Oliver Meakings

I'm the founder of Senja.io, a bootstrapped SaaS that helps you collect, manage and share customer testimonials. 

Senja helps you collect testimonials using automations, and share them as images, widgets, popups, Walls of Love, links and videos.

I'd love you to try it: Senja.io

Co-Founder

Co-founder of Senja.io. Collect, manage and share your testimonials.

Olly Meakings

I want to spend $120,000 on marketing

$20,000/month over six months

This will be my biggest ever marketing bet at Senja

But I want to scale from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 ARR and need to take bigger bets

My brain is telling me to try and scale something measurable - meta ads, Google Ads, cold outbound

But my gut thinks I should focus on the hard work of building relationships with power-users and influencers of our ICP

Less measurable, slower to ramp-up, but a genuine opportunity to find and persuade the right people to use Senja, and get to success

This work would then act as the foundation of future marketing activity

So I'm torn

What would you do #BuildInPublic?

Building a bootstrapped SaaS in public, without the BS

I got roasted by 250 people

I knew my post would be controversial, but I had no idea it would also totally change my thinking

I thought people would focus on the measurable vs unmeasurable marketing question, or discuss head versus heart when making strategic decisions

Instead some very smart people focused on me fixing fundamental issues with the product and our product-led growth (now) before sequencing in paid (later)

Senja is product-led but I've drifted way from this over time because our churn and TOF sign ups have met and I have been looking to throw money at the problem

I'm starting to realise that paid will compound existing issues, whereas (unmeasurable?!) relationship building will not only drive TOF but assist throughout the funnel -> activation -> retention -> referral -> churn

We help our customers collect and share video testimonials and stories, and tell them this is how to grow, so it's critical that this is the foundation of our own marketing

Finally I need to look again at our product growth loops as we're uniquely positioned to grow from them IF enough news customers are getting to success

Our tool creates (awesome) assets for our customers that can drive awareness and TOF but only if they are being shared

Thanks to everyone who commented and especially to Olya Grovel 👩🏼‍🔬 who challenged my key assumptions

This is exactly why I LOVE #buildinpublic

I’m hiring my first marketer for Senja

Where should I look?

I'm hiring at Senja!!

Let's start 2026 getting the world's best creator educators on Senja!

I'm looking for someone to manage concierge migrations.

You will lead our efforts to find the best creator educators, tell them about Senja, migrate them to our platform, and ensure they get to success.

If you’re interested, application in comments below.

Your annual reminder that #buildinpublic is for this:

→ Accountability
→ Reflection
→ Helping others through sharing
→ Building community
→ Hiring

Not this
→ Getting rich quick
→ Doing marketing
→ Getting likes on X

The most rewarding part of sharing my journey has been having a ritual to reflect on my progress.

And then sharing it in a way that can help others.

I know a lot of people see #buildinpublic as a way to market their business, and that's a nice second-order effect.

But fundamentally it's about sharing, helping and democratising information.

I'm particularly inspired by those who continue to do it at scale, like Joel Gascoigne at Buffer ✨

I have $12,000 to spend on Meta ads

I want to run 3 cycles of $4,000 of ad spend

Who should I talk to about Meta ads for SaaS?

Most testimonials are filler

Not because they're bad, but because they're untested and unmeasured

You collect them, edit them, and share them on your sales pages

But you have no idea if they're actually helping buyers to make a decision

What if your leads could tell you which testimonials were most helpful?

And you could use that information to show more of the most helpful proof in your marketing?

Over time, you could discover
→ Which stories resonate
→ Which formats work
→ Which proof belongs above the fold

And which testimonials should be hidden

This is something I've been exploring at Senja in our widget playground

Visitors can actually upvote the proof that was useful to them

What do you think?

Would visitors actually leave feedback on a testimonial? 

#buildinpublic

Kicking off 26 with some great news - another native integration live!!!

You can now find Senja inside Umso

Instantly add your customer testimonial widgets to your Umso landing pages

This type of integration Senja's customers get to success in other tools

And it increases the discoverability of Senja across the web

Plus, it's amazing to see Senja inside tools I love and use

Wilson Wilson

We just hit $2K MRR for Ferndesk 🎉

→ It took 3 months get to $1K
→ It took 2.5 months get to $2K

The #1 thing helping us grow: making sure last week's work snowballs into this week. We're trying SUPER hard to conserve momentum.

