What happens when you’ve been working on your MVP on an island, and eventually take it to the public, and no one cares?

This essay is for indie developers who are looking to give their next project it’s best chance for success.

I’ve been an entrepreneur and developer for more than 10 years. When I look back, one of the biggest pitfalls I see is that I would work on all my favorite projects alone, and in private. I’d only want to reveal what I’m up to when I was done, and had something to show off.

Building in public is a better way, and I will explain to you why that is.

Reason #1 – Building A Better Mousetrap Isn’t Enough

I figured that if I became a good-enough builder, then the success would just come naturally. Quotes like “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door” completely side-step the critical question of discovery.

How will people discover your offering?

The ‘build in private/stealth’ approach depends far more on luck and chance than the alternative of building in public. It may SEEM like relying on only your private efforts is somehow the more meritocratic path (where the best coder wins) but it doesn’t work like that. You can’t depend on luck just making things happen. You can only depend on your own efforts and output.

The ‘better mousetrap’ quote is a fallacy. It’s easy to think of cases where ‘the better product’ did not win, and its’ parent company went bankrupt.

The ‘best’ does not always win, the product everyone is using is the one that wins.

Reason #2 – You Need Market Feedback Early & Often

In Marketing 101, we learn the 4 P’s: Product, Price, Promotion, Positioning.

You need market feedback on all 4 of these things in order to iterate and improve. You can make initial guesses, but you need to listen to your audience and move beyond guessing.

• How do you know you are building the right product?
• How do you know you are charging the right price?
• How do you know where you should be promoting?
• How do you know how to brand your product, and message the differentiators & benefits?

You need to talk to your audience.

Once you have feedback you can adjust, and you get closer and closer to being exactly what your audience is looking for.

Or not, and you learn from feedback that the idea is a dud and that you should move on. Either way, you want to know sooner rather than later.

Reason #3 – You’re Not Gaining Momentum Until You’re Engaging

Focusing exclusively on grinding out a MVP, and then once it’s done – trying to THEN begin the marketing and audience building is a tried and true recipe for disaster.

There is a risk of burning out before you get any users at all.

Although I love programming, I think there is no doubt that the process of building something difficult and complicated has a way of exhausting you. The process can leave you feeling depleted after a while of doing it without getting tangible results or recognition.

When you are exhausted, and you finish the masterpiece that is your v1, the only thing you will want to do is relax and celebrate.

However, that will be precisely when you realize — this is only the first step.

Building the thing is not the whole business. This tech you built is just going to sit there until you get it into peoples hands.

You’re now faced with the difficult decision: launch with no momentum, or now double-down into a marketing rush. It’s no easy choice, and the longer your process goes on, the higher your chance of burning out before you ever get to user #1.