Jake

Building Rendemo
Baby-strapped,Bootstrapped, making moves
Dad | Entrepreneur

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Rendemo is literally insane. It is the only product demo recorder out there that uses full DOM-replay, allowing for absolutely pixel-perfect UI

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Spent 3 weeks building auto-captions for Rendemo. Zero usage in 30 days.
Founders didn't want captions — they wanted the cursor to stop jittering.
Killed the caption feature, fixed the jitter. That render option's usage jumped 4x.
Build what's broken, not missing.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Your first 100 users aren't a marketing problem.

They're a manual labor problem.

Find people already complaining about your exact problem in Reddit threads, niche Slacks, Twitter replies — and DM them one by one.

No ads. No waitlist page. Just outreach that doesn't scale, o…

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Indie hacker income reports aren't a transparency problem. They're a survivorship bias problem.

You only see the report from month 14 with the nice chart. You never see the one deleted at month 3 when MRR fell apart and churn ate the story.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Spent three weeks trying to make Rendemo's cuts feel cinematic. Added transitions, effects, motion blur. None of it worked.

The fix was cutting on the click, not the mouse movement. Removed half my effects and the demo finally felt intentional instead of edited.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

@Crowdreply_io https://t.co/F3abs4b76g

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Contrarian take: the product launch playbook is dead for solo founders.

One big Product Hunt day, then silence, doesn't work when you have no audience yet.

What works: 90 days of small public reps before launch day, so day one has people who already trust you.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Building in public isn't about transparency.

It's accountability theater — you post updates so quitting feels more embarrassing than shipping.

That's the actual mechanism. Most founders doing it don't realize that's the reason it works.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

SaaS pricing isn't a math problem. It's a positioning problem.

Most founders A/B test $29 vs $39 for months.

Meanwhile the real lever is naming your tiers after outcomes, not features — "Grow" vs "Starter" converts differently than "Basic" vs "Pro" ever will.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Spent my first 3 weeks on Rendemo building a step-editor so people could annotate every click.

Nobody used it.

Turns out founders don't want to edit — they want to hit record once and walk away.

Killed the feature. Rebuilt everything around one take, zero editing. Best cut …

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Your first paying customer doesn't come from a landing page.

They come from a DM you sent, a comment you left, or a problem you solved for free before you had a product.

The page just confirms what the conversation already decided.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Most SaaS onboarding flows fail for the opposite reason people think.

It's not too many steps. It's that step one doesn't show the user anything real — just a form, a modal, a "let's get you set up."

Show the outcome before you ask for the setup.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Pricing experiments fail for one reason: founders test numbers instead of packaging.

$29 vs $49 tells you nothing.
What's included vs excluded tells you everything.

Change the boundary, not the price tag, and you'll actually learn something.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Landing page conversion isn't a copywriting problem.

It's a proof problem.

You can rewrite the headline 20 times. If visitors can't see the product actually working in the first 5 seconds, none of the words matter.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Launch day isn't for strangers. It's for people who already watched you build.

The night before, DM 10 people who've engaged with your progress and ask for feedback, not upvotes.

Those 10 replies become your first comments, your first shares, your first real signal.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Cold DMs don't fail because people hate being pitched.

They fail because the first line is about you, not them.

The best cold DMs I've seen open with a specific observation about the recipient's actual work — no ask, no link, just proof you looked.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Your first 100 users don't come from a launch.

They come from finding the 20 people already complaining about your exact problem — in Reddit threads, niche Slack groups, review sections — and DMing them before you even have a landing page.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Pricing a new SaaS isn't a math problem. It's a confidence problem.

Most founders underprice because they haven't watched a real user hit the exact moment the tool saves them an hour. Price the outcome you've seen, not the hours you spent building it.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Vibe coding/building saved my life. Literally.

>In 2022, I was in grips of a gambling addiction that nearly ended my life
>November 2022 I tell my (8 month pregnant at the time) wife everything
>I enter a recovery program, and am told I need to find something to fill my time(the void).

I begin just coding personal tools and then branch out into creating automation software for Oldschool RuneScape

>1 day before my 1 year clean from gambling, November 6th,2023, I am laid off of my job after 7 years

>old me would have went out and gambled, since how else would I provide for my wife and now nearly 1 year old son? (gamblers mindset,not true)

Instead, I find @marclou on youtube and that just ignited my passion for building even further. Marc motivated me that regardless of my situation, I CAN DO IT, if I put the work in.

So while job searching, I kept building and growing my skills. After landing my next full-time job (took 6 months), I continue building and trying to create financial freedom for my family.

>Feb 2026, I’m now a dad to two boys, working a full-time job, and released an automation software for oldschool runescape.

>March 2026, I get my first subscribers and the dopamine and joy from having someone PAY ME for a product I built, was a better feeling than any bet I had ever won in my gambling years

Now, August 2026, I’ve got ~40 active subscribers with around $600 MRR.

While this may not be substantial, it drives me (and pays for) my ability to build out more products like my current focus, Rendemo.

My gambling addiction gave me false hope that I could win big and provide everything needed for my family, without any effort.

Vibe coding/building has given me DETERMINATION that I will one day get out of the 9-5 life, and provide for my family by continuously putting in the effort and growing as a dad,husband, and founder.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Building in public isn't a growth hack. It's a filter.

Most people use it to perform progress instead of make it.

The founders who win post updates because they'd write them down anyway — the audience is just a side effect.

[Jake @JakeBuildThings]

Solo founder productivity isn't about doing more tasks in a day.

It's about cutting the number of decisions you have to make before noon.

Every choice you defer to "later" costs you twice: once now, once when you finally circle back.