The Story
Domenico (Dom) is an Italian founder who made over $1 million by building and selling apps using a systematic 30-day challenge. While working a full-time 9-to-5 job, he built and sold 6 Microsoft projects, then applied the same strategy to Softgen.ai, growing it from $20K ARR to $500K ARR in just 3 months before selling it for nearly 3x ARR.
Dom's journey started between 2017-2019 when he tried launching different projects while at university studying economics. In 2019, he launched a physical business in micromobility but had a co-founder dispute and left. He then worked as an analyst while always building side projects to escape the 9-to-5.
The "Build and Sell Challenge" was simple: launch, validate, and sell a micro-business in 30 days. His first product, Pitch 2.0 (a pitch deck generator), made $300 in 45 days and sold for $2,500. This proved the concept worked.
His portfolio includes: OneUp.ai (Excel formula generator, $7K revenue, sold for $25K), YourCoverLetter.com (sold for $7K after 40 days), RecapG.com (AI summarizer, sold for $34K after 6 months), QuizBot.io (sold for $5K), WebDesigner.io (sold for $12K), and finally Softgen.ai (the first AI vibe coding app, sold for ~$1.5M).
Key Insights
The Build and Sell Framework
- •Set your goals - Decide if you want to sell in 3, 6, or more months
- •Validation stage - Use a landing page (yep.so), distribute on X, collect emails, aim for 15% conversion rate
- •Building stage - Use feedback loop approach: build one key feature → send to email list → get feedback → improve → repeat
- •Growth stage - Apply building in public strategy for organic growth
- •Selling stage - Package business as an asset with key metrics: ARR, gross margins, ARPU, LTV, CAC, churn rate
Why Projects Succeed or Fail
- •Everything started from X (Twitter) - all projects were based on trends
- •Timing is the main difference between successful and unsuccessful projects
- •Sentiment analysis on X helps identify what's trending
Working While Having a 9-to-5
- •Organized everything in calendar
- •Used Pomodoro technique (25-minute focused intervals with short breaks)
- •Quit job only when Softgen showed real potential
Tech Stack
- •Bubble (quick development for first projects)
- •Cursor (AI coding)
- •Mailtrap (email marketing)
- •Futurebase (public roadmap)
- •Hunter.io (outreach)
- •Make UGC AI (UGC creators)
- •Attio.com (CRM)
- •Stripe (payments)
- •TinyAdz.com (advertising)
- •Creator.io (influencer marketing)
- •Ledit.co (Reddit marketing)
- •Suna.so (general agent tasks)
Resources
- •Follow Dom: https://www.linkedin.com/in/domenicogagliardi/
- •Current project: https://www.kortix.ai/