An $11MM mistake, and how I tried to automated myself out of a job before the market could do it for me.

I've spent 15 years sitting in rooms with smart people who built great things and can't explain any of them. Amazon, Twitch, Red Bull, X Games. Different companies, same scene. Someone ships a product, everyone nods, then the entire org spends six months trying to figure out what to say about it.

I once watched a team spend $11 million launching something they couldn't agree on — based on instinct, loudest voice in the room, not audience wants to need states. Like buying a megaphone and whispering into it. With decisions like these, it's only a matter of time before marketing teams with bug budgets become obsolete.

Founders have it worse. Same problem, no megaphone, no budget, no team. Just vibes, Claude, and a Canva account.

So I built a thing - part experiment, part self preservation/extinction, and part for good. It's called Servo. An on-demand guided brand strategy session that asks the hard questions a $15K strategist would ask, interrogates your brain and your product, then hands you the playbook. Built on Lovable using years of my own formulas and frameworks. Took about 6 weeks, though honestly the 2 day version was sick and I've been in a vibe-coding hole ever since lol.

6 weeks in and I have 169 free sessions, 2 paying customers at $79 one-time session (pretty sure one was mom), a 3+ hour average session time (or people leaving the tab open, which is the less romantic but probably more honest explanation), and a #1 Google ranking for "my startup has no traction is the idea bad" on a 40-day-old domain. I also have 10 Instagram followers, zero organic traffic engine, and genuinely no idea what I'm doing on the saas distribution side. Learning from people here and reddit as I go, which is ironic given the product literally helps other people figure their shit out.

The one thing that's actually working and my advice for anyone no matter your product (and what i said to the team spending the $11MM on a hope and prayer): write for the symptom, not the solution. Nobody googles "brand positioning tool." They google "why isn't my landing page converting" at midnight in their underwear. I write a page for each of those (well, lovable does with my genius prompts). That's how a 40-day-old domain is outranking Reddit. If you're building anything, this is the move. Write for the pain your customer feels, not the category you think you're in.

The other thing: being useful in other people's comment sections but not responding to the actual post . Those X/IG guru accounts posting "comment BRAND for my free workshop" are accidentally assembling your exact buyer into one thread and doing nothing useful for them. I reply with actual advice. No link. No pitch. Just four questions a founder can ask themselves right now.
And they check my profile on their own because I was the only person in the thread not selling a $997 course on how to sell $997 courses.

those 4 Qs: a) what do u believe ur competitors dont? b) what specific problem are you solving for your customer? c) What are your actual competitors (not just rivals, but other ways ppl currently deal with the problem)? d) whats the emotional state your customer is in when they realize they need u?

Everything else has been a series of educational failures. $150 LinkedIn ad that worked beautifully until I turned it off and traffic vanished like it was in witness protection. $187 on directory submissions I was told were free (they were not -- cheers, AI). 73% of my traffic is mobile and the tool asks people to think deeply and type considered answers, which is like asking someone to do their taxes on a rollercoaster. Haven't cracked that one.

All of this with a full-time job, no team, no budget, and no existing audience. Which honestly is making me better at the thing I've done for 15 years for other people. Hard to tell a founder "be patient, organic compounds" when you haven't sat in the same quiet yourself.

selfservo.com if you want to try it, roast it. Or drop ur thing and i'l give you some quick feedback on ur messaging