I have some basic understanding of code structure — learned BASIC as a kid, touched HTML and PHP years ago — but I'm not a developer in any practical sense. I built Pulso Bot — AI support bots for Telegram businesses — by writing specs and letting Claude Code do the actual coding. Took about two weeks of real work to get something live.
Then I spent the next 12 days doing "distribution." That's the part nobody warns you about properly.
The listing grind
I submitted everywhere. Product Hunt, AlternativeTo, SaaSHub, Indie Hackers, TopTelegramBots, FutureTools — probably 15 sites total. Some approved in a day, some took a week, some are still pending. AlternativeTo took 7 days to approve. No traffic came from it yet.
Product Hunt launched March 24. A few upvotes from people I don't know. Zero signups. I'm not complaining — I had no existing audience, no hunter with followers, nothing. The result makes sense in retrospect.
The dev.to article got maybe 30 views. This one included.
What I got wrong
I was targeting the right directories for the wrong people. Everyone who found Pulso Bot through these channels was a developer or another founder. Not a single small business owner.
And here's the thing — small business owners who already use Telegram bots know how to get one built. The ones who don't, don't know they need one yet. I'm trying to reach people at exactly the moment they're frustrated enough to look for a solution. That moment doesn't happen on Product Hunt.
I don't have a fix for this. Still figuring it out.
Where things stand
Building Reddit karma in non-related subreddits so I can eventually answer questions organically without getting banned. Waiting for SEO from the listings to do something. Reaching out through personal network to find one human who runs a business on Telegram and will actually try it.
Twelve days in. Zero paying customers. Product works fine. Distribution is the actual job and I underestimated it completely.
One question
How did you find your first 10 customers when you had no audience and no budget? Not a growth hack. Just what actually worked for you specifically.