Every single week, we:
- build a core feature our ICP needs
- record videos, create content around it, use it in customer conversations
- launch on our newsletter, socials, forums, communities

Then repeat.

We're putting in the reps daily to grow the business, no matter how small they may be. That work is starting to compound... big time.

The product is becoming magical and people are upgrading long before their trials expire. 

And Ferndesk is quickly becoming the best documentation platform for busy founders who don't have time for docs.

We're just getting started 💪

Founder of Ferndesk | I help SaaS founders save time on docs | Writing about building a SaaS from zero.

Crossed $20K ARR for Ferndesk 🥳
January is already our best month for growth ever

→ getting more trials, qualified leads, and demos booked than ever before.

Marketing bets are starting to pay off

→ Starting to get customers from Search + WOM
→ Search impressions have 7x'd since December

And finally started delegating work to others (more on this soon).

Overall the #1 thing that's helping is consistency.

I'm trying to make the product 5% better every week.

I've found a good rhythm where I ship new marketing and product weekly, and announce on Thursdays/Fridays.

And the only reason why I'm finding traction now is because  of the consistent work done over the last ~6 months.

2026 is off to an epic start 💪

2 months ago, Ferndesk had zero search presence.
Today we're getting 30-40 clicks a day from Google, and 10x the impressions.

SEO isn't that hard. Here's exactly what moved the needle:

#1. Link building (the smart way)

I left case studies for tools I actually use. Stupid-simple backlinks from higher-DR sites.

I asked a few people in my network to guest post. Most said yes.

I invested in a beautiful landing page. Got picked up by design directories for free.

Listed on a dozen tool directories.

Result: 40 DR a few months after public launch.

#2. Bottom-of-funnel content, at scale

We found BOF keywords by spying on competitors in Ahrefs.

Most have low volume and low difficulty. One page won't move the needle. A dozen will.

We wrote some in-house, outsourced the rest.

#3. Moved our marketing site to code

This one surprised me.

A year ago, I'd have said never code your marketing site. 
Now? Completely changed.

With Claude Code, I fix Ahrefs issues in minutes. Restructure internal linking with one prompt. Ship structural changes same-day.

If you're a small technical team, ask yourself: is your expensive Framer or Webflow setup actually letting you move fast in 2026?

By Q2, we want to 10x this again. 

Curious to hear from you... what's actually moved the needle for your search traffic?

No alternative text description for this image

I left my company doing $850K ARR to start over from scratch.
So many people were supportive.

Many more hated the idea.
"You're throwing away years of work."
"You'll regret this."
"Why would you leave something that's working?"

They weren't wrong to ask. I didn't have a great answer. 

Just a feeling I couldn't shake: I'd done what I set out to do with Senja. Now I needed to know if I could build something on my own.

 My decisions. My mistakes. My wins.

So I started Ferndesk. Solo. From Nigeria. At 21.

I'll be honest: part of what drives me is proving I made the right call. That chip on my shoulder gets me out of bed. It makes me push when things are hard.

But that kind of fuel burns hot. And it burns you too.

Building a company is hard. Building yourself into the kind of person who can sustain it is harder.

I'm still figuring that out. But I know what I'm aiming for: something small and beautiful. Something I'm proud of. Something that proves you can do things your own way.

$0 spent on AEO.
$0 on AI observability.
$0 on ChatGPT tracking tools.

Yet, a customer just told me they found us on Gemini.

For Ferndesk, a relatively new product, in an extremely competitive field.

Here's what I did instead:

- SEO fundamentals 
- Bottom-of-funnel keywords - found using Ahrefs 
- Replying to Reddit threads - identified with Redreach – Get Customers from Reddit 
- Making YouTube videos targeting BOF keywords - using Screen Studio
- Moving my docs from a subdomain (help.yoursite.com) to a subfolder (yoursite.com/help) - Ferndesk makes this easy. 

That's it.

Everyone's scrambling to buy the new shiny tool that tells you if ChatGPT mentions your brand.

But the AI chatbots are pulling from the same places Google does.

