Building a project that supports indie founders

I want to share my story behind building Knowledghunt from ideation to first users.

Step 1: Idea
Being a solopreneur is hard. You have to do everything yourself, but you'll unlikely know everything about running a business. A lack of knowledge can lead to avoidable mistakes that could cost your business money.

The Internet is full of resources but competitive, and market intelligence is increasingly complex in today's real-time, open Web. Sadly all the information is scattered over the Web, and we have no choice but to search for it a lot and learn by messing up. Google search prioritizes SEO-friendly resources over high-value ones. There is no user review system for these resources. As a result, founders waste time in searching for the knowledge they need.

As a fellow founder and VC, I was spending dozen hours on desk research to find high-value resources and answer questions - how to use social media, how to scale, how to cold e-mail, how to grow, you name it... Eventually, I got pretty good at finding hidden gems of the web somewhere in the Internet's noise and started gathering them in the Excel file for future use.

A few weeks ago, I decided to share my directory with fellow start-up founders so that they won't have to spend the same hours as I did - that is how https://www.knowledgehunt.co/ was born.

Step 2: MVP creation
The idea was there - 'A curated Knowledge directory that will help you elevate your Startup and avert avoidable mistakes' - but now it needed to be built, and I have 0 technical knowledge.

I did a quick research and found a no-code builder that used Airtaible as a base to build a resource directory website. I transferred some of my resources from Excel to Airtaible and built the first version of the website that had good but random resources and 0 content around resources except the title. No standardized background pics. No features whatsoever.

Still, I decided to get feedback on it.

Step 3: MVP feedback
I ensured that the website's hero section (and about us page) explained what the product would eventually be, not what it is today. I started sharing the website and asking for feedback with my friends on start-up-related subreddits and discord groups. I used my personal LinkedIn to do a cold DM outreach, asking for quick feedback. As a result, I got around 35 answers. What did I learn? - that product is very poor quality, but if done correctly, people see themselves using it.

I know that product validation can never be a 100% guarantee, but rather confidence in what you are doing and an increased gut feeling of where you are going. That is why I decided to invest more time and move to the 2.0 version of the Knowledgehunt without a further feedback.

Tip: I also used the pioneer.app, which is an online accelerator where you will get peer-to-peer reviews from other participants; highly recommended!

MVP 2.0 version:
For the 2.0 version, I decided to improve content around all the resources (it takes quite a lot of time, but I believe it will be worth it in the long term), improve visuals, and add features (Gmail sign-in, favorite feature, comment section).

I hired a person through a no-code hiring platform and paid around 200$ to improve my UI/UX. The result was pretty satisfactory.

What now?
I am adding new resources to the website daily and have a list of tools to add (all will help early-stage founders in their journey). I use Twitter and LinkedIn to gain traction. We are not spending any money on marketing.

I will continue building the project for the next 2 months or so. If I get enough confidence that we are actually creating value for founders, we will continue doing it!

https://www.knowledgehunt.co/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/KnowledgeHuntHQ
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/knowledge-hunt2022/

In the upcoming weeks, I will share a more in-depth journey description here, as well as on my personal Twitter - https://twitter.com/TornikePkh