Banish Angural

Building a swap network where indie SaaS founders recommend each other. Sharing every number on the way to $10k MRR.

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

I'm building a SaaS to help other SaaS get traffic. Ironic part: I have 0 followers and 0 traffic.

So I'm doing this in public.

The idea: indie founders swap a small "tools we recommend" card on each other's sites. A shared dashboard shows exactly how many visitors each side sent. No points, no freeloaders.

Goal: 50 founding members → 100 live swaps → $10k MRR.

Follow along. I'll share every number, good or bad.

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

Hey I'm thinking about making my platform FREE for the first 50 users. Let me know if I should do it or not.

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

@karsenswins Hey! You can check mine and let me know your feedback! https://t.co/1bSF9V6WCo

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

I manage a six-figure ad budget for a living.

Most indie launches I see don’t fail because the product is bad.

They fail in the first 72 hours, for one boring reason almost nobody fixes:

They can’t tell what’s working.

So they guess. Post more. Change the button color. Then quit.

Here’s the 72-hour setup I’d make every founder do before launch:

1. GA4 + conversion events, actually tested, not assumed
2. UTMs on every single link you post
3. One “How did you hear about us?” field at signup
4. Track 3 numbers only: visits → signups → activated users
5. Meta + Google pixels installed on day one, even with no ads planned
6. Session recordings on your signup page
7. A sheet logging every post, the time, and the signups after it
8. Define “activated user” before launch, not after
9. A retargeting audience: viewed pricing, didn’t pay
10. 10 minutes every morning checking the same 3 numbers

Do this and launch day becomes data.

Skip it and you’re gambling with months of work.

Bookmark it. You’ll want it at 2am on launch night.

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

Every vibe coder’s post-launch prompt:

“Claude, I launched and got 3 signups. Fix it:

1. Set up GA4 + conversion events before I spend $1 on ads
2. Add UTMs to every link so I know which post actually worked
3. Track each step of the signup funnel, not just pageviews
4. Rewrite my headline so a stranger gets it in 5 seconds
5. Put a real product screenshot above the fold
6. Cut the signup form down to email only
7. Add a free trial with no credit card
8. Make the welcome email get users to the “aha” in one click
9. Find the 10 subreddits where my users complain about this problem
10. Write a launch post that tells a story, not a feature list
11. Submit to Product Hunt, BetaList and every niche directory
12. Personally DM my first 50 users
13. Ask every signup “how did you hear about us?”
14. Install the Meta + Google pixels now, even if ads are months away
15. Start an email list before building the next feature
16. Retarget everyone who viewed pricing and left
17. Turn every support question into an FAQ or blog post
18. Post the build in public every day, not just on launch day
19. Find 3 founders with the same audience and swap shoutouts
20. Kill any feature nobody touched in 2 weeks

Make it go viral.”

Funny thing is, building it was the easy part.

Bookmark this for the week after you launch.

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

Oct 8 stats for Backscratch:
launched it 2 days ago. Got 13 visitors. 1 user!

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

@marclou and here i am still haven't connected to GA4

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

it's https://t.co/VKSobkHzI8

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

every indie founder i know has the same problem

you build something good
you launch it
you get 40 visitors from your friends
and then nothing

so i built a way for us to send each other traffic

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

@pelloiafilippo that's great! SEO?

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

@marclou @sanganisahil that will be great

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

@thedropso Backsratch: the club where indie products have each other’s backs.
https://t.co/VKSobkHzI8

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

@marclou @stemonteduro Great feedback @marclou, but since AI can build stuff in a week, there is no WTF and that's the missing piece of the puzzle. Everyone here is trying the best but I guess the winners will be someone with good distribution.

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

@voidyaps they are currently testing it with fable. making sure there are no bugs

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

@BuildByAman 🙏🏼 thanks for connecting Aman!

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

Moved to Canada at 18

Since then:

– built and sold a blog

– became a senior marketer managing 7 ad channels

– launched a DTC brand

– started a city newsletter

– had a baby

– now building SaaS at night

No VC. No audience. No co-founder.

The one thing I'd tell 18-year-old me: don’t wait and don’t chase quick “gurus” money making schemes

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

@marclou @WHOOP That’s why I stopped running! Couldn’t see myself seeing wrong data. Waiting for them to fix it lol 😂

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

There's a webhook called customer.subscription.trial_will_end.

It fires 3 days before a trial ends. Hook it up to a personal "here's what you'll lose" email.

Most founders send nothing until the card gets charged, then they get a refund request

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

Attention indie builders

Stripe's customer portal has a built-in cancel flow.

You can ask why someone is leaving and offer a retention coupon right there, with no code.

Pair it with a "pause" option. Many cancellations are really "not this month."

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

Your "unique email" check is broken.

Gmail ignores dots and anything after a +.

So [email protected] and [email protected] are the same inbox.

Normalize emails before checking, or one person gets unlimited free trials.

[Banish Angural @banishangural]

wow, another 10,223 startups killed

[Claude @claudeai]

Claude Dashboards and Claude Motion are in beta today.

Ask Claude to turn your data into live dashboards and your ideas into animated explainers.