joelhan

Bootstrapped SaaS founder 🇳🇿
Building: ($15 MRR)
Building • Scaling • Failing

[joelhan @jowlhan]

Every SaaS founder is secretly building two products at once:

1 The software

2 The version of themselves who doesn't quit

[joelhan @jowlhan]

Currently building a SaaS with some pretty in-depth scrapers for both ICP list refinery and custom openers.

Would that be a tool you would use in your workflow?

[joelhan @jowlhan]

Accountability Day 6:

Today was pretty mundane.

I sent out a total of 5 proposals and kept the wheel turning, but there wasn't a whole lot to report beyond that.

What has been on my mind, though, is a potential client I've been dealing with through Upwork.

We originally booked in a meeting and he never showed. Since then, he's continued trying to organise another meeting, but the pattern seems to repeat itself. He'll suggest a time, disappear for hours, then come back well after the proposed time has passed.

It's got me wondering at what point you stop chasing an opportunity and accept that it's not worth the time and energy.

One thing I'm slowly learning is that not all leads are created equal.

[joelhan @jowlhan]

@ThePeterMick You already are legend 💪

[joelhan @jowlhan]

@MahatiSingh @buildinpublic Looks like a awesome tool.
I would however look at potentially Changing the main font you use. Not because it's a poor choice just that Claude loves to use that on most sites which can make it feel generic.

[joelhan @jowlhan]

@buildinpublic Building out my business development agency. 💪

[joelhan @jowlhan]

Accountability Day 5:

A bit of honesty for today's update.

I already missed a day.

Yesterday wasn't unproductive by any means. I got work done and moved a few things forward, but I didn't send a single proposal or complete any classes. For someone who's publicly documenting the journey, that's a pretty easy thing to gloss over, but there's not much point in accountability if you're only sharing the good days.

Today's lesson came from a potential client.

We had a video call scheduled for 3pm his time. I'd spent a good chunk of the previous day preparing for it and building out some of the things he wanted to discuss. Then 3pm rolled around and he simply never showed up.

To be fair, that's just business.

People get busy. Priorities change. Sometimes they disappear altogether.

What it did remind me of, though, is the importance of keeping the pipeline full.

I think I made the mistake of treating that opportunity like it was already won. The reality is that until a contract is signed and money changes hands, it's still just a lead.

At school we're taught to focus on one thing at a time. Finish the assignment. Complete the task. Then move on to the next thing.

Business seems to reward a different skill.

You have to keep multiple plates spinning at once. Even when an opportunity looks promising, you still need to be generating the next one. The outreach can't stop just because something exciting lands in your inbox.

So while getting ghosted was frustrating, it was probably a lesson I needed to learn early.

Tomorrow it's back to the fundamentals.

[joelhan @jowlhan]

Accountability Day 4:

Today was fairly quiet.

I managed to send out a couple of proposals and respond to a few DMs, but beyond that there wasn't a huge amount of progress on the agency front.

A big reason for that was spending pretty much from sun up to sun down at a local agricultural show. It's one of those once-a-year events, so I wasn't about to miss it, but it definitely threw off my momentum a little.

One thing I'm quickly learning is that consistency isn't about having perfect days. Life happens. Events come up. Plans change. The important thing is making sure one slower day doesn't turn into a slower week.

Tomorrow it's back to business, and I'll need to bring a bit more intensity if I want to keep moving forward.

[joelhan @jowlhan]

@AnthropicAI Man this is wild! I understand security is important but the cat is already out of the bag.

[joelhan @jowlhan]

Accountability Day 3:

Got my first real taste of progress today. Well, technically yesterday.

I'd sent a total of 5 proposals earlier in the evening and thought that was the end of the day. Then at around 11:30pm, while I was trying to get some sleep, I received messages from two different businesses wanting to discuss booking a meeting to go over building an outreach pipeline for them.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited. I didn't get much sleep after that.

