Stop thinking become Zuckerberg while you are working on your next project

Hey everyone! Since high school I've liked to create different apps and webservices. Before I was 23 years old, every time I got an idea for a new project and started coding, I used to think that I would be the next Zuckenberg/Jobs/Musk after launching it. And this app/tool/website would change the world. But reality is all of them were failed. Step by step I changed my mindset to start looking at projects as things that solve problem, and with a 10% chance, you can even make money with them.

So these are my rules of choosing ideas and working on projects:

If you can to validate a problem (or idea) without writing code, just do it. There are many ways to check it, like talking to your future customers, building a landing page, or even writing a post on social media(X or Reddit). If want to ask how to find ideas, I can't answer shortly. That's a topic for another post.
Don't fall in love with your code (and product). Seriously. If you love your code, it will lead to overcomplicating the architecture and not listening critical feedback about the product or the problem you're solving.
From point 2, I draw the next rule: Estimated building time should be less than 1 month. Of course, it depends on many factors like speed and free time, but I'm talking about case where you work on an idea 3-4 hours per day, while having a full-time job.
Release it as quickly as you can.
Do you know your customer(ICP)? Great. Reach out them on LinkedIn or other Social Media and ask them to try your product. But prepare yourself to testing different messages and check the results after 50 or even 100 messages, because conversion rate to answers could be very low.
Don't know your customer? It's a common case. Ask your friends, family, co-workers to try your product. If they try it, there is a high chance they are doing it because of you, not your product. Post on different Subreddits, Indiehackers, X, producthunt. It's free and some people could become your early adopters.
Try to find ways to talk to your users to get information from them. Is your product useful for them? If no and they provide reasons, analyze them. Based on their feedback, is it easy to implement features or maybe it's another idea? If it's easy to implement, make it quickly and return to users asking them to try new features.
This point could be part of point 3, but I made it separate. In the beginning or after you get some users, make paid options. The best validation of what you are doing is users' readiness to pay. Otherwise, it doesn't have value for customers.
Make 2-3 iterations of finding customers and improving your product after the launch. And then:
- If you don't have any customers, it's better to drop it and go to point 1.
- If you have users who regularly use your product, but don't have paid users, it's not bad. Try to find a new valuable paid feature. If you can not, go to point 1.
- If you have paid customers, awesome. If you understand how to scale it, congrats, you are new Zuckenberg or levelsio. If you don't understand, you can go to point 1 and support this product in the background.

I want highlight again that these insights are based on only my experience. Of course sometimes you can make some exceptions to any point, but in general, they can help you to have more fun, joy and money from your products.

To avoid sounding like a coach or advisor, I'll share some of my projects: iOS apps of Appreel Corp, last year cofounder and I launched Profile Photo, but closed it half a year ago because it was hard to acquire users.

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