Tim Chen

app(.)yourbusiness(.)com yourbusiness(.)com/app Which do you perfer?

🚀 Just got my first paying customer for Snapdemo! From 0 → 1 feels unreal. Grateful, excited, and even more motivated to keep building. Indie hacking is wild 💙 #buildinpublic #FirstCustomer

In a world obsessed with AI, do startups that don't use it still have a fighting chance?

I’m happy to offer you a commission ranging from 50% to 100% for helping me sell Snapdemo.io. here’s the commission: - For subscription plans: 100% for the first month, then 50% - For lifetime plans: 30%

This is my side project’s side project, a simple little tool website that gets ~2.8k clicks a month from Google. Do you want to know how I pulled it off?

@alexcooldev It's a tough journey, but so rewarding. Juggling everything from coding to marketing is a huge challenge for solo founders. Especially trying to show the value of what you've built. Keep going.

My respect to the founders building alone… coding, learning, marketing, and sticking to a vision that most people don’t get. Your sacrifices and focus will pay off. It’s only a matter of time before your product takes off.

@vascoabm It's a tough job. It's also a great way to find out what parts of the product are confusing to users.

our customer support rep is on vacation I'm now handling all support tickets this makes me remember why I hired a customer support rep lol

@hunterjisaacson Totally agree. A big part of distribution is what happens after people land on your site. We've seen founders get visitors but then struggle to convert them. Making it easy for people to immediately understand the product is a huge piece of that puzzle.

Good consumer founders build the app Great consumer founders build distribution Few

@jackfriks I get this. It's the "just trust me" feeling from the machine. It highlights how important it is to actually show how things work. Whether with code, or when explaining our own products to users.

artificial intelligence has spoiled my actual intelligence. i have stopped trying to understand things and have started crossing my fingers, praying that the clanker will interpret my limited understanding while spitting back at me a fully working solution with no faults

@thepatwalls Agree that! Having those core elements in place not only speeds up development but also helps maintain consistency as projects grow.

I feel like half the battle with vibe coding is just having a good base: - a core DB schema - good understanding of relationship between tables - basic authentication setup - data fetching patterns - reusable components - folder structure - error handling once you have this you can kinda go wild and move really fast with AI. that's why im a big fan of using frameworks like Rails it's so opinionated that the AI can't YOLO too much

@alexcooldev shipping early and learning from real users beats waiting for perfect skills. Iterating based on feedback is what truly moves growth. It’s a path many SaaS founders can relate to.

When I launched my first app: – I couldn’t design – I barely knew how to code – I had zero marketing skills The UI sucked. It crashed all the time. No one noticed. But I shipped anyway. Posted every day. Fixed bugs one by one. Talked to users. 6 months later: Same me. But now 280K users. Lesson? You don’t need to be ready. You just need to start. No course or mentor will do the reps for you. Stop waiting. Build now.

@dakshpixelup Growing revenue steadily like that shows how patience and consistent client focus really pay off.

Nearing 6 years as a freelance designer 2019: $0/mo 2020: $100/mo (small gigs) 2021: $600/mo (freelance + stipend) 2022:$1000/mo (freelance + contracts) 2023: $2000/mo (freelance + full time job) 2024: $7k/mo (freelance + full time job) 2025: $35k+/mo (studio revenue) it is possible. but it takes time, don't let social media make you feel insecure.

@nizzyabi I agree, focusing on how users actually interact is key. That’s why we see so much value in Snapdemo that let people explore features hands-on, not just through looks. It makes the experience clearer and builds trust early on.

my only gripe w most designers is that they don't think about the end user. all they care about is gradients, button borders, and animations while not considering the most important part: how the end user will interact with product and how easily they understand what is going on.

@robin_faraj I hear you. Balancing work and life often feels like a luxury when you’re building something from scratch.

Work life balance is a scam it’s for people working 9-5 or people that are already successful you and me, we gotta work

@nathan_covey I want this, thank you.

Last month I spent $891 on listing directories. It took us from a 0 domain rating to 14 in 30 days. I've compiled a guide with all the results, my analysis, and how you can copy this same strategy. Comment below and like this post and I'll DM you the guide!

@hunterjisaacson I’ve seen many great ideas stall without strong distribution. Focusing on how to get users to share and engage can make all the difference in growth.

Your idea is probably worth $0 Your ability to make people share it is worth $100M Distribution isn't a piece of the product It is the product

@DanKulkov Spending that long in pure marketing mode can feel draining. I’ve found breaking it up with even small product or customer conversations can help keep energy up while still moving the needle.

I forced myself to only do marketing for 1 month I am 👌 this close to going insane

@ayushtweetshere Agree. It’s easy to underestimate how much context-switching slows progress. I’ve found blocking time for deep work makes a big difference.

As a founder, your biggest enemy isn’t competition. It’s distractions. Every day it’s a battle.. new tools, endless notifications, half-baked ideas Building something meaningful means saying no 10x more than yes. #NoteToSelf

@matt_npl Thanks, Matt! Just to clarify, Snapdemo isn’t for video recording like Cursorful, it’s for creating interactive demos users can click through.

@timchengb Appreciate it Tim! Good to know! I'm currently using Cursorful tho.

I'm launching SocialRails on producthunt soon If you want to support it, you can get notified when it goes live below👇