Here are two ways of going about building something useful:
  1. Have idea --> Build product --> Find customers to use it.
  2. Have idea --> Find customers --> Build product that fixes their problems.
A lot of bitcoiners seem to have the first mindset. Perhaps this has been built into the Bitcoin community from the beginning. Satoshi rather sheepishly admitted he wrote the code before he wrote a paper explaining it:
I actually did this kind of backwards. I had to write all the code before I could convince myself that I could solve every problem, then I wrote the paper. -- Satoshi Nakamoto, "Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper," Cryptography Mailing List, 2008-11-09 01:58:48 UTC
And long before that, cypherpunks famously put emphasis on making things, not sales.
Lately, I've been trying to do something more along the second way of doing things, and I'm finding it very difficult. I keep wanting to stop with all the cold-calling and customer research and just build the thing. Problem is: in its current form, the thing is not actually something that people want.
In the last few years, I've seen plenty of projects that were somebody's great idea but nobody (at least not many) ever came around to check it out.
On the other hand, NOSTR and the Lightning Network are both projects that feel like they were built along the "if you build it they will come" way of doing things. And they've both found some success, but the current vibes around them seem to be that both projects missed some pretty important things that customers wanted.
Thoughts?
I propose a third way to build something useful:
Have a problem --> Solve it for yourself --> open source the solution
Customers don't know what they want. Even if they do, they will struggle to communicate it to you effectively. And you will struggle to solve a problem that you, yourself do not have.
Instead, build something you want.
Who cares if anyone else uses it? You solved a problem you had. You are the customer and that is enough of a reason to build something useful.
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Some solutions require a market or critical mass of users to become useful.
Better to first solve a problem that doesn't require a market.
It has to be useful to one person before it can be useful to many people.
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This feels like a good idea. But let's try an experiment (which admittedly is probably not where you meant to take it):
Imagine I'm a writer of fiction. I write a story that I think is interesting and compelling. I put it out to the world. No one reads it.
I wrote it for myself, so that's great. But I think many writers (and many people who make things) want to do more than write for themselves (or solve their own problems).
When you put work into a thing like a story, it feels wasted if no one else ever reads it.
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If a writer feels they wasted effort after publishing a piece, then their itch was not scratched in the act of writing it.
Maybe their itch is the need to be recognized, or spread their ideas, or maybe they wanted to make income from their efforts.
If the writer's itch is based in ego or bank account, few besides the writer will find the scratch useful to their own itch.
Maybe the writer should pivot from fiction to self-help or get rich quick books.
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Maybe the writer should pivot from fiction to self-help or get rich quick books.
πŸ€£πŸ˜‚πŸ˜Ž
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Those self-help books certainly seem to be all over the place. I often wonder who is buying them.
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I second this.
I've done projects both for myself and as freelance.
What I've built for myself was made with my comfort in mind, this led me to work solely on what I really needed and slowly fix bugs and polish the rough parts.
If it works for you, it can work for someone else too, making an "opinionated" software is not a bad choice.
The actual term is "Dogfooding", which means to be your own product's customer,.
If you don't plan to use it for yourself, you'll need to find some reliable third party to be your project "personas".
Else, expect dragons!
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This is the way... The challenge is then marketing the things you like to other people and convincing them of the value.
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I think fast n agile iterations are the key. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good. I would suggest build something, test it out with potential customers, gather feedback, build prototype version 2.0, rinse and repeat the process. The key is to balance (1) and (2).
Fire bullets before you fire cannonballs.
Check out this book for the fuller description of what I just said. Sensei learnt it from this book:
Good luck n have fun
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Thanks for the book rec. I'll check it out. I've definitely been feeling like I'm not making any progress. I was hoping to hear something from potential customers that sounded like yes, we need that! But maybe they need to see it first.
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"A lot of bitcoiners seem to have the first mindset. Perhaps this has been built into the Bitcoin community from the beginning."
I actually wish the Bitcoin community adopted this mindset more. Maybe it's a knee-jerk reaction to FTX and those type of characters, but there's this weird culture of, "selfishness is good and philanthropy is objectively bad," among maximalists. Like you said, I don't get that sense from Satoshi and I definitely don't get it from the old-school Austrian economists.
When you look at the heroes that any history book celebrates, you always find a good percentage of non-problem solvers. Isaac Newton didn't have a patron for calculus. Fredrick Douglas was a free man when he wrote about slavery. Despite what it says in The Bitcoin Standard, Bach* actually never made any hard money (or even soft money!) from Brandenburg Concertos. He had an idea, built a product, and his intended audience did not pay him (hire him for paid work in the case of the Brandenburgs). Nevertheless, they have provided massive value to subsequent generations.
