Software-Ingenieur wird solopreneur und teilt Reise von Null zu $1.5K MRR im ersten Jahr

The founders split the work as tech for Luca and marketing for Mattia, but Mattia drifted toward product decisions, so both had opinions on the same roadmap and nobody clearly owned distribution.

“I expected Mattia to be the marketer. That was the whole premise. I build, he grows.”

Mattia kept a full-time job the whole time and owned all email and copy, so growth work stalled whenever his week filled up, and Luca could not push on a lane that was not his.

“It just wasn’t the pace or the role I needed from a co-founder”

The first onboarding asked new users to pick goals, set posting and reply targets and configure reminders before connecting a Threads account: 348 users started it and 318 finished, yet of 312 signups in 30 days only 129 connected an account and 64 created a post.

“So the onboarding was easy to complete but it was doing nothing useful.”

The flow spent the new user's patience on questions that produced nothing, then asked for account access at the point where motivation had already drained, so 59 percent never connected Threads.

“The flow asked too much too fast.”

Shipping more features and more marketing stopped moving revenue: MRR crawled from about $1.5k to about $2k over seven months, roughly $70 a month, with new customers offset by churn.

“There were months where we’d gain a few customers and lose a few. Net zero. Plateau.”

Only about a quarter of the people who signed up ever published a first post, so the leak sat in activation rather than in the product or in the top of the funnel.

“The problem isn’t the product — it’s the funnel.”

Before BlackTwist, Luca had already tried going full time indie by quitting his job; the runway ran out and he returned to employment, which is why BlackTwist is built nights and weekends alongside a 9 to 5.

“I burned through my runway and had to go back to employment.”

Without revenue covering the bills, the pressure of needing the product to work arrived long before the product was ready to carry it.