Solo founder from Helsinki, building AI travel tools, launching on PH July 22
Hey everyone. I'm Satchmo, indie founder based in Helsinki, Finland. Been building Sujova (sujova.com) for the past several months, an AI trip planner built specifically for couples and small groups. The idea came from a trip to Riga, Latvia where planning in a group Whatsapp thread nearly broke us.
Built it solo with Lovable, no coding background. Live product, Paddle payments, localized in English, Finnish, and Spanish. First real user feedback came from a Finnish woman who used it on a road trip through Norway and Finland and sent me an unsolicited testimonial.
Targeting July 22 for my PH launch. Still learning the distribution side of things, which is honestly harder than building. Happy to be here and looking forward to learning from people who've been through it.
Replies
Welcome, Satchmo!
I smiled at the WhatsApp group story because that's exactly how a lot of great products start—solving a frustration you've experienced yourself.
I'm also a solo founder, and I completely relate to your point about distribution being harder than building. Wishing you a successful launch on July 22. Looking forward to seeing Sujova on Product Hunt!
@deebuilds Thanks! Yeah, that Riga WhatsApp group was the moment I thought 'there has to be a better way.' What are you building?
@satchmo_saunders Thanks! I'm building Unblank.
It helps people prepare for important conversations, stay on track when the pressure is on, and improve afterward with feedback. The idea came from realizing how many people blank out in interviews, sales calls, presentations, and other high-stakes conversations.
Still early, but it's been a fun problem to work on. Good luck with your July launch. I hope it goes really well!
@deebuilds Unblank sounds like it solves a genuinely painful moment, everyone knows that blank-out feeling. Thanks for sharing, good luck with it!
Hi Satchmo!! This is Omkar from India. Honestly as soon as I read your post I saw myself writing a similar post may be 1 week from now because I am also building something solo, completely non technical background and just using chatGPT and Lovable to build an app to solve a problem which I experience and have seen around me. I am 80% done building my product and launch and distribution is something what my next challenge will be, which is already giving me chills. i would love to learn from you and your invaluable experiences
@omkar_zori My apologies for the slow reply, I somehow missed a whole batch of comments on this thread, there weren't even any notifications about these.
Your path sounds almost identical to mine, non technical background, Lovable, building for a problem you've lived. That combination can work better than people expect.
I won't pretend to have distribution figured out, I'm launching tomorrow and still learning it in real time. But one lesson that keeps hitting me from every direction is: don't wait until the product feels finished to talk to people who have the problem. Find where they already complain about it, learn how they solve it today, and get a few of them into the real workflow before launch. I did this later than I should have, and it's the one thing I'd move earlier if I started again.
Building gives you visible progress every day. Distribution feels unpredictable by comparison, but starting the conversations early shrinks the fear a lot.
Happy to compare notes as we both go, what are you building? And when are you launching? I'll keep an eye out for it.
Sujova is positioned around group / couple planning, but your strongest evidence so far looks more like single-planner or one-traveler feedback.
That road trip testimonial is valuable, but it doesn’t yet prove the shared planning workflow.
So I’d separate two groups:
Supporters:
people who will support, comment, or upvote on launch day.
Validation users:
people who actually have an upcoming trip and are willing to create, edit, share, and plan with someone else inside Sujova.
Those two signals shouldn’t be mixed.
A few concrete places where the validation user profile already appears:
A couple planning a 3–4 day summer road trip from Chicago, with mixed preferences and safety/comfort as part of the planning.https://www.reddit.com/r/roadtrip/comments/1ufqk8o/thinking_of_a_roadtrip_with_my_partner/
That’s useful because a generic itinerary may miss context that matters to both travelers.
A large family planning a Europe trip with 9 adults and 3 children.
That’s useful because the hard part is not only destination ideas, but turning many constraints into a plan the group can discuss.https://www.reddit.com/r/travel/comments/1u6n75t/large_family_trip_to_europe_tell_me_where_to_go/
For each one, I wouldn’t ask “do you like AI trip planners?”
I’d ask:
are you planning this alone or together;
what tool are you using now;
would you use a shared editable itinerary;
would the second person actually comment, edit, or approve anything;
would you come back to the plan 24–48 hours later.
If people only generate one itinerary and leave, Sujova may be closer to an AI itinerary generator.
If they edit, share, discuss, and come back with another person involved, that’s a much stronger signal that the group planning workflow is real.
@riceroad I only just saw this, and I wish I'd caught it sooner because it's the most useful comment anyone has left me on here.
You're right, the road trip testimonial proves Sujova can improve a travel experience, but it doesn't by itself validate the shared planning workflow. Those are different signals and I'd been treating them as one.
It's got me thinking about which behaviors would actually demonstrate collaborative value.. Did a second traveler join? Did they compare preferences, comment, edit, or influence the itinerary? Did either person return to the plan later? Did Sujova replace part of the WhatsApp or spreadsheet process they were using before?
I've recently included an additive/funnel, Trip Alignment, into Sujova for exactly this. Travelers answer separately, compare their preferences, and turn the combined result into a trip plan. But the next challenge isn't showing the feature exists. It's finding couples and groups with real upcoming trips and observing whether both people actually participate.
Your point helped me separate encouraging feedback from evidence of the specific behavior Sujova is built around, so thank you for making it concrete!
One question back to you: Would you count a second traveler completing the alignment step as a meaningful early validation signal, or would you only count activity after the shared itinerary exists?