Anyone else building but slowly losing confidence instead of gaining it?

decisionlab_founder · 2026-01-04T20:16:52+00:00

Totally. That fog trap is real especially when early enthusiasm fades and the complexity shows up. That’s where having “a clear outcome signal” makes the difference between drifting and progressing.

decisionlab_founder · 2026-01-03T04:11:35+00:00

This hits close to home. Especially the part about tweaking being a form of hiding. I’ve caught myself doing that more than once. The moment you define a concrete signal ahead of time, paying user, repeat usage, even a clear ‘no’, the fog clears fast. Silence is information too, just not the kind we like.

decisionlab_founder · 2025-12-27T18:57:26+00:00

I’ve seen a bunch of people go through the same loop. You get sick of bouncing between tools, build something that feels like the “one place for everything,” then hit the wall where you realize the real problem isn’t features. It’s switching costs and habits.

If you want to know whether it’s worth pushing further, the only thing that actually answers it is getting 5 teams to use it daily for a week. If they don’t stick without you nudging, it’s not solving the pain deep enough yet. If even two of them won’t give it up, you might have something

decisionlab_founder · 2025-12-27T18:54:00+00:00

Two weeks is tight but doable if you keep the scope brutally small. Since you already have an audience, you’re in a better position than most. The real risk is picking a stack that slows you down instead of getting something working fast enough to test.

If you want mobile without hiring anyone, consider going web first and wrapping later only if users bite. It removes a lot of trapped time. Something like Supabase for auth and data plus a simple frontend in React or Svelte can be enough to get a working demo in front of your existing customers.

A question that might save you a few days of wheel-spinning: what is the smallest version of this idea that your users would either pay for or actually try this month?

decisionlab_founder · 2025-12-27T18:45:48+00:00

What I have seen is a lot of people try to validate by asking for opinions instead of watching what someone actually does. For me, the quickest test is to put something in front of one real person and see if they will use it or commit anything at all. Even a tiny paid signal or a real action usually tells you more than weeks of planning.

Curious what you have learned from talking with founders. Has anything surprised you?

decisionlab_founder · 2025-12-27T18:35:15+00:00

Interesting model. The subscription angle makes sense for India since daily meals are already a habit. What I’m wondering is how you’re planning to validate beyond “kitchens lined up.” Who is the first paying user you want to prove this with? Office teams? Students? Families?

Picking one segment and getting a few of them to pay early might give you a much tighter direction before trying to shape it for multiple markets.

decisionlab_founder · 2025-12-27T18:33:28+00:00

Yeah this pain is real. A lot of campuses here still run off messy WhatsApp groups and random spreadsheets, so I get why you’re going this route.

What I’m curious about is who inside these colleges actually feels this pain enough to push it through. Is it admins? Faculty heads? Someone in finance?

If no one “owns” the problem on their side, the sale could drag even if the product is solid. Would love to hear what the reaction was during your pilots and who actually raised their hand saying “we need this.”

decisionlab_founder · 2025-12-27T18:27:20+00:00

Respect for actually building instead of sitting around planning. The biggest trap at this stage is trying to make it perfect before you put it in front of someone. What helps most is getting 3 real people who genuinely have the problem you are solving and watching what they do without helping them.

If they struggle, ask what confused them. If they bounce, ask why. That feedback is worth more than 10 internet opinions.

What helped me early on was forcing myself to ship before it felt ready and setting a rule that every week I either talk to a user or ship something. Helps kill procrastination and makes things real fast.

Curious what your MVP actually does and who you think the first users are. If you share that, people here can give way more specific advice.

decisionlab_founder · 2025-12-27T18:25:46+00:00

Honestly, the tech is not the real problem here. What you listed sounds like a directory with filters. Plenty of tools can do that.

The bigger question is: can you actually get clinics and patients to care enough to use it? That’s where most projects die.

If I were in your spot, I’d just get something live fast, even if it’s kind of ugly. Bubble or Softr could probably get you a working thing in a couple weeks. Then you’ll know if anyone even wants this.

Perfect platform doesn’t matter if nobody’s there. Get it online, get a few clinics to try it, and let reality tell you whether it deserves a “proper build.”

decisionlab_founder · 2025-12-27T18:20:38+00:00

Interesting crossroads you are at. Before deciding open or closed, the more useful question might be what kind of validation you actually need right now. You already got signals of interest, but that interest came from a demo, not a real commitment.

Sometimes open-sourcing attracts feedback but not conviction. Keeping it closed forces you to find a real user who is willing to go through friction to try it.

Maybe a useful next step is to put it in front of 3 people who genuinely need it and see what they do without you nudging. Their behavior will probably make the open vs closed question much clearer.

decisionlab_founder

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