SaaSGuard: Anti-Bot Launch Shield for Indie Builders

First 200 users, then I had to deal with 300 bots

First 200 users, then I had to deal with 300 bots

That bot wave is a useful signal, even though it is annoying: the product crossed from "people are curious" into "the system has something worth extracting." For AI/coding-agent products, I would separate this into two problems. First: abuse control without killing real onboarding. I would avoid putting every new user through heavy friction immediately. Start with softer controls like email verification, per-account compute/workspace limits, rate limits by IP/device/email domain/OAuth identity, delayed access to expensive model actions, and suspicious-signup queues instead of hard blocks. Second: cost and trust boundaries. If the product can trigger Claude/OpenCode runs, the abuse surface is not just spam accounts. It is compute spend, repo access, prompt injection, and tool misuse. I would make the default new account sandboxed until it has a small amount of trusted activity. The metrics I would watch: signup to first successful run, first-run cost, accounts per IP/device/domain, failed auth or repeated workspace creation, model/tool calls per new account, and support tickets from legitimate users blocked by controls. The mistake is reacting with one giant wall: mandatory waitlists, heavy KYC, or broad bans. That protects cost but kills learning. A better early-stage setup is progressive trust: low-friction signup, low initial limits, higher limits after verified usage, manual review only for suspicious patterns, and clear audit logs for every expensive or external action. If you keep the first 200 real users moving while making bots uneconomical, you turn the abuse event into a reliability milestone instead of just a fire drill.