🤔 My dilema: A product I love but don't know how to sell

I'm not entirely sure how many people are in this situation; I don't think my experience is unique, but I'm using this space to reflect on what I've learnt, and how I got here, still working hard to understand how to move forward...

Having worked for a FAANG company as a software engineer for 6 years, I've been exposed to some amazing tools. YC refers to them as the retention trap, but I would go so far as to call them addictive. It is extremely simple to do anything, from code to search for information, connect with people, balance work/life times and, hell, even booking holidays (it's the first time I just had to FYI my peers and not ask for permission...).

The whole system is gamified to let you focus on building cool products and not to worry about why your cookies aren't being persisted, understand the minimum detail of how to set up your domain dns to avoid getting to spam for cold emails, deploy a CI system and more... I know, I know... While for some this may sound like fun, I can't help but feel the pain of not being able to focus solely on product development.

Coming back to the story, one thing that has truly fascinated me is how information is easily and widely accessible. Imagine having a version of Google and ChatGPT with all the knowledge available within the company... Information is power, and it empowers employees to do their job.

However, while working on my personal laptop, I found myself feeling trapped, as if something was missing. My fingers moved on autopilot, my brain hoping that my familiar commands from the company would magically lead me to the right places.

This is how Ekorn was born. Built over a weekend, I satisfied my necessity of accessing information fast by creating commands that could be used in Chrome. It's a tool that I love, use every day, and consider myself its biggest fan.

Fast forward a month, and I realized its true power lies in environments where information overload is common – where information changes drastically overnight, week after week, and month after month. So, I decided to make it available for companies.

However, this is where the story takes a dark turn. Despite my deep love for the product, I haven't been able to secure my first corporate customer. I find marketing and sales tasks to be the most challenging part so far. I spend hours trying to strike a balance between building the product, cold emailing potential clients, launching on ProductHunt, conducting interviews, and even seeking a Sales & Marketing co-founder (you may have noticed I opted for the latter). The world feels overwhelmingly vast at this stage, and I can confirm that time is our most valuable currency. Yet, I'm struggling to determine the best way to utilize it effectively.

One thing is certain, though... I won't let my lack of experience to stay in the middle... 💪