What are you planning to do in the following months without an income if the project doesn't pick up?

I’m working on a different project, this time with #buildinpublic on twitter/mastodon.

I’m also working on getting some consulting/freelance. And sadly, and with big regret, I started to look for a job.

Wish you the best of luck!

Thank you kind stranger!

It’s very hard to build a following without a system and without copying content

For LinkedIn, ideally you should be posting at least 5 times a week, reposting your best performing content, re-phrasing or straight up copying viral content, and adding as many people to your contacts as possible every day (there’s a weekly limit, and there’s also a 20k total limit, so you also need to figure out what type of contacts you want to be adding, the more focus, the better your content will perform). Additionally, on LinkedIn, commenting and liking posts related to your audience can go a long way

Definitely use ChatGPT for drafts and to help you iterate, but don’t just post whatever it gives you on the first try. Also lean heavily on scheduling tools

It takes a couple of months to get going, but if you can keep a consistent pace, you will definitely figure it out

Follow (on LinkedIn) the creators of https://www.shieldapp.ai/ their whole thing is helping people build their personal brands on that platform

Finally, make sure to build a newsletter and own your list, that’s one of the biggest moats you can build

I'd rather be unemployed and live off charity kitchen soups than engage in these juvenile games.

As a society we need to find a way to stop rewarding slyness and trickery (aka marketing)

I want to think of marketing as a way of providing valuable content and explaining why your product might be just what the consumer needs (potentially helping them with their problems).

What's described above really doesn't fit into this view, but is definitely how I've seen people "play the game". ChatGPT-generated fluff, copied content, and the same tips & tricks, inspirational stories, etc. you see repurposed all the time on different platforms - especially LinkedIn.

I hope marketing can be good and value-adding but, the way it's going right now, we're due for a change.

>I'd rather be unemployed and live off charity kitchen soups than engage in these juvenile games.

What if you replaced the word marketing with attention?

Would you rather live of soup kitchens than have the attention of your ideal customers?

The competition of legal entities for our attention seems to be one of the major reasons of chronic stress and mental illness in the west, so the answer is yes.

This conflates the ends and the means. They're different and both deserve consideration.

Some reading:

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_end_justifies_the_mean...

https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_the-business-ethics-work...

> What if you replaced the word marketing with attention?

Then you would be making a different argument. Marketing and attention are not the same thing: the former is one means to the latter. Marketing is grabbing attention by force, which could be considered unethical; attention by itself can be consensual and organic.

I’m with you my friend. I’d rather go back to be employed and post helpful stuff to my blog, than try to promote my products using click bait tactics on social media.

It’s funny, but when you post an obvious click bait to Reddit/hn everybody is like “this is clickbait, the author is trying to sell you his coaching”, etc.

But then, when you say you don’t want to participate in algorithm hunger games, everyone is like “no, you won’t succeed. You need to shove your products down the throat if your readers”. :puke:

Here is a good example. About 2.5 months ago, I’ve shared a blog post I wrote, here on HN [1].

The blog post was authentic with a simple purpose: (1) I like to write, and (2) I believed writing is beneficial to everyone. I share all my blog posts here, none of them performed as well as this one (check my profile if you want).

Seeing the success and the traffic this post generated, I crafted a quick form to offer FREE coaching session. Free as Linux free. I gave 2.5 hours of my time for free. In exchange, I asked my mentees for testimonials. A fair transaction I guess. It’s a great way to build my brand.

I put a small, non intrusive banner on my blog, with a message of free coaching session (the same banner now promotes my book). It’s not a pop up that jumps when you scroll to the bottom, it’s not a JavaScript scripts that pops up when you close the tab. It’s a ~30px, non sticky bar at the top, the goes away with a little scroll.

Top comment on HN? My post is cringy and I’m yet another “coaching bro” that promotes his stuff. :shrug:

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36659166

So what? You need to grow a thicker skin

Building an audience and selling a product is in large part about rejection. You will get tons of comments like that. Haters are going to hate, no matter what you do

Yes, it hurts, but just keep going. If the top comment represented everyone’s sentiment, your post wouldn’t have gotten 200+ upvotes (congrats by the way, not an easy feat)

I don’t complain, don’t get me wrong.

I just point out the absurdity of this gladiator games that everyone seems to enjoy too much.

I don’t get offended by negative comments, as long as they are constructive, I see them as bliss.

