Chime Social
Spencer Jones had spent 18 months building a product that generated zero revenue. Facing the harsh reality that nobody wanted what he'd built, he made a radical decision: build four products in four months (one every three months) until something stuck. He wanted to connect with software engineers and get more active on Twitter, so he launched Chime as a Twitter scheduling tool designed specifically for developers with features like properly formatted code snippets.
The initial Twitter scheduling product didn't gain traction despite being technically solid. Developers, it turned out, weren't the persona driving Twitter growth. But while working with the Twitter API, Spencer discovered something interesting—he built a chart showing his own best posting times based on when his followers were active. When he tweeted a picture of that chart, he "instantly got some interest." He quickly productized and shipped the analytics feature, and "got like four or five more customers."
His first customer was Dustin McCaffrey (who had appeared on Nathan Latka's show), who was running a Twitter campaign offering to be the first customer for indie makers. Spencer joined in and McCaffrey became his first paying customer at $7/month. That early validation was crucial—McCaffrey later upgraded to the annual plan to "show longer support." Spencer credits this to just "putting yourself out there" and hustling to find early believers.
Twitter became Spencer's only growth channel, which made sense for a Twitter tool. He used several tactics: tweeting about new features, announcing "10 slots left at this pricing point" which sold out in 24 hours and took him from 10 to 50 customers, and an official product rename launch with a 25% one-day promotion that pushed him to around $500 MRR. He emphasized that network effects help—people talk about Chime Social on Twitter, so other users discover it organically. Spencer stayed skeptical of significant price increases, noting he'd heard from customers of competitors that their pricing was too high. He preferred to focus on building new features (like content analytics) to justify future price increases.
Spencer has 70-80 customers paying $9/month or $89/year, generating approximately $500 MRR ($6,000 ARR). He still works full-time as a software engineer at Morning Console, running Chime as a side project. His target is 15,000 MRR before going all-in, which he estimates will take a while given his family of four. He's in talks with an iOS developer to partner on a native iOS app, marking his first expansion beyond solo development. His approach emphasizes building in public, validating features before shipping, and letting the product's Twitter relevance drive organic discovery.
- •By pivoting from a feature nobody wanted (code snippet formatting) to one that solved his own problem (analytics showing best posting times), Spencer aligned the product with genuine user demand he could validate in real-time.
- •Building exclusively on Twitter for a Twitter tool created a virtuous cycle where early adopters naturally promoted the product within the same platform where potential customers were already present.
- •Transparent pricing tactics like 'slots left at this price point' created urgency and scarcity that converted casual interest into paying customers, growing from 10 to 50 customers in a single campaign.
- •Starting with an indie maker who had existing credibility (Dustin McCaffrey from Nathan Latka's show) provided social proof that cascaded into word-of-mouth on Twitter, where network effects amplified organic growth.
- 1.Identify and build a feature that solves a problem you personally encounter, then ship it quickly and measure whether customers respond with genuine interest before investing further development effort.
- 2.Choose your primary growth channel based on where your target customer already spends time—if building a Twitter tool, make Twitter your only growth lever and remove distracting channels.
- 3.Use scarcity-based messaging in your promotions ('X slots at this price') and announce it to your existing audience to create urgency that converts interest into immediate revenue.
- 4.Reach out directly to credible early adopters in your niche (indie makers, founders with existing platforms) and make it trivially easy for them to become your first customer by removing friction.
- 5.Tweet regularly about new features, pricing changes, and your building process to maintain visibility within your target community and trigger organic discovery through retweets and word-of-mouth.
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