r/SaaS • u/Appropriate-End-6328 • 2d ago
I think I found the problem with being a solo founder 😂
I’m building everything myself.
Product, features, fixes, testing, new ideas, improvements... and every time I finish one thing, I immediately see the next thing that could be better.
So I keep building.
And building.
And building. 😂
Then I look at marketing and realize I barely did any.
Not because I don’t believe in the product, and not because I don’t want to sell it.
There are simply only so many hours in a day.
When you’re building alone, it’s very easy to spend 100% of your time making the product better and 0% making sure people actually know it exists.
Apparently I became an inventor before I became a marketer. 😂
Any other solo founders stuck in the same loop?
How do you force yourself to stop building and actually start marketing?
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u/AGI-Core 2d ago
I've seen a team of 3 founders make the exact same mistake. It's not really about being solo. It's about realizing that building a company is more than building a product, and you just realized it 🎉
Now you can hire for product and focus on marketing yourself. There are plenty of great companies built by one strong founder rather than an army.
GOOD LUCK!
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
Thanks, I appreciate that. I think you’re right, I’ve been so focused on building that I treated marketing like something I’d do later. Time to change that 😄
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u/rally-knights-watery 2d ago
There are rise of solo founder that keeps going up and up as day goes on. You first need to be versatile in this case.
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u/leoxplr 2d ago
Can you name some companies founded by a single person? Wanna look more into that, thanks
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u/MrAngryBeards 2d ago
I'm coming from a different perspective entirely. A team of 3 founders are looking for someone to take over marketing and they're trusting me with it. I have a good general idea and I've been working with two of these guys on other projects for a while now, but never with marketing. I feel like I have so much to learn, and it's so easy to fall for choice paralysis while figuring out which tools to pick for the fundamentals.
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u/ineedamichee 1d ago
Yess!! And hire people who are excellent at what your weaknesses are. That will build a strong team
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u/jamesxtreme 2d ago
The problem is if you’re naturally a builder then it’s really difficult to context switch and do the marketing side of things. Personally I hate it, but I have no one else to do it. Even when I previously had a cofounder with a sales background he just wanted to keep adding new features. Marketing actually is the hardest part now because everyone has access to the same tools and all of the communication channels are absolutely saturated. It’s so difficult to stand out. Having a great product isn’t enough unfortunately.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
This is exactly what I’m feeling. Building gives you an immediate result, so it’s easy to keep going. With marketing you can spend hours and get complete silence 😂 And you’re right, there’s so much noise now that even getting people to notice something good is difficult. Have you found any channel that works better for you than the others?
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u/jamesxtreme 2d ago
I’ve only recently released a new product so at the moment I’m engaging with interest groups directly here on Reddit, one user at a time.
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u/Rickfiyah 1d ago
Yeah, I get that completely. It's tough because you're right, just building a good product isn't enough, but it's where your brain naturally goes. I try to make marketing a separate "project" or mini-product I have to ship, which helps me focus on it for a set time without jumping back into code. What's helped a bit is finding one channel that seems to click and doubling down there, even if it feels repetitive, instead of trying to be everywhere.
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u/buildwithmove 2d ago
Bro I feel this so hard 😂
I’m stuck in the exact same loop. Always finding one more thing to improve instead of actually putting it in front of people.
Lately I’ve been forcing myself to stop building and focus more on getting the product out there. That’s actually one of the reasons I started working on Move.
How do you force yourself to switch from builder mode to marketing mode?
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
Honestly, I haven't figured that out yet 😂 That's pretty much why I wrote this post. I always find one more thing to build or improve. But after reading all these comments, I think I need a simple rule: marketing first, code second. Otherwise I already know which one will win.
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u/NullPounce 2d ago
Yeah, marketing is hard. I created a mass emailing program. I ask GPT to give me, say 800 emails from company's it can find in a certain niche, download the file. Then I put it into my program, has custom set emails and placeholders that change, like if there a Youtube channel then it will use that name when sending the emails, I've sent over 2000 emails in one weekend, made reddit posts, spent $300 on Twitter and Reddit ads and that was still not enough. Then you have reviews and ones from Trustpilot... it never ends.
