I had very similar concerns when I was building my sideproject.
But I was determined to ship, so once the code was deployable (the bear minimum, nginx with ssl setup) I pushed to my VPS and posted a link on HN. It was late Sunday night, was very tired, but just wanted to get real user feedback. But I also knew the chances of anyone seeing the link and actually giving feedback were slim, so I tried not to worry too much about it. The important bit was taking the first step and shipping something. Everything else follows from that.
So, my advice is to put it out there and invite people that could give you helpful feedback. Avoid toxic communities as that will only add to the stress.
I’ve found the trick is to change your mindset about what you are doing.
Right now (sorry if this is presumptuous) you’re thinking that the next step is releasing a product. Instead you need to believe that the next step is discovering…
…what features you have people love/don’t
…what works/doesn’t
…what they want you don’t yet have
…how to prioritize what you think needs done
Stop for a moment and think of the apps you use most often. I promise they have bugs, and - like all products (software or otherwise) - are held together with a little crazy glue and duct tape. ;-)
For doing things that are uncomfortable, I've found a habit of cold showers first thing in the morning to be helpful. I've heard this also as "eat the frog (and the rest is easier)", but I'm not that desperate, and we've done enough damage to amphibians.
Dean Spade's Love in a F*cked-up World is also helpful; starting with loving oneself and forgiving missteps/mistakes/failures might help you break through the barriers.
As a fellow engineer, I think I've been there myself. What helped me was realizing that I had the wrong mental model of what "launching" means.
Think of product development like farming: we engineer a product (seed), plant it in the field, and then customer attention (water) nourishes it while our customer support (care) nurtures it over time. Eventually, we harvest the results. In this model, it makes sense that we obsess over the quality of our seeds since that largely determines yield when given sufficient water and care.
When you work at a company, you build something, hit a quality bar, and there's a big launch day. But for indie founders, that model doesn't work well. Let me explain why with an expanded version of this farming analogy:
Think of your product as a seed and your marketing as an irrigation system.
Established companies already have deep irrigation channels dug. Water (customer attention) flows naturally to their fields. Thousands of eyeballs naturally see their products every day through existing marketing channels, social media presence, and brand recognition.
The reason your experience at work makes you believe launching is so crucial is because your company has already built these irrigation channels. They've constructed a system that brings fresh eyeballs to look at proposed solutions each and every day. As an engineer there, you're just putting seeds into already-prepared soil. You get everything ready, then turn a valve to divert customer-attention water from another established field to your new ground. Then you watch your product work (or not) for all these customers and grow.
But as a solo founder, you have no irrigation channels yet. There's no natural flow of attention to what you're building. You don't have a marketing channel established. It feels like you have a tiny cup of attention (your personal network), and that's understandably terrifying. If you spend your one cup of attention on your seed and it doesn't grow, you're screwed. You've used up your limited resource with nothing to show for it.
Your fear likely comes from feeling like you have a small, non-renewable supply of attention. Once used up, that's it.
Here's a thought experiment: Imagine I promised to bring two real potential customers to your house every day (let's say I'd pay you $10,000 for each day I failed, so you know I'm serious). Two real human beings, just like the people you validated the idea with. Brand new. Never seen them before, never see them again.
How would you feel about your product then?
If you knew you'd get fresh eyeballs on your product daily - a guaranteed stream of attention from the right people - the pressure of a "perfect launch" would vanish. You'd just explain your solution, get feedback, fix issues, and try again tomorrow with new people.
I personally believe it's impossible for any engineer to fail if they get 100 days of direct feedback from people. Tell me specifically how getting feedback from a different person each day for 100 days won't work.
Concretely, find where your potential customers already hang out online.
Here's what most people here would advise: Finding people ALREADY looking for a solution:
1) Instead of cold DMs, I searched for posts like "anyone know a tool that..." or "frustrated with [competitor]" and offered genuine help.
2) Leading with help, not sales. My first message is usually answering their question thoroughly.
3) Only AFTER providing value did I mention "I actually built a tool that might help..."
My email is in my profile if you want to talk about it further.
I had very similar concerns when I was building my sideproject.