I've already booked one call in for Monday, and they've given me a trial task to come up with 50 ideal customers. The other opportunity is still in the works while we try to lock in a time.

It's still early days, but it's nice to finally see some signs that the effort is heading in the right direction.

I'm not sure how many proposals I'll get out today, as a good chunk of my time will be spent preparing for these calls.

That's a trade I'm more than happy to make.
Let's see where it goes.

[joelhan @jowlhan]

Accountability Day 2:

I've been focusing on one thing above all else: outreach.

The frustrating part is that despite time tracking, process improvements, and every productivity trick I can think of, I'm still only managing around 5 or 6 proposals a day.

One challenge I've noticed is that prospects will often open the proposal, costing me the tokens, but won't click through to watch the personalised video I've made. That's useful feedback in itself. If people aren't taking the next step, the problem probably isn't the video. It's more likely the copy leading up to it.

A lesson I'm learning is that effort and effectiveness aren't always the same thing. Sometimes the bottleneck isn't how much work you're doing. It's where you're directing that work.

What's interesting is that while my background and passion are firmly rooted in cold email outreach, I'm forcing myself to adapt to the different skill set that Upwork requires. It's a different platform, different buyer behaviour, and different rules.

Growth often looks less like doing what you're already good at and more like being willing to stay uncomfortable while learning something new.

For now, the goal remains simple. Keep improving, keep testing, and keep sending proposals.

Although I have to admit, those Upwork tokens costs are definitely starting to hurt the wallet 😅

[joelhan @jowlhan]

@csaba_kissi Looks awesome mate!

[joelhan @jowlhan]

@_devJNS "just not as optimised as me I guess"

[joelhan @jowlhan]

@claudeai This is mental. If you told me 6 months ago that this is what ai would look like I would have never believed you.

[joelhan @jowlhan]

Accountability Day 1:

I've put my money where my mouth is.

I've pored my time and money into my new agency but if I'm being honest, I've still been finding ways to delay the work. Not because I don't know what to do, but because excuses are often easier than action.

So I've decided to post daily as I build my automation agency from $0 to $10k/month.

Right now I'm finishing off my proposal template.

One thing I've struggled with is balancing the agency with everything else life demands. I work full-time, train four times a week, meal prep, and try to stay on top of the rest of life's responsibilities.

But those aren't obstacles, they're just the reality of the game.

The truth is that nobody ever finds extra time.

They make use of the time they already have.

So, now that I've aired out my excuses publicly, it's time to get to work.

Today will be the first day I properly send 10 proposals.

I'll update the results in the comments.

[joelhan @jowlhan]

I'm struggling to start posting again.

For about 5-6 months I could post multiple times a day and it felt effortless. Now for some reason it feels like a slog everytime I open this app.

How did you overcome the post resistance?

[joelhan @jowlhan]

Has anyone here tried Nick Saraev's maker school?

Looking around people seem overwhelming positive about it.

[joelhan @jowlhan]

@IAmPascio Building a tool to dramatically improve reply rates for cold outreach

[joelhan @jowlhan]

@Thomas_Tao_1 It's definitely true. Having a strong lead list can make or break a campaign.

[joelhan @jowlhan]

Curious. How many of you guys are running cold email outreach for your SaaS?

[joelhan @jowlhan]

I tried modeling yesterday for the first time.

Weirdest experience ever.

As someone raised in rural New Zealand with a passion for coding, being thrown into an environment where people care so heavily about external appearance, likes, lighting, angles, and audio quality felt surreal. Everything seemed built around carefully fine-tuning this polished plastic lifestyle that, standing there in person, felt nothing like reality.

What struck me most was the paradox of it all. So many people seemed shy or awkward until a camera or phone came out. Then suddenly they switched on — confident, expressive, almost performing a version of themselves. The second the attention disappeared, they folded back inward again.

It felt less like real life and more like watching people maintain characters in real time.