What are you biggest learnings from creating your own product ?

After publishing a newsletter for 2 years and ~150 editions I have learned that consistency > everything else. If you stay at something long enough, you're bound to catch some breaks and have things start to go your way. It might be a slow grind but staying consistent and making tweaks related to feedback along the way will pay dividends down the road.

Positioning. Definitely Positioning and always positioning. I started Sugr Cube (https://www.producthunt.com/post..., thanks to PH, we launched here) almost 8 years ago, the hardware was great, carefully and thoughtfully designed and crafted. (I omit thousands of words here about its design philosophy and the respect I showed to Steve Jobs through Sugr Cube, love it so much). But from the business point of view, I started without a careful and thoughtful positioning. What's worse, as a business, you have to build your whole parts and mussels around the positioning (dev team, supply chain, fund, target audience, growth strategy, branding, etc.) Without a proper positioning, though we worked super hard, we couldn't make it scale.

My biggest learning is that people are very forgiving! Our early adopters and even the new people are extremely supportive. They root for our win. And this is completely new learning for me 😊

The saying "build it and they will come" isn't actually true. The saying should be "build an amazing marketing/GTM Team and they will come" 😂

As a developer, not difficult to create products. As you develop more, you might end up creating better UX. But the same skill doesn't reflect in finding customers. That's the hard part, at-least for me.

As a solo founder, I know it can be extremely overwhelming to think about creating a profitable product. While working on my side project (www.resumemaker.online), ending up earning money never crossed my mind. Even if it sounds counterintuitive, I think this undisturbed and humble approach to just try to have fun and design a useful product can be the key to avoid frustration, not biting more than you could chewed, and ultimately ship a product.

Like many comments here the best learning from creating our own product is that failure is one of the many challenges in building a business and I have learned a lot about learning and adapting during failure and finding new paths to move forward.

Many... it's harder than one things... Really learnt to organize myself and work in a systematic manner... others who have never built anything is their lives just don't get the challenge while real builders understand you like no one else. Creating something for this world is the most fulfilling thing ever.

Last year we’ve launched 7 projects, 6 of them failed, so what can I say is: - Don’t give out desirable for valid. It’s better to manifest you’re doing something simple, but useful and gradually evolve rather than trying to implement your ultimate product from scratch; - Your journey will always be challenging, but if you feel stressed or uncertain, probably you’ve chosen the wrong tactics. Your next step always should be exciting, even if you’re a bit nervous. But no tension 🧘🏽 - Do not shelve inspiring ideas, they come for a reason; - Always keep synced with your team. The more people concentrate on the same goal, the quicker the progress bar is getting filled; - Constantly connect with new people and share what you’re doing, they will be your navigators. And don’t forget to enjoy the ride:)

- Always ask for feedback (be it your team, prospects, clients, or people online). Helpful suggestions definitely came our way through this. - Don't overcomplicate: redundant features complicate onboarding and drain computing resources. - Culture is key: building a product is important but so is bonding as a team. It's okay to have meetings that aren't work-only. - Don't expect quick successes: most of the things you are working on (the product itself, distribution, customer success) will pay off in the long run.

You are the only agent of change in your life/business. It's easy to think that things will just "happen" or "fall into place" but the reality is nothing will happen unless you devote concerted effort to making it a reality.

Sometimes creating the product is the easier part of the business. Finding customers and PMF is arguably much harder. Don't underestimate the later.

I’ve designed and built multiple products and can say the only thing I’m 100% confident in at the start is that some part of my plan will be terribly wrong. The goal is to find that flaw early and be courageous enough to switch gears towards a new, more successful path.

Reading books on how to build a startup or a product is as useful as reading books on how to play tennis :) Being on the tennis court is the only way to learn. Now if you can have a coach, it's better.

Make sure you have a good way of tracking what you are doing for marketing! Try a couple different things at a time on a small scale. Then with your analytics see what is working and then look into scaling those ideas

Creating a product is not that hard, you need money and personal motivation. It's hard to find people who believe in the product as much as you do. People who will go through with it no matter what. And it's not about the quality of the product or its profitability. It's about the people themselves, today most of them need the here and now. And the lesson was that you have to not stop believing in people and their capabilities. And then the dream team comes together 👌🏼

Surrounding yourself with a team or contributors who have the same passion, drive, and work ethic helps with development progression. The most gratifying feeling is when a userbase around what you've created starts to build, and you see people genuinely enjoy what you've created. The monetization is just gratuity at that point.

I have learned that focus on one, and specific can make progress. When Lou's focus the results is failure

Solving a problem makes everything easier, marketing, market segmentation, content strategy, go-to-market, roadmaps, feature building to name a few. Start with a problem (annoyance, inefficiency, frustration) and go from there

Still learning everyday, but the main thing I see is that you can have the greatest product in the world, but without marketing, it is like finding a needle in a haystack. So for me, transitioning from design & development to marketing manager is going to be the biggest challenge and learning curve.