But I was determined to ship, so once the code was deployable (the bear minimum, nginx with ssl setup) I pushed to my VPS and posted a link on HN. It was late Sunday night, was very tired, but just wanted to get real user feedback. But I also knew the chances of anyone seeing the link and actually giving feedback were slim, so I tried not to worry too much about it. The important bit was taking the first step and shipping something. Everything else follows from that.
So, my advice is to put it out there and invite people that could give you helpful feedback. Avoid toxic communities as that will only add to the stress.
Best of luck!
I’ve found the trick is to change your mindset about what you are doing.
Right now (sorry if this is presumptuous) you’re thinking that the next step is releasing a product. Instead you need to believe that the next step is discovering…
…what features you have people love/don’t
…what works/doesn’t
…what they want you don’t yet have
…how to prioritize what you think needs done
Stop for a moment and think of the apps you use most often. I promise they have bugs, and - like all products (software or otherwise) - are held together with a little crazy glue and duct tape. ;-)
For doing things that are uncomfortable, I've found a habit of cold showers first thing in the morning to be helpful. I've heard this also as "eat the frog (and the rest is easier)", but I'm not that desperate, and we've done enough damage to amphibians.
Dean Spade's Love in a F*cked-up World is also helpful; starting with loving oneself and forgiving missteps/mistakes/failures might help you break through the barriers.
Don’t let negative thoughts get at you. Acknowledge them but don’t let them eat at you.
Know this. Every day apps get released to fix yesterday’s bugs.
Keep going. I wish you well.
What is it you’re afraid will happen if you release?
Who are your customers? What is the product you are building?
As a fellow engineer, I think I've been there myself. What helped me was realizing that I had the wrong mental model of what "launching" means.
Think of product development like farming: we engineer a product (seed), plant it in the field, and then customer attention (water) nourishes it while our customer support (care) nurtures it over time. Eventually, we harvest the results. In this model, it makes sense that we obsess over the quality of our seeds since that largely determines yield when given sufficient water and care.
When you work at a company, you build something, hit a quality bar, and there's a big launch day. But for indie founders, that model doesn't work well. Let me explain why with an expanded version of this farming analogy:
Think of your product as a seed and your marketing as an irrigation system.
Established companies already have deep irrigation channels dug. Water (customer attention) flows naturally to their fields. Thousands of eyeballs naturally see their products every day through existing marketing channels, social media presence, and brand recognition.
The reason your experience at work makes you believe launching is so crucial is because your company has already built these irrigation channels. They've constructed a system that brings fresh eyeballs to look at proposed solutions each and every day. As an engineer there, you're just putting seeds into already-prepared soil. You get everything ready, then turn a valve to divert customer-attention water from another established field to your new ground. Then you watch your product work (or not) for all these customers and grow.
But as a solo founder, you have no irrigation channels yet. There's no natural flow of attention to what you're building. You don't have a marketing channel established. It feels like you have a tiny cup of attention (your personal network), and that's understandably terrifying. If you spend your one cup of attention on your seed and it doesn't grow, you're screwed. You've used up your limited resource with nothing to show for it.
Your fear likely comes from feeling like you have a small, non-renewable supply of attention. Once used up, that's it.
Here's a thought experiment: Imagine I promised to bring two real potential customers to your house every day (let's say I'd pay you $10,000 for each day I failed, so you know I'm serious). Two real human beings, just like the people you validated the idea with. Brand new. Never seen them before, never see them again.
How would you feel about your product then?
If you knew you'd get fresh eyeballs on your product daily - a guaranteed stream of attention from the right people - the pressure of a "perfect launch" would vanish. You'd just explain your solution, get feedback, fix issues, and try again tomorrow with new people.
I personally believe it's impossible for any engineer to fail if they get 100 days of direct feedback from people. Tell me specifically how getting feedback from a different person each day for 100 days won't work.
Concretely, find where your potential customers already hang out online.
Here's what most people here would advise: Finding people ALREADY looking for a solution:
1) Instead of cold DMs, I searched for posts like "anyone know a tool that..." or "frustrated with [competitor]" and offered genuine help.
2) Leading with help, not sales. My first message is usually answering their question thoroughly.
3) Only AFTER providing value did I mention "I actually built a tool that might help..."
My email is in my profile if you want to talk about it further.
You don't have to get rid of your fears in order to act.
Bravery feels like fear and doing it anyways :)
it looks it kind of laziness