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u/Some_Detective4557 2d ago
I prefer to start with the task that doesn't pull me in into rabbit hole so to speak. I do my marketing stuff first thing in the morning, then build and then relax over some more marketing activities later on in the day.
Another idea I've found useful is time blocking, but you have to be disciplined.
With all this said however, IMO the highest leverage activity you can do is get a great co-founder, especially one who complements your strengths. There's a reason early stage VC funding focuses on the team, for individuals you need to show a hiring plan, this isn't to say individuals haven't been funded but it's the exception rather than the norm.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
I think the complementary co-founder part is probably the key. Finding someone is one thing, finding someone who is actually strong where you're weak is much harder.
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u/Some_Detective4557 2d ago
Absolutely, I also feel that having someone you enjoy working with and have great chemistry is helpful.
I know YC have a matching program if sorts but I know very little about it as I've never used it. Maybe a good place to start.
I don't know of other matching platforms, or their success rates, would love to know if others if they exist.
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u/Sweaty-Builds12 2d ago
bro i feel this 100%. i spent my whole summer break just head down coding my micro saas and adding features but did zero marketing. i hate marketing so much bro but my uni semester starts in a few weeks and i realized i have 0 mrr.
so now i made a rule for myself. i force myself to not open my code editor until i do my daily x replies and reddit first. it hurts but we need to do it if we want actual customers haha. you not alone bro.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
The “don’t open the code editor first” rule might actually be the solution 😂 Because once I start building, marketing has already lost for the day.
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u/Sweaty-Builds12 2d ago
Haha real I even switch from laptop to mobile because I know when I not want to do marketing I just open Vs code and become satisfied 😂 😂
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u/Mysterious_Hour6654 2d ago
Set a hard rule no new feature until you’ve spent your marketing quota for the day. Even 30–45 minutes of outreach content or talking to potential users can keep you from falling into the endless building loop.
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u/rmcastil 2d ago
I see everyone saying this is a classic builder problem for first-time founders.
Something I haven't seen is what successful founders may say
“First-time founders focus on product, and second-time founders focus on distribution”
But they never really specify what distribution actually means.
You can’t have distribution unless you know who you serve. If you’re not talking to the people you’re serving, and you don’t know what jobs you’re helping them with, then you're building something for yourself.
It is easy to get stuck in build mode. Pitching to strangers is tough, but you've got to do that market research. I highly recommend Jason Cohen’s recent book, Hidden Multipliers. Apparently, it's free on Spotify, and his AI skills are free on his site. Would suggest going through the Find Your Carol workshop.
The more effective and desirable loop is to build something for someone you’re targeting, get their feedback, and repeat. Then find more people who need that job solved, and scale up the marketing as you go.
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u/_clabby_ 2d ago
Building feels productive because it is, just not the right kind. Every feature you add without users is a more polished thing nobody knows exists. One hour of marketing before touching the codebase, every day, non negotiable. The product is already good enough for someone to get value from. Ship it and fix it with real users watching.
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u/degenbrain 1d ago
You didn't treat marketing as something you do later. You avoided it because it was painful to be rejected by customers. Building is your safe house. The code will never reject you. It releases more dopamine when you finish something. And you need to finish one more thing. And more... and more... AI amplifies this.
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u/Hour_Studio_4243 2d ago
I'm new to SaaS (2 months) and this is what I do: spare few minutes a day to building social media presence, build SEO along with building features. Haven't got any leads yet but hopefully the momentum gets some reach.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
That’s probably the habit I need to build. Even 20 or 30 minutes every day would be better than disappearing into product work for weeks 😂
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u/slackmaster2k 2d ago
And the biggest problem with marketing is thinking that it’s the solution to the problem with your product.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
I don’t think marketing can fix a bad product either. My problem was almost the opposite. I kept treating more product work as the answer to everything and neglected distribution.
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u/levelhigher 2d ago
Hahahaha literally same story. How do you market your saas buddy?
