You can totally build first. Developers always do. The problem is you have to sell at some point, if it's not customers to begin with then it has to be investors, but invariably you will be selling to customers. Products do not sell or market themselves.

I think OP's point is that if you build something and then try to sell it, what you have might not be something anyone needs. If you sell something and then build it, you've already got customers so you know you've got something.

"Sell" is an exaggeration if this is the case. You can achieve the same result just by talking to people to validate the idea. Literally, selling then building is an entirely different thing that sets a hard deadline on what you build.

Importantly, those people you talk to to validate the idea should ideally be continuously consulted. So rather than:

"hey I'm thinking of making this project, do you think you'd use it?" // "Yeah sure, seems helpful I guess"

you have:

"hey, person who told me they'd use this, here's the latest update where I've implemented X feature you and some others requested, I also am trialing Y feature that I think might be cool, and I polished Z item that I saw some others were getting hung up on, do you mind trying the latest version out and letting me know what you think?"

If you're unable/unwilling to maintain those kinds of relationships/conversations over the long term, consider a PM.

You have to maintain those relationships. You have to do everything in your power to validate the idea. There are tons of ways to do it including paying people, open source. Selling the idea before it exists is just a singular option out of multitudes.

> You can achieve the same result just by talking to people to validate the idea.

Not quite: saying you'd buy something and actually forking over the cash are two very different things. I've expressed interest in many a project that—when actually made available—I decided I didn't really need after all.

Is it always practical to actually sell a not-yet-existing product? No. But do you get the same data from just talking to people? Not at all.

Well depends on how you frame the question right? To validate your idea you have to ask the right questions and penetrate all the bias and politeness.

So for example you can ask them this:

"Give me your honest answer. Let's say I had the product ready and finished and perfected right now... would you or would you not buy it from me?"

You really need to drive at this, you don't need to actually "sell" it. Validating an idea isn't a casual thing, but you don't have to go as far as actually selling it.

People will still say they'd buy it and then not actually buy. The only way to actually verify that they'd pay is to, well, make them pay for it. Collect their money first and then if it doesn't work out, offer a refund, like Kickstarter does.

Not true. You can frame it in a way to get the truth out. You gotta dig past the surface level bs.

It is totally possible to get these real answers out of people. Your human, they're human and are able to simulate hypotheticals quite accurately if the simulation is framed correctly.

In fact I find it highly highly mistaken to think that it is fundamentally impossible for humans to answer that question.

It’s very high risk, because you don’t know what you’re aiming at.

The odds your product will hit a target that you have no idea if it even exists or not (or what it looks like, or what it’s shape is), is often lower than if you do.

Definitely not impossible of course!

But the odds are long enough already, it’s silly to not shorten them if you can.

> Very fundamental rule number one: Only build something AFTER you sell it FIRST.

I've come to understand this reluctantly over the past couple months of soul searching. I would not try to start coding again (with creating a business in mind) without having first found 5-10 customers.

Important to point out that the best validation is customers who actually pay real money for the idea in advance.

Someone telling OP "interesting, I would buy it" might even be worse than not trying selling it at all, as it might fool OP into working even harder for nothing in the end.

Validating an idea isn't just getting a yes or no. You need to understand what the person's problem is, how much that problem costs them, what solutions they have tried before, what problems did they have with those solutions, etc.

And then you have to size the market. How many other people have that problem? How do you reach those people?

And this is where those Lean Startup books come into play because some of their case studies, even if they're fluffy, show how you can prototype your product with a lot of manual intervention to onboard those 5-10 customers before building anything. I remember reading about an AI Assistant that launched and, to check the market, it was just the founder responding to people lol.

It is statistically significantly harder to have a successful company as a solo founder. Having someone with a stake to bounce ideas and solutions off of makes a big difference. My associate and I regularly thank each other for catastrophes we avoided by our weekly night of talking over beer (and other daily exchanges).

I'm not too sure about _absolutely_ selling before making, but definitely do a market research and check if you can find people who would, at least theoretically, buy the product you intend to make.

If you make before you sell, you're saying that you are a visionary and people cannot understand your genius. Those are not odds to my liking, but if you like them you do you.

I'm a solo founder. I dropped out of Stanford, made $180k through past projects, and whenever I worked with co-founders my projects have failed.

It's a common narrative that it's harder to be more successful as a solo founder. I don't agree because actually 66% of startups fail because of cofounder conflicts. Also startups with single founders tended to last longer and eventually achieve higher revenue (52% startups with succesful exits is solo founded). So if you are a solo founder, your risk of failing goes down significantly.

As for having someone to share your struggles, I joined this solo-ish founders community called https://FoundersCafe.io and they are bascially my co-founders without any of the drama.

I also hired out all the skillsets I lack.

Being a solo founder is fucking awesome as long as you have your needs met (emotional support + skill gaps)

As someone on this forum once said, "cofounders either push you forward or drag you down."

Most often than not, they drag you down when incentives don't align.

I don't agree fully, I feel operating on conviction & purpose & intelligence has a place, is how many of the best things get built.

But absolutely some deep questions about who you are building for are essential. There was a good post yesterday[1] ostensibly about open source, & closed source, but the conclusion was really about assessing not just purpose but audience.

[1] https://writing.kemitchell.com/2022/02/12/Devs-Use-Closed-So... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30536825 (2 points, 14 hours, 1 comments)

Also, solo founder. Consider working on your relationship skills. A cofounder can be a pain in the ass but also the best way to find sucesss.

I'm a solo founder. I dropped out of Stanford, made $180k through past projects, and whenever I worked with co-founders my projects have failed.

It's a common narrative that it's harder to be more successful as a solo founder. I don't agree because actually 66% of startups fail because of cofounder conflicts. Also startups with single founders tended to last longer and eventually achieve higher revenue (52% startups with succesful exits is solo founded). So if you are a solo founder, your risk of failing goes down significantly.

As for having someone to share your struggles, I joined this solo-ish founders community called https://FoundersCafe.io and they are bascially my co-founders without any of the drama.

I also hired out all the skillsets I lack.

Being a solo founder is fucking awesome as long as you have your needs met (emotional support + skill gaps)

> Very fundamental rule number one: Only build something AFTER you sell it FIRST.

This usually applies to random apps but it does not generalize to every class of software, for a few different reasons. Strategies need to be appropriate for the specific market.

You'll always need to sell, but selling first is a poor move for some products.

>Very fundamental rule number one: Only build something AFTER you sell it FIRST.

This isn't fundamental. It's a single effective strategy out of many possible strategies. Think about it. Only certain people will buy something before you can show it to them and there's also a whole class of people who will only buy after they've seen the product.

Right, I totally agree with you. The quoted advice sort of flouts the saying "people don't know what they want until you show it to them".