How Louis built two profitable apps and reached a $1.5M valuation in 3 months

Meet Louis Lesavre.

Louis is 35, based in the south of France 🍷, working remotely for a few years while raising his two girls.

He has spent over 15 years in tech across the U.S. and France with roles at companies such as Nissan, Toyota, and Renault in autonomous vehicle technology and later at Ledger in crypto.

Louis is passionate about user experience, and as a skateboarder at heart, he has always been driven to carve his own path.

He did just that building StackNinja and AI Leads.

The story told by Louis Lesavre

These days I’m focused on building a portfolio of apps that let me move around with my family, push my limits, and shape my own future. I work alone. Doing everything myself.

I want to share how I arrived here, how I taught myself to code, built StackNinja and Ai Leads, and even turned down a $1,500,000 valuation offer after only three months in.

The turning point

After years in big tech and crypto, I realized something important: building great tech is only half the battle. The other half is getting it into the hands of people who need it.

I’d seen countless projects stall, features die, and brilliant solutions vanish because of poor marketing or weak user connection.

When I left the corporate world, I wanted to build something where I could apply both my tech experience and my growth mindset. I wanted to help businesses and individuals with tools I genuinely believed in while working remotely, spending time with my kids, enjoying life in the south of France, and keeping that skateboarder mentality: agile, fearless, and always learning new tricks.

StackNinja, a personal wellness vision

My first product, StackNinja, was born out of frustration with the chaos of the wellness and supplement industry. Too many generic claims, too little personalization.

StackNinja is an AI-driven personal wellness platform that empowers individuals to build customized supplement and lifestyle stacks based on their blood biomarker data, health goals, and scientific research.

It integrates lab results and provides precise, evidence-based recommendations for nutrition, sleep, stress, recovery, and longevity.

I started building StackNinja from scratch in May 2025 with zero professional coding experience. I learned JavaScript, brushed up on DevOps, and began iterating fast.

StackNinja went live on August 25th, 2025, and got its first three paying users on launch day.

Then growth plateaued. Despite product improvements, traction slowed. A great product isn’t enough. You also need a system to reach your audience.

Learning growth the hard way

I should have known better, but I made the classic indie hacker mistake: thinking “the product is great, people will come”.

They didn’t.

I posted a few times on social media (examples below) but got little traction.

I was posting to people I knew, who were indie hackers themselves and the impact was absolutely null.

What I was missing was small business lead generation, lead enrichment, and a proper lead generation pipeline.

That’s when I discovered the power of niche communities on Reddit (example post below), Facebook Groups, and LinkedIn forums.

Which of these supplements is worth actually having for better erection strength / lower refractory / higher libido? (Reddit)

Real people, real discussions, real opportunities. I learned how to sell on Reddit, not by spamming, but by adding value first, answering questions, and subtly positioning my product.

I realized Reddit marketing, Facebook group marketing, and B2B lead generation on LinkedIn weren’t just tactics. They were scalable ways to build trust and reach real users.

That’s how the idea for Ai Leads was born.

How I automated lead generation

Ai Leads, my second product launched on November 1st, 2025.

Ai Leads is an AI-powered inbound lead generation platform that turns niche communities into customers. It automates Reddit marketing, Facebook group marketing, and B2B lead generation on LinkedIn to build a powerful lead generation pipeline.

It gives users a content roadmap, human-like AI posts, and real-time lead enrichment while boosting visibility across AI-powered search engines. It streamlines digital marketing and lead generation, competes with top lead generation companies, and offers lead generation automation and outsourcing-style power at a fraction of the cost.

When I tested Ai Leads to promote StackNinja, the results blew me away.

Without spending a cent on ads, I got five paid trials and inbound interest from several mid-sized companies asking when the Pro plan would launch.

Ai Leads saw 300 visitors on day one, all organic.

I knew I had built something real.

Why these products exist together

From autonomous vehicles to crypto, I learned two key lessons.

1. Build for the user because great UX is everything.

2. Growth must be designed in, because even the best product dies in silence.

StackNinja embodies the first lesson with intuitive design, transparent science, and a human touch. Ai Leads embodies the second with automation, visibility, and scalability.

Together, they form my ecosystem and a self-reinforcing growth engine.

More marketing

I’m bootstrapping both products, focusing on SEO, community marketing, and automation rather than ads.

In terms of search engine optimization I’m heavily invested in programmatic SEO. I have a script running that posts a new blog post every day around my keywords.

I am also planning to build free tools and I am positioning content all over niche social media platforms (using AI Leads) which is the heart of my GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) strategy.

As mentioned Reddit became my secret weapon. Now I’m doubling down on Medium, Substack, and soon YouTube to share the journey.

I am at the start on Medium and Substack. I still need to automate content creation on these plateforms with AI Leads.

Currently I am writting manual blog posts.

The numbers so far

Below is a PostHog graph of the last 90 days traffic for StackNinja.

The spike is for my launch on TinyLaunch, then the trough and plateau until I started using AI Leads to advertise on Reddit (mostly).

Below is my DataFast graph of my prelaunch performance with AI Leads.

Very limited marketing so far and still got $49 in revenue, traffic, many signups, and a lot of feedback. Looks very promising 🙂

I’ve also seen solid DR (Domain Rating) progress for AI Leads. It went from 0 to 26 in about a week's time, which is amazing (to circle back to my focus on SEO).

Saying “No” to VC money and why

Something unexpected happened recently: my little startup was valued at $1,500,000.

A VC reached out with a pre-seed offer, and I said no.

Here’s why:

• I ventured into indie hacking to have full ownership of my products. After 15 years building software for others, I’m betting entirely on myself now.

• Any pre-seed deal will undervalue what your project could become if you’re driven. That’s normal since VCs take on high risk early. But if you don’t need capital to start, it’s wise to refuse. Leave ego aside.

• My goal is to build a diversified portfolio of apps, not pour everything into one bet. Raising funds means being accountable for someone else’s time, and I value freedom more than speed.

• StackNinja is already on track to be worth over 1.5 million dollars, and I’m embracing bootstrapping to experience the journey fully.

• I’m now developing Ai Leads, a B2B app designed to automate the sales of StackNinja by leveraging niche communities like Reddit, Facebook Groups, LinkedIn, and others.

Saying no to the VC round doesn’t mean I’ll never raise funds, but for now, staying free feels right.

That’s the beauty of indie hacking. You choose your path.

Connect with Louis Lesavre

You can connect with Louis on X, or subscribe to his YouTube channel. He is sharing the full indie hacker journey, bootstrapping, experimenting, automating, failing, learning, and building freedom.