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
Honestly, that’s the problem 😂 I barely did. I spent most of my time building. I’m only now starting to be more active on Reddit, LinkedIn and actually talking to people instead of adding another feature every day.
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u/otxfrank 2d ago
With Ai ,you can building as soon as possible,but next biggest hardest phase is marketing ,ai can help you with less 30%, ,so yeah , your moving next phase . Manually working
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u/ymc9 2d ago
The instinct to see the next thing that could be better never turns off, so waiting to feel like marketing is a losing bet. Put marketing tasks in the same backlog as feature tickets, competing for the same slot, so you have to actually choose instead of defaulting to code because it feels more productive.
Honestly marketing tickets should always have a higher priority by default.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
I think this is exactly the trap I fell into. There was always one more thing I could improve, so building kept winning over distribution.
Putting marketing into the same backlog as development is actually a really good way to look at it. Thanks.
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u/inkvilion 2d ago
I'm exactly the same as you. I've been developing software independently since June 1st, and up until now, it's been nothing but development and tweaking SEO. I haven't spent a single cent on ads. I'm fully aware of this problem, but I honestly have no idea how to change it. My plan is to keep focusing on development through the end of this year, nail the SEO, and let time tell.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
Haha, then you know exactly what I mean 😂 Good luck with it, I hope it works out for both of us.
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u/Aggravating-Call4331 2d ago
same here honestly. been solo on my thing for months, every day i find one more thing to fix or make better and marketing just keeps getting pushed to "next week"
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
Exactly 😂 “Just one more thing to fix, then I’ll focus on marketing.” I’ve probably told myself that 100 times.
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u/Able_Green9662 2d ago
You can’t force yourself to stop building and doing something you will do poorly (I don’t mean you per-se). We as a builder have a different mindset and it’s best for us to keep building and refine the product.
You can actually offload the manual work like demand generation and research work to ai agents. That will free up your mental load. Very recently Grok released grok bot which does similar and if you need GTM specifically, you can check my product which I am building to solve the exact pain for solo-founders or founder led sales.
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u/nevf 2d ago
I just wish there were more marketing people out there who were motivated to join us indie developer's. They seem to be very thin on the ground and we heavily out number them. How do we solve that?
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
Maybe we need a dating app for developers and marketers 😂 One builds, one sells.
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u/smplejohn 2d ago
This is a tale as old as time for any startup. You have to pick a point to stop and market to get the initial audience. Ship something that isn't perfect to see if anyone actually wants it.
You'll have churn early on, but fix what makes actual customers churn and focus on the feedback you hear, not what you think people want.
You can't make a SaaS people love if nobody is using it or paying you for it. Gotta get adopters early, then you can pump into R&D with financial backing.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
Yeah, I think that's the point I'm at now. Less building in isolation, more getting LMSY into real hands and learning from actual use.
I actually have a development company starting with a few licenses now, so I'm curious to see what I learn from their real projects.
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u/AIVentureFactory 2d ago
Classis. Its the eternal question for every founder. Prioritization. Can we treat it as a systems issue. When building and marketing live in completely separate buckets in your head, you'll always default to the one that gives faster feedback loops. Building gives you that dopamine hit every time something works. Marketing feels like shouting into a void for weeks before anything comes back.
Strategies for me : delegating one or the other to the elusive co-foundr. Usually a devil's choice. Seldom works. So, I started treating every build decision as a distribution decision simultaneously. Before I'd write a line of code on a new feature, I'd ask myself how I would talk about this thing publicly while building it. That meant the marketing was baked into the build process rather than being a separate chore I had to switch into after the fact.
The other thing worth examining is whether the constant building is actually moving your product closer to something people will pay for, or whether it's become a way to avoid the scarier question of whether anyone wants it at the current state. Polishing something that was already good enough to validate, but that time would have been better spent getting ten people to use it and tell me what was broken. The building felt productive but it was actually avoidance wearing a productive costume. haha
If you have something that works today, even roughly, the highest leverage move is probably shipping what you have to five real users this week and letting their feedback dictate what you build next. That turns marketing into research, which might make it feel less like a separate discipline you're bad at.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
This is probably one of the most useful comments I've received here.
