Start with the audience, not the idea 👥

MicroFounder

It can be hard to start a new startup without funding as a solo developer when you don’t know if it succeeds or not. How can you increase your chances?

One way is to start with the audience. Not by writing code. Not by coming up with the idea.

Adam Nathan and Steve Schoger did this. Arvid Kahl wrote a book about it.

"Since I already built a large audience in marketing, it was clear to me that the highest chance of success was to build something for this existing audience." – 🙂 Friendly ($14k/mo) by Stefan Vetter

Do we need to have a huge audience to increase our chances? Probably not, rather it’s about who these people are. Like Dominik, who made the first two sales without the product even existing yet.

"The first two sales were actually made as a pre-order to see if someone would be willing to pay money for the product without the product even existing." – 🤝 HelpKit ($3k/mo) by Dominik Sobe

He found these first paying customers on Twitter having only 300 followers at the time.

Do I need to build an audience?
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Older messages

"I have no idea" 💡

Sunday, August 7, 2022

MicroFounder Many developers wanting to become microfounders say that they just don't have any idea what to build. Our suggestion has been to just start. Developers often don't end up with the

180 microfounders reached 1.3 million USD per month 🤑

Sunday, July 31, 2022

MicroFounder Yes, it's possible for a solo developer to build a profitable microstartup to pay the bills and live life on their own terms. In the beginning, it can feel impossible: 😩 Full-time job

Feel good and your microstartup succeeds ✨

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

MicroFounder "Try to avoid convincing yourself that you know exactly what you should be doing. Nothing that I'm doing now I could have imagined to be doing just a year or two ago." – 🎰

Don't start by writing code 💻

Monday, July 18, 2022

MicroFounder We, developers, are good at writing code and we enjoy doing it. So it's natural for us wanting to start microstartups (or side projects) by writing code first. But we all know how many

Find customers on marketplaces 🛒

Thursday, July 14, 2022

MicroFounder The first big question for microfounders is about how to come up with the idea. The second big question is about finding the first customers. We have previously covered Twitter, side

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