Reddit. YouTube. Your website content.

If you rank for the right keywords, answer real questions, and show up where people are already asking... the AI will find you too.

AEO/GEO isn't a new game.
It's SEO with a different scoreboard.
Stop overcomplicating it.

I used to spend hours keeping screenshots in my docs up to date.

Click through the app. Screenshot. Crop. Annotate. Upload. Repeat...

Starting from today. Never again.

🖼️ Introducing screenshot automation for your docs.

I'm building my company like I'm selling it tomorrow.
I'm not.

We're at $20K+ ARR. Yet, I'm already writing down how everything works. 

Every process. Every decision. Why we built it this way. Why we didn't build it that way.

Most founders think documentation is what you do when you're scaling.

It's not.

It's what you do so you don't lose your mind.

And if you're thinking "I don't have time for this"...

There are AI tools that turn a rambling Loom or voice note into a clear SOP in minutes. Ferndesk is one. There are dozens.

When everything lives in your head, you can't take a day off. You can't hand anything off. You can't think clearly because you're holding too much.

Document now, and when you eventually want to hire?

You hand them a playbook on day one. Not spend multiple days explaining.

I want to stay calm while I grow. This is how I'm going to do it.

Over the last half-year, I've run Ferndesk as a one-man show. Every line of code, every sentence in marketing and every design decision was made by me.

But you can only go so far as a team of one. It's time to change that!

Victor is fresh out of college and already scary-talented. No pedigree. No long résumé. Just raw talent and the kind of hunger you can't teach.

He's joining as our first employee, building features, fixing bugs, and learning what it means to build something from scratch.

Our new Chrome extension? He built that!

Welcome to Ferndesk, Kalu Victor!

Silly SaaS retention hack:

Show your users how they're succeeding with your tool as soon as they log in.

This one's a bit silly.
→ 4 months ago I launched my product publicly.

→ This week, I finally allowed customers to upgrade in-app.

→ 4 customers instantly expanded to the highest tier and I'm already about to hit my MRR goal for the month.

- Still spending hours talking to customers each week
- Still working through customer feedback religiously
- Still doing LOTS of bug-bashing + stability & UX improvements
- Still showing up daily.

The most dangerous problems are the ones you've accepted as normal.

You're not ignoring it. You've just decided it's not worth fighting anymore.

For me, it was my docs.

Screenshots from a UI we'd changed months ago. Steps that didn't match the product anymore. Articles that were 80% right, which meant they were 100% confusing.

We'd answer the same questions over and over. The answers were in the docs... _technically_

We tried to fix it. Many times. We'd block out time to update docs. It would last a week. Then we'd ship something new, get busy, and fall behind again.

So I stopped trying to be disciplined. I automated it instead.

Now it takes seconds to update my docs when I ship. I no longer take screenshots, my AI agent handles them for me.

I didn't fix it with discipline. I'd tried that. I fixed it by refusing to need discipline.

30 hours a month I'm never spending on docs again.

That's what I'm building at Ferndesk, and we're only just getting started.

Updating your docs takes 3 minutes.
The context switch to do it takes 30.

You're in the middle of answering a support ticket. You realize the docs are wrong. Now you have to:

- Open a new tab
-  Find the article
- Remember what you were going to change.
- Make the edit
- Go back to the ticket
- Remember where you were

By then, your flow is gone.

So we built a Chrome extension that puts your entire help center in a sidebar.

- Search it without leaving the page. 
- Chat with it to find answers. 
- Update it while you're still in context. 
- Or tell the AI to fix it in the background while you keep working.

Your docs stay accurate. You never lose your train of thought.

Now live in Ferndesk 🎉

Your docs only work for customers who speak your language.

Everyone else has to struggle with Google Translate or open a support ticket. 

Translating manually? That's time you should spend, actually growing your business.

So today, we're shipping AI translations for your docs 🌏

Now you can translate your docs to over 10 languages and keep them accurate, with automatic AI updates 🔥

taplio

The Battle

Olly Meakings

Wilson Wilson

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taplio

The Battle

Olly Meakings

Wilson Wilson

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Olly Meakings's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreWilson Wilson's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreOlly Meakings's LinkedIn Performance