Built my first product… now learning the hard part: getting users

A while back, I was still working at a company as an engineer.
During an ordinary catch-up with the sales team, someone complained:

“Most proposals just disappear into silence.
We send the PDF → nothing.
Then we have to call the customer blindly and hope they actually opened it.”

Everyone laughed, but there was helplessness in it.

I didn’t think much at the time.
But somehow that moment stuck with me.

Fast forward one year.
I quit my job.
Instead of looking for another one, I wanted to finally build something on my own —
something driven by a real problem I had seen up close.

And this painful little issue from that sales conversation was the first thing that came back to mind.

So I started building.
Design → code → research → repeat.
Along the way I discovered lots of competing tools already exist.

But that actually made me feel more confident:
If there are multiple solutions, then the problem is real.
And maybe I could approach it differently.

I kept going.
I launched my product at the end of last month.

Then… reality arrived.

I had spent so much time building that I forgot:
products don’t magically find users.

SEO is slow.
Marketing is hard.
And “free channels” still cost time — which I massively underestimated.

In the past month:
• < 50 total visitors
• 1 paying user (and yes, I celebrated it 🎉)

I used to think release day was the finish line.
Now I know it’s the starting point.

So here I am — an engineer learning distribution from scratch.
Trying to make the shift from “I built something” → to “someone finds value in it.”

If you’re in a similar stage — confused, testing ideas, adjusting expectations —
I’d love to hear how you’re pushing forward.
Feels less lonely when we share the messy parts.

Thanks for reading 🙌