Failing attempts has been fun. Now let’s find the holy market fit! In the latest edition of his weekly video “Finish Friday”, writer today: Todd Brison said exactly what I needed to hear When you start something new, everybody is onboard. […] At the start of a race, everyone is pumped. (big boost) But when you start to make a habit of it, everyone stops caring. (great indifference) This is where you’re able to do a whole lot of work. So whenever you get out on the other side and you do start to blow up, everyone will look back at what you’ve done and say “Oh my gosh, this guy’s got a ton of work. I can go through this for days.” It’s at that point that you begin to make a difference in the world. Because, yeah, I am now feeling what people mean when they say that . building a business is a lonely path Level 1: The Big Boost When I decided to stop working for clients and to , for me, even my clients! make my own products instead everybody was pumped Instead of watching TV or playing video games, I was spending my spare time watching , to keep that momentum of . Gary Vee’s videos motivation I started working like crazy, in order to optimise the usage of my time, and . fine-tuning my productivity workflow shipped my first product in one month Many . I was excited, and used that motivation to reach level 2: . people liked my first product make an income out of it It was easy for me to: , because I have significant experience building software; build a good product and get a nice at launch, because I’m surrounded by benevolent friends who supported me. marketing boost But it’s only then that the starts. hard work Level 2: the Great Indifference For starters, even though were using my product, and posting and about it, only a handful of them were for it. 7000 people nice ratings tweets ready to pay At that point, your friends “ ” or “ ”. It does not matter anymore. you can’t just ask please upvote on ProductHunt feel free to retweet this The thing that matters is to decide what to do next, figure out how to do it, fail, and . try again until you make it …That, without expecting much help from the external world. Not because your friends don’t care, but because . And, in most cases, they don’t even understand what it is that you’re doing now. they don’t know how to help This is business now! your In my case, I tried and many attempts: failed Crowdfund Next Step for Trello 2.0 => ❌ failed Sell seats for a productivity workshop => ❌ failed Attract people on my Patreon campaign => ❌ failed Oh, actually, I did earn some income: about $80 from friends who wanted to encourage me on Patreon (thank you so much!), and $80 of donations from users of Next Step for Trello. That’s better than nothing, but is this real income? On the bright side, these trials did help me realise important things. How much I had to learn and improve on: how to find a good market, and a good problem to solve, how to elaborate a good value proposition, and test it, how to decide if you should keep going in the same direction, or pivot. Besides getting one step further on the road to self-awareness, I’m very happy that I tried to do all this on my own. It made me really realise the complexity (and hard work needed) of managing a product and developing a business. Thus, it made me more . 👏 empathetic to product managers and business developers On the road to level 3: Iterate and learn Despite all the success stories one can read on , I know that making a difference is . Not even making a modest income. Indie Hackers not going happen overnight I need to put in . And learn to make . more sweat smarter decisions “Show your work!” by Austin Kleon. A huge motivator to keep crafting and sharing! But do I really need to struggle ? on my own Do I need to learn all the skills required to turn products into income? I’m currently experimenting on this hypothesis. I started developing two products in with talented and motivated colleagues. And the testing phase of our first iteration ( ) is under way, for both products. collaboration what Lean Startup entrepreneurs know as “MVP” I’m not yet sure what will be my criteria for deciding whether to keep working as a team, or go back solo. . We’ll see So, for now, I’m going to stick to my friend Vincent’s entrepreneurial advice: Follow your gut! To follow my journey, subscribe to my newsletter: _Adrien Joly - Every week, I share a side-project I made in 1 day...._www.getrevue.co Adrien Joly - Revue I also appreciate comments and recommendations ❤ ! 🙌