Maybe instead of advertising as free coaching, choose words that will appeal to your target audience. In your case, instead of saying free, use libre or explicitly say free as in freedom. You have to understand that many people see "free coaching" and are immediatly put into anti scam mode.

See, that’s the problem. When I say I don’t play algorithm games, people tell me I’m stupid and won’t succeed. When I promote my services, people tell me I use the wrong words.

It’s an endless game. I don’t complain, I just point out the absurdity of this gladiator games that everyone enjoys.

It’s not juvenile games, it’s hard work. If it was easy games everyone would be raking it in

If anything, the juvenile thing to do is to look at reality the way it is and deny it because it doesn’t fit our personal world view

I get it, we’d love a world in which we could just do our best work and everyone could see it and recognize it

But reality is that people are thinking about themselves and are not searching for what we are building. How would they ever find out about what we do if we are not telling them?

You have a serious misunderstanding of what marketing is if you think it’s slyness and trickery

Of course I’m not going to convince you otherwise, but I think it might help you to actually do research, read a marketing book and talk to people in marketing to understand what it really is

Nobody said that juvenile games cannot be hard work. And yes, I do believe that most smart people can "rake it in" if they decide to play this game.

You mention deny reality. Reality is formed by our actions. Adherence to such systems and the playing of juvenile games ensures their perpetuation. I shall not contribute to what I think is the wrong way to go.

And yes, marketing is slyness and trickery. 95% of marketing is A/B ad and layout testing. Or shall we consider the great, historical marketing successes such as promoting cigarettes as healthy, or breakfast cereal ?

At this point you are either just trolling or being a hypocrite

There isn’t a single organization that doesn’t do marketing one way or another (just putting a sign outside a restaurant is marketing, maybe you also consider that to be tricking people and playing games?)

Pretty sure that without marketing you would either not have a job or not get paid

So you are actually fine with marketing making you money, just as long as you are not the one doing it. Sounds like denying reality

Btw, marketing != advertising, and 95% of people don’t even have the time, budget or large enough audience to do any kind of A/B testing

I obviously do not include things like putting a sign outside a restaurant or sponsoring an FSAE team in the same category as being shallow and silly in linkedin or shipping predatory ads to phones.

You obviously cannot see the distinction, so why bother replying ?

  Pretty sure that without marketing you would either not have a job or not get paid  

Oh and, the work I'm doing (aerospace engineering) does not require predatory marketing. It requires results. No need to hype some new tech on twitter and show how I follow the trends.

Now you’re moving the goalposts. First you were complaining about how marketing in general is just slyness and trickery, but now when it’s about your industry, we’re only concerned with “predatory marketing”.

Not to be offensive, but you sound like the guy who I don’t want to be.

Sitting there, figuring out the perfect number of posts to share at the perfect time. I don’t want to do that.

I post a lot. On all platforms. But I don’t want to play games. Maybe I’m stupid, but I believe there is more than one way to succeed.

You’re not stupid, and your constraints are reasonable and fine. However; if you want to succeed based on the strength of your product then your product has to be amazing. You only get consistent word of mouth marketing if your product blows people away by how good it is.

You don’t have to play stupid marketing games, but you do need to have a website where you explain what your product does and you need at least a little traffic. That means you have to create some kind of marketing content that is actually valuable to people because it helps them better understand the problem your software solves.

To be clear, doing almost zero marketing is clearly suboptimal if you want to grow fast, but presumably you know this. Just don’t believe people who tell you that you have to spam and create clickbait content in order to survive.

Thanks.

But that’s the problem. I haven’t used any of Tony’s products, but it’s hard to believe that each and one of them—is outstanding.

And this is the missing part. I see a lot of people on twitter, who build all kind of products. None of them are the next Facebook, and yet some of them are able to generate pretty nice MRR. But I rarely see people talking about how they promote their products.

It’s always one of two: (1) people use click bait and “beating the algorithm” tactics, or (2) they come up with an explanation of their success, after they already succeeded (I.e. I posted everyday, and based on survivorship bias I came to a conclusion that you need to post X time a day, interact with Y people, and your first comment should be a link to your product).

Tony does a ton of marketing. Hours every day. And twitter is the logical place to market a twitter poweruser product. When you’re an indie developer selling to other indie developers just being visible on twitter /is/ marketing.

Being visible is not marketing. I’m visible, I post daily. Do I attract followers? No.

No disrespect to Tony, I liked his post, but he had one paragraph dedicated to twitter, inside a 12 minute read about his technical projects.

