4 ms·
Not impossible, but the asymmetry is brutal. You can ship anything in weeks, and nobody will find it. The thing nobody tells you up front: "build it and they wi
by davidamoroso 6mo ago
Not impossible, but the asymmetry is brutal. You can ship anything in weeks, and nobody will find it. The thing nobody tells you up front: "build it and they will come" was true in 2005 and hasn't been true since 2015. Distribution is the whole game. Every product idea should be evaluated partly on "can I distribute this without buying ads," because most solo devs can't sustain paid acquisition and paid acquisition with a weak funnel just burns cash anyway.
- obayesshelton 6mo agoThis is so relevant for me at the moment. Built a product about 12 months ago, pivoted slightly about 6 months ago. Had some decent traffic but it has been a serious grind. I'm doing a few more tweaks to the product then I am going to leave it running in the background for a while. I need to build something that solved a real genuine problem
- bruce511 5mo ago>> build it and they will come" was true in 2005 and hasn't been true since 2015. It wasn't true in 2005. It wasn't true in 1995. It's never been true. I joined a fledgling industry in the mid 90s. There were some established names. (Established in those days meant your ad appeared in a trade magazine a couple times a year.) My offering was good, maybe even very good. I advertised in the same places and sales were ok. (Without the advertising it would have been nil.) I started traveling to do in-person demos at conferences, user groups and so on. Sales rocketed up, and stayed up. I won simply by taking the time to market a different way. By meeting prospective customers in person. In many ways they responded to the marketing effort, not the product. Obviously today marketing channels are different. But the approach is the same. Marketing matters. And the mouse trap thing? It was never true.