Building is easy. Selling is hard.

The Engineer’s Comfort Zone#

As developers, we love the build. The editor is our sanctuary. If there’s a bug, we can fix it. If the code is slow, we can optimize it. We have complete control over the universe we create in our IDEs. It contributes to a dangerous illusion: that the product is the most important factor for success.

We tell ourselves, “If I just add this one more feature, users will flock to it.” “If I refactor this to be cleaner, it will be successful.”

Realistically, nobody cares about your clean code. Nobody cares about your tech stack.

The “Field of Dreams” Fallacy#

“If you build it, they will come.” This is the biggest lie in the startup world, and it kills more projects than bad code ever will.

I’ve seen countless brilliant, technically polished products launch to absolute silence. The creators are baffled. They built something amazing. Why isn’t anyone signing up?

Because they spent 100% of their effort on building and 0% on telling people about it. They assumed that the quality of the product would generate its own momentum. It rarely does.

Distribution is the Product#

Justin Kan (founder of Twitch) once said, “First time founders are obsessed with product. Second time founders are obsessed with distribution.”

Selling is uncomfortable. It involves rejection. It involves shouting into the void on social media. It involves cold emailing people who might ignore you. It’s messy and unstructured compared to the logic of programming. That’s why we avoid it. That’s why we retreat back to the code, where we feel safe.

But code is a commodity now. Building is easier than ever. Selling—cutting through the noise—is the new hard problem.

The 50/50 Rule#

If you are an indie hacker or a solo founder, you need to change your allocation of time. Stop coding for 8 hours a day.

Code for 4 hours. Market for 4 hours.

If you can’t bear to stop coding, then you aren’t building a business; you are practicing a hobby. And that’s fine, as long as you’re honest with yourself. But if you want to sell, you have to close the editor and open the world.

Conclusion#

The code is the easy part. You can always build it. The question is, can you sell it? Next time you have an idea, don’t start by npx create-next-app. Start by finding 10 people who will promise to buy it.