All this to say, while I think the latter attitude probably leads to an easier life, there's so much value in the former and I think there is a certain type of person that is just wired to operate that way. Let's not throw out the Nicolai Teslas with the Sam-Bankman Fried water.
*As an aside, another thing that book really gets wrong about Bach was his sense of being misunderstood as an artist. He's actually the king of the "long diatribes" that Ammous equates with modern artists, spilling TONS of ink to justify his music to people that thought it was too esoteric and pretentious.
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It still blows my mind that all the value that bitcoin created started with a person who just posted some code on the internet that anyone could download for free.
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I know, right!?
Satoshi: V4FREE
many bitcoiners: V4V (or else you're a scammer LARPing as an altruist)
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Spot on. If the problem is big & bad enough, the research and effort you put into ideation should not be boring, but instead fulfilling work.
I’ve spent countless hours building and experimenting, then wishing to start over. That was the motivation behind my SN post Building Better Products.
You likely only need 2-3 weeks of research (without code) to determine if the problem is the right one and if the solution you envisaged is up to scratch. Any longer and your product is too big and needs to be made smaller. A Mini-MVP if you like.
Marketing can likely wait until your MVP has been validated and has at least some level of traction. The last thing you want is a) explosive growth when the product is not ready or b) the wrong product that no one uses and for which there is no demand.
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  1. Listen what people need --->have idea how to solve their problem ---> build product ---> customers are already waiting.
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🀘 and bitcoin customers are different. They are patient and discerning and the burden of proof of philosophical alignment seems to be high.
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this is exactly what the USA is doing with oil. want some of it? need to buy it using dollars
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I believe we project our reality into existence. It is only the mind. So... What we put energy into, we will inevitably receive back from. As long as the intentions are clear, and we are committed. I am working on a few things where I am waiting, building, having faith in myself. Because from the outsider perspective, it all seems pretty strange. As a bitcoiner I see opportunity where others miss it. Have faith. If you build it, they WILL come. πŸ™πŸ’šπŸŒ„
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It sounds like you have a lot of confidence in what your are building. I'm curious: have been thinking about how you will find customers/users? Do you spend most of your efforts on the project on building, or do you also spend time on thinking about marketing?
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I 100% focus on what I have to offer. That's the only thing that matters to me. People find their way to me. It's all energy and vibration in my opinion. πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈ
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51 sats \ 0 replies \ @ek 6 Mar
Problem is: in its current form, the thing is not actually something that people want.
I think that's where MVPs come in: you don't have to only build or only do customer research. MVPs feel like the solution: build just enough so you can have effective research into the problems of your potential customers (and your own capabilities like Satoshi mentioned).
On the other hand, NOSTR and the Lightning Network are both projects that feel like they were built along the "if you build it they will come" way of doing things.
I think if you're building a protocol, this mindset of "if you build it, they will come" applies more. Protocols are meant for others to come and build something on top of it. Your "customers" aren't end-users.
But if you build a product, service or however you want to call it, it's different.
In the last few years, I've seen plenty of projects that were somebody's great idea but nobody (at least not many) ever came around to check it out.
I agree
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Find a niche (pain), market research (build community), build MVP - minimum viable product. Or other way around: build a landing page add a payment and see the response if people are willing to pay for it. Then explain them it's an idea and collect their feedback and then build community, MVP and product.
That's how I've build https://lntictactoe.com See #451880
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Isn't this a quote by the unforgotten great Al Bundy???
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"If you build it, he will come" is from the movie Field of Dreams, but it sounds a lot better the way most people use it If you build it, they will come.
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Yes and yes
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Keep creating!
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I understand the duality. On the one hand, you need to have a product to show the customer. In situation 2, you don't have a product to show the customer. Conducting market research before developing a product is crucial, but sometimes these studies don't tell you much about new and innovative products. I believe that we should have something to show the customer, and if there is interest, then we can continue with the development. I'm not an expert in this matter, but it's what I see my boss do, and he's relatively successful.
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When you don't have a thing to show a potential customer, it is kinda putting it on them to figure out how what you are asking about can best be useful to them. Seems like it might not be too fruitful.
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user when they test new apps/web they always find these;
user wants βœ” profitable βœ” fun and engaging βœ”
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1 > 2
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Have a problem....solve it ....help others to solve it ....v4v
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Keep thinking keep building
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stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.
deleted by author
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