... nika  as I said above, most unexpected thing was to discover SEO optimized mini tools. They drive majority of the traffic. https://writingmate.ai/free-tools . Comment from Priyanka Gosai(@priyanka_gosai1): This is seriously impressive, Artem 200K users bootstrapped, without ads, is no small feat. Especially when most founders burn budget chasing early traction. Quick question: You said you cracked SEO what specifically worked in the early days? Programmatic SEO? Tool-based pages? Or just consistent long-form content? Curious ... ... much of your early traffic came from SEO vs

... theory online, but I d love to hear your real stories and practical tips: How did you raise your first funding? What helped you get those initial intros to angels or micro-VCs? Is it worth bootstrapping until MVP? Or better to start building relationships with investors earlier? What were your biggest mistakes (or wins) at the early funding stage? My product is in the creative tools space (AI for designers), and I m figuring out what a smart early ... ... they re betting on your momentum. If you don t have traction, show real insight. If you don t have revenue, show demand or behavior. Anything that says: This isn t just an idea. People care. If you can, bootstrap

... there! Just a couple days ago I shared with you that I like bootstrapping my projects. In some way this makes me feel independent and motivated to achieve whatever I set as a professional goal. I wanted to ask you guys your thoughts on this, since I also know that bootstrapping

... surprise OpenAI bill last month and needed team-wide visibility Both found us through word-of-mouth and PH, which validates that this pain point is REAL for people actually building with AI tools daily. What's Working vs. What's Not The good: Organic discovery is happening. People who find the tool immediately get it. The challenge: Reaching the right audience at scale. Most AI cost management conversations happen in scattered communities, and traditional marketing feels too broad ... ... Personalized outreach to people posting about AI tool usage/costs (not spammy sales pitches) Facebook Groups: SaaS founder communities Indie hacker groups focused on AI projects Developer communities discussing tool costs B2B Communities I'm Testing/Considering: Indie Hackers - Great for bootstrapped

... relaunching LiveDemo.ai on Product Hunt today! A bootstrappedalternative to: Reprise $82.2M funding Walnut $56M funding Arcade $49M funding LiveDemo helps founders, sales, and marketing teams create interactive product demos in minutes. Check out our launch page: https://www.producthunt.com/prod... Comment from Oleg Savelev(@sinx): Awesome! I was just looking for something similar to this service and now I've found ...

... want to hear from my fellow founders who are boostrapping their ventures. In a world where raising funds, burning cash, chasing exits get all the limelight; bootstrapped founders rarely get attention. I've personally known several founders who are happily running their $20 - $100K MRR businesses either as solo founders or with a small team and highly profitable. So my question is: What is your main reason to bootstrap

... some concerns: 1. is there any room for a product like this in the market actually? 2. what may be the rate of users that will pay for the trial and will never use the tool? 3. can I bootstrap a project like this and run it alone (I have no partners)? Comment from Leandro Sardi(@leandro_sardi): @priyanka_gosai1  Thank you! > Solo bootstrapping

... Product Hunt fam Would love to hear your take on this, As a SaaS founder, I'm constantly thinking about growth vs. sustainability. There s a lot of advice out there, but I'm curious about your real-world experiences. When did YOU feel it was the right time to raise funding? What metrics, traction, or signals made you feel confident to approach investors? Or did you decide to bootstrap

... statements Calculates burn rate & cash runway Gives a live cashflow report Helps you estimate breakeven & profitability Bonus: Includes a product cost sheet to understand per-unit margins It's built specifically for: Early-stage founders Bootstrapped businesses Solo creators or side-hustlers People who hate spreadsheets but want financial clarity Why I built it: I struggled for months to manage startup finances across 4 sheets, Notion notes, and random calculators. Most free templates are generic or messy ... ... questions. If you want a peek or have thoughts on what founders really need in tools like this, I d love to hear from you Appreciate any input and happy to DM a preview link if interested! #StartupTools #Bootstrapped

... like Stripe or PayPal don t provide API access so I can t monetize or implement a paid plan right now. I ve talked to some investors, but they expect initial capital or revenue before they d consider funding. Bootstrapping got me this far, but moving forward without monetization or investment is getting really difficult. If you ve dealt with something like this (or just have thoughts), I d love to hear: What would you do in this situation ... ... creative approaches, funding workarounds, or even alternative

... asked: How do you track and improve your brand s visibility inside these AI black boxes? What MentionedBy AI does: Tracks how often and how positively your brand is mentioned across top AI models Compares you with competitors on visibility, sentiment, and hallucination risk Flags sudden drops (e.g., if Claude stops mentioning you overnight) Sends real-time alerts when you re misrepresented or omitted Gives you an AI visibility score across platforms (we call it AEO: Answer Engine Optimization) Under ... ... semantic matching to catch fuzzy brand mentions Detect hallucinations by cross-referencing source links and factual grounding Log all prompts, answers, and versions into a time-series DB to spot anomalies over time Built with a minimal UI (Bootstrap

... Product Hunt community! I'm diving into the world of bootstrapping and want to build something amazing without spending a dime. I know many of you have been there starting from scratch, hustling with free tools, and leveraging creativity to grow. Let s share our best tips, hacks, and stories! What free tools, platforms, or strategies have you used to launch or scale a project on a $0 budget? From no-cost marketing tactics to open-source software or scrappy ... ... promote your product? How did you validate your idea without spending money? Any creative ways to get early users or feedback on a tight budget? Looking forward to learning from this awesome community! Let s inspire each other to bootstrap

