Breaking the Cycle: How I Learned to Build Products That Actually Sell?

Breaking the Cycle: How I Learned to Build Products That Actually Sell

I’ve been in your shoes. I know what it’s like to have a dream product, a passionate team, and a vision that lights up every room you walk into—only to feel like you’re running in circles. People love your idea. They love your energy. Investors nod and smile, but somehow, the money never lands in your account. Your team is moving, but not fast enough.

Every week, you’re chasing a new milestone, a new promise, a new “maybe next round.” And the people who reach out to “help” often seem more interested in what they can get from you than what they can give.

After working with hundreds of startups and bringing 66 products to market, I’ve seen this cycle play out again and again. I’ve lived it myself. And I’ve learned that the only way out is to get brutally honest about what you’re building, who you’re building it for, and how you’re going to make money.

The Hard Questions

When founders come to me, I ask them the same questions I had to ask myself:
- What pain point are you fixing, and for whom?
- Is this a pain you have personally felt?
- Is it a painkiller—something urgent and necessary—or just a vitamin, a nice-to-have?

If it’s a vitamin, pivot. You don’t have time to convince people to care about something that isn’t urgent. If it’s a painkiller, then you need to understand exactly what value your solution brings to your client. Not in abstract terms, but in dollars and cents. How much time, money, or stress are you saving them? Price your product based on that value.

The First Customer

Forget about scaling. Forget about consultants, marketing agencies, or even coaches—yes, people like me—until you have one customer who is paying you real money, every month, because your product solves a real problem for them. That first customer is your lifeline. They are your reality check. Listen to them. Obsess over their feedback. Make sure your solution completely addresses their pain point.

I’ve seen founders spend months, even years, perfecting their pitch decks, building out features no one asked for, and burning through cash on “growth hacks” before they’ve made a single sale. Don’t do it. Revenue is the only validation that matters. Everything else is noise.

Breaking the Cycle

So how do you break the cycle? You get to revenue. You focus on the pain. You find one customer and solve their problem so well that they can’t imagine going back to the way things were before. You build from there.

It’s not glamorous. It’s not what you see in the highlight reels on LinkedIn or TechCrunch. But it’s how real companies are built. I’ve watched it happen 66 times, and I’ve lived it myself. The path is always the same:
- Solve a real pain.
- For a real person.
- And get paid for it.

Everything else can wait.

If you’re stuck, if you feel like everyone has a hand in your pocket and no one is really helping, remember this: The only people who matter are your customers. Find them. Serve them. And let the rest fall away.

That’s how you move forward. That’s how you build something that lasts