Mindset Build from personal pain, not market research
Software engineer turned curator and community builder
Raul didn't do market research or competitive analysis. He built exactly the thing he wished existed when he was fired and job hunting. Personal pain gives you an unfair advantage: you know the problem deeply, you can tell real solutions from fake ones, and you won't lose motivation when growth is slow because you genuinely care about the problem.
Related advice
Raul Manual curation is a moat, not a limitation
Algorithms can scrape job boards. Nobody can automate the judgment call of "is this company actually calm or just marketing itself as calm?" Raul manually researches every company in his directory, checking employee tenure, real policies, and community feedback. That process is slow, but it's the entire value proposition. What feels like a bottleneck is actually what customers are paying for.
Raul Price so low it removes all friction
$19/year sounds like leaving money on the table. But consider the alternative: a $19/month subscription requires convincing someone your product is worth $228/year, handling cancellations, dealing with failed payments, and competing with every other subscription fighting for budget. At $19/year, the price is never the objection. Raul's conversion rate proves that removing friction can beat optimizing price.
Raul SEO blog posts that solve real pain points drive organic growth
Raul wrote 25 blog posts, all addressing problems he'd personally experienced. They rank well because they're genuinely helpful, not because they're optimized for keywords. "Signs of a toxic workplace" and "how to recover from burnout" are searches people make when they're frustrated, and content written by someone who's been through it resonates differently than generic advice. Write fewer posts, but write them from real experience.
Raul Start with a spreadsheet, not a SaaS
Raul's entire business started as a personal spreadsheet shared with friends. He didn't buy a domain, set up payments, or write a line of code until real people asked him to keep going. A spreadsheet forces you to do the work manually, which teaches you what the actual product is. If your idea can't survive as a spreadsheet first, it probably won't survive as a SaaS either.