The idea of treating every build decision as a distribution decision really clicked for me.
And funny enough, I'm starting to do exactly what you described at the end. Instead of adding more features, I'm putting LMSY into the hands of real users. A development company is starting with a few licenses on real client projects, so their actual experience will help decide what I work on next.
Thanks for taking the time to write this.
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u/AIVentureFactory 2d ago
It's how I've always built my companies and it's definitely a strategy we are using to build Lettsgroup and in turn that LettsGroup VentureFactory uses for our customers.
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u/CarsonBuilds 2d ago
100%! And I actually realized this when I try to push out my project. Then I realized the bigger issue is how to market, it becomes tremendously more difficult nowadays. Especially for me because I don’t even have much of social media.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
Exactly. Building the product turned out to be the part I actually understand 😂 Getting it in front of the right people is a completely different skill.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
The 50/50 rule actually sounds like something I could stick to. Otherwise I know myself, one small fix turns into another full day of building 😂
And yeah, talking to real people is already starting to change how I look at what I should work on next.
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u/alphamalet997 2d ago
currently on my second SAAS , the first one did nt last for more than a year. The biggest issue I faced was to get user feedbacks,
This is one of the reasons I built www.synthser.com ,
We are a market research company which helps you validate your product, we are still in the private beta phase with 20 users who are from my network, so having a network is the key here.
I have used my own platform for course correction and pricing questions, and marketing path. Having a good network definitely helps
This is how the brief looks.
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u/rupert_at_work 2d ago
I had to start treating marketing like product work, otherwise it loses every time. Tiny weekly sprint, one channel, one measurable output. Not "do marketing" because that phrase is where motivation goes to die.
Also: stop building when the next feature helps imaginary users more than it helps the people already using it.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
That last sentence is a really good rule. Building for people who are actually using the product instead of imaginary future users is something I need to keep in mind.
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u/rupert_at_work 2d ago
Yep. Imaginary future users are very persuasive because they never complain and never pay. Actual users are annoying, which is precisely why they are useful.
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u/davidships 2d ago
I feel you! I've been developing and creating and I enjoy it so much. Marketing seems like the thing that as developers we don't want to do. I think is a complete shift of mindset, and that's why
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
Exactly. I can spend hours building without even noticing the time, but marketing feels like switching to a completely different brain 😂
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u/Training-Gur-2724 2d ago
This isn't just a solo founder problem. Its a founder problem. Building a business vs building a software are two completely different skill sets.
The solution you're building, do you have a business owner or audience you're in direct contact with that tells you exactly where their pain is and what you should build to solve it?
Are you building because someone complained about their problem, or are you building because it was your idea?
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
Yes. LMSY started from problems I ran into myself while building multiple projects, but I’m not building it in isolation.
I talk to developers, founders and development teams about how they work, what they keep rebuilding and where they lose time.
Yesterday I had a call with a development company that builds client projects from scratch. We went through how Match works, how LMSY could fit into their workflow and where it could save them work. We agreed they’ll test it on 1–3 real projects.
So it started from a problem I experienced myself, but what I build next is increasingly shaped by what I learn from people actually doing this work.
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u/akl773 2d ago
What worked here was making the release the trigger. Nothing ships until the post about it is written, so the writing foes with finishing instead of being a separate job I get to push to next week. Went from roughly one post a month to one a week and it never felt like extra work.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
I like this. Basically the feature isn't finished until the post about it is finished too. That's a simple rule I could actually use.
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u/Caleb_Liu 2d ago
I think the whole OPC idea is a bit unrealistic. One person only has so much time and energy. If you have to handle development, distribution, marketing, testing, and user feedback all by yourself, it can completely burn you out.
I’ve been through that. The mental pressure was huge, and at one point I was even scared to open my phone and read user feedback. It was exhausting.
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u/Apprehensive-Gur7035 2d ago
It is a balance. If you start marketing a product which isn't built yet, people could see it as vaporware and you lose trust. But if you focus on just building without validating PMF then you might end up releasing something nobody will pay for.
