I wasnāt trying to break the rulesāI was just trying to survive.
A few months ago, I had $15 in my bank account, a toddler to take care of, and the gnawing feeling that I was running out of options. I live in a place where opportunities donāt come easy. Payments are hard to collect, tools and platforms are geo-restricted, and even when you have talent, the global market feels just out of reach.
But one thing I knew for sure? Social media is where the money is. Specifically, š (formerly Twitter). Brands, creators, marketersāthey all need to get their message out, and I saw an opportunity there.
The problem was, nobody had cracked the code for scaling outreach effectively.
Thatās where my story begins.
Iām a developer by trade, so when the idea hit me, I spent days obsessing over it. What if there was a way to target leads on š with absolute precision? What if you could find the exact people whoād want to buy what youāre selling and message them all in one go? No spam, no guessingājust a clean, focused strategy.
So I rolled up my sleeves, opened my laptop, and started building.
The process wasnāt glamorousālots of trial and error, late nights, and caffeine-fueled coding sessions. I had no budget, no team, and no resourcesājust determination and a problem I was hell-bent on solving. After a few months of pushing myself to the limit, I finally had something: a tool that could scrape millions of profiles from š and automate personalized outreach.
At first, I wasnāt sure if it would work. But when I tested it on a small campaign, the results blew my mind. In just days, I saw conversions that Iād never thought were possible. People started responding. Deals started closing. The tool worked.
I knew I had something big on my hands, so I decided to package it and sell licenses to marketers, agencies, and creators. I set the price high because I believed in the value it providedā$4,997 for a license. And to my surprise, people were willing to pay. Within weeks, I sold dozens of licenses.
And then the floodgates opened.
By the time summer hit, Iād sold hundreds of licenses and made over $500K. It wasnāt just a tool anymoreāit was a movement. People started posting about how the tool helped them close deals, grow their businesses, and dominate their niches. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was winning.
But then came the storm.
In November, I woke up to an email from šās legal teamāa cease-and-desist letter. And it wasnāt just a slap on the wrist; it was a 13-page document outlining every way Iād violated their Terms of Service and federal laws. They accused me of unauthorized data scraping, breaking the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and other things I couldnāt even pronounce.
They even quoted my tweets, where I (foolishly) bragged about the toolās capabilities:
- āScraping 2M profiles a day with sniper precision.ā
- āSold $100K in licenses this month. Illegal? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely.ā
I wonāt lieāit shook me. Iād built something that was genuinely helping people, but it had also crossed some serious lines.
They banned my account, shut down my API access, and threatened me with further legal action if I didnāt stop immediately. It felt like the end of the road.
But hereās the thing: I donāt regret a second of it.
That cease-and-desist wasnāt just a threatāit was proof that Iād built something powerful enough to get the attention of one of the biggest companies in the world. It validated everything Iād been working toward.
Sure, I canāt share testimonials or public social proof because of legal restrictions, but the numbers speak for themselves: Hundreds of licenses sold, $500K in revenue, and countless businesses transformed.
Now, Iām pivoting. The tool as it was might be dead, but the vision isnāt. Iām working on new ways to help businesses grow, focusing on strategies that work within the rules but still deliver game-changing results.
The journey hasnāt been easy, but if thereās one thing Iāve learned, itās this: Sometimes, the only way to make a real impact is by stepping outside the lines.
So, to anyone out there grinding, building, and hustlingādonāt let fear hold you back. The world rewards boldness.
This isnāt the end of my story. Itās just the beginning.
