(The honest version.)

SaaS platform for local service contractors. plumbers, electricians, HVAC guys who don’t want to learn Salesforce. White-labeled CRM, job tracking, AI-powered email notifications. Gemini API, AWS SES, Firebase, Twilio.

I built it, deployed it, sent 400 cold emails to small businesses. Got exactly zero conversions. Not one. The product worked. The market didn’t care. Turns out service contractors don’t buy software from cold emails. they buy it from the guy at the supply house who tells them about it. Distribution > product. Every founder learns this. I learned it with 400 emails and a lot of wasted SES credits.

The infrastructure was solid. The email pipeline alone. multi-agent quality gates, bounce handling, domain verification. taught me more about deliverability than any course would. I just aimed it at the wrong problem.

It’s dead now. The lessons aren’t.