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This edition is relevant for: Founders, indie hackers, and early-stage builders (especially if you're still under $100K ARR).

If you want the shorter version, read my LinkedIn post. If you want the longer version, keep reading this newsletter.

The Invisible Year

That awkward, frustrating, slow-burn first year - where you're laying bricks in the dark, hoping it turns into a house.

I know because I just lived it.

Ertiqah just turned one. And while we’re not popping champagne over an 8-figure exit, we quietly bagged 10M+ impressions and grew to a modest 5-figure ARR (counting products only).

More importantly: we’ve built something hundreds have raved about.. all without raising capital.

But it didn’t feel like we were winning. Most weeks, it felt like we were behind.

If you’re in those early months, this one’s for you.

The Dopamine Desert

Here’s what my first year looked like - through the lens of founder psychology:

Months 1-3: No dopamine

Setting up domains. Building MVPs. Fixing bugs. Foundational work for customer acquisition & marketing channels. Getting legal ducks in a row. Zero validation. Zero feedback. Zero momentum. Feels like sitting through a traffic jam.

It’s the “infrastructure quarter” every founder underestimates. You don’t feel like a founder. You feel like an unpaid intern with too many tabs open to do the grunt work.

(Suggestion: Do it yourself. You don’t deserve the founder title if laying the foundations of your company is beneath you).

Months 4-6: Faint signals

Stripe emails. A few claps on Medium. Spikes in users from some activities here and there. Feedback trickling in. You don’t trust it yet - but at this point .. the car is “moving”.

Months 7-12: Compounding

Work you did months ago suddenly kicks in. Distribution channels mature. SEO ranks. Email lists start growing. Chrome Store impressions spike.

You finally feel the flywheel turning. The momentum now keeps you going.

There’s less uncertainty in this zone, because every week there’s multiple amazing things that fuel your week.

Do you need to be consistent every day?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

I ghosted LinkedIn for weeks when I was focusing on videos. I abandoned YouTube when I was focusing on the design & user experiences for months. I consistently skipped newsletters when I was working on new modules/features, and marketing on other channels.

And yet, zooming out… if I look at the yearly stats of each platform separately, they look… really really nice.

And when I combine them, it’s even better:

• 10M+ views

• 7 platforms

• Thousands of users

• Consistent inbound (for service requests)

So, my takeaway for myself is:

You don’t need to be consistent every day.

You just need to keep returning to the game every week.. or month, or whenever. Most of your marketing activities continue to pay dividends even if you abandon them on a “weekly timeline”, as long as the “yearly stats” look fine.

Year 1 rewards persistence more than perfection.

What Worked (And What Didn’t)

We tested 9 distribution channels. Some crushed. Some flopped. Here’s a quick breakdown:

🟢 Overperformed:

• Medium: First 10 posts tanked. Then 3 posts went viral. Now gets 200+ views/day on autopilot.

• YouTube: 80/20 rule in action. Evergreen videos became passive lead gen.

• Product Blog: 0 → 100k impressions/month. SEO works - but takes time (not as long as people say though, took us just 1 month).

• Chrome Extensions: Unexpected winner. 5+ new users/day organically.

• Founder Newsletter: Trust builder. Own your audience.

🟡 Mixed bag:

• LinkedIn: Huge volume, but short shelf-life. Great for B2B, or for service-based companies.

• Reddit/Facebook Groups: Spike engines. Great for launches, but not for “repeated stories/marketing”.

🔴 Underperformed:

• Instagram: Viral reach, near-zero conversion.

• Twitter/X: Inconsistent output, inconsistent returns. TBD.

(Wrote more on each platform in the linkedin post i mentioned at the top).

Don’t Bet on Just One Channel

The biggest mistake I see: founders putting all their eggs in one distribution basket.

Every platform has a unique tempo, user mindset, and conversion journey.

That’s why I ensured we distributed across 7+ channels. Not so we’re everywhere - but because some of them will eventually work on autopilot, and others will completely fail simply because I don’t have the “right people with the right skills” for those particular channels… at the moment.

You don’t know which ones will fall in which bucket, until you plant all the seeds.

In our case:

• YouTube & Medium are working on autopilot.

• Reddit is 80% automated by my co-founder; it brings us new backlinks and gets us plugged into 5-10+ new conversations every week, organically.

• Twitter & LinkedIn seem to be the most time consuming, but also act as a “user feedback” channel via DMs.

• Newsletter works - but also high effort.

Key Lessons from Year 1

1. Consistency is cumulative
   Your LinkedIn post from 6 months ago might bring in a client tomorrow.
   (i.e. they remember you from that post, but the need arose just now)

2. Most work doesn’t pay off instantly
   Expect a 6+ month lag between effort and reward.

3. No platform is reliable forever
   Own your email list. Algorithms can ghost you anytime.

4. Make distribution part of product design
   If your MVP can be a Chrome extension, make it a Chrome extension. Built-in distribution matters more than you think.
   OR do this instead: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/junaidkhalid22_should-you-integrate-your-saas-product-with-activity-7336470382423539712-_m7z?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAB_r4zkBxX3wQW59nLbY30VCMI-iWvG_n9Y 

5. You’re not failing. You’re early.
   It should feel unsexy, uncertain, and overwhelming. That’s the default setting for the first 12 months.

Helpful Resources & Tools

If you're in Year 1 and want to build distribution systems that don’t rely on luck or virality, here are tools we actually use:

LiGo for LinkedIn
Think of it as your second brain for consistent, high-signal LinkedIn content. Helps you write, schedule, and analyze posts tailored to your actual business goals.

Beehiiv
Our go-to for this newsletter. Great for building & managing an email list you truly own.

TubeBuddy
Optimizes your YouTube uploads for SEO, keywords, and engagement. Critical if you’re going the evergreen content route.

tl;dr – Survive Year 1

Most people quit in the dopamine desert.

If you can stomach the downside, the upside is waiting on the other side.

Keep showing up.

Your future self will thank you.

What part of Year 1 are you in?
Reply to this email and let me know - I read every response.

Until next time,
Junaid