From 6 months down to 1. Practice launching.

Ok, folks, it's been a wild ride since my last product launch here.

Last time, I created a mobile website builder. It took me 6 months of product development before I started talking to potential customers.
Then 2 months of "Why isn't it taking off?" to "maybe write a post or two" to "Arrrhg selling is hard, let's go back to freelance."

Today I've launched a way smaller product in a more targeted market, all it took was 3 weeks of development and one to kickstart sales.
What changed? I practiced.

Here's the product 👉 https://jobtitlesai.com
It categorizes job titles by field (sales, finance, IT...) and position (executive, management, assistant...) so you can automate your lead qualification, clean your CRM, prioritize LinkedIn profiles or organize job offers.

It's small; it's valuable; it gets sales.
What changed? I practiced.

I do parkour. And, of course, you know how to jump. But until you practice, you don't feel it. You want to make a move, but your brain screams it's not a good idea. You constantly fight against your intuition.
So if the gap is too broad, find a smaller one to get used to it, then repeat, repeat, repeat.

When I launched the website builder, these were the biggest mistakes I made:
While I knew I needed to talk to potential users early, I fooled myself by only speaking to friends.
While I knew I should identify specific use cases, I kept saying there were many.
While I knew I had to start small, my ego would lure me back to grandiose ambitions.

Now, far from being a serial product launcher. I can say practice paid off. And I am more confident about the tasks that feel unnatural (mainly sales and marketing, coming from a dev background).

I often hear from first-time founders:
"This is it, the Big One™️. The idea/startup/product that my life will climax on. I'm going to crush it."
The reality is you probably won't.
As a sport, you practice getting good at it. Don't expect to be an NBA player because you've watched thousands of matches.
So instead of seeing your adventure as the ultimate NBA game, see it as an afternoon practice session. Serious but without much stake.
Entrepreneurship takes practice.