38 willing to pay customers isn't quite the same as 38 paying customers. Instead of spending a week getting ~$400 worth* of obligation-free commitments it would

38 willing to pay customers isn't quite the same as 38 paying customers. Instead of spending a week getting ~$400 worth* of obligation-free commitments it would have been better putting the time towards a working prototype. Then find a small beta group -> iterate -> release & sell -> iterate & update. Soliciting opinion on a problem you want to solve can be extremely valuable, but it sounds like the author already knew more than enough to put together a 1.0 version. This is a problem I've had for a number of years. While working on personal projects, commercial or otherwise, I always had a tendency to allow all the peripheral matters (names, websites, logos, mailing lists, teasers) to take time away from the only one that was really important - building the thing and getting it into the hands of testers and users. Nowadays I make it my number one priority to build a minimally working prototype of whatever I'm trying to solve. By the time I have that then it's usually clear whether the idea will go anywhere, and if it does I have a prototype to iterate on and give to small number of people for further feedback. If your idea and implementation are good this can generate far more interest and potential sales than showing around a mockup with a vague release date. (*I'm sure that blog post is an attempt to garner interest, much like posting it on HN, so of course it may have more extrinsic value than just 38 potential purchases.)