The Story
Josef quit freelancing as a software engineer to start indie hacking. Timo lives in Bangkok. They met at a coworking space and decided to partner up. But they were burned out from what Josef calls "builder's disease" - spending months building projects that got zero customers.
"I quit my job and spent a whole year building without any traction," Josef admits.
So they came up with a better strategy: get paid before building anything. They built Setter AI - an AI appointment setter that follows up and qualifies leads instantly. It's a high-ticket agentic B2B SaaS targeting the solar industry, coaches, and financial services - anywhere you need to replace sales reps.
But here's the genius part: they made $500 before writing a single line of code using a fake landing page and demo.
Key Insights
The Fake Landing Page Strategy
- •Set up a landing page on a warm domain (already indexed by Google from a previous business)
- •Created a completely fake demo video using 11 Labs
- •Used basic SEO research on Ahrefs to find keywords with search volume but no difficulty
- •Put "cold call automation" as the H1 keyword
- •Added a Calendly link as the call to action
- •Requested indexing through Google Search Console - indexed within 24 hours
- •"Super super simple. One H1 keyword and then the demo on the right side and then a book demo button. There was really nothing else on this page."
When Is It Validated?
- •"The only way to validate is when buyers swipe their credit card"
- •Got first $500 Stripe payment in February 2024 before the product existed
- •"There was even a company with a billion dollar revenue booking a call with me. For me, that was a clear sign. That is insane. Nobody else is doing this. This is an underserved opportunity."
5-Step Validation Playbook
Step 1: Have a job
- •"The best pain point to find B2B ideas is not look around on Reddit because business owners, frankly, they don't really check Reddit"
- •"Having a job is actually an absolute advantage compared to indie hackers who never had a job because they don't really know all the processes that happen in a business"
Step 2: Set up a landing page
- •Do basic SEO research on Ahrefs or free SEO tools
- •Search for keywords buyers would search for
Step 3: Set up a Calendly link
- •"They see your face on a call. They know you're a real human. They trust you."
- •Try to close them on a call and swipe their credit card
Step 4: The Deposit Framework
- •"Don't say 'Please pay for my non-existing solution'"
- •Offer 100% refundable deposit (e.g., $500)
- •Creates urgency: "This secures you a spot in the first launch of the product"
- •"Go high ticket. If you go this route, don't charge them $20 or something. Charge them something serious so you know they are in."
Step 5: Give it time to incubate
- •SEO route takes time but brings serious buyers
- •"They search for a solution. So give it a little bit of time to incubate."
Business Numbers
- •$10K MRR (August was slow - "August is always a slow month in B2B")
- •2,000 total signups
- •38 paying customers (focused on high-value)
- •Subscription starts at ~$50/month
- •Some pay over $500/month
- •Biggest customer pays up to $5,000/month
- •Applied to YC 5 times, got 1 interview
- •YouTube channel has 600 subscribers
- •Recently received acquisition offers
Tech Stack & Tools
Marketing Tools
- •Ahrefs (SEO research)
- •Answer the Public (YouTube video ideas)
- •Zapier (automation)
- •Beehiiv (email automation and newsletters)
- •Calendly (scheduling)
- •Webflow (landing page and CMS)
- •YourBusinessNumber.com (phone numbers)
Development Stack
- •TypeScript + SvelteKit
- •Postgres (Render + Supabase, ~$150/month combined)
- •OpenAI for AI
- •Puppeteer for browser automation
- •Brandfetch API
- •Plausible Analytics ($29/month) - "Just so much easier to use and better than Google Analytics"
- •Netlify for hosting
- •Cursor for AI-assisted coding
Cost & Margins
- •90%+ margins without ads
- •~80% margins with ads and freelancers
- •Highest cost: OpenAI API (~$250/month)
- •Upwork freelancers (~$500/month occasionally)
Growth Strategy
- •Pure inbound through SEO and content
- •Free tools (e.g., free sales script generator)
- •Comparison blog articles (e.g., "HubSpot alternatives")
- •"Within a week, we ranked on page one on Google and now ranked number one worldwide for this keyword"
- •YouTube long format - "Most of the customers we closed came through watching at least one YouTube video before jumping on a call"
- •"YouTube and watching long format content by nature has this high intent from the watcher, but then also creates insane trust into your business already. Also, it's the second biggest search engine after Google."
Ideas Worth Building in 2025
- •"Lovable for mobile apps" - Lovable is great for web apps but mobile apps aren't as easy to build
- •"If someone can figure out a builder like Lovable but for Swift apps, I think that is one of the biggest opportunities... could even be bigger than Lovable itself which has like a billion dollar valuation"
- •Gluing softwares together or automating workflows for non-technical people
Key Advice
- •"Charge early on. Don't be afraid to charge because charging creates urgency and commitment not only from you but also your customer."
- •"Go high ticket. It makes your life easier."
- •"Sell to rich people, they pay better" - Alex Hormozi
Resources
- •Follow Josef: https://x.com/josefbuettgen
- •Follow Timo: https://x.com/timonikolai