​From 0 to 4,800 users in 5 months – what actually worked

When I started out building projects and was looking for advice, I always found that what helped the most was seeing how others had done it before who had actually seen success with the methods they were talking about.

Just getting that perspective used to help and motivate me. I knew that if we succeeded I wanted to help others who were in that same position as me, by sharing exactly what we did to get to where we are.

Now that we’ve hit some significant milestones, here’s a breakdown of what actually worked.

The numbers

4,800 total users 100+ paying customers $2,700 MRR 4.5 months since launch (6 months since MVP launch)

Reaching first 100 users

Created questionnaire to validate idea in target audience’s subreddits Offered value in return for responses (project feedback) Shared MVP with questionnaire participants when it was finished Daily posts in Build in Public on X sharing our journey and trying to provide value Regular posts in founder subreddits Result: 100 users in two weeks

Getting to 1,000

Focused on product improvements based on initial feedback Launched on Product Hunt (ranked #4 with 500+ upvotes) Got 475 new users in first 24h of PH launch Featured in Product Hunt newsletter Result: 1,000 users in about a week after PH

Scaling to 4,800

Continued community engagement Strong focus on product improvements User referrals from delivering value Sustained organic growth Result: Steady growth to 4,800+ users

What actually worked

Idea validation before building (saved months of work) Being active and engaging in communities (Build in Public on X + Reddit) Product Hunt launch Focusing on product quality over marketing gimmicks Being open to feedback and using it to improve product

Key insights

Spending time making a great product beats everything else Community support helps a lot, especially in the beginning Provide value to people and you will get value in return

What’s next

Developing our affiliate system for sustainable word-of-mouth growth Continuously improving the product Aiming for $10K MRR this year

I hope that getting some insight into how we grew Buildpad can help you on your journey, even if it’s just with motivation. If you’re curious about what we built, it’s like an AI co-founder that will help you validate and build your products.