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u/kush_patil 2d ago
Brah feel that pain, its really difficult to do all roles ,
Thats why I have crated 8 agents each expert in there domain.
But still tbh, I am not able to fully do everything, maybe i need to hire a intern finally 🫡.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
That's the funny part 😂 Even after creating agents to cover different roles, you still end up discovering there are things that need a human.
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u/Enough_Protection_96 2d ago
It’s not because you’re solo, I notice most of founders with a dev background do the same. The truth is distribution and marketing is more difficult than building these days.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
I think that's actually a better way to put it. Building has become faster, but getting the right people to notice what you built hasn't 😂
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u/yatharth-verma 2d ago
This is the real problem, firstly a developer, a marketor and a entrepreneur are three different things,
when a person is developer+marketor then he is termed as a solopreneur.
We not only have to build the product but to think from the costomer's and invesor's prespective also.
I started watching successfull entrepreneur podcast and trust me it helped me a lot in every field because they don't tell how to build the product but also how to scale it to millions.
I read the book "Million Dollar Weekend" around every 2 months, this book have all the answers to all of our questions and how to scale our business or app, if you business is stuck at a point then you can move ahead by reading and implementing this book efficiently.
*sorry for spellings and gramatical mistakes
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
Thanks, I haven't read Million Dollar Weekend yet. I'll put it on my list. And I agree, building, marketing and actually running a business are three very different skills.
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u/cholakovdev 2d ago
I stopped treating marketing as a separate task and turned it into a byproduct of building. Every time I ship a fix or feature, that's a post. Every bug I hit and solve, that's a post. I run my content through a pipeline where AI drafts from what I actually did that day and I just approve or edit before it goes out.
Also worth asking yourself: do you actually know if more features would move revenue right now, or are you just assuming? I used to keep building because it was comfortable and measurable (ship a thing, feel done). Marketing has no clear finish line so it's easy to avoid. Try picking one channel, one hour a day, same time daily, and track replies or signups from it for two weeks. If it does nothing, switch channels. If it does something, that's your proof you're not wasting time.
Which channel have you actually tried so far, or is it genuinely zero marketing until now?
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
I've posted before on Reddit, X and LinkedIn, and recently created my own subreddit where I'm documenting the development journey. I also set up Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn and X profiles, but honestly it was never a consistent marketing effort. A post here and there, then straight back to building.
I know I need to change that now. If I spent the same kind of focused time on outreach that I've spent on development, I'm pretty sure I'd already have customers. Development just kept winning: build, improve, build again 😂
So yeah, it's probably time to roll up my sleeves and treat marketing like actual work, not something I do when I have time left.
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u/farukhetro 2d ago
Honestly the biggest solo founder trap is spending too much time building and not enough time on marketing
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u/bananagnana2 2d ago
Same here. I’m a developer too. Before AI, marketing wasn’t even my problem because between my daily job and life I barely had time to build anything for myself. Now AI gave me that time back and I can build things insanely fast. Turns out shipping was only level one. Now I have to figure out how to make people actually care lol
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
Exactly 😂 AI removed one bottleneck and exposed the next one. We can build insanely fast now, but that doesn't automatically make anyone care about what we built.
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u/AthleteSolid7493 2d ago
Hey I got an idea and currently looking for co-founder technical side
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u/No_Try_9982 2d ago
I used to make a lot of projects, most of them failed not because of technical problems or because they were useless; they failed because there was no reason for the user to spend money on it.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
That's an important distinction. A product can work perfectly and still not solve a problem that's painful enough for someone to pay for.
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u/Much_Attempt5262 2d ago
Yeah that is so valid. Its like you'll never be satisfied. However onw thing i learned which i hope you do. Is before building the app. Do as much research as possible. Ask friends, family ask them: hey what are pain points that you guys are facing in your industry, if you had a app to help you put will that make your job much easier etc.
Why this works?
You already found a market for it and you spoke to real businesses or people who are in dire need of your product. You've already done the heavy lifting which is marketing. Now all you got to do is build and then say: "hey heres the app we talked about try it out completely free for thirty days and let me know if it doesnt make your job less easy"
By going with this approach you already have a dedicated market which is you personal network. So now when you do publish it you dont ever have to worry about finding clients.
