Why I Wrote This Book
I need to tell you about the worst 8 months of my entrepreneurial life.
I was 22, broke, living with roommates, and convinced I had the next big SaaS idea. A productivity tool for remote teams. Revolutionary, I thought. Nobody's really solved this problem, I told myself.
I spent 8 months building it. Every night after my day job, every weekend, every spare moment. I learned new frameworks, optimized the database, obsessed over the UI.
Launch day came. I posted on Product Hunt, Twitter, Reddit. I got... 12 sign-ups. Twelve. After 8 months. And you know how many actually used the product more than once? Zero.
"The problem I was solving? It wasn't a real problem. Or at least, it wasn't a problem people cared about enough to switch tools for. I had built my dream solution to a problem that barely existed."
I had talked to exactly zero potential users before building. I had done zero validation. I fell into every trap.
The Moment Everything Changed
Six months later, I had a different idea. But this time, I was terrified of wasting another 8 months. So I did something radical: I talked to people first.
I spent 2 weeks having conversations with 15 potential users. I built a landing page – no product, just a description and an email form. In one week, I got 200 email sign-ups and 30 people reaching out asking when they could use it.
That's when I knew I had something real. 6 months later, I had my first 100 paying customers.
This book is me grabbing you by the shoulders. Consider this me saying: "Stop. Don't build yet. Go talk to 10 people who have this problem first."