And this is essence of my original comment.

Not offended. But I think you might be mis-understanding my post

The main take away you should have is that you need to be consistent, have a system and give your audience what _they_ want

Posting a lot about whatever topic you want to talk about whenever you want to talk about it will probably not work, especially if you are only talking about your product

People don’t care about you or your product, they care about themselves and their problems

Marketing is work, just like any other, it’s not a fun past time that you do on the side after you spent most of your day working on the product

And yes, people do get lucky, but the most successful people at building a personal brand are consistent in building an audience to try to increase their “luck surface”

I agree with you.

I just feel that “giving the people what they want”, is directly translated to asking stupid questions such as “do you read fantasy or sci-fi?” Or posting new-age motivational bullshit quotes.

I don’t do that. I share my journey, and my insights from it. I share my experience. My up and down moments. And it between, promoting my products.

I know that marketing is work, and it’s a hard work. And I respect clever marketing. But like with anything else, it’s been reduced to simple and idiotic steps such as shoving your products down the throat of your users.

Here is a good example of a lame cold outreach https://x.com/skwee357/status/1705209267127558265?s=46

He sent me an email few weeks ago. I told him that my post is about OOP and not business name generator, and I’m not looking for collaboration. Few weeks later, I get the SAME email. Word by word.

I don’t want to be like this guy.

I see nobody here suggesting you to be like this guy.

None of the suggestions here were remotely similar to doing that.

It seems to me your conflating things and assuming that anything you don't do is being like this guy. There are probably things you're not doing that are clever and you might want to do.

If your product is good, solves a pain people have, and you really care about solving it, maybe consider reviewing your mindset around the things you currently don't do, if they would potentially help you solve this problem for more people.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I start to feel like the entire “solves a pain”, is yet another myth.

I don’t think there are problems left to solve. And the ones that are left, are not solved by people who promote themselves in twitter.

I spoke with a friend today, he told me he used to be subscribed to ProductHunt daily newsletter. He unsubscribe recently, because he found out that it’s all the same. It’s yet another todo app, project management app, or whatever.

So yeah, in an essence, marketing is shouting to the void until you fall on someone who needs a todo list RIGHT NOW. And you just happened to me there at the right time and the right place.

That's fair enough for you to think like that.

I see something totally different. I frequently discover new things that help me and make some part of my life better, easier, anything positive. And I see many people around me experiencing the same.

For that reason, I don't see the world you see.

I might be wrong. You might be wrong. Maybe both of us are partly wrong. Anyways, this mindset has helped me further in life and accomplish things I previously found impossible. For now, I'll stick to it.

Best for you, I trust we both will find a path that makes us happy.

> Not to be offensive, but you sound like the guy who I don’t want to be.

Interesting comments and perspective.

A few decades ago I was faced with the challenge of selling a product I designed. I sold the way engineers do, which is to say I sucked at it. That launched me into an effort to learn. And, with friends and mentors, I did. I sold millions of dollars in products in the years that followed.

Selling is art and science. If you think of it as an engineer, you are not going to succeed. If you think it is "dirty" or "manipulative", stop trying to be an entrepreneur and go find a job. You will fail.

To be clear, there is such a thing as vomit-inducing sales and marketing schemes. Thankfully, that's the exception rather than the rule. Why? Because nobody wants to be sold this way.

Here's what is important to understand in selling: You cannot force anyone to buy anything.

Say you have a hotel. You can have beautiful gardens. Incredible rooms. Superior service. Great offers, activities and pricing.

And yet, you cannot force someone to take a vacation (or where to go). You just cannot.

What can you do then?

Well, start from the perspective that nobody knows you exist. Which means that you are three standard deviations away from anyone --when they are ready to make the decision-- choosing to book a room at your hotel. You do not exist.

Realizing this, if you believe in your product, you should want to make people far and wide aware of it. You want them to know you exist. You want them to know about your hotel when they are ready to take a vacation.

If the people you want as customers life within a small radius from your hotel, you might be able to afford sending everyone a beautiful brochure once a year and maybe even inviting them to a brunch event every so often. That's great.

Anything much beyond that requires a different approach. Still, if your audience is small and well defined it might be easier.

Once you start getting much beyond that, it can become exponentially more difficult. The internet, like it or not, has created a situation where you have to rise above a certain threshold for you to even as much as exist in the minds of potential customers. Which means there's a way to do it and there are many ways to waste your time and money while doing nothing but remain below the visibility threshold.

