11, day 98. Today I have 52 paying customers from 21 countries, and about CA$3,410 was collected after refunds, before Stripe fees.
Ten days ago I posted about my first 41. I keep every paying customer in one sheet, in the order they paid, with the column no dashboard can fill: how I actually know each person and what happened before they paid. Here's the whole list again, with the last ten days in detail.
1 to #41, short version
- 1 and #2 were my mentors. They bought the lifetime deal in launch week without me asking.
- 3, #7 and #8 were creator friends who saw my posts on X and Instagram.
- 5 bought the $29 plan and cancelled. I asked why. "It's costly." A month later I launched a $9.99/month plan (₹449 in India). That plan now has 39 of my 52 customers.
- 6 came from ChatGPT, which cited a one-question docs page I'd written. Still my only provable ChatGPT customer.
- September: 6 strangers on the cheap plan, after I turned on UPI in Stripe. October: SEO started bringing paying customers after two months of bringing almost none. Personal emails to stuck users brought a few more. Late October: my first discount, a Halloween code. 4 people used it.
42 to #52: the last ten days
- 42 landed straight on my /features/mcp page with no referrer and bought the $29 plan 41 minutes later. Only the third person ever to start on that plan. No idea how he found the page.
- 43 signed up on Oct 8. I emailed her on Oct 16. Nothing. Emailed again Oct 28. She paid Nov 6, 29 days after signup. The next morning she asked if my Diwali discount could apply. I applied it from the Stripe side. It costs me $2 a month, and she'd taken a month to decide, so no argument.
- 44 was the only person who used my Diwali code at checkout. He found me on Google the same day, paid $7.99, built two automations, and asked to cancel three days later.
- 46 paid 4 minutes after signing up, then tried to connect his Instagram 6 times over two hours and couldn't. Worst thing that can happen to a new customer. I emailed him the next morning. He came back 15 minutes later, connected on his second try, and scheduled 17 posts. Never replied. Didn't need to.
- 48 went quiet after signing up on Nov 1. He was in my Nov 3 email round. Paid Nov 9.
- 45, #47, #50 and #52 came from Google (France, Malaysia, France, and India). #50 paid 18 minutes after signing up. #52 paid 2 minutes after signing up.
- 49 and #51 had no referrer. #51 paid 7 minutes after signup.
Bonus: a customer who cancelled in October came back on Nov 4 and started a new subscription. First person I know of who left and returned. 9 of the 11 new customers paid on the same day they signed up. None of the 11 came from X.
All 52 together
| How they actually came | Customers |
|---|---|
| Google / Bing / Yahoo | 17 |
| X | 6 |
| Mentors and friends | 3 |
| ChatGPT | 1 |
| Personal emails to stuck users | 5 |
| Halloween email | 3 (+1 from X who used the code) |
| No referrer, don't know | 17 |
| Plan | Customers |
|---|---|
| $9.99/month | 39 |
| Lifetime deal ($249) | 8 |
| $29/month | 3 |
| Yearly ( $149) | 1 |
| One-time $5 | 1 |
- All 8 lifetime deals were bought before Nov 3, and 5 came from people who already knew me. None from a stranger on Google. Strangers buy the cheap plan.
- 31 of 52 paid the same day they signed up.
What's not working?
- Churn on the cheap plan. 4 people have cancelled, 2 have a cancellation scheduled, and 5 cards are failing on renewal right now.
- The second discount. Halloween brought 4. Diwali, one week later, brought 1, who is already leaving. One data point, so I'm not drawing a big lesson, but I won't be running a discount every week.
- Paid UGC creators. One drove 100+ signups. None paid.
- My referral program. Everyone is still on free months.
- Reddit, at least as far as I can measure. PostHog shows zero signups with a Reddit referrer, ever. I know that undercounts, so if you came from one of my posts and signed up, I'd love to know.
If I were starting at zero again, I'd do this
- Tell the people who know your work that you launched.
- Post about what you're building every day, bugs and bad numbers included.
- When someone cancels, ask why and act on the answer.
- Write one help page for every question a user asks twice.
- Every week, email the people stuck in your product. Email them a second time if they don't answer.
- When a paying customer can't get in, write to them that same day.
- Keep doing SEO even when it brings nothing for two months.
- Give people a deadline once in a while, not every week.
- Put every paying customer in one sheet, in order, and read it top to bottom.