The first product is very important. It sets the pace for everything next. Here are a few DO’s and DONT’s 👇🏻
Ship Something Fast
It is very important to ship your first product within a set timeline. If you don’t, you will lose interest and motivation..
0-1 is addictive, when you start shipping – it will become very difficult to stop you but for that you need to ship something first.
First rule of building your first product – SHIP at any cost!
Perfection Sucks
You first product need to be perfect. It should work. That’s it. You can always iterate. Perfection is something that you will never achieve – do not go down that rabbit hole with your first product.
Product building is a marathon that you can only start if you know how to run, Shipping your first product teaches you that.
Don’t go overboard with User Research
Don’t go overboard with user research. Take cues, build a hypothesis, build fast and validate it with your product. If ti works – double down, if ti doesn’t – iterate.
Make Yourself Accountable
Tell your friends and write on social media about your product. Doesn’t matter what people think but you must make yourself accountable. Accountability will help you ship which is the most important metric when you are building your first product.
Set the Right Expectations
If you’re of the notion that your first product will go viral, generate $$$ in revenue and get acquired – I am sorry to break this to you that it will most likely not.
Build for the joy of building, learn along the way and you will do well. But all of this may take time and effort. As Rushab’s research suggests, it takes ~2 years for an Indie Hacker to hit an inflection point.
Be persistent and there are very high chances that you will do well!
Build something that you can ship very fast. It need not be perfect but your sole focus with your first product should be to ship at any cost. If you ship, then you can sail 🙂