The unreasonable effectiveness of not doing the thing

"This is fucking bullshit"

It was 1.30 am and I was tired and angry at myself.

I was deep in the weeds of building a complex login system.

I had convinced myself yet again that this feature was absolutely crucial to the launch of my latest project.

I was stuck. I wasted the last 3 days.

At that point I said to myself ENOUGH.

I stopped torturing myself and I just launched the damn landing page.

I had the idea to build a 30-day challenge to overcome social anxiety.

I posted on Producthunt, Hackernews and some small subreddits.

I didn't expect anything to come off it.

But there it was. Suddenly an upvote on Hackernews. And another.

Before I knew it I was on the front page. What the hell. Hackernews?? My stupid little landing page on the front page?

It stayed at the top of Show HN for the entire day.

This was a crazy aha moment for me. You don't need a complicated, well-engineered product. You just need people to believe in your vision.

I collected more than 700 email addresses that day. I quickly set up Mailchimp and wrote 30 daily challenges. I offered it to a lot of people for free.

I then had a brilliant lightbulb idea. I changed the copy on the site.

It said:

"First batch is full. 70% off for the first 50 people in the second batch"

Surprisingly, people kept signing up! So I quickly set up a Stripe account and offered the challenge to them for $18.

I made $100 in sales! I couldn't believe my eyes. I had been trying stuff online in the last few years without making any sales.

This is the promise I am making to myself:

From now on, I will focus on marketing.

I will only start building when there are actual sales.

I will NOT waste months building stuff no-one is ever going to see or use.

Follow my journey on Twitter: https://twitter.com/toomasb
Check out the 30-day challenge: https://www.socialanxietychallenge.com/

Much love,