Why finding customers is still so hard

For a founder or freelancer doing this alone, that can become a second job.

Paying to learn is expensive

My frustration with ads starts with the order of events: you spend money before you know whether the campaign will bring customers. Platforms give you reports, but no conversation with each person who saw an ad.

I wanted to start with something more concrete — the person, the problem they described, and the context — and decide for myself whether I can help.

Start with a need someone has already expressed

A public post asking for a recommendation is a useful starting point. So is a complaint about a workflow your product improves.

That is why I was more interested in searching for customer needs than buying another round of impressions. A real conversation gives you something specific to respond to.

I want to read what someone needs before I decide what to say to them.

This does not make ads useless or outreach effortless. It changes where the work begins.

Why I started building ReacherX

The original idea was a search engine for finding customers. Describe what you offer, find people talking about a matching need, and understand the conversation before reaching out.

The goal was to make that work accessible to people who do not have an acquisition team or the time to become advertising specialists.

That March thread introduced the idea. The product vision explains what I wanted to build around it.

Read the original thread.