Author of 15 books. Builder of 6 AI-powered apps. Writing about AI, leadership, sales enablement, and building things that matter.
chadtdyar.com | contentforgehq.com
#AI #IndieHacker #Author #SaaS #BuildInPublic
2/2 What's not working: Organic social is not converting. Impressions yes, signups no.
The pivot: intent-based channels. SEO landing pages. Targeted lead magnets. Less spray, more sniper.
$70 to $1,000 in 81 days. The conversion rate gives me hope — I don't need massive traffic, I need the right traffic.
1/2 Week 2 honest numbers. No spin.
Day 9 of 90. Target: $1K MRR.
PillPal: 19 users, 4 paid ($5/mo each). $20 MRR.
ContentForge: 2 paid users at $25/mo. $50 MRR.
Momentum, PawFormance, HomeGrown, Palette Pro: Effectively zero paid users.
Total MRR: ~$70. Up from ~$30 at start.
What's working: PillPal's free-to-paid conversion is 21%. Lead magnets driving email signups. Medisafe paywall driving organic search.
2/2 The difference isn't quality — the later books are actually better. The difference is I stopped confusing perfectionism with craft. Craft is knowing when something is good enough to help someone. Perfectionism is hiding behind revision because shipping is terrifying.
If you're sitting on something at 80%, ship it. The last 20% is almost never what you think it is.
1/2 I've written 16 books. Here's what that actually taught me about shipping.
Not about writing. About shipping.
Book one took me a year. I revised endlessly. I asked twelve people for feedback. I redesigned the cover four times. It sold maybe 30 copies.
Book sixteen took me three weeks. I knew the topic cold, wrote a clean draft, edited it twice, published it. It's not my best work. But it's out in the world doing its job.
4/4 Building is the easy part. Distribution is the real product.
3/4 Here's what's actually starting to work: intent-based channels. Not "post and pray" but finding the exact places where people are already searching for solutions. SEO pages targeting "Medisafe alternative." Lead magnets for specific pain points. Email sequences that nurture instead of blast.
It's slower. It's less glamorous. But the people who find you through intent are 10x more likely to convert than someone who stumbled on a tweet.
1/4 The distribution problem nobody warns you about.
Everyone talks about building. Nobody talks about what happens after you ship.
I have six apps live right now. Six. They all work. They all solve real problems. And most of them have close to zero users. Not because the products are bad — because nobody knows they exist.
3/3 I'm not going to promise PillPal will be free forever. I'm a solo builder trying to reach $1K MRR. But I am going to be honest about what costs money and why. The core reminder functionality? That stays free. The advanced stuff — caregiver dashboards, interaction checks, export reports — that's where the paid tier lives.
If you know someone frustrated by the Medisafe change, I'd genuinely appreciate you pointing them to getpillpal.app.