The gap between building and selling software

Building is the easy part. Distribution, positioning, and feedback loops are where most projects die.

I have shipped products nobody used

The codebase was clean. The architecture was sound. The launch was a flatline.

I had built a solution in search of a problem. The code solved something nobody had. The positioning was abstract. The distribution was "launched on Hacker News."

The lesson is not "marketing matters"

The lesson is that distribution is a product concern from day one.

If you cannot describe who benefits and why they will switch, you do not have a product. You have a codebase.

Distribution is part of the product

A product is not finished when it is built. It must be:

• Understood by the right people
• Trusted in the right context
• Adopted through the right channels
• Used in the intended way

Each of these is a product decision, not a marketing decision. The product must make them possible.

How to think about it

Before you build, ask: who has this problem, what do they do today, and why would they switch?

If you cannot answer these three questions with specificity, you are building in the dark.

The codebase is the easy part.