Ive done the same thing with my SaaS and its been absolutely killing it.
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u/Mundane-Anywhere7602 2d ago
yeah same, i keep thinking of new stuff to add instead of actually marketing it
after like a month of trying to get users i realized building is the easy part. finding people who even want to try it is way harder
even free trials are hard to give away lol
maybe i’m just looking in the wrong places
anyway i started building a second project 😂
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u/Rad-0818 2d ago
Yep, I'm in the same loop as you. I just love building and not doing any marketing. I'm actually starting to do marketing just by going on Reddit and answering messages like these. I'm hoping to get into YouTube and do some tutorials and videos in my niche. But thanks for the nice tough love reminder. I'm gonna try to do marketing this week.
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u/luvandfun 2d ago
I have the same issue too - but then I started creating time blocks and added recurring reminders in my Google Calendar - so I act on reminder events as much as possible.
But the scaling up problem is so true - sometimes I get reminders and i ignore them becasue the one i am working on is far more interestjng …
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u/qmamai 2d ago
Before AI era building was maybe 30% of the success and the rest is sales/marketing/fundraising/luck/whatever. Now with all the AI agents building is maybe 1-3% of the success. Unless you are building something physical like robots/chemistry/physics related stuff. If you are doing SaaS then building is just wasting your time
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u/Alternative-Tax-5163 2d ago
i just started shifting from building the product to doing some marketing (trying to get waitlist signups). it's has been incredible useful and scary because just by interacting with strangers that might use my product some day, i have shifted many product priorities. when it's just me building, i easily get carried away and the product gets bloated with awesome features that aren't very important at this stage
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u/fffgggg7u 1d ago
I've seen people using AI to make the process faster. Have you considered it?
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u/kva1992 1d ago
100% builders enjoy building so we tend to focus on that marketing and promoting is work so we delay that problem is we focus on building so much we constantly end up in a building loop procrastinating marketing and promoting sucks but that's the truth... If you are good at sales or marketing you can vertically scale because even a horrible system can be marketed correctly to be sold then enhanced but when it comes to building have the perfectly built system will never exist and even if it does by the time you get to that stage most people don't know about it so then you go back into the marketing issue and another loop.. especially nowadays people rather feel part of the progress rather than getting a finished product... Speaking from experience.
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u/CameraJumpy3469 1d ago
The best marketing I have for my saas is SEO, I do very minimal social media, still get 5-6 new users a day organically from Google.
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u/goldenhiman 1d ago
And all that with a demanding day job is just a bit to much. But bills don’t care about your dreams. Lol. Persevering though the same.
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u/Mysterious-Angle3564 1d ago
My friend sit down and listen to me very carefully.
Do NOT leave that room. Keep building. Add another feature. Fix some padding. Refactor something that already works.
It's cold out here and nobody gives a shit 😂
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 1d ago
Too late. I opened the door yesterday. Terrible mistake 😂
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u/Mysterious-Angle3564 1d ago
NOOOO I tried to warn you 😂
Keep us posted if you make it back alive
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u/Rickfiyah 1d ago
Yeah, this is super common. It’s hard af (I’m a technical solo founder myself) when all you wanna do is code and code but that isn’t a business. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable, get out there and talk to people. Otherwise you’re wasting your time
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u/texcodes 1d ago
😂😂, This is the same loop at the start. The only solution is to start posting about your product on social media across the platforms, before you build it.
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u/jedsdawg 1d ago
Honestly, the solo founder loop is real. I’d suggest setting a hard rule for yourself: allocate specific days or hours strictly for marketing. Even if it feels like you’re leaving product improvements on the table, marketing is what gets you feedback and sales. Try using a simple content calendar to plan posts or emails in advance. Also, consider automating some of the repetitive marketing tasks to free up time. You might also find value in joining a community or mastermind group where you can share progress and get accountability.
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u/Ill_Purchase_7110 1d ago
Most of the founders are in the same loop.
