How to Find Customers for Your Micro SaaS (Before You Build Anything)

Most people build micro SaaS products the wrong way around.

They start with an idea and disappear for weeks (or months).

They ship something “clean,” “well-designed,” and “thoughtfully architected.”

And then… nothing.

No users.

No traction.

No customers.

Just another link in their bio to something nobody asked for.

Hard truth:

The fastest way to fail at micro SaaS is to build first and look for customers later.

I learned this the hard way — and then watched the same pattern repeat across hundreds of successful founders.

The lie we’re taught about building products

The default advice goes like this:

“Find a great idea → build an MVP → launch → market it.”

Sounds reasonable, but that is no longer the way.

How my app, AmarCV, started (and why this matters)

In mid-2025, my Facebook started blowing up.

I was posting talking-head videos about careers, job hunting, and how to write a strong CV.

Within a few months, that audience crossed 40,000 followers.

Naturally, I tried to monetize it.

I thought I’d sell:

• High-ticket career coaching

• 1:1 mentorship

• Maybe a course

That was the plan.

But then something kept happening.

I started getting DMs like:

• “Can you rewrite my CV?”,
• “Can you fix my resume?”
• “How much would you charge to help me write my CV?”

At first, I ignored them. It felt too small.Too… unambitious.

I didn’t want to spend my days manually rewriting 20 CVs.

But the messages didn’t stop. Eventually, it clicked:

The market had already told me what it wanted.

I just wasn’t listening.

So instead of forcing a coaching product, I tried something else.

I built a small web app using AI.

In about a month, I had a working prototype.

Two weeks later, I set up payments.

Three months after that:

• 12,500 sign-ups

• 400 paying customers

AmarCV didn’t start as a clever SaaS idea.

It started as a response. People weren’t asking for frameworks or theory they wanted a better CV — now. So I built something that gave them that

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it

After that, I started noticing the same pattern everywhere.

Over and over again, the founders making real money weren’t predicting demand — they were reacting to it.

• The founders of Pushscroll validated a $30K/month app from a single piece of content — before writing any code
• AppAlchemy.ai grew to $17K/month by posting on Reddit with zero audience and zero ad spend
• Others shipped what most people would call “boring” products — habit trackers, resume tools, simple utilities — and scaled to six figures by adding one small twist to an already proven market.

Different industries.

Different tools.

Same playbook.

Demand came first. Code came second.

Where customers actually come from (before products)

If you’re early, stop asking: “What should I build?”

Start asking: “What are people already asking me for?”

Real demand signals look like this:

• Repeated DMs with the same problem
• Comments saying “I wish this existed”
• People hacking together ugly workarounds
• One post or video outperforming everything else
• Someone asking, “Can I pay you for this?”

This is why so many founders validate ideas through:

• Reddit posts
• Twitter threads
• Short-form video
• Blog posts
• Landing pages with no product

The only mental model you need

Forget the traditional flow.

❌ Old way

Idea → Build → Launch → Hope → Silence

✅ The way that actually works

Problem → Audience → Signal → Tiny solution → Scale

Important reframes:

• Validation ≠ surveys
• MVP ≠ full product
• Shipping ≠ perfection
• Speed > certainty

You have no idea if your idea is good. The only way to know is to ship.