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9 Comments

Introducing myself

Hi all.

I'm Wijnand. I joined IH 2 years ago but wasn't really active. Now I'm going to make it my main online social medium. I studied artificial intelligence in the Netherlands, then taught myself to build apps and I'm ±6 apps further now - not having made much profit on them. I quit my job this month and the coming two years (I saved enough for that) I am planning to make many products (and go for one if it proves viable):

  • FriendTime.co - become a better friend
  • BackpackingTribe.com - free, flexible group trips for backpackers
  • MasterCrimeZ.com - Text-Based Mafia MMORPG
  • Matrix (tba) - 2D Artificial Life Simulation for AGI Research
  • Something with GPT3 (Yay, I have access! :) )

And quite a few more things I have in mind.
Since I have so many ideas, my strategy is going to be to spend ±1 month on every product trying to see if it's viable or not. If it is, continue, if not, go to the next one.

Very nice to meet you all!

  1. 5

    You already have products out there, why do you think they are not viable enough? You're a maker like me, and might be suffering from the maker's confusion. "If I build it, they will come"

    No they won't. You can build the most amazing product and no one will come! You have to sell it, if you want to be in business you have to do the business of being in business. Marketing, promotion is needed.

    Think about it like this. If someone did 99% code and 1% testing, you would think they were crazy right?

    So if someone started a business and did 99% coding and 1% marketing, won't that be crazy? Keep on building, but please dedicate and commit a huge amount of your time to also marketing.

    1. 2

      I get your point. I think in a way I've always been more of a coder and less marketing, so it's true. However I try to do 50/50 now. And for my last project backpackingtribe.com that I launched I almost had some success until corona came along and ruined it.

      Do you think 50/50 is enough?

      1. 2

        We sometimes go 100% coding / 0 marketing in the beginning. I think you should try and go 100% marketing, before you give up. If at 100% you're not seeing progress after many experiments then maybe it's time to call it quicks. Our type tend to find solace and distraction in coding. What's the point of adding features if there's not traction? Once we have the product, we must get customers and all future features should be driven by their demands.

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          What's the point of adding features if there's not traction?

          Oh man. 😅😅😅 Love this comment. Very well said.

  2. 1

    Hello and welcome after 2 years. If you need any help re: branding then let me know as that is my area of expertise.

  3. 1

    Hey Wijnand, welcome to the community, what kind of analysis of the market/risks you do before deciding if an idea is worth executing? Have you heard of the idea maze, how do you navigate the idea maze in your head?

    1. 1

      No haven't heard of it, I'll look it up.

      Currently my process is encountering a problem that I have myself that I can't solve very nicely with the current tools available and then try to create a POC as quickly as possible (if this is doable within a few weeks) and bring it out there to the world.

      1. 1

        Yeah, you should look it up, it's a very interesting thing, in short, it shows the balance between a good idea and good execution and shows that both are equally important for success.
        Right, I used to follow your approach too, until I found this really good blog by Tyler Tringas, he shows that scratching your own itch only goes so far, and you can actually evaluate your ideas in a methodical way. take a look at that too, it's pretty nice.
        Hit me up if you want to discuss more about this, this reply is getting really long. 😂
        Fun fact: Tyler coined the term "Micro Saas". 😅

  4. 1

    Nice to meet you too and nice products good luck on your journey. :)

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