I suspect you might get the code part right and fall short on at least one of the other three.

For help with the marketing part, you might want to consider my book (the second edition just came out in beta): https://pragprog.com/book/actb2/technical-blogging-second-ed...

I understand the desire to remain anonymous here, but if you email me with some details, I can give you more specific pointers.

That doesn't mean I'm not successful. It just didn't work out and it is normal. For every billionaire, there is a lot of people like us.

I would also ignore the comments about not being good at selling etc, building products and making a lot of money has a lot of luck involved. There are things we can definitely keep improving, but that in my opinion, isn't what is going to get us what we want. There is a good amount of randomness and luck in this process. A lot of people are working hard, that doesn't mean a thing. Only a few can succeed.

We're just "test subjects" in this world. Don't take this too seriously as some type of failure. Just use your skills you got to make a living and if you are willing, make more products, or give up, it doesn't matter, really. And chill.

Thanks for everything that you have built that didn't work out.

I agree with this. Just take a look at 'Show HN' - there are many excellent projects that get no traction at all. And then there a few lucky ones that suddenly take-off. There's no "wisdom of the crowds" moment that propels one project to success over another because it's more worthy or excellent - it really is random in so many cases. But rather than see that as a negative, take comfort from the fact that everyone is in the same boat. Plus, the fact that the original poster actually built these projects is an impressive feat in itself. Many of us never even get beyond the 'idea-in-our-head' stage.

What you need to do is sell the idea of your product first. Get guaranteed customers, which means, they need to put cold hard cash on the line. Putting out a survey to garner interest is fun to do, but you’ll never really know until you actually get a person to part with their money.

Once you have your first foundational customers, whether this be individual people or businesses, then start going 100% on the product itself.

edit: Do you mean you get them to commit to paying you when a product is ready?

Companies are willing to do this because they get 100% input on the product direction.

Here's an example of someone who created a UI concept that suddenly went viral, but which ultimately never got built. There was never any deception - everyone knew it was a concept piece but many expressed an interest seeing it built:

https://www.vanschneider.com/story-dotmail

Kickstarter is a great platform for achieving something like this of your thing is going to be consumer facing.

So you just stopped there? Moved onto coding something else, because rather than get better at something you're crap at, it's comforting to do something you're good at (more coding)

There's your problem.

So actually I think the sale here is harder than it might have seemed, though obviously someone was able to do it.

And where do I sell it? I don't think (if it's a SASS) people at online communities welcome a product which isn't built yet and they couldn't try.

Would running a different kind of successful business be as fulfilling? While I shared the same vision as you approximately 5 years ago (starting a SaaS business), ultimately that particular goal didn't work out. But pursuing that goal did open many doors for me as well as teach me a whole lot about business and how to negotiate. Fast forward through years of attempts at making the company successful, I now run a small consultancy that I consider extremely successful. I owe this directly to my initial goal of starting a SaaS business. Had I not pursued that goal, I believe my consultancy would not exist.

"There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still." -FDR

I was once in your shoes building SaaS project that never amounted to much, what changed well I got into yc startup school last year and while my startup failed I learnt a lot from fellow startup schoolers when it came to sales, things like; b2b and b2c SaaS require different sales approach, cold outreach bring in 3% of all SaaS sales,and so on. And then I joined Facebook SaaS groups, which where filled with successful SaaS founders, where I am learning a lot from, I even found founder mentors there, who are now mentoring me through my recent SaaS project that is accomplishing results my other SaaS projects never could. There are so many variables involved in building a successfull SaaS project, so many in fact that it is a fallacy to think you can optimize them all by yourself, best approach is to find someone who has already optimized most of these variables and learn from them.

SaasGrowthHacks is a particularly good Facebook group you can join, it is a closed group by the way.

* Who are the people I want to serve?

* How do I find out what problems they have that I can help?

* How do I reach them?

* What can create to help them solve their problems?

* How do I get them to see me and my products as the solution to their problems?

* How do I become trustworthy enough in their eyes to try my products?

You can learn how to do a lot of this yourself and there are many courses out there like 30x500 that can help. As an alternative, you might want to find and partner with a good 'Business Guy' who can bring the audience while you build the product.

> I keep having ideas for startups and side projects and while I'm great at sales and build a ton of traction and people aching to use the app... I can't build it - because I'm crap at programming.

So, what would you suggest he do?

So for example for your campground app - why not first solve problems of individuals going to the camp? It could be as simple as a public map tool where people could put/share markers for different resources on the map... then after you provide value for free, offer premium services. I haven't been successful either so maybe this is horrible advice, but that's basically how I try to solve the problem of sucking at marketing/sales. (do marketing through engineering)

The best income I had was building websites early on and I made a few thousand doing that on the side. I have for the last 7 years been trying to make something, but have not had much success. Build it and they will come has been a failure for me.

I am trying to use some of the methods Pat Flynn talks about in his book Will It Fly. Look for the audience first, the one that has an existing problem.

Sometimes we believe we can achieve anything we want. This is compounded by reading and listening to all the hero stories online.

I would say do nothing in this space for a while and let your thoughts get themselves in order.

It’s like building a car that has amazing peripherals but no engine each time and wondering why it doesn’t go.

Unfortunately product in reality is moreso the peripheral and less so the engine.

Didn’t build it and they still came is a thing.

Build it and they didn’t come is a thing.

Validate even MORE about the problem, AND the solution, before building out the solution in a substantial way, or at all. Is the problem clear to the people who have it, and one of their top priorities? Find out by communicating with them, ideally in person, but video chat works and written forms if that's all that is possible. If a competitor exists, great! What's the value proposition of your similar product/service? Why is it so good someone who uses another should switch, or what makes it compelling for someone who is evaluating your product/service?

Instead of positive interest, how many people will sign up in a form you link them to, or a landing page? How many will give their email or some contact information so that you contact them when your thing launches? How many say "I have $x and I will pay you that right now if you make this problem go away!"? How many people will read your blog post about how frustrating a certain problem is? Saying "Yeah, I hate that problem", but not being willing to do anything else. That might a dead end.

Another strategy is to build something that solves your own problem. Minimally, it will be useful to you. If it's useful to you, you won't be putting "effort into something nobody wants". If you have the problem, there's a good chance others do, too, and they may be willing to use and/or pay for your solution. Alternatively, after validating the problem and a potential solution, you can build something for someone you're close to that solves their problem. A spouse, family member, good friend, etc. Small frequent feedback loops, and empathy, are key here.

Another shortcut to running your own software business is starting a software consultancy. You can even do this while you have a day job, by hiring other people to do parts of it, or with smaller projects. If you have many of a similar type of customer (law offices, realtors, whatever), you can find the right product that applies to many of them, while being paid to build other things for your client, or this product itself. This is a traditional approach to bootstrapping a software product, and lots of other people have written or spoken about the it and its trade offs.

What succeeds on 'Show HN' and Product Hunt and similar things isn't predictable. It also doesn't lead to instant success, product usage, or paying customers. It's nice I would imagine, people have shown what it meant in terms of visitors and traction, but it's a blip in the life of a product. Having customers that use your product and pay you money would be better, and it's a bit more in your control.

Here's a good link about validating without spending money or building anything: https://www.startupgrind.com/blog/the-startup-framework-to-v...