6 things we failed at BuddiesHR since we launched:
1. Influencer marketing on LinkedIn
We spent $15k to get « awareness » lol.
Big numbers, big reach... and 0 signups.
People saw the posts. No one clicked.
It was like yelling in a stadium, with no mic.
2. Paid acquisition (Google, Meta, Reddit)
Everyone says « just do paid ads ».
We did. The CAC made us cry.
When your MRR is $1-2/user, paying $150 per trial is not a growth strategy, it's a suicide plan.
3. Ticky
One of our Slack apps.
Looked good on paper, flopped hard in the wild.
No usage, no retention, zero signs of life.
We pulled the plug.
4. Cold emails to HR managers
We thought they were the perfect ICP.
Turns out they don't answer cold emails.
And even if they do, they don't install Slack apps.
We never cracked the messaging. Still haven't.
5. Targeting big companies
We were trying to punch above our weight.
Enterprise HR teams don't want « lightweight, easy-to-use ».
They want SSO, audit logs, SOC2 and 18 months of security reviews.
Wrong game.
6. Programmatic SEO
We shipped 500 pages in 2 weeks.
And it hurt us.
Why? Google tracks the ratio between indexed pages and ranking pages.
If you bloat your site with low-quality pages, your entire domain gets penalized.
We tanked our own SEO.
We failed. Over and over.
But each time, we got a little sharper.
Today, BuddiesHR is doing $30k+ MRR — no sales team, no funding, no magic.
Just 2 founders, hundreds of mistakes, and zero excuses.
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👋 Hey, I'm J.Y!
I'm the co-founder of BuddiesHR, the #1 suite of Slack apps.
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