Slava

Software engineer turned solo founder. Building SearchBind in public. What actually works in AI search and marketing, with real numbers.

[Slava @okarabuilds]

honestly got tired building solutions for other people's businesses for 10 years and never even tried to make something of my own

so trying now, alone, from scratch, will post here how it goes… probably with lots of mistakes

if you have any advice or critics I'm all ears

[Slava @okarabuilds]

giving an AI full access to your computer to "speed it up"

best productivity hack of 2026 or the worst idea ever?

[AI Guides @free_ai_guides]

BREAKING NEWS 🚨: Claude can now fix your slow computer like a $120 per hour IT technician.

Open the Claude desktop app, give it access to your computer, and use these 7 prompts:

[Slava @okarabuilds]

@pcshipp also noticed, today reached 90% in just one hour on a 100 bucks subscription, crazy

[Slava @okarabuilds]

MY SITE SCORES 100/100 ON MY OWN CHECKER. AI MENTIONED IT IN 1 OF 10 QUESTIONS

2 weeks ago I fixed everything my scanner found on my own site, all 59 checks passed

then I ran the same AI check my report has: 10 questions a person looking for a GEO audit would ask, each asked once to an AI with web search

mentioned in 1. linked as a source in 0

a clean site means AI can read you and has no reason to skip you. it doesn't make AI recommend you

my guess is the tools it picked instead win because other sites write about them, reviews, comparisons, reddit threads. that's the part no checklist fixes

so now the site is done and my time goes to being talked about: reddit, here, cold emails

what matters more for getting recommended by AI, your own site or what others say about you?

[Slava @okarabuilds]

@RobHoffman_ point 4 is the big one for small businesses. from the sites I scanned, 6 of 8 had no price on the page at all, not even in an image. AI can't recommend what it can't quote

[Slava @okarabuilds]

SOLO builders, HELP

How do you keep track of your progress btw several projects? I started to build another app, and now I'm really unfocused on both right now

I tried a few "notes" apps, but they are so hard to follow that a single Trello board is still the best so far

The worst part is when you have ideas for both projects, all seem high-prio, but you simply can not prioritize them normally and start doing everything right away at the same time

[Slava @okarabuilds]

@gregisenberg stage 5 is where small businesses can win without doing anything fancy. most of them aren't blocking agents, they just never give them the facts. from the small sites I scanned, 6 of 8 had no prices anywhere

[Slava @okarabuilds]

@Anokcraft @X thanks Alex 🙏 agree, consistency without a deadline is just stubbornness. that's why I keep changing the niche and the template, not the goal

[Slava @okarabuilds]

Day 11 of SearchBind
- payments are live, first 10 audits for $1
- 100 cold emails sent, 13 clicked, 0 paid conversions. changed the email template, trying next niche
- site: 136 visitors, 21 free audits, some of them from email campaign
- 127 followers on @X (-10 today 😢), 237 on Threads
- paying customers: 0 so far
next: one niche, one city, real follow-ups.

the most important thing in new business is consistency. we do not give up until success, that's the rule

if you have any advices, wanna partner or just #connect - let me know in a comments

[Slava @okarabuilds]

YES! Worth reading 100% you are killing your website SEO if you use just Claude to optimize it

The algorithms are not just the instructions it has in memory, but if you simply put this article to the Claude context it will do the best SEO possible

[Nicholas Dulait @NicholasDulait]

https://t.co/ckOeTcP78k

[Slava @okarabuilds]

@shadcn same. building a whole product solo with it these weeks: the site, a CRM, the cold email flow. wild how much one person can ship now

[Slava @okarabuilds]

@ViralKumar2841 mostly dentists around Denver so far. and I just rewrote the email to open with one finding from their own site instead of a generic offer, half the length. curious if replies change

[Slava @okarabuilds]

REDDIT TOLD ME WHY MY FOLLOWERS DON'T BUY

I'm a new solo founder. 10 years building for other people, now my own tool

X and Threads went from 0 to 100+ and 200+ followers in a few days. felt great

then I looked at who they are: builders. like me. people who can do what I sell themselves

my real buyer is a website owner with no dev background. small businesses, vibecoded sites. none of them follow me

cold emails didn't save it either: 70 sent, ~70% opened, a few clicks, no replies

so I asked r/growmybusiness. 20 comments later, here's what marketing and business people made clear:

1. you're marketing to peers, not buyers
builders follow builders. your buyer isn't on X complaining about dev problems, they're just living with them

2. go where they ask for help
small business facebook groups, shopify / wix / squarespace forums, r/smallbusiness. answer questions, don't pitch. your profile does the pitching

3. your dev followers aren't wasted
they build sites for exactly the people you want. one freelancer with 20 small business clients beats 20 followers. give them a reason to recommend you

4. lead with ONE finding from their own site
not "I audited your website", everybody sends that now. "ChatGPT can't see your site right now" is something they can check themselves

5. go narrow
one city, one trade. dentists in Denver, not "every website"

6. small batches, real follow-ups
20 owners in one niche, 2-3 follow-ups with something specific. most replies come from the bumps, not the first email

7. "for every website" means valuable for none
pick someone specific and be the thing for them

and the one I'm still arguing with:
"$1 audits teach you nothing. test at your real price with 10 people"

I kept $1 for the first 10. who's right?

[Slava @okarabuilds]

@CiprianiRanieri make a fast, ugly site with CLEAR product and all the SEO/GEO rules done right
in just a few weeks, Google will do everything for you for free

[Slava @okarabuilds]

Another builder app. everyone can vibe-code a site now...

The part nobody vibe-codes: getting Google, ChatGPT, etc. to actually find it. Marketing and site optimization now become more valuable than ever!

Scanned 300+ sites already, and the average GEO score is less than 70...

[Attie @Attie_AI]

Announcing Attie site builder!

Starting today, Attie users can build small social pages like a game, an AMA, or a quiz your friends will argue about for a week. We made a few to get you started. Go make a better one and share it: https://t.co/LeQrgQyOCp

[Slava @okarabuilds]

@marclou "pay for the emails you send, not for dormant subscribers" is the whole pitch. deliverability is the scary part though, I'm warming a new domain for cold emails right now and it's slow. do new senders start on shared IPs?

[Slava @okarabuilds]

@dhh building solo with agents right now and the "editor" part is real. the hard part just moved: deciding what to build and checking what it wrote

[Slava @okarabuilds]

@mubashirtasinn Not yet, will try it also! It’s very hard to build sth and also be active in every SM exists 🥲

[Slava @okarabuilds]

@AliAshar66914 Exactly, trying to find the new funnel

[Slava @okarabuilds]

@Serhii_Klym Do not prioritize it. Building the right audience better than 20$ a month for X, as one sale/month will give you more than that