He Copied His Competitors and Made $65,000 in 3 Days

Devon was a failed entrepreneur with 600 Twitter followers.

He'd been posting on LinkedIn trying to build something.

And he kept using all these LinkedIn tools…Taplio, Contentyze, Authord Up.

They had like 47 features each.

Analytics dashboards. Scheduling calendars. Post libraries.

But when he actually tried to write a post?

They were terrible at it.

The main thing they were supposed to do didn't work.

Then GPT-3 came out.

Devon spent a weekend building something dead simple:

you dump your raw thoughts in, it spits out a LinkedIn post.

That's the whole product.

He got 2 customers.

Then Charlie from RocketHub messaged him.

"Hey, we'll launch your product on our platform. Lifetime deal."

Devon had no idea what that meant but said yes anyway.

RocketHub had a system.

They email 100,000+ people who buy lifetime deals.

They run the ads.

They make all the graphics and videos.

Devon just had to keep the product working and answer support tickets.

They set up three prices: $79, $199, $299.

People pay once and get the product forever.

RocketHub takes 40% of everything.

Three days later Devon had made $65,000.

He went from 2 customers to 250.

Then it got ugly.

Support tickets everywhere.

Angry people yelling about bugs.

Feature requests he couldn't build fast enough.

RocketHub took $25,000.

Plus everyone told him lifetime deal customers are "cheap" and make your product look low-rent.

Some of them found his personal phone number and called him.

Then something weird happened.

Those angry customers kept telling him exactly what sucked about his product.

And because they'd actually paid money, they didn't just disappear when something broke.

They stayed and complained until he fixed it.

Devon started tracking everything they did.

Watched session recordings.

Added the features they screamed about the loudest.

Three months later, he launched on Product Hunt.

And suddenly those same "cheap" lifetime deal customers were posting about Supergrow everywhere.

LinkedIn. Twitter. WhatsApp groups he didn't even know existed.

He hit Product of the Week.

Got 50 new paying customers from that.

Started offering monthly subscriptions.

Today he makes $19,000 a month with 800 subscribers and keeps 60-70% of it as profit.

Because he gave away 40% when he had absolutely nothing.

Three lessons:

1. Don't create markets. Enter them

Devon didn't invent LinkedIn tools. He saw what was already working, used it himself, noticed what sucked, and built something marginally better. That's it.

2. Distribution beats perfection

He traded 40% for instant access to 100,000 buyers. Most founders keep 100% of zero customers.

3. Paying customers tell you the truth

Free users vanish when things break. People who paid, even $79, will stay and tell you exactly what's wrong. That's how you build a real product.

If you're stuck at 0-5 customers and have no idea how to get more, reply to this email.

I'll tell you if you need a lifetime deal, better positioning, or a completely different channel.

P.S. Devon kept $40,000 from giving away 40%.

That's more than 100% of $0. So, when you’re just starting, don’t overthink. Just start.

P.P.S I launched an offer recently, and for first 10 customers it is just $99. But it will save you $3000+ wasted spend. - startupdifferentials.com