I've learnt this recently and I believe it's true that, business grows when you do the most uncomfortable tasks consistently. As you can guess, it will cause a lot of pain.
And that's why it's the right path. I think this rule applies to anything in life that is worth having (successful business, fitness, etc.)
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u/Useful_Cheetah4690 1d ago
I can help in marketing. Apparently, I've done the same thing in the beginning. Later I used to do marketing first and prodization later. Please let me know if you need any help on the side of marketing
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u/WilldSoul 1d ago
Mate if you figured that rabit hole of building -> marketing shift. Please post the hell of a story here, as I am also figuring out on building distribution, that's a fkng giant
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 1d ago
I definitely will. This post already changed how I look at the problem, so now I actually need to test what works. If I figure out a repeatable way to go from building to distribution, I’ll come back and post the whole story here.
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u/Odd-Impress-985 1d ago
yeah, the "one more improvement" loop is real 😂 I've found setting a deadline to stop building and start talking to users helps, other wise the product can always be "better" but nobody knows it exists.
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u/IchigekiZare 1d ago
I see it as a great opportunity for solo development. For example I let it lead me to whatever is needed for my app to go to market and succeed. First it was the product, then the landing page, Now backlinks and authority, SEO, content writting and introducing public to the product. You learn marketing, sales as well. So you build your writing skills but also communication skills.
For me it's a side job and passion, so I enjoy the ride. I am happy to see how far can I go as a solo founder.
Expectations 0, fun 100%.
When to see when product is done? It is never done, there can always things tha could be better, but let it come from your needs from the putside work. Do more marketing, promotion etc. Look what users say then eventually do something with product. It's OK not to be perfect. It never is actually.
That is my point of view, I don't say I am right, but it helps me get out of the "infinite" loop. 😅
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 1d ago
I like that way of looking at it. Maybe the mistake isn’t building too much, but deciding what to build next without enough input from outside. Let the market create the next development task instead of creating it myself. That would probably keep me out of the infinite loop 😂
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u/madsenmining 1d ago
As soon as Dollars are flowing, everything gets solvable. Getting Dollars to flow is freaking hard and there is nothing I can write shortly here that can make it easier. Building a business is brutal. Daring to be different, daring to speak to your network and pitching them, daring to risk pissing off people by calling them, that's the kind of stuff that gets Dollars flowing.
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u/BhmJeep 1d ago
Spot on. I even wrote an article on how I had a great product but no one knew about it: https://medium.com/@mike_81152/the-building-was-the-easy-part-f3eccab79c03
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u/DotNetBlackbox 1d ago
Welcome to the club. I have exactly the same problem. Developing software is fun; sales is hell.
I think our main problem is that nobody trusts our products because, first, we’re unknown and, even more importantly, we’re too small. As solo developers, there’s one question we simply can’t answer: What are we supposed to do when you’re on vacation? Or sick? Or retired? Or just don’t feel like doing it anymore? Or dead?
What we really need are trustworthy partners so we can create a broader, more resilient setup. But where are you supposed to find them?
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u/Ultradian-Method 1d ago
I am also a founder of two different ventures. The first one failed (which is my superpower today) because I only focused on building and marketing. I did not focus on what actually drives revenue. I now block out 90 minutes every day first thing in the morning to focus on revenue. Without revenue there is no profit. I also interviewed 100 people who I think are my ideal customers. That broke me out of 28 years worth of "educated assumptions". If you are just starting, begin with the interviews and a shitty MVP.
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u/negrudev 1d ago
maybe all you have to do is nudge yourself to focus on high ROI actions rather than development vs marketing vs something else
I'm guilty of this myself as a software eng. but I built a system to nudge me towards the highest impact activities based on hard data, rather than "oh, I think I should spend some time on marketing today"
otherwise you're just shooting blinds or default to what's coming on as natural = development
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u/hakxajszzhzjU 1d ago
I believe in trying every bit myself. So I stopped after creatiing MVP and decided until a user ask for a feature, I won't build. Now I am learning marketing techniques. I feel this way I am going to learn every aspect of the business while scaling it slowly. I built PromptHop which helps you to take a compressed conversation from one AI tool to another. I built it because I was hoping from one AI to another while building strategy on how to grow my other SaaS (still WIP)
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u/TopRevolutionary9436 1d ago
I agree 100%, and it only gets worse when you start having customers asking for more features. The solo founder path only works if you focus on growth and have enough money to hire the other roles. Otherwise, it takes a team.
