When most of us start building products, we begin with an idea: "I'll build a better project management tool" "I'll create an AI writing assistant" "I'll make a simpler analytics dashboard" "I'll disrupt [insert any
Praveen was doing Europe like he’d always dreamed — cheap flights, overnight trains, hostels full of strangers-turned-friends. He carried everything in a 20L backpack. No check-ins. No plans. Just a rail pass, a rough sketch of cities to hit, and the thrill of figuring it out along the way Meanwhile,
"Just one more competitor to check..." It starts innocently enough. A quick search here, a comparison there. But before you know it, you're three months deep with 47 Chrome tabs open, caught in an endless loop of research → doubt → more research. Each new tab promising the
You've heard it all, right? "Create a landing page first!" "No, talk to people first!" "Collect emails!" "Get pre-bookings!" "Build an MVP first!" It feels like everyone shouts different advice, leaving you stuck asking, "What are some
I understand why you'd want to copy a successful startup. It feels safe. When you see someone post their $10K MRR milestone on Twitter or share their journey on Indie Hackers, you know there's a real market. Real customers. Real revenue. Why take a chance on
A four-part guide to finding problems your customers will pay you to solve using Reddit audience research. Each part builds on the previous one, taking you from initial research to demand validation. Praise for the series: Part 1: Finding Real Customer Problems in the Wild Learn how to discover where
Last Tuesday, I caught myself doing something ridiculous. Copy text from Slack. Switch to TypingMind. Paste. Get AI rewrite. Copy again. Switch back. Paste. For the tenth time. That day. That's when I realized my daily frustration wasn't just annoying - it was trying to tell
"If you had to grow a SaaS with $0 marketing budget, what's your first move?" I see this question pop up constantly in founder communities. "We've built this amazing product, but we don't have cash for ads. How do we get
"Someone's already doing it" - the lie that kills great businesses before they start. Picture this. You walk into a party where everyone seems deep in conversation. Inside jokes are flying, groups have already formed, and your first instinct is to turn around and leave. That&
"We need more marketing!" That's what the SaaS founders insisted when we looked at their numbers. What they didn't realize? With their 0.2% conversion rate and $27 ARPU, they'd need nearly one million visitors (926,000 to be exact) just to
If you build it, they will do absolutely nothing. - Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) Six months of your life. Countless late nights. Thousands of lines of code. And then... silence. No users. No sales. Just the crushing realization that you might have built something nobody wants. If you're a
"I've sent 47 cold outreach messages this week trying to land customer interviews. Two people replied. Neither had time to talk." Sound familiar? That's why we're building a better research system: * In part 1, we mapped Reddit's hidden network to
"Looks interesting, but I wouldn't pay for it." If you're building products, you've probably heard some version of this soul-crushing feedback. You spend weeks or months crafting what you think is the solution, only to discover you're solving a problem
"Is this actually a pain point for you?" That's the kind of question that puts your research dead on arrival. Here's why: When you ask someone if they have a problem, you get their sanitized, rational self. But when you catch them actively struggling
“We just scheduled a demo with a potential user. They want to see the new sales dashboard for feedback. Can you have something ready by 2PM?” That Slack message from my founders hit me like a bucket of cold water. I looked at my screen: one barely-functional dashboard card, a
Ever notice something strange about project management software? Jira dominates engineering but can't crack marketing teams. Notion captures creative agencies but struggles with traditional PMOs. Monday thrives with agencies but falters with dev teams. Basecamp endures with small teams while enterprise goes elsewhere. In this post, you'
Imagine you're trying to fix an unusual noise in your car. Would you rather: A) Post in 50 different Facebook groups and forums, getting opinions from casual drivers, people who owned a different model 10 years ago, and 'car enthusiasts' who've never touched your
You've seen the promises: AI will “revolutionize” your customer research, generating deep insights in seconds. But when you dive into the results, disappointment hits. The insights feel thin, lifeless—like something's missing. It's not just you. Recently, Matt Lerner from SYSTM talked about this
Ok, here's something ridiculous about customer research. (The good kind of ridiculous.) You know all those insights you're breaking your brain trying to find? They're literally just... sitting there. Already collected. Already organized. Just waiting for you to grab them. I'm serious.
You know what used to drive me nuts? I'd sit there staring at my customer research thinking, "Well, if someone has a problem, they have a problem, right? Why complicate it?" Man, was I wrong. See, I used to think that if someone was struggling with
User Research and Customer Insights
You've spent weeks, maybe even months, validating your product idea. You've watched all the videos, read all the advice, and conducted countless user interviews. Everyone agrees: "Make sure it's something people want." But now you're left wondering, "Apart from
User Research and Customer Insights
I started learning design and strategy to get people to buy and use the projects I had spent months coding. Thanks to my extroverted co-founder, Mayun, I had the opportunity to approach anyone and showcase a prototype. It made it easy for me as an introvert. Talking to people used
Ideation and Problem Solving
Dependency-based sequencing is a powerful technique for managing complex projects. By mapping out the interrelationships between tasks and prioritizing based on dependencies, you can minimize rework, enable smoother workflows, and achieve project goals faster.
Ideation and Problem Solving
It was the 12th day of our development cycle for the new “Leads” feature, and my tech lead looked like he wanted me dead. The team worked long hours, fueled by lattes and the pressure to deliver. Despite our best efforts, our Linear board was growing more than it was