You don't have to like it.

You do have to understand that there's a way to do it in order to succeed and a way to die trying.

If you are not willing to understand the realities of selling today, again, with respect, find a job.

If I were to drop you in the ocean five km from shore with nothing but your clothes, your survival depends on several things:

  - Accepting your reality
  - Wanting to survive
  - Knowing how to swim with minimal effort in open water
  - Start swimming

As it applies to selling:

Accepting your reality means that you have to understand you are not going to succeed at selling unless you stop being judgmental about how selling has to be done today. That doesn't mean becoming a scam artist. Reputable companies like Ford and Hewlett Packard have to adapt their sales strategy to market realities. Only then can you have a plan that will lead to survival.

Wanting to survive should be obvious. Entrepreneurship is hard. If you are going to reject sales and marketing for ideological reasons that are not in alignment with reality, go find a job. You won't survive.

Knowing how to swim. Most people would drown if they were dropped into the ocean far from shore. This is true even if they know how to swim in a swimming pool. If you are going to survive in that environment, the day I drop you into the ocean should not be the first time you experience it. You need to train. And fail. And train some more. And learn how to swim in open water. As someone who learned to swim long distance in open water, I can tell you it is very different from messing around in a swimming pool.

Finally, start swimming. If you want to sell your product, you have to start. And you can't invent a new way to sell just because you don't know how or don't like how selling is done today. Don't invent a new open water swim stroke when you are 5 km from shore. You will not survive the experience.

In short, I think you have a decision to make. If you want to be an entrepreneur, get with the program. Or not, and just find a job.

Sorry for the tough love. I hate seeing people waste their time.

Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it.

I never said I’m against marketing or sales. At my current stage, after building two products with the “build it and they will come” mentality, I think I understand the importance of marketing and branding way better than many other engineers.

The essence of my original comment, was pointing out the fact that from entire pose of the OP, only 1-2 paragraphs were dedicated to marketing, mainly with vague statements such as “I started to post on twitter, sometimes also jokes”.

On top of all that, marketing today is seen as beating the algorithm. And the algorithm changes every Thursday. So last week people were posting questions, today they are posting motivational quotes.

I don’t have the mental capacity, and desire, to participate in such games. I have moral principles, and I believe there is more than one way to achieve my goals. And the way I chose, might be harder and longer, but more aligned with what I want.

> I don’t have the mental capacity, and desire, to participate in such games. I have moral principles, and I believe there is more than one way to achieve my goals. And the way I chose, might be harder and longer, but more aligned with what I want.

I can understand and respect that. You just need to be clear on that a successful approach likely has to be within on standard deviation from the norm for the era in order to be successful. There are exceptions, of course. However, those typically involve very unique products.

There was an era when selling via catalogs by mail was the way to do it. Heck, even door-to-door selling of encyclopedias and vacuum cleaners was a thing. Today, that approach is at least three SD's away from the norm. In other words, it would be difficult, expensive and likely pointless.

You've put a lot of work into engineering your product. Don't waste that effort by jumping into the ocean while also trying to invent a new way to swim. Get your business solidly off the ground. You can then decide what you want from a frame of reference that includes experience and a bit of financial freedom to explore interesting options.

Another way of saying: Don't waste time. Get results. That's how you buy time and freedom to make other choices.

> Don't waste time. Get results.

Alright. Let's imagine I'm already in the boat 5km from shore, and I have one day left before I'm dropped into the ocean. What should I read, watch or listen to in order to catch up on today's approach to selling, do you have some recommendations?

> What should I read, watch or listen to in order to catch up on today's approach to selling, do you have some recommendations?

It really depends on where you are in this journey.

  Seth Godin
    Permission marketing
    Tribes: We need you to lead us
    All marketers are liars
    This is marketing
    Etc.
  
  Ries & Trout
    Positioning: The battle for your mind
    The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
    Etc.
  
  Scientific Advertising - Claude Hopkins

  https://www.foundingsales.com/
  
  The Little Red Book of Selling - Gitomer

Learning to use online channels, in my opinion, requires a lot of work. Companies like Google have useful material. Frankly, this subject is wide and deep. I got into it starting about twenty years ago.

Perhaps others can suggest books or courses/videos on best practices for online marketing and optimization that are more up to date.

