Why I optimize when I should be scaling: the rejection loop
just listed Lotiam on Crunchbase, set up Apollo.io, and sent 17 personalized cold emails to Amsterdam hostels.
but I'm going to be honest: I'm scared of rejection.
so instead of waiting for responses and pushing harder, I keep going back to the code. "this feature will be better," "this UX needs polish," "let me optimize this." it feels productive. it's not.
it's avoidance.
the real blockers aren't technical:
- LinkedIn account permanently banned
- TikTok shadowbanned with 0 organic views after months of daily videos
- Google Ads never worked (finally figured out the tracking issue)
- no clue how to actually distribute a location app at scale
so I pivoted to B2B instead of fighting those walls. that part was right.
but now I'm in reverse: I improve code instead of pushing through the silence while I wait for hostel replies. silence feels like failure. improvement feels like progress.
neither is true.
the hard part isn't building Laura, OnFoot and Triply. it's staying in the market conversation long enough to not give up.
so: sent the emails, set the system (Apollo follow-ups), and now I have to sit with the discomfort instead of disappearing into code.
if you've been here — scared, optimizing instead of shipping, isolated from channels that should work — I want to hear what pulled you out of it.
lotiam.dev
17 hostel emails sitting there. then the code. scared of the silence.
I hid there too when cold went quiet. more thinking didn't pull me out.
cutting that down did. the replies still didn't come.
Thanks for this — it's exactly where I'm at right now. Still zero replies. I keep wanting to go "fix" the emails again instead of just letting the batch sit and do its job. Trying to sit with the silence instead of editing it away.
17 emails is not rejection, it is a sample too small to tell you anything, and it feels like rejection because you made replies the goal instead of sends. Move the metric to something you fully control: 20 logged outbound touches a day whether or not anyone answers, and let reply rate be an output rather than a scoreboard. For hostels specifically I would stop emailing and walk into ten of them in Amsterdam, because a front desk manager saying no to your face gives you more product information in five minutes than 100 ignored emails.
Fair point on the sample size — 17 isn't data, it's a first pass. I'm resetting the goal to sends/touches, not replies, so I stop treating silence as a verdict.
On walking in cold, though — I'm in the Netherlands, and just showing up unannounced at a hostel front desk isn't really how business works here; it can come across as pushy rather than direct. So I built the ask into the email itself: each one already asks for a short in-person intro. If that doesn't move, my next lever is a warmer local contact, not a cold walk-in.
I know this loop. Code gives you instant proof that you did something; outreach makes you wait and feel judged. I now do one uncomfortable distribution task before opening the editor. It doesn’t make rejection fun, but it stops the product backlog becoming a hiding place.
This is the part that got me too. Coding gives you a visible result in an hour; outreach gives you nothing for days and it's easy to read that as a verdict on the work. Doing the uncomfortable task first, before opening the editor, is a good rule — going to try that.
The thing that pulled me out wasn't a better feature — it was shrinking the ask until silence stopped feeling like a verdict.
17 personalized emails is a start, not a sample. The rejection loop kicks in because the batch is small enough that each non-reply feels personal, so you go polish UX. I'd cap coding to a timer (90 minutes, then stop) and run the next 30 outreaches before touching the repo. Same hostel list is fine; change only the first line so it names their booking problem, not your app.
Also don't wait on email alone. Find 10 hostel managers already complaining about no-shows, walk-ins, or channel managers in Facebook groups or Reddit, and talk to them like research, not a demo. One conversation beats another deploy. The discomfort is the work; the code is the hiding place — you already named that. Sit in the follow-up, not the refactor.
Good reframe — shrinking the ask so silence doesn't feel personal makes sense, and I'll keep the batch small and steady rather than judging each one.
Same as I said to Gregory: cold walk-ins aren't really how this works where I am (Netherlands), so I built the in-person ask directly into the email instead of skipping straight to a drop-in visit. If the emails go nowhere, my next move is finding a warmer way in — a shared contact or local intro — rather than showing up cold.
Talking to hostel managers as research and not a pitch is the right instinct though — I'll keep that framing even inside the email thread once someone replies.
The B2B pivot seems like the important move here.
Curious whether the first hostel responses are giving you signal on the market itself, or mainly on how to approach the buyer.
Honestly, too early to say — zero replies so far, so I don't have signal on either yet. My guess is it'll show up as "how to approach the buyer" first, since 17 emails is too small a sample to tell me anything about the market itself. I'll know more once a few actually reply.
That makes sense. I’ll be interested to see what the first few replies reveal once you have enough signal to separate the two.
Will do — I'll report back once a few replies actually come in. Appreciate you following the thread.