Build With Ivan

I build SaaS products & invest for the long term
Building InspectStocks: grading the business behind the stocks
Sharing the build, marketing & investing journey

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

@ZahidaMisher Few users only, but i think its too early to make any conclusions

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

Day 9 of marketing my SaaS through organic social media 🚀

Now at ~135K total views and ~800 followers across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube!

Instagram is still the clear winner, bringing the most views and website traffic.

Most videos get 200–400 views, while a few reach 1.5–2K. Starting to see which formats actually work.

I'm also connecting all my content research workflows:

Find successful accounts → Analyze top videos → Extract winning hooks & ideas → Create new videos using my own data.

The goal is to make content creation more systematic and repeatable.

TikTok remains a mystery 😂

Some videos get 2–4 views, others 200–400, despite being very similar.

Next experiment: testing my personal US home VPN to see if location is affecting distribution.

Will share the results next week!

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

@alianbujike Yes, I did not expect this amount of views in this short period of time

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

Day 8 of marketing my SaaS through organic social media

Not much growth in views today. Sitting at ~120K total across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

Posted 5 new videos toward the end of the day, so we'll see how they perform tomorrow.

Spent most of today improving my content research workflows instead:

• Discovering new accounts in my niche
• Finding better video ideas and trending topics
• Analyzing what makes certain videos perform well
• Identifying winning formats and hooks
The goal is to stop guessing what might work and start making more data-driven content decisions.
Views are nice, but I'm more interested in building a repeatable system that consistently brings people to my product.

Let's see how tomorrow goes! 🚀

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

@Pushpit07 Yes, this is my plan for the upcoming week

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

Day 6 of marketing my SaaS through social media 🚀

Just crossed 100K total views across Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok!

And the best part? I’m seeing more traffic to my website and a few more signups. Most of it is coming from Instagram, and it’s slowly growing.

Also finished a little side project today: my own tool to post across all platforms at once!

Took about an hour to set up the developer accounts and just a few prompts to code the whole thing. Already saving me a ton of time.

My content workflow now takes just 2–3 minutes per video:

Idea → Prompt → Review → Post

Next step is adding a scheduler so I can create content in batches and publish throughout the day.

One problem: I’ve already burned through all my ElevenLabs credits 😂

Either need to upgrade or wait until next month. In the meantime, I’ll experiment with music-only videos instead of voiceovers and see how they perform.

6 days ago I had 0 followers and no idea how social media marketing worked.

Now I’m at 100K+ views, growing followers, and starting to see actual users coming to my product.

Really happy with the progress so far. Let’s see how far I can take this! 🚀

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

Week 1 of marketing my SaaS through organic social media 🚀

Last Monday, I started from 0 followers on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, with no experience creating social media content.

7 days later, here are the results:

Content created:
• 45 videos
• 10 image posts
Instagram:
• 95K views
• 679 followers
YouTube Shorts:
• 14K views
• 45 subscribers
• 82 hours of watch time

TikTok:
• 8K views
• 27 followers
That's 117K+ views in my first week!
Instagram is clearly winning so far.

TikTok is still a mystery. Some days I get 2–5 views per video, other days 200–400, even with similar content. Still haven't figured out the regional distribution issue since I'm in Europe but targeting US audiences.
A few other updates:
I switched from ElevenLabs to Google's Chirp 3 HD for voiceovers.
So far, I really like the quality. It offers 1M free characters per month, which could potentially cover ~1,300 Shorts with my current scripts. Beyond that, it's roughly 5x cheaper for my use case.

Curious to see how videos with the new voice perform this week.
But what about actual users?
My website got ~200 unique visitors this week and a few free-tier signups.

Not huge numbers, but traffic is growing every day, and some people are actually using my app now!

I'm not even focusing on conversions yet. Right now, I'm experimenting with content formats, topics, hooks, and figuring out what works.

No paid ads. Just content, experiments, and a lot of learning.

Really enjoying the process so far. Let's see what Week 2 brings! 🚀

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

@wickedguro Totally agree! Building software is easier than ever. The real challenge now is marketing it and making some profit!

I have a few ideas on how to differentiate the product and approach marketing differently. Will be interesting to test them and see what actually works.

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

I’ve been thinking a lot about @wickedguro’s challenge to build a Postiz clone.

When I first saw it, I didn’t really understand why anyone needed a tool like this.

But after spending the last week creating and posting 50+ videos across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and X, I finally get it 😂

Creating content is easy now. Publishing it everywhere is the time-consuming part.

I already built a simple tool for myself, and it’s saving me a lot of time.

