A recurring tension in my work is the gap between my ability to build products and my struggle to market them. I find coding certain and enjoyable, while marketing feels uncertain and draining.
The Core Tension
In December 2025: “Coding is easy because it’s certain. Marketing is tough coz it’s uncertain. Hate uncertainty.”
In April 2025: “wtf marketing is difficult and making is not.” This realization came after building a Mac app and trying to get users for it.
In June 2025, after building memoize: “Marketing is harder than building. Today I almost gave up. But here’s me dogfooding my app, hoping it will market itself.” (16 likes)
Pattern
The pattern repeats across projects. aperturs was technically complete but struggled for users. subscription-tracker went viral organically (267 likes) but that was an exception. memoize had 4 users months after launch. delulu-social launched with features but faced the same distribution challenge.
I recognized the pattern in August 2025: “I am always confident with all the projects I work on, just that my side projects don’t have any users yet.”
I observed that distribution matters more than product quality: “Bro reached $200k MRR with almost a simple AI startup. That’s why distribution more important than the product.” (August 2025, 8 likes)
Approaches Tried
- Building in public on Twitter
- Video content (hired a friend to edit)
- Posting on Product Hunt and Vercel marketplace
- Open sourcing projects for visibility
- Offering free tiers and waitlists
In July 2025, I reframed the problem: “You can ship weekly. Squash every bug. Follow all the top startup advice… And still get nowhere. That was me, until I stopped treating code as the answer and started treating it like one piece of a much bigger puzzle.” (9 likes)