After losing my job in December of 2019, I decided to step into bootstrapping my own ideas for a while.
First (don't do this), I worked for more than 6 months on my first idea, a very simple one, but difficult to execute. An email service provider. It wasn't easy, but I did it.
I launched. 1 upvote on Product Hunt, mine... Crickets. I probably cry on the inside.
After spending an immense amount of hours tweaking and fixing and making sure everything was workings, 99.9% of the visits to the landing page, never past from there.
2,058 visits since 20th May. 0 clients. No one has seen my app.
After that, I thought: Ok, if people don't pass from the landing page, I am going to create landing pages and test ideas.
So I create:
What I learned
But I keep trying. I can't help it. I am sure many of you can relate. At the end of the day, you only need to win once.
First (don't do this), I worked for more than 6 months on my first idea, a very simple one, but difficult to execute. An email service provider. It wasn't easy, but I did it.
I launched. 1 upvote on Product Hunt, mine... Crickets. I probably cry on the inside.
After spending an immense amount of hours tweaking and fixing and making sure everything was workings, 99.9% of the visits to the landing page, never past from there.
2,058 visits since 20th May. 0 clients. No one has seen my app.
After that, I thought: Ok, if people don't pass from the landing page, I am going to create landing pages and test ideas.
So I create:
- An alternative to Couchsurfing: 2,162 visits. I made more money from it than from the first project. And I did it in one weekend.
- A coffee community, 1,716 visits. I got a bit excited and did some features.
- A digital nomads community in Spanish.
- Product Hunt in Spanish.
- SaaS for teachers to simply communicate with students over email, this is using the technology that I created for the first project.
What I learned
- Don't rush into solutions. Find people that have a real problem, talk to them, and then, think of solutions. Every problem, has many solutions, don't rush into making the first one that you can think of.
- Find clients before making anything. I always think... I will make it share it, and people will see and use it. It doesn't work like that.
- Don't do it if you need money NOW. Making a product's success takes time. If you are doing it for the money, you are going to rush into the wrong decisions.
But I keep trying. I can't help it. I am sure many of you can relate. At the end of the day, you only need to win once.
