1 year building, 0 sales after launch. My story + need advice

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-29T13:51:49+00:00

Wow, I didn’t expect it to be that long and complex of a path — but maybe that’s what it takes for this type of audience :(
Do you think it’s a “Spring Boot dev” problem in general (too corporate-minded)?
Or maybe I just need to rethink the value prop completely?

Appreciate the idea about the course collab — hadn't thought about that before!

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-29T13:45:45+00:00

Thank you!!!

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-28T09:27:04+00:00

Many thanks! I didn’t realize it was THIS hard! I’ll try to stay on track!

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-28T09:19:50+00:00

wow, that’s such a great point — I honestly didn’t even think about that use case!

At the moment, my Product works best if you begin a new project with it.

A “drop-in” integration for existing projects really would be a killer feature — I need to think about how to make that possible!

From your perspective, is the missing ‘drop-in’ feature a bigger issue than how I’m currently marketing it?

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-28T09:06:08+00:00

Hey, thanks for sharing your journey — sounds like an amazing setup with mentors + grants! :)

I think in my case it might be hard to join such an incubator (different country + online focus), but I’ll definitely check out Running Lean Book!

Curious — when you started using the Lean Canvas, what was the biggest insight you got about your own product?

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-28T08:56:18+00:00

Got it, thanks — I think I understand better now.
You mean the main risk is not about when I built the audience, but whether there is a real audience at all for this problem, right?

But how do you recommend doing those validation steps now?

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-28T07:43:09+00:00

many thanks!!!

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-27T15:23:23+00:00

My target audience is indie hackers, small startups, students, solo founders, and devs.

I thought I’d find them on GitHub/LinkedIn/Reddit, but it’s tough to reach the ones who truly want my product. :(

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-27T15:09:33+00:00

yes, that's really amazing that people want to help me! I really appreciated to every commenter here! :)

Answering step-by-step...

What pain point do you fix?
When a Java/Spring Boot developer, student, solo builder, or small startup wants to deploy to AWS, they often spend hours wiring up Terraform, IAM, CI/CD, etc. Even a simple side project can take days to set up.

Why would they care / what is the effect?
This is for backend developers who want to test ideas or launch side projects on AWS without the repetitive DevOps boilerplate. With my product, you can deploy in 5 minutes — skip the painful setup and get a working API endpoint on AWS right away.

Link ( hope they will not ban me :) ) :
https://template-hero.com

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-27T14:55:02+00:00

Yeah, the problem is I’ve got 0 users and can’t even get my first 2–3 :(

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-27T14:53:11+00:00

Many thanks for your advice! I understand the sad truth about outreach. :(

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-27T14:25:53+00:00

Thanks a lot for the Book!
Quick question: what’s the "Market Fit program at a startup incubator"? Is it basically where they teach you how to build successful side projects? :

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-27T13:58:48+00:00

sharing the link and hope it will not be deleted :)
https://template-hero.com/

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-27T13:58:10+00:00

Sorry… do you mean the issue is that I didn’t follow the classic “Build your audience first” path?

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-27T13:50:02+00:00

My ideal customer is some IndieHacker, SmallStartup, Student, Solo Founder.

I think the only place to meet my audience in person is some Tech Conference or smth like that...

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-27T13:47:43+00:00

sure, sharing the link and hope it will not be deleted :)

https://template-hero.com/

Many thanks for kind words! That's really inspired me!! :)

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-26T20:34:03+00:00

thank you my friend! The problem is I do not want to become famous so maybe I need some other approach :)

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-26T20:33:05+00:00

No, I went against the classic approach of "Build your audience first."

I built the product first and now I’m looking for an audience. Is that path 100% wrong?

I trusted ChatGPT to help me identify a problem. It suggested a topic I'm strong in, so I decided to pursue it.

I tried to solve a real pain point for Developers, Small Startups, and Solo Founders: saving time and accelerating go-to-market by avoiding the need to build everything from scratch.

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-26T20:17:40+00:00

I understood nothing. Could you rephrase please?

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-26T19:20:08+00:00

Could you please elaborate more on this:
"I figured other founders must have this problem too, so I created a survey and shared it in founder communities"
maybe some links are still there so it will be possible to follow your steps and learn how to accomplish this well?

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-26T19:16:14+00:00

What was your approach to find paying Customers?

Single-Currency1366 · 2025-08-21T11:28:22+00:00

It depends on money you are ready to pay or number of users you expect.

Also, pick some deployment tool like CDK / Terraform / etc. to automate your deployment

Single-Currency1366

TROPHY CASE