u/Big-Contribution4653 — reddlx

I was a software developer for 7 years, and then I got fired alongside my entire team. Never been unemployerd before…
After the initial panic wore off, I did the only thing that felt natural to me, started coding :))

The first thing I coded was a mobile app, and because I spent years writing software, I assumed the hardest part would be turning that idea into something real.
I spent a lot of time thinking about the product, the design, the features, the user experience, and all the little details that make you feel like you are making serious progress.
And to be fair, the app worked.

But once I tried to get users, I ran into a problem I never even though of before, Marketing.

I knew how to code, but I did not know how to make strangers care about something they had never heard of before.

Everywhere I looked, like on X at the Build in Public community, there were people building SaaS products, mobile apps, AI tools, directories, templates, Chrome extensions, and all kinds of small internet businesses that were not necessarily bad products.
A lot of them were actually useful.
However most got stuck because they had no reliable way to get attention without spending money or forcing themselves to become content creators overnight.

TikTok stood out to me because it still feels like one of the few places where a small account can reach a lot of people organically, but trying to use it as a founder is a lot harder than people make it sound.

So I began building another app around this problem everyone seemed to be facing.

This new app is centered around helping solopreneurs and indie builders use TikTok organic properly from zero, by walking them through account setup, warmup, daily posting, ideal posting times based on region, and the small details that can actually make potential customers convert.

The funny part is that this second idea felt almost too simple at first, especially compared to the kind of technical stuff I used to think was impressive.

Sometimes the painful, obvious problem sitting right in front of you is more valuable than the polished idea you originally wanted to build.

Getting fired pushed me into building whatever, but trying to market that showed me that distribution is the thing a lot of solopreneurs are quietly losing to right now.