I just realized that my intro in last week's issue was pretty much similar to the title of this one. 😅 It sounds like a whining kid. 🤣 

I started the week fully pumped and building like crazy, and then in a few moments I even wondered what the heck I was doing and what I’d been doing in the last months. 🤦‍♂️ 

Entrepreneurship is not easy, and solopreneurship is probably harder in some aspects.

If you’re on this journey as well, or you’re willing to give it a shot, I can tell you that having a bunch of people you trust and you can talk to share thoughts is definitely helpful. ✨ 

Table of Contents

• Finding my obsession

• Focussing on the problem vs the persona

• My latest obsession

• Conclusion

• Appendix

  • Personal branding

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Finding my obsession

Is it that bad? 🤔 

The startup world often highlights founders with a deep obsession or mission-driven approach. Think about Musk and SpaceX and having humans on Mars for example.

TBH I don’t think I have any (see more in last section).

This week I spoke with a co-founder friend, Paul Bleicher (CPO at Konvu, check it out!) because I trust his thoughts and I shared what I was up to.

The main takeaway was to force myself into not writing even a line of code, before knowing whether I’m solving a problem that people would pay for. I struggled to accept it, I was like “It takes me less time to ship an MVP than to draw some designs and show them to people!“.

But it’s a great point, and indeed this is how I approached it when I was exploring the CS space (BTW I still have the landing up for that one 😅). On top of that, I’d have probably realized some of the insights I reflected on about EchoWords beforehand if I had spoken with more people. For example, the question “Would you pay for this?“ it’s something that I never asked.

I baked some designs in 1.5h, which wouldn’t have been definitely enough for the MVP 😅. I also started reaching out to some people to hear their pains about this new idea.

The same day I also spoke with another person I trust, Marcelo Novaes, VP of Strategy & Ops at The Linux Foundation. Both emphasized the importance of genuinely caring about the ICP for any product I build. Without that connection, it would be challenging to stay motivated in the long run, working on a product that serves people I don't truly care about.

I was not aware yet that this concept would have put me in a downward spiral of questioning my path and trajectory.

Focussing on the problem vs the persona

So dramatic… HAHAHA 🤣 

I mean, it’s not a new concept, I’m aware of the importance of being customer-centric, but that’s different from being obsessed or genuinely caring about a specific audience.

I started reading and exploring different industries, I read the descriptions of all the YC-backed startups of the last 2 years, etc. I did so to see whether something would have clicked as “Wow, I want to help the same people that these folks are helping“.

Well, nothing really clicked. 😅 

Some problems were cool no doubt about that, but it’s different.

Here's the thing: I love building and solving problems, but that’s different from being focused on the persona. What excites me is the challenge of solving a problem. From my past experiences, caring about the people affected by the problem often came as a result of engaging with the problem itself. It's like my interest in the problem naturally extended to the persona. So, maybe not all is lost?

However, even if I’m solving a problem and helping them, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re willing to pay for that solution. You can only gain this insight by talking to them and truly understanding their needs and motivations. This confirms that building beforehand is and will always be a bet.

Okay, so what am I going to do now?

I’m betting. 🤣 

However, this doesn't mean that I won’t talk to people. I scheduled already a few calls and chatted with a few people, but I will also start building. 😬 

It’s a gut feeling.

This time is different from EchoWords. When I started it I didn’t have expectations, it was a jump in the dark more or less, this time I’m convinced that this new thing solves a real problem, but I’d need to eventually tune the value proposition and the ICP if things won’t work. I’m not even considering when I launched NextCommit, as I basically knew nothing about all the problems that I could have faced. 😅 

The key would be to move fast and understand for whom it’s worth evolving the product, and that’s something that I’m confident I’ll be able to do.

My latest obsession

I discussed this already last week, and this week I tried to make it clearer to myself especially considering what was discussed above about the “persona that I care about”.

I believe most founders start a company to create something impactful. Product distribution is a necessary step to get there, but it often pulls focus away from what they truly care about: the product itself. My goal is to let founders concentrate fully on their product, leaving distribution to a streamlined platform. ✨ 

The ideal ICP for this vision would likely be solopreneurs, early-stage startup founders, or the GTM leads in SMBs wearing multiple hats. These profiles are also likely the ones that would experience the highest ROI as they’re probably just kickstarting their GTM strategies.

Solopreneurship is on the rise, with increasing visibility. See Lex Fridman's podcast featuring Pieter Levels. This trend suggests more people will explore this path, hence a bigger TAM.

I also think the ceiling for company headcount will continue to lower. Larger companies, with their complex structures, face alignment challenges and diminishing returns on throughput. Smaller companies can iterate quickly with customers and leverage AI-driven automation to cover gaps in IC work, making them more agile and efficient. As we move forward, new companies will likely stay smaller, avoiding the pitfalls of scaling too large, too fast.

Maybe this idea is not going to age well, but the future will tell. 🤣 

Oh, and BTW, there’s a name already!

👉️ HaveYouHeard

Conclusion

Today my morale is again up to the sky. 🚀 

As always, writing down my thoughts in this newsletter is very helpful for me to have a weekly checkpoint.

So now I’m back to building AND talking to people. 💪 

Next week is the school starts again, so I’m pretty sure, it’s gonna be a busy one. 😅 

I hope you enjoyed this one!

If you’re interested in following my journey, make sure to subscribe or follow me on X/Twitter and LinkedIn! 

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