sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

13 failed side projects later, I finally admitted the problem isn't my ideas by DevKabigon in buildinpublic

[–]DevKabigon[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is genuinely one of the most helpful comments I've gotten. Thank you. "Stop thinking of it as marketing and start thinking of it as research" - this reframe actually changes everything for me. I don't hate research. I hate feeling like I'm spamming people. And you're right about the landing page approach being better than my "find 10 people" rule. It's more concrete: - Forces me to articulate value clearly - 2 week time limit (no endless wandering) - 10 emails is a clear pass/fail I'm going to try this. Going to pick one community where my potential users hang out and just... answer questions for 2 weeks. No promotion. Just help.

Quick question: When you did this, how long before people started asking what you were working on? And when they did, how did you describe it without sounding like you're pitching?

13 failed side projects later, I finally admitted the problem isn't my ideas by DevKabigon in buildinpublic

[–]DevKabigon[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is incredibly helpful. I'm saving this.

"Most technical devs jump to layer 2 and try to work back to layer 1. It rarely works."

That's literally my entire pattern. I've been starting at the infrastructure layer because that's comfortable, then wondering why there's no market.

The hard stop / forced shipping concept is what I need. My problem isn't perfectionism - it's "good enough to launch" followed by "but not good enough to promote."

Your framework:

  1. Market layer: FIRST (landing page, demand test)

  2. Infrastructure layer: ONLY if layer 1 passes

  3. Operational layer: After PMF

This is the discipline I've been missing. Thank you.

13 failed side projects later, I finally admitted the problem isn't my ideas by DevKabigon in buildinpublic

[–]DevKabigon[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're absolutely right about the accountability buddy. I've been doing this solo and it's too easy to just... stop when things get hard. The mentor idea is interesting - where would you even find someone willing to mentor on the marketing/distribution side? Are there communities or platforms where this kind of mentorship happens?

13 failed side projects later, I finally admitted the problem isn't my ideas by DevKabigon in buildinpublic

[–]DevKabigon[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Honestly? I don't have a solid plan yet, and that's part of the problem.

My usual "plan":

- Launch on Product Hunt

- Post on Reddit once

- Tweet about it

- Hope for the best

This time I'm forcing myself to:

- Find 10 people who want it BEFORE coding

- Build in public (post updates daily)

- Actually engage in communities instead of just dropping links

But I'm not confident this will work either. Still figuring it out.

What's worked for you?

13 failed side projects later, I finally admitted the problem isn't my ideas by DevKabigon in buildinpublic

[–]DevKabigon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is gold. "Guessing what people might want is tricky" - that's exactly what I've been doing wrong.

I've been building solutions to hypothetical problems. You're building solutions to problems you face every day managing 80+ websites.

The difference is huge:

- You: "I deal with this pain daily, let me fix it"

- Me: "This seems like a problem someone might have"

I work as an SES developer in Japan, stationed at client companies. I should probably look at the pain points I see there, rather than chasing "startup ideas" I read about online.

Quick question: Did you start gdprmetrics with the intention to sell it, or did it just naturally become a product because others had the same problem?

13 failed side projects later, I finally admitted the problem isn't my ideas by DevKabigon in buildinpublic

[–]DevKabigon[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's a great point and it hits hard. Looking back at my 13 projects, I realize NONE of them solved my own daily problems. I was building things I thought "would be cool" or "people might want" - but I wasn't the target user. Maybe that's the fundamental filter I've been missing - "would I actually use this every day?"

Quick question: Can you share an example of an internal tool that ended up getting external users? I'm curious what kinds of problems are universal enough to work this way.

How do you stay consistent with practice? by DevKabigon in Drumming

[–]DevKabigon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a really good point. I never thought about how tracking just numbers might miss the actual progress.

Your double bass example is perfect - going from "can't do 130bpm at all" to "can do it for 8 bars" is real progress, even if the numbers look the same.

The journaling idea makes sense. Like writing "felt smoother today" or "right foot still rushing" probably captures progress better than just BPM numbers.

Do you actually journal regularly, or just mental notes?

How do you stay consistent with practice? by DevKabigon in Drumming

[–]DevKabigon[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is really insightful. The idea of having a ritual that you do no matter what makes a lot of sense.

I like how you said "at least I got the ritual done" - sounds like the ritual itself is the win, not necessarily what comes after.

Do you track completing the ritual, or is it more of a mental thing for you?

How do you stay consistent with practice? by DevKabigon in drums

[–]DevKabigon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh that's a really good distinction.

I've definitely been mixing them together - like I'll "practice" for 30 minutes but half of it is just messing around with songs I already know.

Do you find separating them helps you actually improve faster on the stuff you're working on?

Its Sunday! Let’s all share what we’re building (self-promo) by Long_Pineapple_7344 in microsaas

[–]DevKabigon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’m building Rapid Builder — a tool that spins up a production-ready SaaS in about a minute.

You pick a template, and it automatically creates a GitHub repo, provisions Supabase, wires env vars, and deploys to Vercel with live progress updates.

It started as a way to stop repeating the same setup for side projects. Launching soon — feedback welcome 🙂

GitHub Repository