Now I’m thinking of taking it further.

The biggest challenge isn’t coding it. It’s getting API access and approvals from all these platforms. No idea how long that will take.

So here’s my next challenge:

Turn my internal tool into a cloud SaaS, get the platform approvals, and see if I can make it available to everyone.

I even have an old 5-letter .com domain I’ve owned for years that would be perfect for it.

Funny how trying to market one SaaS can lead to building another 😂

Let’s see how this goes! 🚀

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

@ebubxchii_ Did not try text content, except posting here on X. But from what i can see video content is doing great! And also fun to make it

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

Day 5 of marketing my SaaS through social media 🚀

I officially have more followers on Instagram than on X 😂

Instagram: 623 followers
X: 611 followers
And the numbers are getting crazy:

• Instagram: 80K total views (up from 29K yesterday!) across 45 videos
• YouTube Shorts: 4.5K views and 31 subscribers

All of this in just 5 days, starting from zero on Instagram and YouTube.
I genuinely didn't expect this kind of growth!

Also, I think I figured out what's happening with TikTok.

My content targets the US market, but I'm currently in Europe. It looks like TikTok started distributing my videos to my local region instead of the US, which might explain why views suddenly stalled.

Need to figure out how to reach the right audience.

Still experimenting, still learning, and honestly having a lot of fun with this.

Day 6 tomorrow. Let's see what happens! 🚀

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

@startupgeorge The best so far is Instagram from views and also traffic to my website and I see now YT shorts is catching up on views, probably need few more weeks of posting to get more data!

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

@kamhossieny Agree, consistency is key!! This whole marketing is new to me, so also learning a lot!!

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

@RonnyBruknapp Not sure yet. Need more data to see the actual difference

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

@georgeorch My last screen is telling them to follow on my website for more free data

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

Day 3 of marketing my SaaS through social media 🚀

Posted 12 times today (Instagram and TikTok): 9 reels + 3 photos.

Some videos from yesterday started taking off:
• One hit 4K views
• Another reached 1.5K
• Most new videos get 200–250 views
After just 3 days:
• ~12K total views
• ~50 new followers
• Started from 0 on both TikTok and Instagram
Still not seeing much traffic coming to my website, but the numbers are moving in the right direction!
I'm enjoying the process more than I expected. Going to keep posting, experimenting, and sharing the results.

Let's see where this goes!

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

Content creation is getting easier every day. I've built a bunch of workflows, and now I'm spending more time posting content across platforms than actually creating it.

Starting to understand why people use tools like Postiz to schedule and publish everywhere at once.

I'll explore some options, but I'm honestly leaning toward building my own simple solution.

I don't need much, and with a few good prompts, I could probably build exactly what I need.

Another side project incoming? 😅

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

Day 4 of marketing my SaaS through social media. What a roller coaster! 🎢

Woke up to some crazy Instagram numbers:
• One video hit 14K views
• Another reached 10K
• Two more crossed 1.5K
• Most older videos nearly doubled
Instagram totals after 4 days:
📈 ~29K views
👥 380 followers
❤️ Lots of likes and engagement
All from an account that started at 0!
Meanwhile, TikTok completely stalled. New videos are getting almost no views, despite posting similar content. Need to figure out why.
Also expanded to X and YouTube Shorts, with ~700 views on YT so far.

And the best part? I'm finally starting to see more traffic to my website, and a few users have signed up!
So something is working beyond just getting views.
Instagram also gave me a scare today. Got logged out during an upload and couldn't access my account for 2–3 hours. Thought I'd lost it, but eventually got an email saying it was verified and restored.
Still learning how these platforms work, but the progress is exciting!

Going to keep posting, experimenting, and sharing the results. 🚀

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

@hyeokStory I have already this added to my codebase and in the TikTok/Instagram bio. Instagram has the most clicks. But i need more time and content to avoid any noise.

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

@SantanaFrost17 I think the spike was since the topic of the video was trending. I have another video that is making 3.5k views now and its similar trending topic

[Build With Ivan @BuildWithIvan]

Day 2 of experimenting with social media marketing for my SaaS.

Posted 5 more videos on TikTok and Instagram today.

Results:
• ~1,700 views across the new videos
• One video quickly hit 800 views, then slowed down
• A few likes, not much engagement
• Yesterday's videos barely gained any additional views
Still posting only on TikTok and Instagram.
Starting to think I need to experiment with more trending topics, not just different video formats.
For those who've grown accounts from zero, what made the biggest difference? The topics, the hooks, or just consistency?