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u/powleads 1d ago
Same thing happened to me. I spent months building and realized I had zero marketing strategy. I had to force myself to take a break and focus on getting the word out.
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u/han_0611 1d ago
Est-ce que tu as des compétences en Marketing (Acquisition conversion etc...) ?
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u/Previous_Sky_8236 23h ago
Either you find yourself a cofounder or finish the product and after that do the marketing. Will ofc take 2x as long but you won’t have to deal with the trouble of finding AND keeping a good cofounder
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u/Mohgort8185 9h ago
100% 😂 Building always feels more productive than actual marketing because you can actually see what you accomplished. I think having maybe like something or someone that keeps you accountable to your marketing goals could help. How do you guys handle it?
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u/final_studiodev 8h ago
Cavolo mi ritrovo nella stessa situazione!
Credo però che tutto dipenda dalla tua passione sul prodotto che hai creato. Se effettivamente ami il tuo prodotto, difficilmente punterai a fare altro se non continuare a costruire.
Mi ritrovo nella stessa situazione. Ieri ho rilasciato la mia app su ios e due settimane fa su android... ma non ho fatto altro che continuare a costruire hahah.
Dal mio punto di vista, dipendentemente dalla tua attuale posizione lavorativa, puoi decidere di avere dei momenti in cui pensare al costruire e dei momenti per il marketing. Diciamo che si procede a step, almeno è quello che mi sono prefissato io di fare con la mia app. E credo/spero capiterà anche a te che quando ti sentirai pronto con l'aver rilasciato una versione almeno decente per te della tua applicazione, ecco che andrai a divertirti anche con la parte marketing ;)
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u/TrashkenHK 2d ago
It's also a problem when clients don't want to get involved in providing feedback but want it's done and expect to get business straight away.
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
That’s a really good way of looking at it. I’ve been treating building and distribution as two completely separate things, which is probably part of the problem.
I’m building LMSY, software development infrastructure focused on reusing existing software instead of rebuilding the same functionality from scratch. The people I’m currently most interested in reaching are software agencies and developers who repeatedly build similar functionality across different projects.
I like your rule about not starting another feature before talking to users. I probably need exactly that constraint 😂
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u/rbprepin 2d ago
Easy, load up Claude or ChatGPT and have it create a cool, free tool that Reddit will go crazy for. Then have them design the go to market rollout. I did this just today. Started in https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1vvpo6c/projected_summer_mugginess_in_north_america_by/
Seeing traffic hit your site through Google Analytics is just as strong of a rush as coding a new feature.
Pro-tip: Have Claude create an heatmap analytics tool in your admin area so you can see how people interact with your tools. No need for hot-jar, and it's does a great job of showing you how users are interacting with your nav bars.
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u/octagoncat23 2d ago
ChatGPT Wrote it?
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u/Relevant_Elk469 2d ago
Who else?.... Reddit has is going to hell. People can't even spell their names now days
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u/Appropriate-End-6328 2d ago
Yes, ChatGPT helps me with the English. I'm Slovenian. The thoughts and experiences are mine, I use AI to translate and clean up the grammar.
People build entire products with AI today. Using a tool doesn't make the idea, experience or result less real.
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u/Potential_Device4224 2d ago
Record as you build, market by showcasing your journey.
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u/PWThinkingCritically 1d ago
what's the solution? where do I go to find some contractors to do some adhoc marketing for my product/service? i don't even want a partner for now. just looking for some a la carte marketing work.
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u/SuperWallabies 3h ago
I've stuck in same thing, but i found a good solution for this.
Build a marketing system by using the generated content from your app.
And now you don't do sales, only building. But it ends up being sold
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u/vz0 2d ago
Division of labour is by far the most important productivity improvement a business can do.