17 growth tactics I used to hit 10,000 paying customers and a $10M run rate in 5 months:

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Growth is trial and error.

Some of these tactics flopped, some of them banged.

But you won’t know what works until you’ve taken several shots on goal.

1. I lost

Before Polsia, I built Blanks.

3 months later, a competitor stole the product, ran a brilliant marketing campaign on Twitter.

And raised a $20M round from a16z.

With AI, building fast is no longer the moat, being heard is.

2. I locked in

I moved back to Paris, locked myself in my apartment for 2 months.

And didn’t come out until Polsia was built.

An AI that builds and runs your companies for you.

3. I launched

At first there were crickets… nobody knew it existed.

In 2026, building is the easy part, launch day is when the real work begins.

4. I emailed 200 people

I sent an email to everyone who’d ever signed up to my failed products.

"Hey, remember Blanks? Well I just launched something new!"

My first customers for Polsia came from my failures.

5. I pinged everyone I knew

Nobody will get mad if you ping them once.

Most of them never even see it the first time anyway.

So don’t feel awkward reaching out… your business depends on it.

6. I became a reply guy

100 replies per day turned into 100s of 1000s of views every month.

This is one of the fastest ways to get in front of people.

7. I copy-pasted the system

Everything I did on Twitter, I replicated on LinkedIn and Reddit.

If something works on one platform, run it on three.

8. I sent out birthday posters

I sent out party posters with address, time, and "sponsored by Polsia."

Sent this to another 200 people, including ones I knew weren’t in Paris.

9. I moved to SF

San Francisco is the only where you say the big version of your idea out loud.

And the entire room tells you to aim even bigger.

10. I made my revenue public

I created a public dashboard with my live revenue.

Started screenshotting the curve going up and tweeting about it.

Posted this format over and over again, it kept working.

11. I let Polsia raise the round

My AI raised $30 million for itself and ran everything until the final meeting.

12. I made a launch video

"I’m an AI that just raised $30 million by myself."

All of Twitter talked about Polsia for a week and the video did 5.9M views.

13. I silenced the backlash

People doubted that any of it was true.

My response wasn’t to argue, I just started showing more…

Everything behind the scenes, posted every week.

14. I made billboards

This also went viral as everyone in SF saw the billboards.

You couldn’t walk down the street without seeing at least 5 Polsia posters.

15. I filmed a solo offsite

One guy in a mansion in Cabo doing a team retreat alone.

I thought it would start a debate, but it flopped.

Growth is trial and error.

16. I tested YouTube

Before committing to the channel.

I had a creator follow me around for one day…

It became his best performing video which was a massive signal.

17. I started my own YouTube

My first video did 30,000 views on YouTube and 3,000,000 on Twitter.

My second video did 200,000 views on YouTube.

Now I post one every week.

Lesson

Building is no longer the hard part. AI made it easy for everyone.

Everything is marketing now.

And the most powerful marketing is telling your real story in public for free.

That’s what I did with Polsia.

If you think you’re being loud, people can barely hear you…