Great story! I've got a couple of questions for you.
Firstly, when you were sending those DMs, did you use personal branding or company branding?
And secondly, if it was company branding, did you face any risk of your company account getting banned for spamming? Or did you maintain a separate Twitter account solely for promotional purposes?
By the way, congratulations on your new venture! I wish you the utmost success. Cheers!
Why do people use Toptal if LinkedIn exists?
This solution reminds me of Toptal but it's focused on Lavarel developers.