Show HN: I built a tool to make early-stage marketing on LinkedIn less painful

Hi HN – I’m a marketer with 10+ years of experience. I used to work in big companies, with big brands and big budgets. We had full creative teams, external agencies, media buyers, and enough money to test everything.

Back then, I spent $10–20k a day on ads. If something didn’t work, we just pivoted fast.

Three years ago, I switched to early-stage B2B SaaS. Suddenly, I had to do everything — with no money, no team, and no margin for error.

And I hated it.

The hardest part? Getting attention.

CPCs are now $5–15 even in niche B2B. SEO doesn’t perform like it used to (AI spam everywhere). Paid channels are expensive and feel like a black hole.

So I turned to LinkedIn.

It’s weird, but still effective. Everyone in B2B is there — decision-makers, investors, customers. I saw other founders growing personal brands and getting traction. I tried it too.

But it felt awkward. Posts took too long to write. I had no content ideas. Most posts sounded cringe. I skipped posting all the time.

So I built a tool for myself.

Now it’s a product: Viralbuddy.io

It’s for early-stage founders and marketers who want to grow on LinkedIn without wasting hours.

It helps with:

Ideas: I scraped a library of viral LinkedIn posts and structured them. You can use them as-is or regenerate them with AI for your audience.

Writing: I spent a lot of time refining prompts using OpenAI and Claude. Posts are tailored to your goal (clients, investors, team, etc.) and follow a solid hook–body–CTA format.

Content creation: I built image and carousel generation using Recraft to save time and avoid design bottlenecks.

Now I post 3–5 times a week. My network grows by 300–500 people monthly. I’ve gotten beta users, partner intros, and even investor meetings — all through personal posts.

It’s not a magic bullet. You still need to show up and write honestly. But it helps.

How it’s built:

Scraping viral post data: Apify

Content generation: OpenAI (ChatGPT API) + Claude (Anthropic)

Image & carousel generation: Recraft

Frontend: basic onboarding logic + prompt flow in JS

Landing page: WordPress, set up with a $50 template + $50/year hosting

I’d love feedback, questions, or criticism. Happy to share how I built the prompt logic, YouTube summarizer, or the post structuring method.

Thanks!