Product-building guide (continuously updated)

This is a hands-on handbook that I’ll keep updating. I break the 0-to-1 product process into seven stages, each answering just one question.

Note: this isn’t a theoretical framework; it’s an action checklist I compiled after hitting real potholes in actual projects.

Stage 1: Inspiration — where to find problems worth solving

Good product ideas usually come from three places:

1. Trouble you keep running into yourself (most reliable)
2. Problems others are solving with clumsy methods (easiest to validate)
3. New possibilities opened up by newly emerged capabilities (highest risk, highest payoff)

There’s only one filter: is someone already solving this problem with a clumsy method? If yes, it means the demand is real and the existing solutions aren’t good enough.

Stage 2: Competitive analysis — figure out who you’re fighting

Don’t just look at “is there a similar product”; look at three things:

Dimension	Question to answer
Who are the users	their willingness and ability to pay
What they got wrong	which complaint shows up most often
What they deliberately don’t do	this is your window of opportunity

The third is the easiest to overlook. When a competitor doesn’t do something, it’s often not that they didn’t think of it, but that doing it would hurt their core business model — exactly the gap for a small team.

Stage 3: Design — validate at minimal cost first

Before writing code, do these three extremely cheap things:

1. A landing page that clearly states what problem you solve
2. An email subscription box, to see how many people will leave their email
3. One real conversation — talk to 5 target users

If the landing page’s subscription conversion is below 2%, don’t write code yet.

Stage 4: Development — the ability to subtract

Solo developers most often die from feature creep. The rules:

• The first version does only one core flow
• Any “let’s just add this too” feature goes into the backlog; revisit it in two weeks
• Buy rather than build; use handwritten config rather than a backend UI

MVP = the **shortest** path for the user to reach core value
      ↑ not the smallest feature set, but the shortest path

Stage 5: Launch — shipping is not the finish line

Launch checklist (ordered by importance):

1. A headline and above-the-fold that clearly state the value
2. A 30-second usage demo
3. One clear next-step button
4. Contact info (so people can reach you)
5. Basic analytics (know where users come from and where they drop off)

The 5th is often skipped, but it determines whether all your later optimization has any basis.

Stage 6: Growth — do the compounding things first

Ordered by compounding effect:

1. SEO / content: one investment, long-term traffic
2. In-product word of mouth: nail the sharing experience, users spread it themselves
3. Community: slow, but forms a moat once it forms
4. Paid acquisition: needs LTV figured out first, or it’s just burning money

Solo developers should put 70% of their energy into the first two.

Stage 7: Monetization — pricing is an experiment

Common mistake: pricing by cost. The right approach is to price by the loss the user avoids.

• A tool that saves 2 hours/week can be priced at $10/month
• A tool that earns someone $1000/month can be priced at $50/month

Pricing isn’t calculated; it’s tested. Adjust every 3 months, change only one variable at a time.

Update log

• 2026-08-20: added Stage 6 growth-channel ordering
• 2026-07-02: rewrote Stage 3, emphasizing pre-validating with a landing page
• 2026-05-10: initial version