Nik

Building Tusk in Public

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

Over 9 months ago I wrote the first line of code for Tusk. Now it's been 2 months in beta and first release tomorrow together with a ProductHunt post.
Not sure whether PH is worth it anymore, especially for a niche utility app, but here is the demo video. Any thoughts?

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

@CM_MalagaFoto Wie immer absolut überragende Bilder Christian! :)

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

Using my wife's old laptop now for social media, to not get distracted on my main machine.
Just saw this and got sentimental.

2.5 months ago Tusk was on version 0.3.0. The beta release. Now it's 1.2.2 and almost unrecognizable from back then. Progress is iterative.

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

funniest thing is, this is actually how I ended up getting my first break for Tusk.
Do not listen to the hivemind of indiehacking. It's the same regurgitated advice and 99% of the time it does not work anymore.
Find your own lane.

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

Anyone ever done press outreach to outlets in their niche? Never see anybody talk about it but feel like it's key to be published somewhere else for SEO (and obvie inbound traffic).

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

@Damilolawo1a ooops, thought you were asking for yourself. Don't think I qualify as core beginner, sorry about that 😀

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

@0xa12n fair. I confused that. It jumped out at me because to me it read as validation if others are paying for it but Stan is the company and Stanley the product, right?

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

the landing looked great and because I still struggle with marketing and content strategy, I gave it a try.

Gave it all my marketing information and it just churned out horrible ai slop.
Will cancel free trial immediately. Do absolutely not believe in 40M ARR, who pays for this?

Examples of what it gave me in the comments

[John Hu @JayHoovy]

Introducing Stanley: The first AI Head of Content that will help you grow your following.

Stanley works just like a real employee: text him and he’ll create, edit, and strategize viral content across X, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Making viral content is hard. It requires deep research, deep platform understanding, and knowing what’s culturally relevant at that exact minute.

When you ask ChatGPT to “write a social post” it doesn’t know what good content looks like, it’s not actively consuming content, and it doesn’t understand you.

This is why the output is slop.

Stanley solves this.

First Stanley deeply understands your unique voice and writing style (and doesn’t include AI language like em dashes and “it’s not x it’s y”)

Then he plugs into your day-to-day (your Slack, Notion, Calendar, Granola) and proactively suggests viral posts for you based off the most interesting things happening in your life.

All you need to do is voice note him your thoughts, and Stanley optimizes and then schedules a post across all platforms.

Example: Last week I asked ChatGPT "what happened on X" and got a generic summary.

I asked Stanley the same thing and he told me about @JensenHuang's first post on X and the viral Deny’s comment.

That’s because Stanley has a team of specialized agents that are always on. One agent researches viral posts through the X API. One studies your voice. One doom scrolls X, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

2 months ago we released Stanley in beta to 100 social media power users like @chasepassiveincome, @jayyanginspires, @MitcheIl, and @iampascio who’ve used Stanley in their daily content process.

Engagement rates increased by >50% for the average beta tester. (in fact you’ve probably engaged w/ Stanley posts without realizing)

Posting content has genuinely changed my life for the better: it’s helped me raise millions of $, landed me my first customers, and attracted the very best employees.

Stan wouldn’t be a $40M ARR business without Content.

Stanley is our attempt at democratizing that.

Our mission is to help any Entrepreneur tell their story, so we'd love for you to try Stanley for free here: https://t.co/pplZDGoxFE

One more thing..

You can see a glimpse of Stanley’s power in the comments below. Drop a reply and Stanley will analyze your X content right now. It'll pull your posts, study your voice, and tell you what's working and what's not.

Each reply costs us abt ~$1 in tokens. Go abuse it. (Thank you VC’s.)

FYI: This post and launch video were written 100% w/ the help of Stanley (how’d he do?)

See Stanley work below 👇

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

@marclou honestly, why not do it yourself? you do have the start capital, it does sound like an amazing (although potentially still niche) opportunity and it would be a completely new episode in your founder journey.
Would be amazing to see whether your software founder skills translate!

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

@theisaacmed agreed. The big issue is that we already opened the pandora's box. Everywhere you see AI content, comments, blogs, even though people do not want it.

Also haven't seen the one use case that justifies the insane spending on data centers and top tier models at the moment.

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

@0marmdv asked it to do a posting strategy for me, these were just two examples, but they were all like that or plain boring:

It's just not how people talk

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

@martindonadieu @Bento literally the saaS. Working hundreds of hours with your target group will always make your product more worthwhile than an app created from a single prompt.
At least that's what I'm telling myself.

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

@theisaacmed holy shit I just tried it out and it's unbelievable trash.
There is NO WAY this has 40M ARR. Absolute grifter

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

"I have wronged you brother"
40 MILLION ARR.
Holy fucking grift.

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

NOBODY IN 2026 READS PAST THOSE FIRST TWO LINES

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

@oscarfogelstrm oh nooo 😭 so sorry to hear.

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

Anyone ever done press outreach to outlets in their niche? Never see anybody talk about it but feel like it's key to be published somewhere else for SEO (and obvie inbound traffic).

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

holy moly. ProductHunt is dead.

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

@anupamrjp A Mac backup tool for videographers, that doesn't just securely back up your files, but also keeps a track of where every file went. Meaning you'll know where your files are and whether they are safe, even when your drives are unplugged.
https://t.co/2bIiwplxSV

[Nik @KIZO_ES]

@ardent__dev A Mac backup app that keeps track of where your files are, even when your drives are unplugged.

Live on ProductHunt today as well!

https://t.co/2bIiwplxSV