I may or may not have had breakfast—I saw evil while trying to build a SAS business and a new short‑form video editor. For marketing outreach, start by building distribution. If you have distribution, you can launch any business and instantly have a pre‑validated audience interested in what you offer. Focus less on the product itself and more on building interest, eyeballs, and marketing. Try every social platform (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc.) and outbound tactics like contacting companies that publish content regularly and offering them a group trial discount. Keep iterating through these methods until you get traction.
My recommendation is to first grow the SaaS a bit before you start a YouTube channel. Instead of advertising $2 K in MRR, frame it as a $100 K‑a‑year business. That kind of headline is more interesting to viewers. If you’re still early and don’t have impressive results, people won’t be inclined to spend time on your content. The key is to focus on what you’ve achieved that’s better than 99.9 % of the world. When you have a tangible outcome—say you’re consistently making $8‑10 K a month—you can use that as the hook for your videos. Spend time improving the SaaS, develop strong skills, and once you have a modest success metric, start talking about it. Use that achievement as the basis for your content and you’ll be able to attract an audience.
With no money and no audience, I’d go straight into cold outbound because I’m good at it—I’ve done door‑to‑door and learned what gets people to talk or kick you out. I’d start with Loom videos or manually written cold emails (not scalable but effective) to pitch people directly. Then I’d bootstrap: 10× the number of mailboxes, sell a simple AI service, and have clients cover costs to keep things simple and low‑cost. That’s the core approach. (After answering, I note I wasn’t going to record today but we’re doing it now, then I share my brand stats: YouTube 93,779, Instagram 127,175, daily updates channel 4,716.)
If you have $1,000, it's effectively the same as having $0 when viewed from a high enough level--there's no real difference. My advice is identical for anyone with zero or $1,000: start a daily consistent outreach habit, regardless of platform (social media, email, etc.). Choose a simple daily target--for example, talk to or get in front of 10 people each day for your business. Over a year that's 3,650 contacts; even a tiny conversion rate can generate significant capital because luck stems from preparation plus opportunity, and you boost luck by maximizing outreach. Most people struggle because they lack such daily habits; the real bottleneck in almost any venture is soft skills, sales ability, and marketing. You could build a product like Netflix tomorrow, but without marketing you'd have zero viewers. Practical ways to hit your daily goal: send 10 Upwork applications daily, send 10 cold emails per day on behalf of your business, or reach out to your favorite YouTubers (like me or Ali Abdal) with a custom pitch each day. Alternatively, list the top 10 creators, identify their problems, and offer to solve them--doing this for a month yields about 300 high-quality touches, each taking only 5-10 minutes, which can drive real results. Begin this habit now and maintain it for months; the compounding effect will create the bulk of your long-term capital.
Even with zero credibility you can still get traction by using a conversational tone in your outreach. Write longer, personalized emails that give context about who you are, what you’re building, and why you’re reaching out. Make it sound like a genuine conversation rather than a sales pitch. This approach works well for beginners because it feels authentic and helps you stand out from the generic offers flooding inboxes. Give it a try – the personal, story‑driven style often lands the first leads when you don’t have a brand reputation yet.