Built in public on YouTube. The project flopped.

Hey fellow indie hackers!

I'm just coming back from two months trying to build and launch a software product called Videofyles. But the product flopped.

Had worked 64 out of 69 days in this project, averaging 7.11 hours daily. So around 50 hrs/week. And those are truly productive hours, I logged every single hour in the calendar. Not like in the office when we do random stuff half of the time. In total, 213 hours of marketing and 209 hours of coding.

Check out the full story here on YouTube: 2 Months of FAILED (Solo) Startup in 16 Minutes

So why did it not work out?

1. I made YouTube videos every other day, growing to 500 subscribers in 4 weeks. This was fun, yielded lovely feedback from people but took too much time off the clock. I framed the series as "I have 30 days until I'm broke". It worked with creating engagement, but it didn't translate to customers.

2. Another strategy was cold-contacting 200 video editors on LinkedIn. But then figured out they weren't my target market. Then there was no time to repeat this process for a ICP, leaving me without a clear customer base.

3. My marketing activities were scattered across LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit. Experimenting is super important but spreading it thin meant they couldn't be done super effectively. This is just experience that needs to be built over time, we can't avoid failing here. It's just part of the learning process.

4. I failed to define a clear target market for Videofyles. I pivoted from a simple video compression tool to a "Swiss Army knife" for media files with a chat interface, which made defining the target audience even harder. This pivot happened about halfway through the project.

5. The ProductHunt launch flopped more than expected. We got 120 upvotes and 7th place for the day, but only about 10 trial signups. I realized too late that people were hesitant to download and install an app from an unknown creator.

My biggest learning (surprise surprise lol): Start such a project by talking to people. Have initial customers secured first. And only then start building. The product-first mindset was my biggest enemy here.

Yes I know, basically every business book warns about this. At least all of which I read. But it's just not enough to read it and learn it the intellectual way. Sometimes it's necessary to learn it the hard way. truly feeling how terrible it turns out when you do it the wrong way.

So from that perspective, this project was a full success. I'm just such a better entrepreneur now.

I've documented this journey in the YouTube video linked above, covering the daily grind, the emotional rollercoaster, and how the TV show Suits became my entrepreneurial inspiration.

What's your most screwed up marketing strategy?