Wall spent over $500,000 building a licensed cannabis grow in Hollister, California — including 150 high-end grow lights and commercial HVAC — only to have the property rezoned and his license voided before a single plant was grown. It was a common scam: local officials took money and then pulled permits.
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After recreational legalization in California, Wall makes a serious attempt to go legitimate. He finds a Hollister barn through a city council referral, installs 150 Gavita grow lights, commercial HVAC systems, builds a second story — spending over $500,000. The city council had cleared the license. Then, just before the lights go on and plants go in, the property is rezoned inappropriate for cannabis cultivation. Wall is certain the landlord bribed local officials; Calaveras County did the same to many operators. He's hemorrhaging $25,000 a month in rent with no recourse. The experience — combined with watching private equity firms and pharmaceutical executives colonize the legal cannabis space — kills his belief that the system will ever let him in. He pivots to scaling the illegal pipeline.
Jonathan Wall spent over $500,000 building out a licensed cannabis grow in Hollister, California, only to have the property rezoned and the license effectively revoked before a single plant was grown.
SiteGPT attracted over 1 million visitors and $500K in total revenue without spending a cent on paid marketing. The secret: engineering as marketing — building free tools that rank on Google.
Bhanu quit his first job after just 8 months, moved back to his parents' house to cut costs, and started building. One product sold for $250K; the next hit $10K MRR in its first month.
90% of SiteGPT's Google search traffic comes not from the main product but from ~50 free tools Bhanu built. Each tool targets a low-competition keyword and funnels users back to the paid product.
50,000 monthly visitors become 200 leads, 60 trials, and roughly 15–24 new customers per month at ~$100 average revenue each. Add a $1,700–$1,800 LTV and you have a very healthy SaaS.
Start with a blank Ahrefs search, layer in keyword filters (include term, KD < 10, volume > 1,000), list candidates in Notion, design a CTA linking to your main product, then score by volume, difficulty, build effort, and product relevance. That's the whole playbook.
Marketing feels painful for most builders. Engineering as marketing flips the script: instead of writing cold emails or blog posts, you build things — and those things rank on Google forever.
Don't spend months perfecting before launch. Ship the core feature, get real users, and let their feedback dictate the product roadmap. Premature polish is a trap.
SiteGPT launched and hit $10,000 MRR within its first month. That momentum was so overwhelming that Bhanu sold his existing SaaS, Feather, for $250,000 to free up all his time.
PropGPT launched with 20 downloads a day and strong influencer marketing but hit a ceiling at $1,000–$2,000 MRR. High download numbers masked a critical flaw: almost nobody stuck around after the free trial ended.
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