Last month I broke my silence and blurted out all the bullshit in my head. It helped!

Once I was free of those thoughts, I felt like I could move forward.

Basically, I was feeling sorry for myself that my car website wasn't earning (good) money yet. Perhaps I felt that I did some work and now I deserve a reward.

But that's not how my world works anymore.

Last month's retro was a cry for help and I was fortunate enough to have some people listening. Thank you ♥️.

The hard thing about building something valuable is figuring out what people want.

When I started my car website, I was building it for myself. I didn't need to consult anyone to figure out what I wanted. That was perfect for me because I didn't want to talk to anyone, especially strangers.

However, building for myself basically meant building for the consumer (a notoriously difficult market to sell software to). This positioning towards consumers is what earned me my initial traction amongst car enthusiasts. I've decided to embrace that and limit my expectation on what this audience can offer me.

But I'd still like to get paid 🤑!

I think there's a version of my car website that would appeal to businesses, but it'll require the same level of exploration as "validating" a new idea. This is the hard part I was talking about earlier, of figuring out what people want. At least this time, I know the tech is possible (i.e., determining the market value of a car) and I broadly understand the incumbent solutions.

Back to the hard part: I need to talk to strangers, impose my will upon others, and deal with the fallout (i.e., embarrassment). Me shying away from this is what's preventing me from reaching escape velocity.

Conclusion

As others have suggested, I need to focus more on marketing. Anecdotally, the feature I was having such a hard time completing last month has finally been released and, after 2-weeks, exactly zero people have used it 🤦‍♂️.

For me, marketing roughly translates to interacting with people. That scares the shit out of me.

I'm a software developer and I'm reluctant to talk to people. Surprise, surprise!

But I'm also a (solo) entrepreneur and I'm determined to make this contradiction work 💪.