“I have a really cool idea you just just and car andd by the way just give them a shout out totally cool with it uh send me a bunch of free credits like they emailed me three or four times after the fact like hey what's going on we never you know we hav never heard anybody trying to use AI with this yet we're really interested”

Ask data providers for free indie-hacker credits

Email the data-API gatekeepers in your niche directly with an honest one-liner: "It's just me, here's the idea, send free credits, you get the shout-out." Most enterprise providers have never been asked by a solo founder — Carfax replied to Andrew four times. The ask costs nothing and is the only way through a $70K paywall to validate an AI-powered SaaS.