I'll warn you that at some point in my journey I hated the fact that I had more business books by my bed than engineering books. It was frustrating until I reached what I call "cruise altitude" and had enough capabilities and understanding to do well.

I should add this. Approximately ten years ago I took a course related to selling on Amazon. Online marketing was covered in detail. The course is no-longer available or I would recommend it. However, it did cost over $5K. Which is to say: Don't be afraid to spend money to educate yourself on sales and marketing. If you are an entrepreneur, it is well worth the money. Sure, there will be some courses here and there that aren't great. That's just the way it is. Don't give up on learning just because you didn't find the perfect vehicle the on the first attempt.

Thank you for the response and taking the time to list recommendations, much appreciated.

Great insightful comment. It should be a pinned article at the top of HN for anyone wanting to start their own business. Unfortunately a lot of people will think: ok, I just need to come up with a new way to swim, I’m smart (maybe smarter than most), I got this

I know I drowned a couple of times before accepting reality, and I still struggle with it

A fellow solopreneur here, I've been doing it for several years now.

I browsed through your profile, website, Twitter account, and I'm still not sure what your product is and what it does. Is it consulting? Coaching? Book?

You don't have a lot of followers (me neither), so tweeting won't get you far as you're talking into a void. Instead, join existing discussions where people already are. Also, don't use too many hashtags - it looks spammy.

Not trying to put you down, just offering a different perspective you might not hear otherwise. I hope you succeed.

Thanks for the tips on posting.

I do offer multiple services, including coaching/consulting and my book. I’m also working on. SaaS that is in progress.

> launched my first SaaS 3 months ago, and got zero users

I couldn't find a link to your SaaS from your website.

Maybe you should put a giant button linking to the SaaS, put it in your Twitter bio, pin a tweet to it, your HN bio and every other place that you can think of. Assuming that's something you want to promote more than all the other things on your website.

Thanks for the suggestion. This particular one was classified as failed, I don't intent to work on it. I'm focusing on another one, which is close to be released as private alpha. This one, I'll try to pin everywhere.

even if it's private alpha, you should probably release it to a friendly hostile audience or feedback. Once against it is beta, you can release it to the world at large because well that's what a lot of SAAS companies do. Once you get some revenue, then you can make it better. Otherwise, if you don't get the feedback you need on how to make the product better and live in your own head, you might find yourself polishing turd. if I want to see someone who's done that, all I need is a mirror.

Yes I agree. I just need to finish a small missing functionality, and get a domain + hosting for it

>> I refuse to participate in algorithm games, and try to be authentic. But maybe that’s not what people like.

This is a mistake. It’s great to authentic when you tweet, post on LinkedIn or write in your newsletter - but if you have zero followers you’re just shouting into the void. You need to play “the algorithm game” so people see your messaging.

"I refuse to succeed!"

To each their own, I guess?

If success is posting stupid click bait questions on twitter, then yes, I refuse to do that.

I’m not a clown or an entertainer. I share my journey and provide value to people. The people who are drawn to click bait content, are not the people I want to interact with.

I feel with you, but don't delude yourself in to avoiding any kind of marketing. Marketing is an evil necessity, especially if you are starting from scratch by yourself. That's just the nature of our reality. To scoff and say you're content is an ego-fuelled move, one that pushes the problem off for later.

Don't do that to yourself. Learn to market ethically at least, or else it's a real waste of time as your next startup fails because you avoided marketing.

Never said I’m against marketing. I’m just against click bait and low effort content to draw attention / beat the algorithm

> Marketing is an evil necessity

Why are you labeling it as "evil"?

You are framing marketing activity as click baiting and being a clown.

This is not a matter of fact. It's an emotional projection stemming from refusing to succeed.

Martyr syndrome.

If we are talking about syndromes, then I think you might have a Stockholm syndrome.

On a more serious note, marketing is an umbrella term. There is clever marketing out there. It’s, however, rare. Most of the marketing is trash in a form of click baiting and being a morale-less clown. And the saddest part, is that it works. That’s why algorithms reward it.

What kind of product are you selling that you need to be active on Linkedin and Twitter?

My recent book. My coaching and consulting sessions. And soon, a SaaS that target software engineers and people with an “anti-establishment” mind set.

There are thousands of HN users now who have read your comment and not one of them knows what you're saas is, how to find it, or even what it's called, but we know you think marketing is hard...

One of the moves in the game that I refuse to play, is shoving your product down the throat of everyone.