... people (myself included) get stuck in the what should I build? phase, and I wanted to offer a way out of that loop. A few things about me: I m self-taught in coding and product building. I m bootstrapping this solo and learning in public. I believe AI can empower more solo founders than ever before. What I m looking for: Feedback from other makers Connection with people who ve launched similar tools Honest thoughts on the idea ... ... site Glad to be part of this community if you re building something too, drop a link or say hi. I d love to check it out!  Comment from Kamilas(@novastart): NovaStart is 100% bootstrapped

... that I miss. I'd love to share what we're doing to get feedback and see if there's a fit for design partnership. I'm an inactive CPA and former product lead spending nearly a decade helping vSaaS companies build financial tools that customers loved and used daily. From talking with many CEOs and founders at vSaaS

... than ever to build and ship with a small team and no funding- but is that a better playbook than raising VC? I see it from both sides: Getting to production, ramen profitability, etc. seems easier than ever. Yay bootstrapping. Because it's so easy, getting blown out of the water by a VC-funded competitor

... broke me (and my bank account) . I faced it all: One ghosted me. One delivered 2 weeks late. One even disappeared with $3,000 But the biggest cost wasn't the money, it was time and momentum. As a bootstrapper, waiting weeks to save up, hire, wait for delivery, and then iterate was painfully slow. That startup took 4 years to reach its goal . Had I had today's tools back then, it would have taken half that time. ALTHOUGH ...

... startup founders (that typically don t have capital to pay workers full salaries just yet) hire different roles on equity, while targeting the growing market of programmers seemingly struggling for employment in a changing tech industry by presenting alternative job offers for equity, rather than a running salary. I am aware of major difficulties in hiring in a bootstrapped

... solo founder of Shift , an AI-native text & code editor that works anywhere on your laptop, no switching apps or breaking your flow. Just highlight double-tap Shift and AI handles the rest. Whether you're in VS Code, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, Shift enhances whatever you're working on instantly on the spot. There are many more features to it, please watch the demos on youtube or check out the website. About me: I am a 20 year ... ... current session to focus full time on Shift after seeing all the potential and growth. Launched mid-February Hundreds of MacOS users onboarded organically Over 400+ people are currently on the waitlist for the Windows version Built entirely bootstrapped

... more. Today we're releasing our 2025 Founder Salary Report with data from 1,800+ founders, and the findings might surprise you: Founder salaries dropped 43% in the past year AI founders are bucking the trend (paying themselves more) Bootstrapped companies jumped 57% Only 5.4% of founders pay themselves nothing (down from 9% last year) We founders talk endlessly about burn rates, runway, and valuations but no one talks about what they pay themselves. It's time to change that ... ... salary data in this year's report? I'll share my thoughts after I hear yours. Comment from Sarah Evans(@prsarahevans): @waseem_daher  do you think we will continue to see a wider gap in AI startups versus

... long. Webpixels is a platform for developers who love clean, well-designed UI. Think of it like Dribbble, but instead of just showcasing designs, everything is copy-paste ready . Every UI component and page template is built with Bootstrap 5 , minimal in design, and responsive out of the box. Now, I know what you might be thinking: Why Bootstrap

... someone put a meeting on my calendar from a link. I think both cover the use case -- which should I use? Comment from Matt Carroll(@catt_marroll): also just realized cal is totally free for my usecase, vs 10/mo on calendly to support multiple calendars. seems like basically a no brainer.. Comment from Matt Carroll(@catt_marroll): Just to put a bow on this i went with cal.com . main reasons were 1. the price, 2. i liked the ui that ... ... years, but now that I can set up multiple events in Cal, I think I ve got to give it a shot. Comment from steve beyatte(@steveb): @Cal.com has a more generous free plan, is open-source, and is bootstrapped

... seed capital to start your business? I see mostly VC-funded companies on Product Hunt (mostly YC). But are there people who fund their businesses in other ways? My experience is mostly with bootstrapped businesses (and in most cases it seems like the founders previously invested in crypto and reinvested the proceeds into the seed capital for their business). Comment from Nika(@busmark_w_nika): @johnhuatech  That's cute. How do you have paying customers for eshop ... ... Comment from George B. Aleesu(@rhexai): I haven't funded my projects yet but if I should consider funding, it would definitely be accelerator/incubator and then vc Comment from Ruban Phukan(@goodgistai): @busmark_w_nika  Well said, Nika! Bootstrapping

... have a big budget for ads, so growth can feel like a slow grind. But some of the most successful bootstrapped startups found creative ways to get traction without spending a dime on marketing. Some focus on content and SEO, others leverage community-driven strategies, and some build in public to generate organic interest. Some even rely entirely on referrals, virality, or partnerships to scale. If you ve grown your product without paid acquisition, what worked best ...

... Lately, I have seen many VC funded companies and somehow overlooked those that are bootstrapped. In my opinion, to have such kind of company without external funding is harder and slower, so I look up those founders more. Do you know any successful bootstrapped

... tools like Basecamp, ClickUp, and Asana. They help you organize tasks, but they don t help you get things done. So, I built Swatle combining real-time messaging like Slack and AI-powered assistance to make work execution smoother. Bootstrapped & Launched Built with a small team (just 5 members ) Launched on Product Hunt & got 100+ sign-ups Targeting SMBs & startups looking for AI-driven productivity Ask Me Anything! Whether it s about building a B2B SaaS from scratch ... ... find the right problem to bring up the solution, launching on Product Hunt, or lessons from bootstrapping