I’ve seen it live on LinkedIn when one of my followers started to post generic comments, under my posts, such as: “totally agree with you! Subscribe to my newsletter”.

I find it disgusting.

This might be a surprise for you, but sometimes I just want to engage in authentic discussion.

I promote my stuff via Show HN or when it has relevance to the content of the poster.

You could have been the "I spent three months building an app that helps people unsubscribe from spam without needing to have permissions to their email account. I got zero users. Then I wrote a blog and ... "

You could have mentioned what you did without it being "subscribe here!"

I could. But sometimes I just want to engage in authentic discussions without being an extension of my products.

There is a happy middle ground where you are allowed to bring a little context without annoying everyone.

Left my job in 2020 to do the same. Nowhere near as profitable as OP, but now make enough to cover rent + basic expenses in New York. Crucially: I didn't want to do hypeman social media content that (a) sold the dream of solopreneur as a marketing tactic, or (b) added excessive noise into the ether.

I'm not saying Tony did either -- I haven't followed along -- but certainly a lot of people do. I can't fully blame the people who do, though.

Anyway. The project I've built [1] is still going, and I feel proud of it on merits of software: that it pushes the bounds, however slightly; that it feels good to exist in the world; and that I genuinely care for the people using it.

All that's to say: I think there's a software solopreneur path that doesn't involve excessive hype, gross self-promotion (some degree of self-branding is necessary though), while allowing you to work by principles and also explore interesting software problems.

Feel free to DM me [2] if you have questions, or are interested in bootstrapping your own project. Especially consumer-facing. I do have some writing online [3] that covers this too.

---

[1] https://mmm.page

[2] https://twitter.com/xhfloz

[3] https://woolgather.sh

Thanks for sharing! DMed you on twitter

Hey! FYI haven't seen anything in my inbox yet.

Thank you. Unfortunately, my experience is the same: it's hard to promote a software project on today's Internet without investing a lot of money or spending 4 hours/day on social media like the original poster did. There are many interesting projects like yours that remain invisible to their potential users.

You can also post about things that are genuinely interesting to you, and achievements that you are proud of. See my post history on HN. I would never have thought that people care about that stuff so I was pleasantly surprised by the warm reception.

I do something similar on social media. I share little updates mixed with factoids about my job. Even if it brought zero new visitors, it feels good to share what I’m working on.

building is great but most developers don't understand the value of marketing till they ask people to pay for their projects like SaaS etc... I've made some good money in writing in the last 3 years but without marketing it was highly impossible that's why I always encourage to people to start writing be it a tweet, LinkedIn or newsletter etc... and it's again a huge task along with building your products that's why it looks easy from outside but needs more work inside. but before going I've learned from Daniel a lot of things about marketing. Maybe this is useful. Take a look.

A 12 step marketing crash course for non-marketers:

1. If you're trying to sell something, everything you do is marketing.

2. The technical term for trying to sell something is a go-to-market (GTM) strategy.

3. Building a product is part of your GTM strategy.

4. Your combination of skills, knowledge, experience, reputation, assets, connections, etc, create opportunities for you in the market.

5. Once you find an opportunity you'd like to pursue, you should set a payoff expectation. Example: you plan to bring a particular project to market with the expectation of making $100K within 12mo.

6. You should have a viable hypothesis of how that expectation can be realized. Example: to make $100K selling a $100 product, you need 1,000 customers. To get 1,000 customers at 1% conversion you need 100K visits on your landing page. To get 100K visits you need to spend X on ads. And so on.

7. If you can't convince yourself you have a viable and profitable hypothesis, you need to adjust your payoff expectation, or pick another opportunity. You don't have an obligation to pursue every opportunity you encounter.

8. If your payoff expectation is too small for the time and money you're investing to bring your project to market, you should abandon it.

9. If the worst case scenario of your GTM strategy has a chance to put you out of business (by running out of time, money, motivation, etc), you should abandon it. Take risks, but never put yourself at risk.

10. Once you have a project on the market, you have the option (but not the obligation) to improve that project by repeating steps 5-9 on the same project. Every new feature is a new thing you're brining to market.

11. A business with no attention is a business that doesn't exist. You can have the best product in the world, but if nobody knows about it, it's like multiplying by zero — a recipe for failure.

12. Remember: there is no distinction between building and marketing. You build whatever you need to build to realize your payoff expectation. Everything is marketing.

Marketing is a tax you pay when you are not good enough.